Reverenda Rosa

Just as I am

I've been fighting with myself for days about a commitment I made earlier in the month.  I left my job at FedEx almost 6 years ago because my family  was spinning way out of control and because the writing was on the wall:  I'd come to Florida with one management team and when a new VP came in and my original boss left, the "fit" was no longer there.  I'd come to the end of the line, at least with FedEx. There was no real closure--I simply walked away and concentrated on cutting my losses, getting on with "reinventing myself" one more time. 

A few weeks ago, someone who was first my colleague and then became my boss right before I left, contacted me and on the spur of the moment, I decided I'd go back to the FedEx offices to see him and the folks I left behind.  I'd been having a lot of dreams about FedEx and I had the sense that I really did need to go back and face into all that reality at least one more time.  But I played some games with myself about what I would look like--slim, I'd wear my bright red high heels, the picture of calm, cool and collected priest.

Well, I'm not as slim as I had hoped.  I'm probably going to wear my crocks.  I have had to resist one impulse after another to cancel or postpone or do something to not follow through.  But here's the thing.  Part of the reason I left with such ambivalence is that most of the 5 years I spent working for FedEx here in Florida, I was afraid, always uneasy, always somehow waiting for the other shoe to drop which was highly irrational since in fact, no shoe had dropped in the first place.  The truth was that I had never truly fit in a corporate management job.  I'd had my moments, for sure.  But it was not who I was called to be.  That's why I always felt so uneasy and unsure.

I'm not going to see my old friends and colleagues tomorrow as the fully perfected person I sometimes fantazise I can become.  But I'm going to see them as who I really am.  Before my lunch with them, I will be making a presentation at our diocesan offices because I've applied for a grant that will help fund the expansion of our Centro ministries.  Although things have not been completely well in my soul these past few weeks, I have still been carried along by grace.  Both the Centro and our new Vineyard Eucharist on Sunday mornings have been unfolding and developing holy, wonderful ways.  I now know that I am a new congregation planter through and through.  If there are tense moments of unknowing and chaos, there is a sureness to the steps I take these days that I've never known before.  I am not afraid.  I am sad tonight that I've gained some of the weight I worked so hard to lose--and it would have been glorious to sail in all svelte and stuff.  But it is much, much more important to simply go back as who I am today to face some monsters that maybe aren't, to thank some folks for the ways in which they walked with me in those years, and then get back to my life.  Surely, all that is more important than what I might've, could've, should've looked like...

 

The Hardest Work is the Simplest

I guess when you've struggled with food all your life, like I have, there are set backs to deal with.  Not over-dramatizing them is part of getting on with life.  I've been thinking about that since yesterday.  So much about change is the small steps to make things right again.  There are a couple of really important calls I need to make tomorrow.  I'm getting up early to write, pray, and plan my meals for the day.  I've been grateful today for less numbing out.  I forget what an amazingly good life I have.

Oh--and beauty.  It's there too.  On Friday morning, Spouseman, my friend N, and I went to the World Orchid Conference and Exposition.   I am still dazzled.  Here are a few pictures

Flamingos!

Real live
Flamingos!

At certain times of the year, the garden in our home in Colombia looked very much like this last picture.  Orchids were probably my mother's greatest source of joy in life--she was most truly herself tending to these amazing plants.  When I came to this display, I was heartbroken.  I'd heard a few days before that mom has several new large tumors, including a big one on her spinal chord; as she inches closer to death, she is in too much pain to tend to her beloved plants.  And oh, such a piercing joy to get a glimpse back to my childhood like this...

Disconnected

It starts out imperceptibly.  I might get over extended, fail to do something I should, or simply have a harder day than usual.  I draw in.  Then, because my own resources--whatever strength and stamina come purely from the will to survive--are limited and never truly life-sustaining on their own, I cross a line from abundance into scarcity.  And somehow, scarcity presents itself as dangerous famine and in an eye blink, I lose hope and turn to food.  Lots of it.  All the wrong kinds.

The most insidious part of this space I am too familiar with, is that I go on functioning, checking things off my to-do list, smiling and talking, celebrating Eucharist, attending planning  meetings and preparing presentations.  Now I even keep doing my Pilates workouts like everything is absolutely and totally a-OK.  But inside, I am in a free fall.  And if you look real close, this skirt is quite a lot tighter.  That pair of shorts that I used all the time before is now nowhere to be seen.   The carefully planned, prepared and measured meals, the meals that tend to my soul as well as my body, have been replaced with more and more frequent outings to restaurants, careless food choices and fear.  And they just feed the monster of despair, leaving me even more famished than before.

Last night, I had a dream that distorted an incident between me and my daughter from about 4 years ago.  It occurred at a particularly low moment after we adopted her and before we had found the right combination of meds and support to help her with her rage.  In the light of day, I can face into the depth of my failure that day, and also recognize that I was doing the best I could in extraordinarily challenging circumstances.  But in my dream last night, my own failure was magnified beyond all reason and grace.  I woke up in the middle of the night drowning in self loathing. 

At another point in my life, I would have allowed myself to believe that I am truly that awful and worthless and hopeless.  Today, I don't.  Today, what I am recognizing is it's time to find the energy to name my free fall, and keep working on knitting myself back into the fabric of my community, openly acknowledging that this is not a good time for me.  So that is what I am doing, while my family sleeps, and a cool breeze reminds me that in the winter, living in Florida is like a dream, a good dream.

Oh God of second chances and new beginnings, here I am again...

Advent 2007

Starting tomorrow, I will be posting to this weblog each day to prepare my heart, my life, and my home to receive the Christ child anew.  I'll be back here after December 25th.  If you do not stop for a visit at my other site, may this be a season of quiet and peace and resolve to allow hope to dwell with you and yours.

Discernment, Part I

We prayed and sang, first thing in the Vineyard, today.  The Vineyard was once a dining room in the old rectory, now transformed into the parish office at All Saints.  B., my fellow sojourner in the work of parish family life, envisioned this dining room as a gathering place for our intergenerational Religious Formation program for the Fall.  With the help of yards and yards of lovely tulle, and grape vines, banners and a breath-taking poster, we created a space where our the small core group of families who will help lead the way to a new kind of Eucharistic experience at All Saints gather each Sunday.

After we'd finished singing, I quietly took out a bag of flour that had bran mixed in with it.  Another bowl had colored sand.  There was also a small damp cloth, another pair of empty bowls and a sifter.  We all felt the flour and then I sifted it into a bowl.  We all watched the flour gently fall in the bowl, separating out from the bran.  Some more touching, some more conversation about how light and airy the flour felt now, how the bran could be used for something else, but that the flour could be used to make really fluffy, delicious cake.  Then I sifted the sand.  This time, the sand just flew through sifter--much finer and less time-consuming than the flour.  What nobody knew was that I had placed small treasures in the sand.  So after the sand had all collected in the bowl, I handed the sifter around for everyone to see.  There were gasps--three year old twins, two little boys with the most mischievous sets of dancing eyes you can imagine--were particularly entranced.

Discernment comes from the Latin word that means "to sift."  We spent the rest of our time together doing age-appropriate activities that allowed us all to talk about discernment, listening for God's voice, and how we sort out and make meaning of the different parts and voices that constitute our lives. 

Today, doing this work was particularly poignant and challenging for me.  Light of My Life went to the bad place, just as I was beginning to lead our program.  I sat doing the presentation while she pummeled me, and hard, in a way that others couldn't quite see.  I hoped that ignoring her and doing something that I knew would be interesting to her would pull her back into a better place.  I also was aware that someone who knows even more than I do about working with an out of control child was with us.  LoML has a streak of cunning so she was being careful not to get "caught".  I was repressing every single bit of me that quite honestly wanted to beat the sweet b'jesus out of her.  I've learned to accept that part of myself.  I recognize it as a very primitive survival instinct that does not need to be acted upon.  I also know, having learned by the hardest, that there is nothing gained with anything but a very detached, calm response to her acting out like this.

Fortunately for me, J finally caught on to what was going on and removed LoML from the work area.  The following 45 minutes were hell for J--my child pulled all the stops out to test this new person.  Spitting, kicking, throwing stuff, pulling away to try to either get at me or one of the other children.  J knew what she was doing though, and she prevailed.  An hour later, things were calm enough for Spouseman, LoML and I to ride home safely in our car. 

The clergy conference I've just returned from had a lot to do with discernment.  I have been mindful that as LoML heads into adolescence all bets are off with her behavior.  We have a good set of resources in place to help her and I believe we have done a good job responding to her needs, loving her with all our being, and being faithful, both my husband and I, to our vocations as well.  Can that continue?  How do I sort out my responsibilities as a mother, a priest, a wife, a person struggling hard to continue on the journey to health and strength, physical, emotional, spiritual?  That is sifting work for me to do, work of hard discernment. 

Maria de las Estrellas

In 1980 I was overwhelmed by the sense of alien-ness at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Virginia, where I was finishing my sophomore year.  Somehow I had thought that coming to America was a way of reinventing myself; I had allowed magical thinking to convince me that I'd get to start from scratch--and that I might even transform into a tall, blond, slender beautiful, totally smart babe.  Of course that didn't happen.  Confused and scared, I decided to take a year off from college, return to Colombia and figure out who I really was.  Two weeks after getting home to Cali, I was fighting with my parents like cats and dogs and I decided to tack again. This time, I moved to Bogota and got myself registered at the Universidad de los Andes. 

One of the classes I took was a course on Latin American Literature--we started by reading translations of astoundingly beautiful Aztec poetry and the diaries of Christopher Columbus and Hernan Cortes, then traced the development of Latin American literature in the context of the tension between "civilization and barbarism."  Almost 30 years later, I still go back and read some of the Aztec poetry and recall more about that course than just about any other in all my studies.

A few weeks after the semester started, we were having a fascinating conversation in class and I remember feeling more than a little annoyed and superior when one of my classmates gave what I thought was a particularly immature answer to a question we were wrestling with.  Over the next few weeks, I continued to be annoyed by her.

Then one day, I got to class early and the professor, a magnificent woman called Cecilia Casas, was weeping.  The night before, this classmate had been killed in an awful car wreck.  Cecilia was canceling class and wanted anyone who was willing, to come with her to the funeral instead.  No one else chose to go and I'm not sure why I did, except that it felt like such an honor to be invited by a professor whom I admired so much.

Driving to the funeral, Cecilia told me about my classmate.  Her name was Maria de las Estrellas (Mary of the Stars)--no last name.  She was the daughter of a famous hippie in Bogota, "La Maga" (the Magician), who had turned her back on a family that belonged to the "High, High de Bogota"-- Bogota's high society.  Maria de las Estrellas' father was a very well known poet, a leading voice in a literary movement called the "nadaistas"--the nothingists.

If I had thought Maria de las Estrellas' contribution to the class was naive and juvenile, it was because she was only 13 years old.  A child poet, she had already published several books of poetry, one of them illustrated by Salvador Dali.   God, how stupid I felt, as I rode with Cecilia to the church, realizing how I had looked down at the real thing, a prodigy.  And then there was the funeral itself.  Garcia Marquez and Fernando Botero were there.  The number of other respected writers and painters and poets and other members of Colombia's cultural elite, who had gathered to mourn this girl-child took my breath away.  And I still cringe when I think about the sweet, harmless and inane priest who celebrated at the funeral.  He talked about how God likes young children to come play with the angels.  He had no idea who she was and it was a perfunctory mass celebrated by rote, with no connection to the community that was grieving her.  When we all went to the cemetery , everyone took turns helping to cover the coffin with earth while a bunch of old hippies strummed their guitars.  That was the real funeral.

I don't know what made me think of Maria de las Estrellas recently, but I did.  I still regret that in those days, I was incapable of suspending my judgmental streak enough to be curious about this person.  I wonder how many other people like her I've dismissed.  Makes me realize how easily I could turn my nose up at Jesus if I met him on the road.  All these years later, I still have such an easy time allowing my self importance to blind me.

The Mind Knows and the Heart Has Not Yet Caught Up

For the past 7 or 8 weeks, I've pretty much been living in my bright, I mean bright, fuschia crocs.  They are comfortable and sturdy, easy to take off.  Since I'm still on hip precautions--don't bend, don't cross, don't twist, yadayadayada--this is a definite plus.  As a little girl, I watched all the rest of my Swedish family wear clogs, while I wore my orthopedic shoes, so this is making up for lost time.  Besides, I'll be the first to admit that I quite like the statement they make under my alb on Sunday mornings.

But there's something else.  I keep looking at pictures of shoes.  Many of my RevGalPals post pictures of their pretty shoes.  There are stunning ones in the ads that run in the New York Times.  I look at the shoes other women wear and I look at the pictures in the catalogs I receive.  I marvel, looking at them all, saying to myself "I could wear a pair like that."  I even have two pairs of strappy sandals--I've had them for years and never got around to having the left one built up so they sat in my closet accumulating dust.  But I have not  thrown my old shoes away.  I've only worn each of those pairs of sandals once, like wearing them too much might tempt the fates.  I have not gotten any new shoes except for the crocs and the sturdy LLBean sandals I bought right after my surgery. 

I know things are different.  After weeks of Pilates, I am strong.  I laugh about the fact that before too long, I might even have a six-pack belly and as long as I am paying attention, I can walk without a limp.  I know all this in my mind.  But my heart can't quite believe, does not want to be broken, is not quite ready for this new way of being me.  So I'll wear my crocs a while longer.  Maybe for my Birthday, coming up in early November, I'll be ready to walk in a new pair of shoes.  Oh the places we will go...

One Week Melting into the Next

Today:

• I got lots and lots of hugs from Light of My Life.  All these years later,  she is finally affectionate, spontaneously affectionate.  She amazes me.  And asked me to make a CD of the sound track of "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants".  D#*^% i-tunes .  Oh Lord, she is growing up on me...
• 6 years ago, LoML was baptized.  Our friends M & M, godparents from out of town, left the party that Sunday to drive up to West Palm Beach International Airport.  They were flying back home --and were probably at the airport at the same time as Atta and the others who 2 days later would fly planes into buildings.  That is still a profoundly disturbing intersection to think about.
• Today we had our fourth "I wish it were still Vacation Bible School."  It was incredibly fun.  And so many hands have been ready to help out and make it happen, most of them unsolicited.  I love Church when we do it right!  Next Sunday, we'll celebrate the Eucharist on the beach and then have beach time together.  If anyone has any do's or don'ts for beach services, speak now.  please...
• I started roughing out a research project proposal.  I'm looking at making a grant request, a modest one--enough to fund my taking two cruises in the next year or so.  When my family went on a cruise last year, I ended up talking to lots of people and was struck by the narratives of both crew members and cruisers.  Intriguingly biblical.  And all this aboard a prime example of what Foucault calls "heterotopias" -- spaces that create "other" or dislocating realities for financial profit.  (Disney World is another example of a heterotopia.)  I am intrigued by the way the two come together.  I want to probe that some more and have visions of myself spending time with the crews and "table hopping" at dinner time in the main dining room.  And then writing. 
• My life feels as complete--pain, disappointment, stress, confusion not withstanding--as I could possibly ask it to be.  Truly, my cup runneth over.

Out in the Big Blue

Dawn saw us heading for an adventure. We went out Port Everglades, past huge cruise ships and yachts that dwarf One More Chance.  In a matter of 10 minutes, we were out on the Gulf Stream with those achingly beautiful blues.  The fishing was exciting.  Spouseman caught 4 "bonitos", Light of My Life caught a King Mackerel.  I just caught some rays and delighted in their excitement.  The part I liked best was when we came in closer to shore and Light of My Life and I took a dip, while Boo and Spouseman kept watch.  All in all, a good time was had by all

The Girl and Her Mackerel

The Mom, The Girl, The Dog & The Sea

Something New

Less than a month after my hip surgery earlier this summer, I thought I had closed a chapter in my life.  In one sense, I had. I crossed the Rubicon when I traded in my own bone and sinew for something new.  But I also mixed wishful thinking with an overwhelming sense of relief, making it easy to say, "that's it; the strife is over, the battle is won.."  At a deeper level, I did what I have been doing all my life--I put my body back out on its own, relieved that I could ignore it a little more, now that there is no pain.

That illusion is getting stripped away.  The truth is that the surgery was the easy part.  The discipline of continuing to strengthen and retrain my muscles is much, much harder for me.  I am still walking as if my left leg were shorter than my right leg, even after all of these weeks of therapy. The discipline of keeping my weight down is also wearing thin. I have found myself making all kinds of excuses for letting go with the food, eating what I shouldn't, not planning as I must, after a lifetime of eating in ways that are not healthy. Not long ago, I caught myself doing something I'd been able to stop last year when I finally began to work on my weight:  before bedtime, I took a Pepcid A/C, anticipating that I would have heartburn during the night.   That one small action cuts to the core of how easily I separate out "me" and my body.  I didn't want to hear the message that heartburn would have been trying to send. 

Yesterday, I went to see Tonka.  Tonka is a highly skilled Pilates instructor and trainer of Pilates instructors.  She is particularly interested in working with people who are trying to heal from injury or trauma to their bodies.  My physical therapist and I had discussed Pilates as a good way for me to keep working on strengthening my body.  My time with Tonka yesterday was strenuous, enlightening.  She had me walk for several minutes and then, in a lovely, lilting Eastern European accent said, "Your poor body is so afraid of all the changes it is going through.  We must help it realize this is all OK."  She knocked the breath of out me.  I assume that I know what fear feels like:  the tightness in my chest, the racing thoughts, the shallow breath, the clammy hands.  We all recognize those symptoms.  But there's another reaction, much more insidious, and for me, destructive:  numbing. 

During the assessment yesterday, and then again today, during my first Pilates workout, I had to be aware of even the most minuscule movements my body was making--the opposite of numbing out.  The idea is to isolate and stretch or exercise very specific muscles with tremendous precision and control. And I thought physical therapy was rigorous!!!   In Pilates they talk a lot about the body core--how it is the locus of our strength.  Truthfully, I really want to not have to deal at all with my abdomen which is sort of the core of the core, except to put food in it.  Pilates insists that I transform that weakness into strength to make available to all of me.  I hated all the effort and attention we have just given my abdominal muscles.  At the same time, everything in me understands how critical it is that those muscles become strong for my continued healing and rehabilitation.

I have always been so scared of my body and in my body, that I have only looked at athletic, really fit people with envy, telling myself that would never be me.  Now I am having to revisit that fear.  I have to decide if it is a fear, along with a whole slew of coping mechanisms, that is worth holding on to.  Is something new out there for me that goes beyond getting a new hip?  I don't know the answer.  I do know that I will be back working with Tonka this Friday, and then again on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week.  My body as the expression of hope and faith.  Please pray for me that I will continue to have the will to persevere.