i know i've talked about spiritual direction quite a bit on this blog. but last night, i had quite a different experience with it that i wanted to share. first, a little back story...
in small group on wednesday night, we broke into twos and practiced "holy listening." one person is the speaker and the other is the listener. the speaker shares where God has been for them over the past week and the listener listens. when the speaker finishes, the listener doesn't give advice or try to analyze or fix anything or share how she had experienced something similar. she maybe asks a clarifying question or two, but on the whole, the listener simply bares witness to God's presence, notices God's movement, and receives the speaker. that's basically what spiritual direction is. after our time of speaking and listening, we came back together as a group and shared what the time was like for us. then our group's leader encouraged us to allow God to be our "holy listener" and to be His holy listener in return.
i've been in a strange place with God over the past couple of months...not bitter or resentful like i was last year. having discarded some of the unhelpful images and ideas i had about God, i've been waiting for Him to show up and replace those images with His true self. but i am still very tentative with Him. He hasn't fully regained my trust. and so my invitations to Him have been awkward and irresolute. it's been difficult for me to pray, wanting Him to open up the sky and speak to me, scared of what He would say, more scared that He wouldn't show up at all. so even in my new plan of "initiating" contact with Him in order to be more receptive to His presence, i've still just been speaking to myself, too scared to actually invite Him to participate in the conversation for fear of rejection or abandonment in some form or another.
so last night, i decided to pray a little differently. i dusted off my journal, and i began to write. i told God that i wasn't ready to invite Him to speak quite yet but that He was more than welcome to be my holy listener, to be with me as i journaled to myself, to bear witness to where I was and to simply be with me there.
maybe this isn't any sort of revelation for anyone else. maybe this is how you've prayed all your life. but it's something different for me. i receive love in presence and in interaction. i've always had someone i can pour my heart out to, and that they listen and respond is how i am affirmed in our relationship. my relationship with God used to be like that. i wouldn't hear audible voices or anything, but my prayers were by and large interactive. i don't really know how to explain it any better than that. but in the past few years, i haven't felt that exchange from God. i've felt abandoned and manipulated by Him, or rather, who I believed Him to be. so now, in this season of regaining some footing and rediscovering Who He Is, it was incredibly peace giving to just talk and for Him to just listen, to just be with me. i could feel Him. and He wasn't shushing me to get a word in, He wasn't chiding me for not letting Him speak. He was just there. listening. loving me. receiving what i had to say. and i just talked to Him, not even about my relationship with Him, just about what i was going through in those moments.
i haven't returned the favor of being His listener quite yet. i'm still fearful of the isolation i would feel if He didn't show up or the guilt He could inflict upon me if He wasn't pleased with me. i know He has the power to destroy me--not with lightning bolts or a giant thumb smiting me, although He could--but with His Word and how He chooses to reveal Himself to me or hide Himself from me. and I am terrified. but last night, He was gentle. last night, He was content to just listen and receive me where i was. and that was a gift.
9.25.2009
9.16.2009
Molly-olly-oxenfree
on friday night, jason and i headed down to jersey for a quick 24 trip to meet my new niece, molly grace benson. let me just say, i am so in love. she is the smallest, sweetest, most adorable little baby ever. ever. here are a couple pictures to solidify the point:
besides molly-gazing and holding and loving, we fit a lot into a very short amount of time. in the 12 hours we were awake in jersey: we met our niece, jason and justin went golfing, we ate three delicious meals, saw megan and justin's house-remodeling in progress, took a walk, saw josiah's first experience with real food (liquid rice cereal), spent time with my grandfather, got our truck fixed (the gear shifter was jammed and wouldn't shift into park), ichatted with amy and jesse, and my mom and i did a little felting. a very busy day proceeded by and followed by 6 hours driving from and back to boston. *phew.*
i[re-]learned a few things from my trip back to the Promised Land (aka south jersey):
Fishy Face!
besides molly-gazing and holding and loving, we fit a lot into a very short amount of time. in the 12 hours we were awake in jersey: we met our niece, jason and justin went golfing, we ate three delicious meals, saw megan and justin's house-remodeling in progress, took a walk, saw josiah's first experience with real food (liquid rice cereal), spent time with my grandfather, got our truck fixed (the gear shifter was jammed and wouldn't shift into park), ichatted with amy and jesse, and my mom and i did a little felting. a very busy day proceeded by and followed by 6 hours driving from and back to boston. *phew.*i[re-]learned a few things from my trip back to the Promised Land (aka south jersey):
- i love my family. i desperately want to live closer to them, but in the mean time, i'm so glad that we are in weekend-trip-driving distance.
- south jersey water is the best water on the planet. it's just sweeter and more refreshing and delicious than any other water anywhere.
- i love being an aunt to all my little nephews and niece.
- i'm getting more comfortable with babies. not quite sure where that's going to lead except that pretty soon, maternity leave will not be the only reason i want one.
- jason is an excellent road-tripping companion.
- i don't know what the world did before gps's.
- despite very enticing sunday plans that would include hanging out with friends and picking apples and eating apple cider donuts, if i have a busy saturday, i cannot escape the allure of the sunday afternoon nap.
Fishy Face!9.04.2009
Revelations in Time Management, Isolation, and Extroversion
I've gotten a little of track the past couple weeks with my other blog...not quite keeping up with my weekly deadline as well as I would like. I think for the most part, I've been handling my weekly challenge in a healthy way, not becoming too obsessed about it or too upset with myself when I'm a few days late or when my projects are not as awe-inspiring as I think they should be.
But this week, I had a breakdown...one of my hardest falls in a very long time. I was in deep despair over my future and my ability to be a functional human being. Here's what happened:
Jason and I made plans to hang out in our guest room/craft room/study. He was going to blog or study Greek, and I was going to make something. But then Jason remembered that there was an event on campus that he was supposed to attend, and I told him that was fine. I had plenty to do to keep myself busy. So he left, and I looked around the kitchen and thought about making dinner, but the sink was full of dirty dishes, including the pan I needed, so I sat down on the couch and started reading The Last Unicorn, which apparently is this great fantasy classic that I had never read. (I'm about half way through now, and I can't say that the story is very compelling or that the characters are overly likable, but it is very well written.) So I started reading, and with every approaching end of a chapter, I told myself that I would get up off the couch and make myself dinner and then I would get started on a crafty project. The chapters slipped by, and so did the hours, and before I knew it, it was almost 9:00, and I was still on the couch. I hadn't eaten a thing. And I had no energy to get up and be productive, even in a fun and creative way.
This happens to me a lot. I'll have these great big plans to do something when Jason is gone, and I'll end up wasting my entire night. The reality of this hit me that night, and I completely lost it. I began to think about what it is going to take for me to be able to start my own business: discipline, perseverance, energy, motivation, drive, passion, initiative. I began telling myself that I didn't have any of these qualities and that I would never succeed because I am incapable of being alone. I told myself that I was completely dysfunctional and that I would always have to have a job that I hated because I can't do anything by myself. It was unbearably depressing. I spent quite a long time crying on the bathroom floor in the dark.
When Jason and I talked about my melt down, I told him that I wished that I wasn't so dysfunctional, that I could just be a normal human being. I told him that when I'm by myself, I am incapable of conjuring up the energy to be anything but lazy and unmotivated. And he told me that that doesn't make me dysfunctional--that makes me an extrovert. He said that feeling lonely doesn't make me less of a person--it makes me human. And that's alright. He suggested that when I'm by myself, I should set smaller goals like "eat dinner," and if that's all I do, that's okay. Emily gave me similar advice a few weeks ago when I was in Chicago, saying that doing nothing was a perfectly sufficient way to spend an evening by myself, and I should give myself permission to do that. Through Jason's and Emily's counsel, I came to the following realization:
I shouldn't expect my alone time to be my most productive time.
That might seem small and inconsequential. Or it may seem absurdly obvious to anyone who knows me well. I have always been more productive when someone else is in the room, even if we don't say a word to each other. By their mere presence, they energize me for the task at hand. And yet, when I have time to myself, I expect that I should be able to accomplish great feats of creative brilliance, complete and concrete and furiously productive. Clearly, those are ridiculous expectations. But I don't think I'm alone in envisioning that artists should be able to create by themselves. And I so desperately want to be an artist.
Jason and I went to convocation this morning at Gordon. (Convocation is kinda like chapel but more academically focused. Every Friday instead of chapel, there is convocation. The theme for convocation this year is Creativity.) There were a panel of faculty, each presenting a different aspect of creativity. One professor started her presentation by naming several creative people: Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, some writer I had never heard of. She asked us to picture each person. She asked if we envisioned them with the tools of their craft. Most people did. Then she asked if anyone pictured these creative geniuses with anyone else. Not a single hand was raised. She said that is was interesting and devastating how our culture elevates the work of the individual and conjures stereotypes that we can and should and do accomplish great things in isolation. The reality is that each of the creative people she mentioned had a co-collaborator, someone to listen and reflect their ideas. She reminded us that we were created to be social beings. That is not a weakness. Our need for other people is a mark of the image of God in us. Even God Himself creates in the community of the Trinity. If we are His image-bearers, how much more do we, the created, need to approach creative work in a communal context!
It was healing for me to hear today that even the most brilliant creators in history did not create in a vacuum of isolation. It gives me hope that I can achieve something after all. It gives me the freedom to need people and to be honest with myself about that need. And maybe if I can be honest about my needs, I can slow the crippling bottling I do when I am hurting. And maybe I can find the motivation to reach out to people, who might need me just as much as I need them.
But this week, I had a breakdown...one of my hardest falls in a very long time. I was in deep despair over my future and my ability to be a functional human being. Here's what happened:
Jason and I made plans to hang out in our guest room/craft room/study. He was going to blog or study Greek, and I was going to make something. But then Jason remembered that there was an event on campus that he was supposed to attend, and I told him that was fine. I had plenty to do to keep myself busy. So he left, and I looked around the kitchen and thought about making dinner, but the sink was full of dirty dishes, including the pan I needed, so I sat down on the couch and started reading The Last Unicorn, which apparently is this great fantasy classic that I had never read. (I'm about half way through now, and I can't say that the story is very compelling or that the characters are overly likable, but it is very well written.) So I started reading, and with every approaching end of a chapter, I told myself that I would get up off the couch and make myself dinner and then I would get started on a crafty project. The chapters slipped by, and so did the hours, and before I knew it, it was almost 9:00, and I was still on the couch. I hadn't eaten a thing. And I had no energy to get up and be productive, even in a fun and creative way.
This happens to me a lot. I'll have these great big plans to do something when Jason is gone, and I'll end up wasting my entire night. The reality of this hit me that night, and I completely lost it. I began to think about what it is going to take for me to be able to start my own business: discipline, perseverance, energy, motivation, drive, passion, initiative. I began telling myself that I didn't have any of these qualities and that I would never succeed because I am incapable of being alone. I told myself that I was completely dysfunctional and that I would always have to have a job that I hated because I can't do anything by myself. It was unbearably depressing. I spent quite a long time crying on the bathroom floor in the dark.
When Jason and I talked about my melt down, I told him that I wished that I wasn't so dysfunctional, that I could just be a normal human being. I told him that when I'm by myself, I am incapable of conjuring up the energy to be anything but lazy and unmotivated. And he told me that that doesn't make me dysfunctional--that makes me an extrovert. He said that feeling lonely doesn't make me less of a person--it makes me human. And that's alright. He suggested that when I'm by myself, I should set smaller goals like "eat dinner," and if that's all I do, that's okay. Emily gave me similar advice a few weeks ago when I was in Chicago, saying that doing nothing was a perfectly sufficient way to spend an evening by myself, and I should give myself permission to do that. Through Jason's and Emily's counsel, I came to the following realization:
I shouldn't expect my alone time to be my most productive time.
That might seem small and inconsequential. Or it may seem absurdly obvious to anyone who knows me well. I have always been more productive when someone else is in the room, even if we don't say a word to each other. By their mere presence, they energize me for the task at hand. And yet, when I have time to myself, I expect that I should be able to accomplish great feats of creative brilliance, complete and concrete and furiously productive. Clearly, those are ridiculous expectations. But I don't think I'm alone in envisioning that artists should be able to create by themselves. And I so desperately want to be an artist.
Jason and I went to convocation this morning at Gordon. (Convocation is kinda like chapel but more academically focused. Every Friday instead of chapel, there is convocation. The theme for convocation this year is Creativity.) There were a panel of faculty, each presenting a different aspect of creativity. One professor started her presentation by naming several creative people: Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, some writer I had never heard of. She asked us to picture each person. She asked if we envisioned them with the tools of their craft. Most people did. Then she asked if anyone pictured these creative geniuses with anyone else. Not a single hand was raised. She said that is was interesting and devastating how our culture elevates the work of the individual and conjures stereotypes that we can and should and do accomplish great things in isolation. The reality is that each of the creative people she mentioned had a co-collaborator, someone to listen and reflect their ideas. She reminded us that we were created to be social beings. That is not a weakness. Our need for other people is a mark of the image of God in us. Even God Himself creates in the community of the Trinity. If we are His image-bearers, how much more do we, the created, need to approach creative work in a communal context!
It was healing for me to hear today that even the most brilliant creators in history did not create in a vacuum of isolation. It gives me hope that I can achieve something after all. It gives me the freedom to need people and to be honest with myself about that need. And maybe if I can be honest about my needs, I can slow the crippling bottling I do when I am hurting. And maybe I can find the motivation to reach out to people, who might need me just as much as I need them.
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