living on both ends - an exploration of best and worst

quote for the day

The beauty and fragility of life on earth, it takes my breath away.

 Dr. Larry Fleinhardt, a character on Numb3rs, played by Peter MacNicol, Season 3, Episode “The Art of Reckoning.”

incense

WORST- Exploring one’s relationship with drugs (including alcohol) and addictive patterns. I could have sat in the courtroom, analyzed behavior, laughed off youthful stupidity, or named choices as addiction. How can grace to sit in juvenile court and feel pain, ache for the necessity of this teen to explore this complicated relationship that has so impacted his life, how can the knowing of that pain, without the anger or the fight or the cognitive gyrations that dilute it, be the worst?

Last week, I heard our Wednesday night family group facilitator repeat my words from our first family group “nobody holds their newborn in their arms and thinks “I can’t wait to go to an early substance abuse intervention program and explore our relationship with drugs together.” I was happy the words spoke to her enough to recycle them; sad for the opportunity to speak that truth.

After court, the youth in question hoed an unplanted area in our back yard. It used to be covered by a wooden deck that had been built in the anger of the previous inhabitants’ marriage disintegrating. Every screw shouted rage to me, and last year we finished taking it out.  Yesterday afternoon, he hoed the ground, he raked out the weeds, shirtless and sweaty, he created the furrows in a design of his choice, and then planted the green manure mix of field peas, oats and hairy vetch, with a few old packets of sweet peas thrown in for good measure. He covered them, and watered them, and then told me how much he loves to feel the soil.

I understand I said and his words carried the sweet scent of prayer.

 

Words that matter

BEST- Acceptance as a spiritual discipline.

Yesterday, there was an e-mail. Words I know to be true about me. Words I know I would have struggled to receive in the past. An awareness of the source of the struggle; ambivalence of the reality of how often who I am places me as ‘the other’ in community. An inability to accept that place, a compulsion to move into it.

This morning, a huge good ache at the beauty I live surrounded by and in, including who I am. A taste of freedom to see goodness. To be me. Fully. 

Thank  you Erin.

quote for the day

...the main thing in religion is to keep the conscience pure to the Lord, to know the guide, to follow the guide, to receive from him the light wherby I am to walk; and not to take things for truths because others see them to be truths, but to wait till the spirit makes them manifest to me; not to run into worships, duties, performances, or practices, because others are led thither, but to wait till the spirit lead me thither.  Isaac Pennington

friends

BEST - Judy booked her flight; she is really and truly coming to be with us.

hypothyroid

WORST of the weekend - It was a short story my sister and I read years ago; I do not remember the name or the author. A horror story - a woman, a man who loved her but she chose another. Years later, the rejected man met an elderly infirm woman, who reminded him of the woman he had loved. Through astute observation and knowledge of what withholding thyroid supplements would do, he realized her husband had withheld her medication, and she had lost her reason, her physical ability, her youth. Needless to say, he returned the thyroid supplemention, she was restored, her husband vanquished and love won out.

A dramatic story, a dramatic ending, a testament to more successful living through chemicals. Right now, and for the last three weeks, I have been off my meds. In an induced state of hypothyroidism, the radioactive uptake and subsequent treatment will be better.

But this weekend, I felt off. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. There is an ability to detach, to stand aside and know this is for a season, and there is a good reason to endure. At the same time, the feelings of dis-ease are real, and I find the restlessness that pervades my all difficult.

quote for the day

Ambivalence is impossible without an ego.
The Scapegoat Complex; Toward A Mythology of Shadow and Guilt, Sylvia Brinton Perera

f.i.n.e.

WORST – Instead of 28 day rehab, we have started an Early Intervention Program. Mondays are peer night, and Urine Analysis. Wednesdays are education and family group night. For me, there are a lot of triggers in this process. I am shocked by how often my anger or numbness that was so present with their fathers addiction comes to the front. I am dismayed by how hard it is to stay present and connected during the group. I am heartened by being able to let go of holding space for others and focus on my own process. I am saddened by the necessity of our being there. And I am scared – not of substance abuse or addiction, but of denial, whether we live that out by fear or anger or numbness.

friends

BEST- Truth. And friends. Yesterday, I drove the newly turned 16 year old and his girlfriend to some shops. All day I had been praying/thinking of June 2, after my body scan, when I go back for the needed treatment based on what is seen in the scan. 

The two older boys tend to not respond well to my weakness. They are used to an Enneagram Eight mom, in charge, struggling with control issues, still somewhat strong even when ill. My perception is that, this time, seeing the weakness come back as I am off my thyroid supplements, they, especially the 17 year old (perhaps an 8 also) try to bring back the mom they know by provoking a fight. It has often worked in the past, it is not working now. 

I’ve changed and I am more determined and able to tend to my needs. And theirs, but not at the expense of mine. How do I balance the needs of our family community with my needs as an individual? 

Yesterday, I did it by calling my friend Judy and asking if she would be available to come stay with us the week I have treatment. I know having someone else in the house will automatically remind us to be kind to one another. And I know she is someone I can trust. And I know she loves me, and I love her. We may sit the whole week or so in silence on Sojourn’s front porch. Or we may finally sew up that new fabric for my outside cushions that my neighbor, the upholsterer gave me, a few years ago. Or we may talk till our voices are weary about how our visions of God have changed. 

Whatever we do, it was good to ask for help.

quote for the day

Compliments of Friend Marshall Massey, who left it in the comments here.

"No man can rightly know God, or understand the word of God, unless he receives it directly from the Holy Spirit; neither can any one can receive it from the Holy Spirit, except that he finds it by experience in himself. And in this experience the Holy Spirit teaches, as in his proper school: out of which school nothing is taught but mere talk." (Luther, commenting on the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55); quoted by Robert Barclay in his Apology, Prop. II §2.)