threshing session
BEST of the weekend – Perhaps the 12 year old stated the
afterthoughts of the threshing session best as we held hands Sunday night and
he prayed over the baked chicken. “Thank you that I belong to a family where
there is enough trust to be able to have a threshing session like we did this
morning.”
The plan had been to start at seven pm, and limit our time to an hour. Sunday morning, we read Dante’s Inferno Canto VII and I closed the book, I shared what a threshing session is – a time for “I” statements of sharing how you feel or sense a contentious issue impacts you, your opinion on that, and what it is not – a time to judge others, or blame shift onto others, or “lay down the law”. It is a time of opening to the Spirit and to words of each other. The boys wanted to start the threshing session right then, they did not want to wait. L and looked at each other, to start the threshing session now meant that we would miss meeting for worship, to not start it now might mean that we would miss openness on the boys part. We both nodded agreement, and I shared how we would have silence to center down, and then we would speak out of the silence, allowing silence to envelop our words after they were spoken, before another started. I stated, again, how we were trusting the Holy Spirit was bigger than the contentious issues we had been dealing with, and that this was a time for deep truth.
The boys clamored “I want to go last,” “I’m second” and I
reminded them that each would speak as each felt led, there would be no set
order. I centered holding two thoughts, one that this was a part of the process
for maintaining love and unity in our family (thank you Robin for this post
which helped me to that clarity) and the second was for clarity in some of the
surreal feeling dealings with the 16 year old. Clarity on is this normal
adolescent behavior, or is there more going on? I sat with these, and quickly,
it seemed to me, L broke the silence.
I have found in writing best and worst that it is impossible
to translate times of the Spirit fully onto the page. That the colorful
fullness will not translate into a medium that is black and white and read all
over. At the same time, sometimes a taste is given of goodness. I sat in the
silence in some trepidation, wondering if there would be much anger thrown my way,
wondering if I would be able to separate voicing of displeasure with my illness
from displeasure with me, wondering if the Spirit of Christ really was weightier
than all the disruption our family had felt lately.
When L broke the silence, I held us all in the Light, and
listened to a man pour out the good, the bad and the ugly of his here-and-now
world. There was a depth of honesty I had not heard before. The rest of us
followed the example that was given, the threshing session was less about how
my illness impacts our family and more about in-to-me-see. This is who I am,
this is how I struggle, this is what I fear, this is what I love.
The box of Kleenex sitting in the middle of our circle was
passed around, the contents severely depleted at the end of the hour. Five
people, sixty minutes, one Spirit over all.
I went last, and at the end, speaking of how illness was
seen in my family of origin, I started
to traverse down a long abyss, a place I have known well in the past, a place
of disassociation from who I know myself to be and more importantly who I know
God to be. The face and gentle voice of my husband brought me back to
stillness.
We rested in the bosom of God. L wanted to share afterthoughts, and wanted more time to sit with what had been said, and then asked to schedule another time for afterthoughts.
I slept for two hours later that day, worn out from the tears and the emotions, feeling a bit jagged. L fixed the refrigerator, I fixed dinner. Robin blogged on the query - How are love and unity maintained among us? I sat with that; knowing there is change to be done in me.
Anj, I am honored to have been helpful. I am inspired by your family's commitment to live out the values of love and unity.
Posted by: Robin M. | 02/27/2007 at 01:27 PM
Robin - I am in a tender place right now, and your words bring tears to my eyes.
Posted by: anj | 03/01/2007 at 02:15 PM