On God and Storms and that Kirk Cameron rant

(This is post is a combination of ideas I have floating in my head from reading a ton of different authors. It is a rant so rather than citing my sources I gave you a reading list at the end. Thing about being UU is you read all the good books)

So I’ve got a lot running around in my mind with the hurricane and all the 9/11 posts. What triggered this blog is an article I saw on Facebook that Kirk Cameron was quoted as saying “god sent the hurricane in order for us to learn to be humble.”This elicits a knee jerk response from me for many reasons.  I read “A Paradise Built in Hell” By Rebecca Solnit earlier in the year and so I sort of see the thought processes. That book has many a case study of how communities come together thru natural disasters and how people can be transformed by them.  However, saying that "storms were sent by a god who seeks to punish people and make us humble" can be toxic thinking. It gives God too much of a human quality. I don’t believe in a "capital G male pronoun bearded dude God.”  I believe that God is the essence of creativity and peace. Because God is the essence of creativity we can only describe God in poetry. God's true pronoun is love and we are most connected with God when we are connected to each other.

Rather than saying “everything happens for a reason.” Or everything is “planned by God.” I think that everything that happens was meant to happen because it happened. You can look at the literal physical cause and effect for the why. (i.e. climate change and meteorology and all that jazz). After the event occurs, we make meaning from how these events impact our lives. So everything happens...and we make up the reason. We choose how to respond to it and when we respond with positive action, gratitude, and presence in the moment, we are operating from that higher self that is attributed to God.  So OK Kirk I agree with you that for some disasters can be a kick in the pants to remind us of our own humanity but the storm wasn’t a punishment for sins. Petty punishment is an entirely too human quality to ascribe to a superior being and in fact I’m pretty sure that sort of behavior is the essence of original sin. Also take a look at science please ktnx.

I’ve been juggling a lot of Richard Rohr (Catholic mystic) and Tara Brach (Buddhist author/ lecturer) and a common theme that comes thru is the idea that original sin is our “fight or flight.” “To Sin” means to miss the mark. When we “miss the mark” we lose our connections with our fellow humans. We get caught in a survival mode and look out for ourselves rather than others. In moments of grace and humility or in moments when we are helping each other survive, we approach a state of “attend and befriend.” People begin to work together as a team. It brings out the helpers.

I don’t believe that God causes the storm, but I do think that moments of great destruction often result in a mass connection with that higher self. These are moments when people work together to pull themselves out of the rubble.  When we realize that we are all humans and life is fragile, when we work together to help others, when we act from a place of love rather than fear, we can reach a connection with that love that connects us all. So yes inner paradise, humility, and grace can come from going thru a personal hell but it's extremely bad form to wish that hell upon others or say they deserved it.

Reading list of things that inspired this:

“A Paradise Built in Hell” by Rebecca Solnit

So many Tara Brach lectures

So many Richard Rohr meditations

Forgiveness, Writers Block, and Just Doing The Thing

As a birthday gift for myself I signed up for the DailyOm Course “A Year to Clear What’s Holding You Back.” It give you a quick daily reading to help you clear your mind of negative patterns and get in touch with your higher self. All that good stuff. One of the lessons earlier in the week is really sitting with me. It was called the "4 action steps of clearing." It can be used with any task where you may experience internal resistance. Those action steps are:

Intention

Action

Non-Identification

Compassion

Intention- This is the thing I want to do and why it’s important that it gets done

Action- I am doing the thing

Non-Identification- I observe any negative whiny nonsense that happens in my mind but I don’t attach to it or even label it as whiny nonsense just observe it and keep doing the action

Compassion- I hold love for myself as I power thru something that might be hard. I complete the action and find a sense of peace

So I read this lesson and went about my day. Immediately applied it to chores and doing dishes and continued to apply it while going about my busy day. What I love about these four steps is that it allows me to observe the chatter that’s going on but also acknowledge that chatter as a separate thing rather than getting overwhelmed.

The same day that I encountered these four steps I also read a quote by Richard Rohr about forgiveness that stuck with me-  “to accept reality is to forgive reality for being what it is.” I connected this passage to the non-identification/ compassion steps: when I observe but don’t attach to the chatter and hold compassion for myself I am forgiving myself for the negative thoughts or mistakes I make and work to find that peaceful sense of flow and focus. I also find again and again that when I complete the task the more difficult I had perceived it to be, the more excitement there is at the end.

Now I get super meta about this- as I go thru the task of writing my (mostly) weekly blog I am following these 4 steps:

Intention- I am writing this blog. I have some nifty stuff to say.

Action- Writing the blog

Non-identification- in the back of my mind I notice the voices that create writer’s block building tension. “This is dumb. I don’t want to do this right now. Yada yada yada” I hear y’all but look at me I’m still typing, suckas!

Compassion- I create a peaceful space inside. I am super proud of myself as I write and I also know that I have so much more to grow and that is awesome.

What I’m learning is that the key is to show up. To commit to the intention and the action and let the rest flow. It’s a lesson that I continue to learn. I feel like I lost momentum in my various creative projects and having these four steps helps me to power thru. Funny how building a spiritual practice is...a practice.

Adventure!

For the past week I have been embracing the word “adventure” as my mantra. Specifically “Adventure!” said in an exuberant way whilst flailing my arms. I switched into this mindset while I was on my New York trip. That week I was going thru a lot of travel anxiety that was heightened by grief feels-it was the anniversary week of losing my mom.  I’d like to think this burst of inspiration happened while I was flying to NYC and being weirdly anxious about logistics.  I remember listening to “How Far I’ll Go” and thinking “Girl, if Moana can sail out into the void you can handle getting a cab at LaGuardia. Chill.”

There was something about taking a trip where there were no specific plans that really helped my mind relax. It was so great to go to a city that I don’t know super well but feel comfortable in and explore with friends (I was in town for a friend’s bachelorette party). It was my third time visiting NYC and my first time feeling truly confident in my visit. In the past I felt overwhelmed by it.  On this trip I just went with the flow. It was the first time where I felt that it would not be outside the realm of possibilities for me to live there. I grew up going on vacations to Chicago, now Chicago is home. NYC is the new city to experience as a wide-eyed tourist...well a tourist with city sensibilities. I’m wide-eyed inside but you know I can power walk with the real New Yorkers.

Anyway I had all of that Sunday to go on Manhattan adventures. I went to church, caught up with friends, saw School of Rock on Broadway, got to go backstage to see friends who are in the show. It was amazing.

Since I’ve been back I’ve embraced this sense of adventure in my regular life. Because my schedule is so sporadic the best thing to do is to take it one day at a time. I can look at what I have scheduled make a plan for the day and call it an adventure.

I want to use the mantra of “adventure!” against any problem.

Can’t find parking? Adventure!

Having a technical issue? Adventure!

Difficult people at the grocery store? Adventure!

Might have to reschedule my vacation? Adventure!

Performing at a Lutheran church and learning how they do things different than Catholics? Adventure!

The world is a hot mess and I’m going to do my best to increase love and positivity? Adventure!

I guess what I’m discovering with this adventure mantra is it helps me to open up to what is from a place of faith. It does that in one word.

Here is a thing I am doing. Adventure!

It will be challenging. Adventure!

I’m excited to do it. Adventure!

I’m confident that I will get thru it. Adventure!

Will I always be this excited about life's adventures? Nope! Sometimes things are really sucky and I don't feel called to adventure but you know that's part of the journey too. Feelings of doubt are totally acceptable parts of the adventure and usually result in the best songs in Act 2.

Life is a journey full of little adventures and I love it.

There's a Carly Simon Song For That Too...

My mom would say that “there is a Carly Simon song for pretty much any life situation.”  Usually, we’d muse about Carly Simon while I was going thru some breakup or some other boy troubles. This is also why Little Black Book is one of my favorite movies because the mother/ daughter love of Carly Simon is a major plot point. Also the movie ends-spoilers- in her getting her dream job, screaming on the phone to her mom, meeting Carly Simon, and fainting.

I’ve been listening to Like a River a lot lately. I tried to listen to it shortly after Mom died. I still felt too numb to feel the feelings. Like I’d sing along with the lyrics and wonder why I wasn’t crying.  Now I am in a place where it’s the thing I need to listen to. It’s the exact Carly Simon song that I need for the moment.

It’s funny but I feel like my grief angst is becoming more tangible. It’s less of an underlying stress that haunts me and more of a funk.  A“low-lying-write-in-your-journal-and-blast-sad-folk-songs” funk. A very similar flavored funk to the “some boy did college Gail wrong...again” funk. I know how to do this funk. That’s the funk where I’m a songwriter and eat ice cream! Also I get to go thru an angst funk with a supportive partner at my side who will feed me snacks! Huzzah.

Recently I got the advice that you have to treat grief in an intentional way, otherwise it pals around with your survival mechanism. That is totally a thing. I get caught in loops where something will set off a feeling and I’ll go about my day, turn into a bit of a gremlin, and eventually something sets me off and I cry. I retrace my steps and I come back and realize it’s some facet of grief.

I suppose when I was going thru breakups or going thru major life transitions and feeling the funk it was easier to name the funk. Grief is a longer funk to unpack. It’s such a deep pain that the default is to self medicated and pretend that everything is fine and you put on your confidence and then the spiritual Jenga tower gets knocked down by your mom’s  flour sifter that you find in a box in her garage...for example.

In breakups and life transitions it was more logical to unpack the transition. There are rituals in place for breakups that involve shenanigans with friends and journalling and ice cream and Thelma and Louise. When you lose a job or move to a new place there is also a level of grief but there are definite traditions in place and its easier to ask for what you need. In grief there are shenanigans with friends at the beginning when you are still a bit crazy pants and then the rest of the ritual is sort of DIY.

Working thru my loss has been like working thru a breakup with my childhood while simultaneously connecting with my inner child and make sure she gets to go on all the adventures. It’s been a complete reawakening and I’m grateful for it but it. Is. hard.  This month is a slew of anniversaries of various points of mom’s struggle, culminating in her death on August 4th.  Piecing together the events in my head feels like a fucked up cancer version of the stations of the cross. I am putting together all the pieces of her suffering and all the dates in my mind as I hit the anniversary points.

A year ago today I was hanging out in her hospital room. I had rushed to Iowa after I got a call that she was in the ICU after going into respiratory distress. We sat in her hospital room whist she was a little loopy on painkillers. We were talking some estate logistics but she would continuously assure us that she “had no intention on dying anytime soon.”  She died about 10 days after that.

Years before she went back on chemo we were in her car listening to Carly Simon. “Like a River” came on. I got the “song intro tingles”. She immediately changed the track. My memory puts a particular harshness to this skipping.  We didn’t unpack that moment but I remember it bothering me. I wasn’t aware enough to think that it poked her emotionally. I just remember being mad because I really liked the song.

I know it was hard for her. I forgive her for not being open about it.

She was a different person than I am. She liked to keep things private. If I were in her situation I most likely would have been incredibly open about how I was dying and scared and I probably would have written an album about it or something.

I am a person who dives head first into the sad song that will make me cry and surrenders to riding the wave. Pump of the Carly Simon and Ani Difranco. It’s gonna be a bumpy July to August.

The Butterfly Phase

So this week I've been settling into new patterns. I'm teaching a morning summer camp and working on various projects and generally getting into the swing of my freelance schedule. I've also been taking more time to process grief stuff and unpacking at how far I've come in the past few months (almost a year. ahh!) I think that I'm out of the chrysalis of the more squishy bits of grief and am learning how to be my best butterfly self. So that's what this poem comes from:

The Butterfly Phase

The best way to honor my mom

Is to be my own person

To stand strong

To feel like I belong

To trust my instincts when something is wrong

To listen to my heart’s song

The best way to honor my mom

Is to live my life to fullest

To be grateful for opportunities

To seek out more and more

Places I want to explore

I’m soaring

Transforming

Like a big beautiful

Unapologetic butterfly

Who wears a fair amount of tie-dye

Taking time

To land

Sigh and take in all the things I see

I am grounded in myself

My reality

The idea that life is constantly

Changing and I’m open and engaged

With whatever it has to throw at me

My confidence is in the driver’s seat

Worry is an occasional passenger

But it doesn’t get to drive the car

It becomes more and more easy

To clear space in my mind

And sigh as I settle into the breathing room

My mom would be so proud

To see the person I’m becoming

The weird thing is. I’m not entirely sure

I’d be becoming this person if I wasn’t working thru this loss

It’s some “hero’s- journey- Lifetime- movie” nonsense

But I’ll see blessings in the loss

And continue to walk explore the world

With this clearer vision

Redistribution

It’s funny how one person can fill so many roles. When they pass, the roles they play are passed onto other people.

Cheerleader, support person, anchor, best friend, voice of wisdom, person I sought to impress. Mom. As I’ve been powering thru this year I’ve been reflecting on how those roles have been redistributed.

She was my cheerleader, the person to affirm that I was doing great. Now I work with a life coach. It’s funny how sometimes growing up means finding another adult who you can pay to listen to you and help.

She was my anchor. I have handed this role over to my boyfriend. We are learning how this works.

She was my best friend. I have had many good friends/ best friends throughout my life who I have considered to be family. No one will replace her.

She was a voice of wisdom in my life, now her voice comes out when I speak sometimes. I say a lot of really wise sassy things and they sound so much like her it’s scary. It’s part channeling, part how I’m programmed.

She was the person I ultimately sought to impress. Now I have this freedom where I am allowed to just do things because I want to do them. Because I am called to do them. I am my greatest ally, my guide. She is one with spirit/ mystery/ woo woo/ whatever/ memory. I find solid ground in this developing sense of the spirit.

She was my mom. I have a lot of maternal figures in my life. I still have my Grandma. I have a handful of awesome older female mentors. I have my dad.  But she was my mom.

My mom was these things and more to me. When she passed the pieces of who she was were laid out in front of me, strewn about my mind. Now I trace how I can track the way her roles have been redistributed. I find new patterns, new ways to relate, new ways to live my life.

It’s hard. It will continue to be hard. But it helps to have a map. It helps to know that I have a vast network of people who can somehow fill in her shoes. Lord knows she often took jobs that would normally take 10 people to do. I probably got that from her too.  

Should's and Could's

Could's and Should's

I’ve been turning my should's to could's

Slowly but surely

My need to succeed is rooted in

An inner drive

An urge to thrive

My should's are becoming could's

“I should write a song today” becomes

“I could write a song today!”

Then a song casually appears before me

My should's are becoming could's

Because lets face it

I spent the last few years should-ing all over the place

Trying to show that I can make it

Trying to prove to my mom that I was capable

Of making a living in the arts

I shoulda-ed myself into burnout

Saying yes too many times

Filling up my life

Choked by the weight of obligations

I still get the should's

They come from inside

The need to survive to make a mark

To keep the spark fan it into a flame

Not let it burn out again

I’m less overwhelmed

I don’t drown in expectations

I pick them apart

Start to make a map

That becomes easier to follow

Confident that the things I know I can do will bring me to my goal

I get the should's when I’m filled with regret

I should have could have done something

I bet if I had made a different choice

I hear that negative voice

And I will it away with a

Wouldacouldashoulda

you’re fine

You’re fine

...you’re fine

I am excited for all the could's

I encounter every day

The challenge of doing the things that scare me

And driving thru them with confidence

(literally driving thru the thing that scares me

When that thing is lower Wacker to 290)

So as I go thru each day

I make the list of things that I can do

I trust my inner motivation

And I know

That what matters

Is finding my place of joy

And letting the could's flow