Belly of the Whale

Welcome, my friends, to my brain when I'm not really thinking.

That's been the story of the day today--no overthinking, just lots of doing and talking. Doing and Talking without thinking can be messy but it's also vulnerable and real and unedited.

Inside of me there and thoughts. And a lot of fears.
     thoughts about my fears and even some fears about my thoughts.
...to fear your thoughts sounds a little strange, in my opinion, but as I sat in silence last night, I understood that that's a lot of where I'm at right now...I fear my thoughts and I fear my emotions. When I let myself think and feel freely, without reservation, the reality expressed is not controlled. In our society "to lose control" has awful connotations--carelessness, mania, powerlessness, etc. Though these may characterize some situations in which a person has lost control, they do not encompass the whole.

Still, the fear instilled by the negativity is what remains in the forefront of my mind and so I keep control.

I am afraid of what a loss of control would actually look like.
I am afraid no one would know what to do in that situation. And so I'm afraid I'd end up alone in my uncontrolled mess. Somehow that seems worse than choosing to be alone in the contained, neat and tidy version of the mess.

That choice is subconscious.

If someone were to literally ask me, I would choose companionship in my mess--because I know I have people in my life who would not be scared of my mess, maybe a little hesitant at first, but not in such a way that keeps them from helping me through it however they can.

Dumb.

Dumb.

Dumb.

I may have an IQ about 50 points higher than that of the average human being 

but my brain is still dumb.

Example.

It has been almost a year and there's this one person I still struggle to trust. She hasn't really given me any reason not to trust her and, from wha tI can see, she's done everything she knows how to get me to feel confortable to trust her. Still, my brain is being stupid and is afraid of judgement and rejection and of not being good enough or of being too much.

That's what's inside of me.

New Semester. Old Issues.

I HATE CHANGE.

really.

really really.

I really hate change.

But the ruler of the universe doesn't seem to care.

what's up with that?!!

The change of classes and professors isn't the issue here. It's friends leaving. shocker, I know. it's not like we haven't gone through this before. 

Try this dialectic on for size: Sure, I have abandonment issues, but I know this isn't about me.Yeah, I'm gonna miss 'em, but I know this is what's good for them.

Still, I liked things how they were. I liked it when we were all here.

I have this group of best friends. There are five of us and though we are rarely all together, we are always with one another. We've memorized each other's work and class schedules and schedule in "best friend time" on our google calendars. And when we aren't physically together, we are still textually connected (and emotionally, of course). In fact, Annie figured that for each hour she and I spend apart, we have a minute of phone conversation--this hypothesis was proven over the two weeks we were with our families during this past Christmas. We weren't always best friends--none of this 'we grew up on the same block and have been friends since kindergarten' business. It was gradual and, for the most part, natural. I could tell you stories about the precise prompting event that led me into friendship with each girl. Annie--crossroads class. Claire--texting pranks. Amanda--well, actually, I don't remember, Erin--living next to (and then with) each other.

Erin is in Ecuador. Awesome, right? She and I have bonded over our love of the Spanish language and, more specifically, the Latin American people and culture. We had hoped to travel to Nicaragua for a two-month immersion trip this summer (the scholarship got cancelled so that's not happening, don't worry, you haven't missed anything that big).  Some "plans" didn't work the way we expected and that resulted in Erin's decision to study abroad this semester.

Studying abroad is awesome. And I'm fully for it. But I don't like that it's taking one of my best friends to the southern hemisphere for and extended period of time. Fact is, I miss Erin. And she's only been there since Saturday. 




Person leaving #2: Fr. James Vioss, SJ
Much of my reason for being so absent from the blogoshpere this past semester has to do with this very fine man and his very fine class entitled 'Sources and Methods of Theology.' That's a fancy way of saying 'read this 400 page book written for Ph.D. students on the doctrine of the Trinity, understand it, and come up with a way to make it integral to your final project, which we will start during the second week of class.' And if you don't understand that description, it has also been called 'hell.' The class is a research seminar required of all junior theology majors and it is well-known for being the most difficult class in the major coursework.

Fr.Voiss keeps the class small (we had 6 students in the class) so he can offer each of us personal attention. He requires us to meet with him two or three times outside of class...I probably went to see him ten times. You sat and talked about life for 5 minutes then about class for 3 then about your paper for 5 then more about life and spent quite a bit of time staring at each other, trying to read the other's facial expressions. I cannot even tell you how many times he'd be smirking and I'd ask 'what's that face for?'

This was the first class I've had during my collegiate career that has actually challenged me.I've had classes that required a lot of work and some that took a bit of reflection but nothing like this. Fr. Voiss quickly tuned into the range of my abilities and was not about to let any of it go unused. There was one Friday in October when I cried in all of my classes because I was so stressed about an assignment due for Fr. Voiss that evening. There was a time I shed tears in our own class when he gave us a revised syllabus outlining all the work for the rest of the semester. It seemed like one class period I would be so angry and frustrated with Fr. Voiss that I was about to explode and cause a scene and the next I would tell him he was a great man and I loved him. Confused? I was.

We turned in our final projects on December 12 and on the 22nd, he emailed us telling us his provincial had requested his transfer to a province in the Northwest. Once again, I cried.

It was a rough class but I learned so much and I am a better student and theologian for having taken it. NO ONE can teach that course the way Fr. Voiss did. I am so incredibly grateful for having taken the course this semester and for being pushed and pulled the entire way.

I wish I had realized sooner how great I had it. I want to make an effort to be more present to the good, more grateful for the challenge, and less stressed about the inevitable.


People are indispensable. 
Experiences only occur once. 

Processing Encounter: Anger to Acceptence

With the retrieval of the authenticity of my heart this past weekend, I wish to reinstate the regular functioning of this blog. You've missed me, I know.

ENCOUNTER. 

what does that word mean to you?

To me, ENCOUNTER means being blessed in my brokenness. It means listening and really hearing what has been drone out for so long. ENCOUNTER means together. 

This past weekend, I went on Saint Louis University's 41st Encounter retreat. Campus Ministry advertises it as being similar to Kairos, TEC, and Search, if you are at all familiar with those. It was similar but my experience was much different. 

I went on Kairos as a junior in high school. I was chomping at the bit to go on the senior retreat as a junior so I could lead my senior class the following year. This plan flopped on its face because not only did I not end up leading in the fall, I didn't have that great a time. I was too busy trying to impress the seniors that I was neither focused on myself or God. Fail. Now, I'm a junior in college. 4 years later. I had the opportunity to go on Encounter beginning with my first semester here in the fall of 2009 but I didn't. I was a retreat junkie but I knew there was something special about Encounter and I wanted to make the retreat at the right time--whenever that would be. The right time was now. My friends ask me how the retreat was and I cannot come up with a more fitting answer than "perfect."

God and I experienced a definite shift in our relationship beginning last March when He began challenging me in ways I did not appreciate. Anger is the easiest emotion for me to experience and so, naturally, I thought I was mad at God. False. It's a lot more complicated than that.

On Encounter (just like on Kairos and the other retreats, I'm assuming) we talk about a relationship with God as a friendship and I was hesitant to relate to this when we began on Friday. I mean, when I pray, I call God "Daddy" and when I think of our relationship, I wasn't feeling too buddy-buddy. Upon reflection, however, I realized that friendship is exactly what it is. Because we're involved in a friendship. I feel free to have these emotions toward God and treat Him the way I have been--though, I admit, it's not the way a good friend would treat someone. 

I'm not mad. I'm disappointed. I feel let down. I feel like He wasn't there when I needed Him most. And if He was there [because people say He never leaves us] He stood there and watched as evil occurred. What kind of friend does that??? You see? It's complicated. 

We were engaged in something called 'Ignatian Contemplation' yesterday morning. SLU is a Catholic school of the Jesuit tradition and as such, we pray with Ignatian spirituality often. It basically involved allowing your imagination to propel you through a scripture passage as a character in the story. We were using the post-resurrection story of the road to Emmaus. Not a story I've found a whole lot of meaning in in the past. I LOVE Ignatian spirituality. God speaks to me in a very present way through this type of prayer because I have such an active, vivid imagination. The prayer took probably 30-40 minutes and God and I hit it off in the last 10. We were chilling and whateves for the beginning but then it hit me. Sean the Jesuit scholastic leading the meditation led us to conversation with Christ. 

Look at Him. What does He say?

Crazy, but it's what I heard: "My daughter...(long pause)...I'm sorry" Yeah, you got it right, He apologized. In that moment, I felt absolute peace. It's as if that is precisely what I had been waiting for for the past 8 months. 

Walk up to God and ask "where are we going now?"

My vivid imagination: small pools of tears formed in Jesus' eyes when I asked Him this. His response besides the tears was so true to our current relationship--"really? you want to go with me?" God had realized I had distanced myself from Him, it was like we were in a fight and I was giving Him the silent treatment and now that I was engaging our relationship, He met me with surprise. 

Yes, I want to go with you. I'm scared and I don't totally trust you, but I want us to go together again. I'm tired of ignoring you and I'm tired of pretending to everyone like our relationship is just fine. Let's go. Slowly. Together. Hand in hand encountering all of this.

Listening and Redefining

I'm in a social work class this semester entitles Practice 1: Communication. Going into the classroom three weeks ago, I didn't have much of any expectation since I didn't know the professor or what the course would cover, though I had reviewed the syllabus.  


In the past three weeks, Shannon, our professor, has said a few things in passing that nailed themselves to my heart and have yet to be pried off.

In talking about a client's right to self determination she said there will be times when we want to ask: "why don't you want what's good for you?"

Being that I've done an excellent job making decisions against my ultimate best interest, I heard Shannon asking me this question. Later that day, when I came home, I wrote the question on a post-it and stuck it on my mirror to glance at occasionally--have I answered it yet? nope, but I'm mulling it over.

Today we were talking about God only knows what--it was a manic sort of day in the classroom--but Nancy mentioned that, as people in a helping profession, we're going to measure our success by our clients' success. This sparked a discussion of the meaning of success. 

Shannon mentioned we, as a culture, tend to see success in monumental terms, but in the social work profession it is vital to accept any tiny step forward as a success. Giving a personal example, Shannon is currently working with a woman in therapy who is chronically late among other things. So right now they are working on getting her to her appointments on time. They are not focusing on the rest of her life falling apart. One step at a time. One small step at a time. 

Though Shannon mentioned this need to redefine our vision of success for our field of practice, I think I need to bring this idea of success being a a small thing not necessarily a huge one into my everyday life and especially into my view of my personal successes and failures.

p.s. that picture is what came up when i googled success. presh, i know. 

Cleaning my room--in multiple ways

I woke up this morning and got the urge to clean. In the past few weeks, I've been busy and cranky. Therefore, my bedroom has become somewhat of a dumpsite. I walk in, drop my backpack, plug in my computer to charge and crawl onto my bed. If there is a clothing change to occur, , at least one piece of clothing doesn't make it to its proper place. As I sat up in bed this morning, I couldn't help but get flashbacks to the appearance of my room in my parent's house during high school. It wasn't a happy feeling.

Every time I clean, I find things. Obviously I find dust but, more excitingly, I find things I had lost and things I had forgotten about.

Today I found a yellow folder Kelsey (my discipler) gave me a few months ago. In it is one of the most thought provoking and frustrating metaphorical stories I've ever read...

Jesus moves in: giving everything over
One evening I invited Jesus Christ to live with me. It was not an especially spectacular thing, but something very real happened at the center of my life. He came in, turned on the light, built a fire in the hearth, and filled the emptiness with His personal presence. Because I wanted to experience even more of this relationship I said, "Lord, I want you to feel at home in every area of my life. Let me show you around."


The study.
The first place we explored was my study--the room of my mind. It was quite small and had very thick walls. He entered and looked around at the books on the shelves, the magazines on the table, and the pictures on the walls. I became a little uncomfortable. Strangely, I had never felt self conscious about this stuff before, but now that He was there looking at it all. I felt embarrassed. Some of it seemed completely out of place in His presence. And I realized for the first time that much of what stood before me was not good for me. Blushing, I turned to Him and said, "I know that this room needs cleaning, but I don't really know where to start. Will you help me?"


As this process has begun, I have discovered that when my mind is centering more and more upon Christ daily, his purity and power are taking the place of my own impure thoughts. I have found that even my desire to think thoughts that are not pleasing to Him are also decreasing. While I still have quite a way to go, I can honestly say that my thinking is gradually being brought under His control.


The dining room.
After the study, we stepped into the dining room--the room of my appetites and desires. I had spent a lot of time and energy there. Proudly, I said, "This is one of my favorite rooms.. I believe you will be happy with what is served up here!" I set before Him all of my academic and athletic accomplishments and ambitions, as well as my career dreams. 


When the 'food' was placed before Him, He said nothing, and did not eat. I asked, "Master, don't you like the meal? Is there a problem?" He answered, "Do you find this diet satisfies your hunger? If you want to be truly filled, set your heart on doing the will of God alone and feed on Me. All you have been preparing for yourself will ultimately leave you feeling empty>"


That was difficult for me to hear. I had convinced myself that one day, I would finally manage to cook up just the right meal that would satisfy my hunger. I sat there stunned, trying to take in His words. Sensing my anxiety, He reached over and put a small piece of bread in my hand. I ate it. The flavor was so rich--just a small bite gave me more energy and contentment than all of the empty calories I had been consuming for years. I found myself at once both full and wanting more.


The living room. 
From there we walked into the living room. It was casual, intimate, and comfortable. I loved this room! There was a fireplace, overstuffed chairs, and a big sofa, and a huge entertainment center. JEsus said, "This is a great little spot. We can come here often and just hang out and talk together." I was thrilled. I couldn't think of anything I would rather do than have an uninterrupted time with JEsus. He promised, "I will be here every morning. Meet me here, and we will start each day together."


So morning after morning I would come downstairs to the living room and find Him waiting. He's pull out a book of the Bible, open it, and we would read together. He began to unfold amazing the amazing depth of His love and of His desires for my life. They were the most intimate and insightful times of my life. Little by little, however, under the pressure of more urgent things, the time began to get crowded ot, more hurried and less intimate. I began to miss days now and then. The appointments with Him that I had committed to sometimes slipped my mind.


I remember one morning rushing downstairs, choking down breakfast, on my way to do something critically important (I forget exactly what). I rushed past the living room and noticed the door was open. Curious, I looked in and saw Jesus sitting there, praying for me by the fire. I felt a stinging-guilt flood through me. "I invited Him to live here with me," I thought. "He has been my greatest friend, and here I have been ignoring Him." I stopped, turned, and hesitantly went in. Hanging my head, I said, "Lord, forgive me. Have you been waiting here every morning?"


"Yes," He said. "I want you to remember that I am constantly with you. But, I very genuinely want to spend time with you every morning. Our fellowship together is very important if you are going to walk in My life and follow the directions that I give you.  I desire the best for your life, I value our relationship--I love spending time with you." The truth that Jesus really desired my companionship has done more to transform my devotional times with God than any other single fact. Mornings aren't always the best time of day--sometimes I've had to ask if we could meet at night. But I have made it a point to carve out daily time with Him because He loves and treasures that time with me and I am finding that I do too.


The workroom.
Before long, He asked, "Do you have a workroom around here?" Out in the garage I had a small workbench and a few tools I had picked up here and there, but I wasn't doing much with any of it. I took Him out to look it over. "Well, this is quite well furnished. What are you using it to do?" "Well, Lord," I said, "I know it isn't much, but I don't have the time or skills to do much more."


"All right," He said, "let Me have your hands. Now, relax with me and let my Spirit work through you. If He controls your hands and your heart, you can accomplish any assignment I give you." Stepping around behind me and putting His strong hands under mine, He began to work with me. The more I relaxed and trusted His, the more He was able to do through me.


The rec room.
One day He asked if I had a place where I got together with my friends. I was really hoping He wouldn't ask me about that. There were certain associations and activities that I wanted to keep to myself. One evening when I was on my way out with some buddies, He caught my eye and asked, "are you going out?" "Yes," I replied. "Great," He said, "I'd love to come with you." "Well," I answered awkwardly, "I don't think you'd really enjoy where we are going. Let's go out together )just you and me_ tomorrow night. Maybe to a Bible study or church or something, but tonight I have other plans." Jesus replied, "I thought that when you invited me into your home, we were going to do everything together... I just want you to know that I am willing to go with you." "Well," I mumbled, slipping out the door. "let's go someplace together tomorrow night."


That whole evening I was basically miserable. "What was I thinking? I had deliberately left Jesus out of my social life. Didn't I trust Him around my friends? Couldn't He do for them what He had done for me?" When I returned, He was waiting for me. I decided to talk the situation over with Him. "Lord," I said, "all my best times have been with you, It was silly of me to leave you behind. I was miserable the whole time, so now I want us to do everything together." He led me back to the rec room and pulled out His plans for remodeling. Before long, He was comfortably hanging out with my friends. a few of them even invited Him into their homes. He also introduced me to new friends and we had some exciting and meaningful conversations. Powerful music has been ringing throughout the house ever since.


The crawl space.
One day I found Him waiting for me at the door. A concerned look was in His eye. As I entered, He said, "I've noticed a peculiar odor in the house. I think it's coming from under the crawl space under the rug." I immediately knew what He was talking about. There was a crawl space under the floor where I stored several personal things I didn't want anyone to know about. They were dead and rotting leftovers from my former lifestyle that I kept hidden and figured nobody would ever be suspicious about. Occasionally, I'd mess around with a couple of those old habits or nurse some old grudge. I was afraid to admit to anybody that I still dabbled in these things. I tried to make excuses, telling myself that I only visited the crawl space when I had a particularly bad day.


Reluctantly, I went with Him and pulled back the rug to reveal the trap door in the floor. I felt angry. That's the only way I can put it. This was private! I had given Him access to the library, the dining room, the living room, the workroom, and the rec room, and now He was asking for entrance into this little out of the way crawl space that wasn't hurting anybody as far as I could tell. I said to myself, "This is too much. I am not going to give Him the key."


"Well," He said, reading my thoughts, "the things in this space are not healthy for our relationship, it's weakening our fellowship and distancing us from each other." When one cones to know and love Christ, the worst thing that can happen is to experience estrangement from Him, especially when your own sin is the cause. I had to give in. "Wait! I'll give You the key," I said sadly. "But I doubt you'll be able to clean up that mess. I've made a number of futile attempts before. I never had strength to so a very thorough job and it's so dark and musty in there that the stuff grows so fast." "Just give me the key," He said. "Trust me to take care of the crawl space and I will." With trembling fingers I passed the key to Him. He unlocked the door and started cleaning. the process was often uncomfortable, I hated admitting that I had involved Jesus in this filthy, tedious project, but after seeing the joy and satisfaction He received from doing it for me, I've grown to love Him more and more each time I see him working on it.


Title transfer.
A thought came to me. "Lord, is there any chance that you would take over the management of this whole house and operate it for me as You did that crawl space? Would You take responsibility to make my life what it ought to be?" His face lit up as He replied, "I'd love to! I've longed to fill and freely move through every part of your life. But you haven't given me the opportunity."


Dropping to my knees, I said, "Lord, I have been treating You like a guest, when I am really a guest and You the true host. From now on I will be Your servant. Please so with this place whatever You will find best--I trust you." I ran over to the stongbox eagerly signed it over to Him. "Here it is, all that I am and have and forever. Now, You are fully in charge and I will submit to you always."


If you've read all the way to the end, I applaud your patience and admire your attention span. Well done, my friend, well done.

Good

Yesterday was good.

I'm going to get a little theoretical philosophical for a minute, so please, bear with me. How does one define  'good'? As unoriginal as it sounds, I looked up the word in the dictionary and was absolutely stunned! There were over one hundred different definitions. 'Good' may honestly be the most complex four-letter word in the English language. Still, as I read through the attempts to define this word, this feeling, this thing I realized that there was no single way to define 'good; that is totally complete in itself.

This being said, the word good may be so complex that it has become utterly non-descriptive. I said yesterday was good but you have absolutely no idea what I mean...unless we already talked about my day...but that's cheating. When someone responds to the question 'how are you?' by saying 'good,' they might as well have not responded at all. The word good has so many meanings that it has become virtually meaningless.

Okay, I'm done with my etymological rant.

Here's the deal, 'good' might be the most unhelpful explanation or definition for something or someone but sometimes it is the only word that fits. Okay isn't positive enough. Great is too positive. What's in between? ...good.

Yesterday was good. Yesterday my alarm clock went off at 5:27 a.m. and I left for work at 5:46. Yesterday I knew all the answers to the questions on my Bible and Literature quiz for the first time all semester. Yesterday I got a piece of mail that I had been waiting for all week. Yesterday I ate lunch with my friend Anna for the first time in a long time. Yesterday my friend Emiley came to class with me...she's on spring break. Then, after class yesterday, Emiley and I got coffee and talked for 2 hours then went shopping.

Back up. Emiley and I talked for 2 hours. We sat in this coffee shop and talked and talked and talked for over 120 minutes. I suppose this doesn't seem all that out of the ordinary for two college-age women, but, oh, I promise you, it is something. First of all, the simple fact that I had 2 consecutive hours to sit down and talk is absolutely mind blowing. I wish there was a way I could publish a picture of my google calendar here for yall to understand what I mean. It's not necessarily a good thing but I am always busy. This, right now, is the first time I have had alone-time all week...other than when I am asleep. I go to class, and to work, and to practice, and to meetings, and to small group, and to mass, and to more practice, and to more work, and to bed...then repeat. Second, yall may not know the Emiley I was sitting with but you probably know this Emily (at least enough to know I'm probably wearing some yellow article of clothing while writing this). And if you know me at all or have creeped my blog at all, you have probably come to understand that I don't really like talking. I like writing. I like texting (a technological form of talking while writing but still not talking). I don't do small talk and there are only certain times when getting deep is something I'm willing to do. Third, I had been up since 5:27 and had been going going going all day. Work, run, class, class, pick up mail, lunch, homework, class...talk?? I guess.

So, you see now that I enjoyed this chat time but wasn't really expecting it to go so well.

Here's the kicker. Emiley has this look that can get me to tell her things. She's given me this look so many times that she doesn't have to even be looking at me for know that she's got the look. She could be in her own dorm room texting me and I'd know she's got the look. Yesterday the look came out. It came in tandem with the words "tell me something you don't want me to know." I don't know what you think about that request but I seriously thought she was kidding. Tell her something I don't want her to know??? Heck no! If I don't want her to know, I'm most certainly not going to tell her. Telling her would totally defeat me not wanting her to know. But she had the look. Unfortunately, there were a few things that floated through my mind at that time, a few things I didn't want her to know, that I had no intention of ever telling her. And those were precisely the things she wanted me to tell her. I told her one of them and she had me explain and it was AWKWARD. More awkward than the word awkward is to spell and look at. It was hard.

At first, I felt bad. I felt like she now knew this secret of mine and it wasn't any old secret. It was a secret that I wouldn't mind all that much for other people to know about but for her to know was unthinkable. The impossible is only impossible because we say it is.

Telling Emiley what I didn't want her to know was not something that I wanted to do but I liked it. I know that doesn't make any sense. Do you remember the childhood rhyme: secrets secrets are no fun unless you share with everyone? The truth will set you free. I am no longer held in bondage by that secret. The one person I didn't want to know now knows. The one person I thought would be most hurt by the secret knows. I survived. Emiley survived. Our friendship survived. Freedom lives on!

Last night was good too by the way. I listened to about three hours of convicting audio lessons on change. You can expect a post about that sometime soon.

xoxoxoxoxo Emily