Relearning Lessons

Daily Devotion - May 21

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays)

while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

I like to learn things one time and know them forever.  I'd prefer to prevent all future mistakes, and also never repeat lessons. Once and done!
Unfortunately that's not how life works.
When I have to relearn something, I feel annoyed and impatient with myself.  But this strange time is requiring that I continue to relearn things.  I am working on receiving the lessons and letting them teach me again.

This past week or so there have been two:

The first is radical acceptance. I had already had a kind of awakening that I was living in resistance to all of this, as though embracing this life was saying, "I'm ok with it." Like I don't care that things are not how I want them to be.  "I'm good with losing all the plans I was looking forward to and the patterns of life I love."  I'm not good with that.  But I made a conscious choice try to embrace and accept this life, to settle my soul into it, because I really want to live fully present. So we started doing "Family Fun Night" twice a week - and they've been really fun. We've had a lip sync contest, casino game night, family bike ride, mancala tournament and more.  That's all well and good. But, in addition to all the sickness, and worry, and loss of lives and jobs, this week they announced that the 4th of July parade was canceled, and it sent me over the edge.  I still can't visit my grandmother, I hate avoiding people on the sidewalk, and my daughter's birthday is coming up and we are still in this damn thing.  So I found myself a mess of pent-up emotions all over again: anger, sadness, frustration. And I realized I had returned to resistance.  So here we go again - grieving, letting go,choosing to be here, now.

Another lesson I'm relearning is a longer-term one. I am a multi-tasker from way back. It's in my genes.  It was often proudly proclaimed that my grandfather "could fit 10 pounds in a 5 pound box!" I have been the same way for much of my life. But the past decade and a half has been a long, slow untraining of myself, (aided by an autoimmune disorder and a deep study of sabbath).  In this time, I have learned (or so I thought) how to put 5 pounds in a 5 pound box. Even, sometimes, I am able to stop at 4 1/2 pounds, and leave a little wiggle room.
I've taught about sabbath, and written about it, and tried to raise my children understanding the value of it. But in times of stress, we return to our deep dysfunction and act from our unthought patterns/ addictions/ methods of self-soothing.  It turns out - even though I've put some great boundaries in place during this time of lockdown (like not working past 4 pm, six days a week, taking Mondays completely off...) and made sure I have good support (like spiritual direction and my pastor group) - I've fallen back into some of my old patterns.

When we feel helpless, it feels good to be busy. We sometimes mistake busyness for fullness.  When there are no demarcations between 'home' and 'work', and even our days are running together - we do things that make us feel productive and useful.  At least, I do. And that's all fine. But I stopped retreating.
For nearly a decade, I have taken a 24 hour retreat once a month, turning off my phone and getting away. Every month. I need to be alone. I need silence, distance, nature and my journal on a regularly-scheduled basis.  That hasn't happened since February.
It happened last week. I got away to a cabin in the woods, and I surprised myself by crying for much of the time. I needed a shut-down and reboot moment.
I have learned what practices feed me in ordinary life. Retreat is one of them, and I need to reclaim these practices and return to them.  Instead, I have been treating this like it's an extraordinary time where the rules don't apply. They still apply.

We still need rest. We still need to do the things that feed us. I still can be careful and deliberate about putting 5 pounds (or 4 1/2) into a 5 pound box, and not say, "Because right now things are different, it's ok to jam more in."  It's not ok. When so much else is out of the ordinary, and the practices we take for granted (like shaking hands, hugging, going to movies, church services and shopping centers, getting together with friends, etc.) are not happening, the rules still apply.

We all jumped into crisis mode when this thing hit.  We treated the situation like it was temporary. It is temporary. But it's not short-term.  And there is no going back, only forward.

As we go forward, we will be relearning lessons again and again, like feeling our feelings, living in the present, recognizing what we can and can't control,  remembering our belonging to God and each other, having mercy for ourselves and each other, receiving the joy, and the need to rest.

So I am giving myself short-hand phrases to remember the lessons I keep relearning. I might even hang them on my fridge. Today's are "Radical Acceptance, and "The Rules Still Apply."

What lessons have you been relearning in this time?


CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

Let's end the day with the Evening Prayer again, from the New Zealand Prayerbook.

Lord it is night.
The night is for stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.

It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done;
what has not been done has not been done.
Let it be.

The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness
of the world and of our own lives
rest in you.

The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,
all dear to us, and all who have no peace.

The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day,
new joys, new possibilities.
In your name we pray.
Amen.

The Hypocrisy of Ministers & Moms

“You really did bring this on yourself, then.” she said.  I was shocked.  My husband’s exact words coming out of this lab-coated, spectacled, medical professional.  Somehow they sounded different in the glaring light of this office than they had in my living room.

“So,” she continued, “This is my prescription, and I mean it: Do not be productive.  Stop. For the next few days, if it doesn’t absolutely have to be done, you don’t do it.  Do nothing.  Do you hear me? Order take-out, skip cleaning the house, whatever it is, let it go.  This has gone on far too long.”

I have been sick for twelve days. Twelve. Days.  When I first got sick, I dutifully plunked the kids in front of the TV with fistfuls of granola bars and thermoses of water, called in sick and tucked myself into bed to shiver under quilts for the next eight hours.  That was my sick day.  And when the day was done, I basically resumed normal life. Except I was still sick.  And exhausted.  So I wasn’t present with my children, my husband, my work, myself.  I wandered around in a stuffy, achy fog for a week and finally dragged myself into the doctor to score some antibiotics and kick this thing, only to be told it was a nasty virus that would need to work its own way out.

“If you’re not better by the end of the week, come back.”

I was back.

“Hot liquids and naps.” she announced.  “And stop being productive.”

Telling me to stop being productive is like telling an alcoholic to stop drinking.  “We heard you were sick,” someone said to me last Sunday morning. I was. But that didn’t stop me from going to church. Even though someone else was preaching.  Even though everything was already taken care of by others.  Even though I was sick.  And at least three different people asked me, “Why are you here?”

I would’ve asked them the same thing.

What is it about ministers, that we’re willing to sacrifice our own humanity for our sense of duty, responsibility, or inflated view of our own "necessary-ness"?  What is it about moms?  My friend told me the other day that her college-aged daughter had said to her that week, “But, Mom, you have never been sick!” 

“That’s because when I was sick you all still had to eat and be driven to soccer practice.” she had answered.

Sitting there being chastised by my doctor I realized what an utter hypocrite I am.  In a congregation that embraces Sabbath, that seeks wholeness in our lives and relationships, I had been doing the opposite of what I believe and preach.  As a mom who wants my children to be healthy people with good habits for self-care, I was a disgraceful example.

There’s a reason for the rhythm! The regular work and rest cycle that God designed inside us and in the world around us.  It’s a pattern! as my kids would say.  Rest can’t be hoarded and doled out as a reward or saved up like vacation time.  Just make it through this couple of busy weeks and then I’ll slow down for a week.  I thought. But my body announced loud and clear that it doesn’t work that way.

But there is so much that needs to be done! But I’m useless laying here, and bored! But people need me! But I’ll get behind… I’ll let them down… I’ll seem weak… I’m not REALLY THAT sick…

Recently I heard someone say that pastor-types tend to be really in touch with the universal human needs for meaning and purpose, so they focus heavily on these and often tend to be less in touch with other human needs such as exercise and rest.  I would admit that often I listen well to the promptings of my heart and mind and overlook the messages of my body and soul.  And for many, it becomes only when we are forced to Sabbath, as Wayne Muller describes, by sickness or injury, other outside factors, that we actually do finally rest.  So our lives preach to our children and our congregations that we don’t actually believe that God is God and we are God’s beloved children, but rather that producing, consuming, contributing and controlling is what we worship, and we are slaves to the system that will not stop.

So, I hope I’ve learned my lesson, although I’m sure it’s a lifelong process. And even as I say this, there are several things in the next few days I am not yet able to say I can not do.  But my hot tea is beside me and I’ve napped on this couch.  And I’ve done nothing productive this afternoon(other than this blogpost).  So I give my husband, children, and congregants carte blanche to call me on my hypocrisy when I forget to live what we believe.  And when I start becoming what I do instead of living wholly who I am, I want someone to remind me of my humanity and tell me to stop being productive.