Special note to Megan and Angela

Good morning, ladies.
You were just the antidote to everything crazy and intense and alone last night.  I slept great, dreamed hard, and am waking up feeling unclenched, ready to face my day.  I'm not sure how you do that aside from the cake and laughs but you bring out the sane and self-aware and resilience in me.
I am very grateful.

Fealty and Brainwash

I've been reading some interesting book.
One book is called Brainwash and it's history of the last century of brainwashing.   I originally reserved it because I was curious about the psychological affects of abuse and torture.  I'm doing a lot of thinking about abuse and how it changes personality and will.

The other book is a fantasy book by Elizabeth Moon called Oath of Fealty.  The old Duke who was secretly involved in worship of Liart, the god of torture, was killed and another Duke who serves gods of healing comes to the land.  The Duke finds a pregnant kitchen maid who describes being ritualistically tortured and raped and then was told the child was Liart's.  They forced her to swear silence and in speaking is afraid she'll be cursed.  Here's the Duke's response:

Child, the gods forgive such oaths...you are not bound to Liart.  You can renounce that oath and take a better one....you can't undo what's done, or unsay what's said...you can say differently this time.

I've repeatedly thought of this quote since I read the book months ago.  For me this captures something essential in my healing process.

More reflections later.

The Joshua Tree

I never got into popular music when I was a teen- never much impressed.  A lot of it was vulgar or poor quality musicianship, and liking this or that was yet another status system I didn't care to play.  So I avoided it as much as possible.  I didn't listen to pop radio, didn't own cassette tapes except for a couple of Christian musicians, and in an unfortunately haughty twist of counter-status, secretly looked down on those who did- poor, tasteless lemmings.

When I recently heard people mention their top albums of all time and I had never listened to The Joshua Tree or Sergeant Pepper's,  I reserved both at the library out of curiosity and just got them this last week.  With all my solo driving around for home visits, I've had lots of time to listen.  So I pop Joshua Tree in on Saturday morning on my way to New Prague, not expecting much from U2.  With several back-up CD's ready for the probable ejection actually.

Wow- song 1, Where the Streets Have No Names knocked my socks off and then song 2, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For had tears running down my face.  I had never heard anyone articulate my own dissatisfaction and longing like this before.  Song 3, With or Without You perfectly captured my own dilemma of a couple years ago.

Then I came to a vista and saw my teen years from a different vantage point.  I had believed I had found what I was looking for and despised those who hadn't.  I had already put people into the piles of Living With You or Living Without You, no matter how miserable it made me.  I didn't want to tear down walls and I wasn't burning down love.  Not yet.  It would take a whole lot of suffering, functionality and honesty, and some compassion and genuine kindness- it would take another 25 years of life- for me to begin to honor this kind of life.

These are songs for grown-ups and I was not.
But now I am and I'm getting myself the CD.
Because I already got the life.

Quotes

I've been watching two sci-fi shows, Sanctuary and Stargate Atlantis, and several quotes struck me.  I wanted to type them here before I lose the paper I jotted them on.

The future is predetermined by the character of those who shape it.

Intriguing twist on the free will/fate question.  In the story, this plays out in an unexpected climax to a battle scene between the good guys and the bad guys each being true to their character.

What's bred in the bone can't be undone in the flesh.

In context this was a chilling quote by a murderer about his daughter.

And this quote I heard two different ways as I was listening, both of which I find thought-provoking.

Feeling love and inflicting pain are mutually exclusive.
Feeling love and inflicting pain aren't mutually exclusive.

The first feels either clear and healthy or over simplistic, depending on how I tilt my head.
The second I find chilling and I can't decide if I'm cold because it's a clever lie or a painful truth.

Spring fever

I'm bored.  Not the "nothing to do" bored but the "something different to do" bored.  I need some flowers in bloom.  I need some great conversation.  I need some fun without work.  No tired, worn out crazies.  No laundry.  No picking up.  No leftovers.
Adventure, novelty, interesting conversations- yep, that's it.

Ready to do good

Recently I have been repeatedly struck by people who are standing, ready to do good.  And when I begin to see a pattern emerge in my daily life, I have learned to pay attention as this is often precisely what I need to learn right now.  Perhaps it's always been there and I haven't tuned in or perhaps it's being spotlighted for my benefit.  Either way, the theme of being prepared to do good is popping for me this Lent.

Pastor Gary at my church sent an email to people at church telling them about the French kids coming and inviting them to volunteer.  I received a number of emails from kind-hearted people who were prepared to welcome a stranger.

Then my brother told me stories of the activistas, church ladies he visited in Mozambique last year who meet regularly and simply walk out into their town, asking how they can help.  They bring meals, tend the sick, bring meals to the hungry, visit the lonely, pray for everyone, and despite their extremely limited resources, share with everyone.  Dan walked with them and even a year later choked up as he spoke of them as some of the most deeply respected members of their community.  I was moved by their readiness to do any good they could.

I reflect often on how the oral surgeon and his team trained for years, developed skills, started a practice, stocked an operating room, and somewhere along the way became kind people- all before they ever met me.  And then because of all their preparedness to do me good, they were ready to do me incredible kindness on my very bad day.  I feel that my experience with them has tipped the seesaw of my life and I have been able to let go of those who laid in wait to do me evil and also those who were waiting for me in disdain because now I have experienced such a deep readiness to do me good. 

People prepared at great expense often for decades so that they were totally ready to do me good.  This changes my life.  Here are the names of some of these:

Dr Jenny
Sandra
Crystal
Jenni
Sue
Trish
Dr Karin Evan
Amanda
Jane
Sara
Dr. Z
Karen
Amy L
Trista
Kelly
Melissa
Shannon
Ginger
Joe
Tara
Emily


And today I am especially struck by Tim who has paid, dollars and heart, for my healing year after year, working a second job so that I can have the resources to climb out of the hole dug decades before we ever met.

I am filled with gratitude and my life is changed.  Because of these good people, I am leaning into becoming someone who stands, ready to do good, too. 

Loving from the other side of the door

My niece Mahalia has a neighbor cat whom she adores.  Unfortunately, the cat doesn't adore kids and has bitten Mahalia three times.  Mahalia has pronounced that the cat says she's sorry and won't do it again.  Mahalia has forgiven the cat, so they should open the door and let the cat in to visit.  My sister wisely said no.  Mahalia pleaded saying that she loves the cat and wants it to come in.  My sister wisely stated, "We can love the cat from the other side of the door."

In my family love and trust and intimacy and safety were all one pile.  If we loved, we trusted.  If we longed to be close, we were safe.  Unfortunately, the pedophiles and critical abusers of the world are like the biting cats and nobody closed the door, not even me.  In fact, in so many ways, I was like Mahalia, hurting but ever so hopeful.

My sitter last Friday stood us up.  We were going dancing, Tim went to pick her up, and she wasn't there.  No call, no note.  I emailed her that night and she just today, seven days later, replied saying how sorry she was.  And irrationally, since my top sitter wasn't available for some upcoming dates, I found myself wanting to book her again.  I stopped myself.  She didn't mean to be irresponsible but she was.  She didn't mean to wreck my evening but she did. So I emailed another teen who had indicated an interest in babysitting and I'll try another after that.  I'm done asking my old sitter for at least a year.  She's young and might mature.  I'll try her again next spring but not before.

I used to think that I had to be angry with people to get away from the hurt and I expended a lot of energy being mad and a lot more energy ping-ponging back and forth between intimate fondness and angry distance.  Anger drains me and dislike connects me to them in a powerfully unhappy way.

Now I'm finding that I don't need to be mad to be safe and I can be fond from a distance.  I can love them from the other side of the door and that makes all the difference.