After a grueling religious deconstruction, who is a girl to trust?
By: JANA GREENE
I’m trying this crazy new thing, and it’s called trusting my intuition. It’s crazy. My whole life I have been coached to never trust the human heart – especially your own – for it wants its own way. It is deceitful and full of the flesh, they said. It will steer you wrong, they said. But I am finding it an oracle itself, not separated from a loving God by sin, but part and parcel of the Spirit.
God himself (or herself?) put it in me – intuition. Why would we be sent into the wilderness with sub-par equipment? Is he like the producers of “Naked and Afraid,” letting us choose our one, inadequate tool for the whole journey – and SUPRISE! It’s shitty intuition! Here you go, here’s a stick, when you could have used a pocketknife or a can of “Off” spray!
Godspeed, Kiddo. It’s a jungle out there. Whatever you do, lean NOT on your understanding!
I can no longer fathom that our consciousness is separate in any meaningful way from the Source. So, intuition – while not perfect – is trustworthy, in that it has much to teach us. In the realization that it’s not a sin to consult our intuition is a game-changer.
Most of my life, I have shushed my intuition in an un-valiant effort to prove to God that I had a faith bigger than my understanding.
But the gut is a quiet thing if you’re not used to listening to it. It politely tugs at your hem, whispering “excuse me, please, but I have a feeling about this.” Listen to her until her voice steadies. Listen to her until she is heard and BOLD. But for God’s literal sake, LISTEN TO HER. Say “yes” to the copious heaps of lavish grace and decide to stop eschewing it for distrust of self.
We are so afraid to honor ourselves; we forget God is not the kindly warden overseeing us while we do time in our flesh prisons, but the living breath in us – part and parcel. Holiness is our DNA, and all the self-flagellation in the world cannot whip it out of us.
My gut tells me that it’s true.
Can I get an AMEN?
(Part II to come: Trusting the intuition of others)
Two people step on an elevator, exchanging pleasantries, 2025-style:
“Hello,” says Mr. Smith.
“Hello,” says Mr. Jones.
“I noticed how at the meeting this morning,” says Smith. “You crushed it! I’d have never even known your whole world was falling apart!”
“Thanks!” said Mr. Jones. ” I just read the book, ‘How to Mask When You’re Freaking Out on the Inside,” and it was life changing. “
“Ooooo,” marvels Smith. “I recently started reading ‘Stuffing My Feelings When the World is Ending – Smooshing Down the Doom.”
“Cool,” remarks Jones. “Have you taken the required Continuing Education class on “Losing Friends for Political Reasons?”
“Yikes, I have not. That sounds intense. I don’t think I could mask through losing friends.”
“You’d be suprised.”
“Have you listened to the Podcast, “What the Actual F*ck is Even Happening to Us?”
“No. Any good? Do the hosts deduce what the actual f*ck is happening to us?”
“Not really. They just recommend moving off-grid, shunning society, and becoming one with the wildlife.”
“What about bears?”
“Psshhh, those bears ain’t worried ’bout no politics.”
“No, I mean, bears are scary.”
“Not nearly as scary as American reality.”
“But what of the checks and balances that are supposed to protect us all from fascism?”
“Oh, the government program that enables checks and balances has been dismantled, like so many other prgrams.”
“By WHO?”
“The fascists in leadership, of course.”
“What now? None of this makes any sense!”
“It makes perfect sense if you read, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
“The book for kids by Hans Christian Anderson, wherein the emperor, along with his court, pretends to see the nonexistent clothes, tricking an entire kingdom into going along with the foolishness, leading to a comical climax when a child shouts that the emperor is naked?”
“The very one.”
“Good Day,” said Mr. Smith, pulling his mask back on as he steps off the elevator.
“Good Day,” said Mr. Jones, doing the same.
And from the elevator, a hollow, tinny rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” echoed, but neither of them recognized the tune.
Then, like so many Americans, they went their very separate ways, smooshing the doom down with another day of pleasantries.
Blue Ridge, Smokies, Appalachians. Whatever you call them, there is wisdom and holiness in those hills. But they are haunted and hurting.
By: JANA GREENE
I didn’t mean to stay up until 3 am sobbing, but that’s what happened. Last night, I allowed myself to peek down the rabbit hole, lost my footing, and fell in. And I kept falling, no roots to grab to right myself; no way to slow my decent. And I landed in the middle of a great chasm of destruction – all the people’s evidence of life – their cars and homes and bodies, in a great mire of thick mud, devoid of hope. The Great State of North Carolina, mortally wounded, the mountains scarred by flood, human beings scarred for life. The Blue Ridge is truly blue, we are all blue right now. There is weeping and gnashing of teeth, an event as apocalyptic as a Frances Ford Coppola film, but so much worse.
So, I was up most of the night, watching coverage of the destruction in the Western part of the state. The places we have vacationed wiped off the map. But that’s just where we vacation – because it is indescribably beautiful there. Vacationers are participating in a luxury, though. Vacations are a luxury item. The families who call the mountains home and are leveled by this, they are suffering beyond what we can even imagine.
If you are reading this somewhere outside the “war zone,” you (and I) share a privilege right now.
I did what I do (I’m not sure why I do it, I’ll have to ask my therapist?) I didn’t even try to redirect my sadness. No, I dug in. I consumed news stories and footage of rescues. I listened to the stories of shell-shocked residents whose entire lives had been washed away. I read articles. Wondered why there weren’t military boots on the ground. Wondering what the F*CK is going on right now?
My hand over my mouth the whole time, trying to stifle any audible sobs, as my husband was sleeping next to me. I wanted to wake him up to grieve with me, but he has a job to do in the morning, and besides…. what could he do? My tears didn’t consult me before welling up in my eyes. It was too primal for that, too organic. Kind of sacred in a way. I needed to cry alone.
So, I did what I do this morning – sit down at a keyboard and try to unravel the tangled chain that is my mind. To tell you I’m sad, because maybe you are sad too. I’m not sure why I have to write about everything that needs processing, but here I am. My eyes are swollen, but I am safe and warm, writing this high and dry at the coast. Oh, how I wish I could share some of that highness and dryness with our mountain neighbors! How I wish this hadn’t happened at all. But while we are entertaining the absurdity of wishes…
I wish they had been warned. I wish they were alerted about the dams that would break and the levees that would give. Someone somewhere, probably with a high-paying job at the Corps of Engineers or something had to know. But this is the mountains, as far West as you can get in the state. Nobody was expecting a hurricane there. That’s kind of our thing, here at the coast. They should never have to worry about storms that materialize over oceans. But this time, they did.
I wish our government truly gave a shit. I wish vital funds – gathered from struggling taxpayers being squeezed for a chunk of every paycheck – would go directly to aid for our own citizens. I wish that instead of throwing several thousand tarps and a few million dollars to aid our friends in the path of Helene, they would funnel it directly to those suffering most. Here. In AMERICA. And while I’m wishing, I wish that the money we literally pour into other countries would go to feed hungry schoolchildren. And help struggling families here. We, the American People, can scarcely afford groceries these days. Our backs are against the wall. And we are making it rain money in a grand, global gestures to win us points on the world stage. All the while, “Rome” burns.
I am just one middle-aged housewife in North Carolina, writing with puffy eyes and a lurching heart to try and make sense of this. But there is no sense to be made. What good does it do to go down the “rabbit hole?” Why not just go about our business, maybe write a check to a relief agency, and shrug, “Oh well, what can I do?”
You see, rabbit holes get a bad rep. The term alludes to Alice in Wonderland, and the crazy-ass chain of events she set off my falling into one. She didn’t jump into it. She fell. I think that’s an important distinction.
And I think maybe everyone in America should allow themselves to dip a toe in the Hurricane Helene rabbit hole. Because people are not understanding the magnitude of the destruction they see in 15 second YouTube videos, or worse – the “news.”
Entire families were lost. Bodies – those family members now tangled in the debris – are everywhere. As of this writing, over a thousand people are still missing. Why is this important to know? Because of our humanity, and the way it is slipping downriver, like so much floodwater. I turned on the national news. A few snippets of milder images, some anchor droning on, confirming that yep, it’s awful. The global news? It barely broke the surface. The storm was last week, several news cycles have lapsed since. It’s old news.
Except that it isn’t. And like Alice in Wonderland learned, we are all mad here. How else to explain the government’s reaction to this tragedy? Madness.
I do not regret my deep dive that kept me up all night. It felt like my tears were somehow paying homage to the lost and the despondent. A prayer behind every single one. Not in words, but in groanings of the spirit. Great, heaving groans that sound like a house being sucked from its foundation. Groanings that only God can translate.
Because I had no words, aside from what I am writing this morning. The people don’t need armchair philosophers. I don’t know why things like this happen. But I do know that there are spiritual laws. And I am responsible to share my experience with you, Readers. We are ALL responsible to share our experiences, and to spread awareness of the dire, Armageddon-esque happenings right here in “The Greatest Country in the World” (Pshawww! Alas, that’s a blog post for another day.)
Father, Father God. Loving Mother Universe. Sweet Holy Spirit. The collective soul of all humanity. Please help us. Grab us by the hand as we are falling, falling into the hole. Give us discernment to know how we can best help. As our hearts grieve, we cannot imagine the grievings of our western brothers and sisters. Let us never turn a blind eye to suffering. Let us never come to the conclusion, “Oh well. What can we do?” Increase our awareness of fellow humans who are hurting. Comfort for whom great loss has become their new reality. Help us to be your hands, feet, and mouthpiece.
I hate all the ugliness; we are seeing regarding politics right now. Is it just me, or does it seem like a whole preschool is running the world? Presidential candidates that can’t wait their turn to talk? Grown men calling names. It reminds me of the childhood games we used to play.
For instance, we Gen-ex’ers were warned about quicksand an inordinate amount, considering not one of us have ever seen quicksand in the wild.
What to do if you get stuck in quicksand was peer-reviewed, 3rd grade cannon. Because somebody’s uncle’s cousin got stuck in it for real for real and knew just what to do. All you need is a mule and a rope, and the ability to NOT panic (which disqualifies me immediately,) and who doesn’t have those lying around? Living in this political climate is fighting quicksand. We are all trying to stay still, so as not to upset the sucky mud. But got damn, it sure feels like we are going under. After getting the equivalent of a Batchelor’s Degree on the subject, one could rest easy, knowing as long as your mule was surefooted, you would be okay, except for the fact that…
THE FLOOR IS LAVA. I had one particular friend in second grade who claimed to have seen a real volcano in Baltimore (Land of Volcanos) and wanted to teach us how to escape certain vaporization using her mother’s white sofa. My friend (who said don’t worry, her mom wouldn’t mind) gave a quick and formal lecture before throwing every single cushion on the floor so that it would resemble the rock face of the volcano. To escape the liquid fire, we must all be so careful not to fall on the floor, er, lava. We were training in earnest before my friend’s mother came in, notices five barefoot little girls jumping across her good furniture, and did her best impression of Pele, Hawaiian Goddess of Fire. We sacrificed ourselves to the goddess by wading into the lava to fix her sacred volcano. But that brings us to the most dangerous, politic-resembling childhood game of all:
Dodgeball, baby. The premise of dodgeball, for you who were born after the 70’s, early 80’s, was to bodily injure your opponent by throwing a hard, red rubber ball at your thigh until it makes a BOINK! noise that reverberates thorough a tri-county area and knocks you clean off your feet. This is actually the closest I’ve ever come to being an athlete. Nobody in my whole school knew who I was, UNTIL dodgeball, and then I was a favorite literal target. Politicians are pretty much playing Dystopian Earth Dodgeball, which is when you don’t even need a physical ball to win. BOINK! from sea to shining sea, until nobody is standing, and everyone hates each other.
So, in conclusion, my opinion is that we are all in quicksand, and it’s sucking us down – lowest common denominator-style. Bit by bit, second by second, until we are at the end of the rope, up to our eyeballs in utter bullshit, unable to have a voice. And if ever the floor has ever been lava, it’s now. As far as the eye can see, Pele is still spewing. We teeter and totter on our little rocks, afraid falling in would amount to our demise, all while The Man makes it impossible to stand. To my spirit, the last several years has felt like I’m in a State Championship Dodgeball Tournament. Chaos. Lines being formed – not to include us, but to destroy us, one BOINK at a time. My “dodging” game is a mess, but the balls keep coming. THEY JUST KEEP COMING.
God bless us all, what a mess. People with the mental and emotional maturation of children are begging for our votes. Children teaching children, again, just like 3rd Grade.
You guys could be reading any of a million things right now. Instead, you are here – voluntarily reading a blog. But blogs fell out of fashion at least ten years ago. Nobody reads blogs anymore, I’m told. So go on, GIT! (I’m just kidding, I love my readers and am extremely grateful for each of you.)
I am not commercially successful as a writer, by any stretch. But I love to play in a wide sky of words, reaching up and plucking the right ones out of the ethers, matching them with other words just waiting to be paired.
I’ll never forget that years ago, an acquaintance called me a “prolific writer.” Lawd, I was so flattering. Prolific! That sounds even better than “she writes real good.” Only it doesn’t mean “she writes real good.” It means I write a lot – some might say too much. It means my OCD manifests on pages and keystrokes. The dictionary says it means “an artist or author who produces many works.” And I produce many. Since the age of sixteen, I have used the written word to try to pound out my destiny, not realizing that I was really just pounding out my feelings. Any time I feel a certain way, I’ve written. And the truth is that I sometimes don’t know how I feel until I process my feelings through writing.
And the #1 reason writers write is to give the mindf*ckery a ticket out of our brains. Sometimes it takes the ticket and we feel resolution. Other times, it takes a seat and laughs at our efforts to rid ourselves of….well, ourselves. And it carries in another heavy box of anxieties, and dumps it at our feet, all while keeping eye contact. Bastard.
I had no idea how people could process their emotions without writing about them, because they tell you how to process them, if you listen. Recently, I stumbled across the journals I kept in high school and in my early 20’s. It made me say BLESS HER HEART (her being the me of my youth.) Pages upon pages of hand-wringing over the state of my dysfunctional family, and how I somehow felt responsible. Which in hindsight was silly. I was a kid, a child. And there are reams and reams of crying out to God (I can now imagine him now whispering, enough already!) to forgive me of my sins. To counteract my wretchedness. To save my sinning heart.
Now, I was a responsible teenager. I had to be. What in tarnation did I beg forgiveness for? I was chaste and virginal, read my Bible daily, felt guilty about how much time I thought about boys, and maybe if I prayed hard enough, I could be more like Jesus, and my world would right itself. The onus was on me to become holy, and I thought I’d never attain holiness, though I tried through weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Only here’s the truth, which would have made me scream “HERETIC!” The onus is not on us. I was already holy. I didn’t have to audition for a part in God’s family. I didn’t have to freak out because I noticed the guy in front of me in algebra had a cute butt and I would ask God (as a bonus) to make him have to sharpen his pencil at the front of the class so I could see it in motion. Now I imagine God chuckling about that. At the time, I imagined him shaking his great head, face in hands, then stroking his beard, agonizing “This kid. This heathen kid. She’s in for a long journey.” (And he would be right about that.)
In the coming days, perhaps I will share some excerpts from one of the literal volumes I wrote in my youth. As an exercise in healing. In an act of offering up to God my words from a different vantage point. God and I can read it and weep, together. Because holy cow. I showed myself exactly ZERO grace in all those years. And that’s too bad. I want to remedy that.
I have a friend who burned her old journals, and I have thought about it. They do have nice fabric covers, as was befitting a journal set in 1984-1990. Fabric covered books were it-on-a-stick in the 80’s. I’m sure they would burn clean. I’m just not ready to obliterate the words of my younger self. Because just as I am teaching her things today, she has a lot to teach me too. I need to read what she had to say so that I can comfort her trauma and validate her fear. She was so afraid.
So, I’ll keep on writing prolifically, if not well. Maybe share some tidbits from those journals – the beggings, the uncertainty, the desperation. In sharing my unpretty feelings, maybe someone else in the throes of uncertainty and desperation see that they too can come out the other side.
The written page (or screen) is a processing plant, and I – in my hard hat – labor at a keyboard, to try to determine how I feel about any given joy or trauma. So oftentimes when I am weary, the words tuck me in for the night. After I’ve written, I can almost hear a prompt to rest now, you’ve done all that you can do. You’ve written about it, and so now it’s been acknowledged.
Because everyone likes to be acknowledged, and if need be, written about prolifically.
We live at the coast, and because we do, we keep an eye on the weather forecast for hurricanes. This time of year, the powers-that-be always call for a “record hurricane season.” Every year. Which has led to trust issues, because LIARS. “This is the big one,” they might as well say. “DOOM. Doom and apox on ye household, because this year will be one storm after the *&^%$ other. PREPARE.” So, I live in a place that is forecast to be in peril every June through November.
Panic, I do well. Preparation, not so much. But the storm that hit us yesterday was not supposed to require either. I heard a weatherman refer to the storm hovering just off the coast as a “blob.” The blob sat there a while, and I forgot it existed at all. It didn’t have an eyewall. It didn’t have a name, for crying out loud. The educated meteorologist said it’s a blob. So, carry on, people.
Only this time, it may as well have had an eyewall, because it came onshore like its name was Brutus or something. Yesterday morning, my husband left for work as usual, a little rain and wind whipping about. But all day long, it built, sounding like Armageddon outside. The house shook in the howling wind, and rain poured in buckets – great watery walls falling sideways.
At one point, I would have sworn a tree narrowly missed out house, so loud were the cracks. I looked into our back yard, and it was flooded in half a foot of water. I saw pictures of the beach – only 10 minutes away – and much of it was underwater. Fish swimming about in the streets. People’s cars awash in water up to the rear-view mirrors. People stranded. And nobody was prepared.
It’s a little reminiscent of growing up in a faith that taught me that we are all in danger of a celestial event that will vaporize us instantly, leaving only our shoes and clothes behind for our heathen friends to find. “You’ll be caught up in the sky, in one moment!” was the refrain. And that was supposed to make us feel better, more stable. Nobody knew when the heck that was coming either.
“It’s just a blob,” we all thought about yesterday’s storm, before it made landfall. Just a messy little stormfront that’s going to roll in and out. Ba da bing, ba da boom!
But that’s not how any of this works.
“It’s just a blob,” they say, as if denying it a name diffuses its strength.
“It’s just a high white cell count,” they say, before they find out its leukemia.
“It’s just a downturn in the economy,” they say, before families lose everything.
“It’s just a season,” they say, about any of a million different scenarios. And they’re right, of course. Everything is a season.
Now, I like to look for the Aesop-style lesson in all trials, because I believe every single one is allowed to vex us so that we can learn. I’m always looking for the lesson in things, even in completely random bullshittery.
So, when the Big Bad Wolf starts a’blowin’, I can theoretically be one step ahead of him. I can ask to say, “Excuse me Sir, but I know you’re not randomly trying to blow my house down. What might you be trying to teach me?” But he can’t hear me, over his blowing, while he is, in fact, trying to blow my house down.
The destructive things in our lives aren’t trying to hear us. They don’t give a rat’s fat ass if we learn an existential lesson or get hit by a falling tree. It’s up to us to us to say, from under the fallen tree, in a crushed and muffled voice, “AHA! I get it! EUREKA!”
We try to batten down our hatches, but hatches are janky things banging about in the wind. “Blobs” are approaching from every direction. I wish Jesus would appear in the sky and beam me up, but only sheets of wild rain appear, coming down sideways with force. They tell us to prepare for things that will never happen, and not to worry about the things that take us out. At the end of the day, meteorologists are just making their best guess, and preachers are too.
There is no preparing. There is watching storms gather strength. There is ultimately no “doom,” because doom suggests finality. And it doesn’t get the last word over our divinity, not ever.
I guess that maybe that’s my lesson from the Blob that rolled onshore. Don’t trust the sources who are supposed to know things. Trust yourself to have the strength to get through their worst-case scenarios. Strength to roll with it, whatever “it” is.
Sometimes when I pray, I’m not even sure what to pray for. But when God brings someone to my mind, that’s the impetus to pray for them. A common misconception about reconstructing your faith is that prayer ceases. Of course, I can only speak for myself.
I don’t mean giving God “instructions” on how to help someone, which I used to call “praying with specificity.” I replaced elaborate prayers with simple trust in God, because the most eloquent prayers are “help help help” and “thank you thank you thank you” (as my favorite author Anne Lamott opines.)
I ask and then I try to listen. Because there is no wrong way to pray, and prayer is designed to be communication from one sentient being to a supreme being, no holds barred.
Once I saw a movie that recommended having a “War Room” – a physical place to go to pray where the reception is clearest to God and where mighty battles are fought in the heavenlies, waiting for our next words to change the outcome in supernatural realms.
So of course I decorated my closet with scripture and crosses aplenty. But all I managed to do was feel guilty that I wasn’t praying more (or right?) every damn time I had to grab a pair of shoes out of the closet.
Was I praying enough? What if I don’t and when I get to Heaven, God informs me that he really wanted to do this magnificent thing, but I was two beggings short of getting the outcome I desired.
See, that puts the onus on me. And the onus is not on me – it is on Love.
I don’t make a big show for myself now, prostrate in my literal prayer “closet,” striving, striving, striving to be the person “God created me to be.” Building a tower of Babylon with my puny, pleading words (which are beautiful to him, by the way, but his love is not dependent upon them.)
No. I mean that if you come to my mind during the course of my day, I am simply asking God to love on you in a way that’s tangible. God loves us through one another. Through nature, laughter, and hugs from friends.
If you have a need or a heartbreak, I focus my intention on your hurt as best I can and believe in advance that he is walking alongside you, no matter what event is anguishing you. Being a very visual person, I picture you in a cloud of love, total acceptance, resolution, and peace. I can’t describe it any better than that, but trust me, it’s better than that.
And I ask him to increase your awareness of him in and around us. Because he is always at work in and around us, even when we aren’t begging for his favor. I pray he uses me in any capacity he sees fit to convey his great love.
This isn’t the funniest season of my life, that’s for sure. So my writing hasn’t been the comedy-filled yukk-fest I’d hoped it would be. It’s been absolute clown shoes for a while now, but not in a mirth-making way.
When I decided to start this blog, instead of totally rehabbing my old blog, I did it for reasons that might seem obscure to some. The truth is that I wanted to write more humor; humor about everyday life that perhaps the 2014 version of myself might find in poor taste. I’m kind of into poor taste right now, to be honest.
I wanted to write about being a follower of Christ from here, not from there. I have been “there” most of my entire life, but in this new place, there is curiosity. Questioning. Observing. Laughing. And most of all the thing I’d tried to write about for twenty years but didn’t fully grasp: Grace.
Especially grace toward myself, can I get an AMEN?
“Wouldn’t it be easier to switch up thebeggarsbakery.com, where you have nearly 2,000 followers?” said my husband, who is right-brained and makes actual sense. It can be frustrating to explain total nonsense to a sensical person, because they have logic on their side, and all I have is a handful of glitter and some unrealistic expectations.
“I have new things to say,” said I.
“I know. You’ve just worked so hard to gain your following.”
“And I won’t ‘build my career?” I say. We laugh, because I am not career-driven. I have no competitive nature, absolutely no “drive” or “hustle.” No calling higher than sharing my mind and welcoming the sharings of others’. It’s a crappy career path, but a fulfilling endeavor.
When I was a kid, longing to be a proper writer, I believed I would make a living by writing, which is totes hilar, as my kids used to say. My 10th grade Journalism teacher, Ms. Flowers, wrote in my yearbook, “See you on the Johnny Carson Show one day!”
What an amazing compliment! I hugged the words of that prophesy close to my chest, choking the life into it. I carried it everywhere I went and still do.
Now I know that reference is lost on several generations, but if you are Gen X, that is prime adulation. That’s the pièce de résistance of success. Only the most amazing writers were interviewed by Johnny Carson. Stephen King! Danielle Steel! JUDY BLUME!
As compliment like that from a Journalism teacher? That’s like saying, ‘You’ll win the writing Olympics, Kid!’
Spoiler alert: I did not win the Writing Olympics, because that’s not a thing.
When in my 20’s, I wrote for a small, local paper, crafting community news pieces for 5 cents per word. Do you know how many 5-cent words you must write to put your kid through dance class as a single mom? Or even spring for a few Happy Meals? Many. SO many words.
I then wrote community news for the newspaper in my little city. I was paid the stately sum of $12.50 an hour. This – the pinnacle of my earning – ensured that I made exactly enough every month to contribute one-third of the mortgage payment each month.”
But hold up, y’all. Because THEN, a major magazine (it was 2016, magazines were still a thing; stay with me here) happened across a Beggar’s Bakery blog post I’d written about addiction, and asked if they could pick it up for their issue next month?”
HOLY SHITBALLS, BATMAN! Yes of COURSE you can! Send over the contract! Hurry up before you change your mind, In Recovery Magazine!
The contract was for zero dollars, ya’ll.
But think of the exposure! That’s what they told me. The EXPOSURE!
Now, exposure means you’ll be compensated for your talent, just not today. It means, we see you, Boo….but maybe the next publisher will see you and pay you!But probably not, to be honest, you’ll be a pauper if you try to survive on writing. The odds aren’t really in your favor. But thanks for the free work!
I self-published a couple of little books after that, which ended up costing me hundreds of dollars and making me none. I poured my soul into the first book, my little evangelical soul. I gave countless copies away.
I spoke on recovery in front of large groups of people, which I hated. I know they said the Lord wants me to “stretch” and “grow,” and that public speaking was another way to share the gospel, but I did it with bile rising in my throat and a hankering for a Xanax to get through speaking on recovery.
I now know that God “growing” me by torture is not his bag. But when giving my testimony, I could never wing it. I carefully wrote out every word and read it with all the passion of a kid reading a term paper about state capitals. Not because I wasn’t passionate about it, but because I’m better at bleeding my words than reading my words. Please look away, people. The vulnerability is making me so naked up here.
But see, I’m a prolific writer, if not a successful one. Doesn’t that sound impressive? PROLIFIC. But “prolific” really just means that I write A LOT. Obsessive-compulsively, some might say. Stephen King is a prolific writer. But so is the guy off his meds driven to write a hundred-page manifesto because he is on a mission. “Driven” can mean lots of things!
To me, it means that if I don’t find a home for my thoughts outside of my brain, they’ll stage a coup, and I will be prolifically in a fetal position forever and ever, amen. Since I could hold a crayon, the page has done nicely. It rolls out like a red carpet, welcomes my words, and rehomes the scary ones.
So anyway, thanks for reading my work. Because it affords me connection – with you guys and with myself – and with whatever sanity I have left. Life got heavier with the diagnosis of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia in June. I haven’t really yukk-yukked it up in my blog posts lately. But don’t worry, I majored in Writing for Free, but I minored in Gallows Humor. So, I’ll get there.
In a way, pain and cancer and struggle and anxiety are all surmountable, because a kind teacher told my 16-year-old self that she’d be on Johnny Carson one day. Ms. Flowers would want me to write honest and raw. Prolifically. Imagine that. Kind words have power.
In conclusion, life has been humbling. Would you agree? Humbling and not at all what the travel guide promised. But still full of surprises, blessings, and BS.
I hope your dreams land you at the pinnacle of your happiness, hustle be damned. There are more ways than one to “make a living.”
A couple of months ago, when I was young and full of hope, I mentioned that I was going to try to write a little something here every day. Yesterday, I did not, because I used most of my energy decorating for my daughter’s family birthday party. I really felt bad about myself for not writing. Not because it’s writing – but because it is a thing I fizzled out on.
I fizzle out on a lot of things, but it turns out that today – after blowing up a scadzillion balloons – all my “hot air” has not all been relegated to party festivities. So even though I didn’t write yesterday, here is today’s post.
I am very good at two endeavors: Starting things and losing interest in things. Now you’d think a substantial bit of time would have to be passed between those two, but not for me. I can lose interest almost instantly. Not people, mind you. People I love for life. But just about everything else? MEH.
I won’t half-ass the starting of things, of course. I go in whole hog, as we say here in the South. For example, when I took up yoga, I swore I would make it a consistent practice. Two weeks later, I subluxed a hip trying to do a downward dog and had to quit. And I can’t really blame the injury, I was already getting bored.
I have done this with crafts, business ideas, dieting, religion. Unrealistically saying to The Thing, “you better fix my whole damn life.” And out of ignorance or denial – I’m not sure which – I will low-key believe that ridiculous shit.
The problem is that I come at The Thing with both barrels blazing, shooting until I’m out of ammo, click click click that trigger anyway, until I collapse on the floor and tell myself, you can’t even shoot right. Lather, rinse, repeat with every hobby, jobby, or political lobby, until it holds absolutely no interest to me.
The Thing will be the antidote to life. The Thing is going to be so fulfilling, I will forget that I’m neurotic and flaky and stand triumphant for once on the monument to my completed task! The Thing is going to save/help/make me worth the air I breathe.
Holy shit. I am expecting The Thing to dole out my worthiness. That’s too big a job for yoga. That’s too big a job for me. It’s too big a job for anyone but God.
Perhaps, for example, The Thing is not writing; it’s the joy and pain expressed in the writing. It’s the purging, sharing, heartache and laughter.
The Kingdom of God lives within us. We cannot find it anywhere else. We cannot summon it. We cannot find it IN anything else. It can’t be imported, exported, structured, organized, or unfulfilled. It exists in energy so divine; the glorified hustle has to take a seat.
Perhaps “going inward” is the only consistent practice we require to find The Thing. And if the venue of my spirit is good enough to house God, I guess it’s good enough for me…wild and unfocused as it may be!
It has easily been the longest summer in my entire life. Punctuated by triggers and glimmers and rolling thunder, it rains almost every afternoon. The day will be sunshiny (albeit, hot!) and from a great distance, you will hear the thunder.
At first, you wonder if the noise was a motorcycle or a garbage truck in the neighborhood over. But if you listen closely, there is the thunder cadence – a low vibration awakened, that you feel in your chest before your ears can confirm its source. And then the building growl roiling over the clouds: Yep, that’s thunder. Again. Here we go.
Nobody wants thunder at the beach. Thunder is a rude affront to the vacationers. It means get out of the pool, pack up your sand buckets. Might as well eat lunch out; the beach requires flexibility. But everyone has the same idea, so every restaurant is crowded and has an annoying wait. The kids are whiny, there’s sand in unmentionable places, you just want your ass in a beach chair, your kids in the pool and out of your hair, and BY DAMN you’re going to enjoy this experience in spite of the thunder and rain. All of this started with a little thunder.
When I received the diagnosis of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia on June 13, when the summer was still fat with promise and completely benign. A lot of people freshly diagnosed with cancer describe the new diagnosis as a kind of hurried chaos. “For a while, it was a blur,” is a common sentiment.
But for me, it has not been a blur. It has been a sloth racing a snail and losing. It has been much pacing through my house, wandering aimlessly. It has been too much time on my hands, angry outbursts, crying seshes, and doomscrolling. I am wishing time away, and then chastising myself for wishing time away.
Because I could have 20 years with this cancer, although that’s the exception. I could also have five. Talking openly about the possibilities is therapeutic for me but makes everyone else uncomfortable. I’m not trying to make anyone else uncomfortable, but I’m trying to accept that we all have an expiration date, and if nothing else gets me first, this cancer will. That’s not fatalistic. That’s realistic. Cancer is not the only chronic health issue I deal with, but it’s a doozy.
Nobody wants thunder at the beach. But every day it comes – the realization- a rude affront to all the plans I’ve made for my life. The doctor’s visits mean crowded rooms where people wait, annoyed. I really just want my ass in a beach chair. Summertime means a season of heat and rain, that’s just the nature of the season.
And it occurs to me today that its exactly what depression feels like. I’ll be swimming with my floaties on under clear skies, when I will feel the rumble in my chest. At first, its mostly vibration, but by the time it’s all said and done, there are torrential tears and terrifying cracks of doom. They show up every day, like clockwork, suffocating me with humidity, impossible to ignore.
So, I write. And that helps. I talk to people I love and to the GTOAT (Greatest Therapist of All Time,) and that helps too. I listen to music loud enough to drown out the claps of thunder, and throw paint on a canvas, or fitfully meditate. The practice doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be practiced. But Jesus help me.
Please help me with the episodic depression that pops my floaties and sucks me under as soon as I hear thunder. Expect it to visit at least once a day. I can hide like a frightened animal in a storm or do a little rain dance; that’s entirely up to me – triggers, glimmers, and rolling thunder – all. Help me to accept that it’s just the nature of the season, and to keep my joy, all while realizing yep, that’s thunderagain.Here we go…
If we were close once, I still think about you. I want you to know I think about you with reverence, no matter what life threw at us to sever our tie. The things you told me – profound and trivial – still come to my mind as random thoughts are apt to do, and my face breaks out in a little state of happy. Please forgive me if I’ve hurt you in any way. I was only learning, as you were.
If we bore and raised our babies together, we were blessed. We did the “Mom Circuit’ together – lazy days of trips to Gymboree, the park, McDonald’s ball pits, endless breastfeeding sessions and diaper changes, co-rejoicing with one another over the milestones our babies reached, because they were our milestones too. That gave me an identity; it gave us an identity, together.
Perhaps we were friends as teenagers, furiously cutting out pictures in old magazines and making collages of our “futures.” We would turn page after page of handsome men we’d marry, fancy cars we’d drive, and families we would raise perfectly. We made vision boards before there were vision boards, and many a glue stick lost its life in our hands in the name of naiveite.
If we made friends as young adults, you were dear to me at a chaotic time. I pulled back from you because I was ashamed of my alcoholism. If you were with me when I came out the other side (24 years ago)? Your friendship is priceless. Not all of the people I love stuck around in my recovery.
If over the years, we laughed until we peed, I feel a poignant pang in my soul when I remember our laughter, even still. (Bonus points for shooting beverages out of our noses.) Yes, if we laughed together, you are tethered to my heart eternally.
Friend, just so you know – nothing that cemented our relationship ceased to exist just because time marched away from us. The prayers we held hands and petitioned to God over? Nothing went to waste.
God didn’t follow our instructions in the least, of course. Disregarded most of our magazine plans and perfect-mommy dreams. Nothing turned out like we thought it would (thank God, but also dammit) No matter. All the weaving became who we are: The smiles, the jokes, the heartache, the lessons we painfully teach each other and ourselves. The music we share, the memes we post.
All of it.
As as we reached middle age, friendships took on new importance. No longer were they relationships to be sandwiched in between the chaos of parenting and busy marriages, but tantamount to every aspect of our lives, our very selves. Friends become family at this stage. We finally know who we are, and that helps us bring our best selves into our fold. And when we’re our worst? You help me stay grounded. It’s so obvious now that we are – cliché notwithstanding – on a journey for real. As the kids say, for real for real. Nobody warns you that in mid-life, you get weepy and sentimental.
Maybe life got away from us, but I remember our bond. I wish you all the best, Old Friend.
I had horrible night sweats last night. Nothing like waking up pained and feeling like you wet the whole bed (I did not, just sweat.) So, I woke up to change my PJs and my sheets and couldn’t manage to go back to sleep. That was the 2-4 a.m. hustle, even before the sun was up.
It reminded me of getting up with my babies when they were little. I would change their diapers and onesies and change their sheets if they had leaked a little. I would calm them with kind, soft words, and cradle them to my breasts for a little feeding. Whatever discomfort they had was soothed. Whatever tiny human need they had was met. Thirst, hunger, general fussiness – all of it within my ability to “fix.”
Then I remember endless nights when they had colic, and I was sleep-deprived and unable to make them feel better instantly. And on those nights, walking the floor, jiggling a fussy baby, I sometimes cried too, right along with them. Little did I know I would cry right along with them all their lives, when colic was replaced by the struggles of growing up.
I didn’t consider that they would develop needs I was helpless to aid in the future, and I certainly didn’t think about my own needs; the ones I would also be unable to manage. I just lived right there in the moment. I’ve been trying to get back to that mindset ever since.
It makes me want to cry now that I cannot soothe myself on mornings like this. I can’t fix leukemia.
I can change my sheets and tell myself kind, soft words, and cradle myself in a hug, even as I am drenched with sweat. I cannot seem to get enough rest, even though I may still have ten or twenty years – CLL is “the leukemia you want to have, if you have to have leukemia.”
But here’s the thing…I do not want to have it at all, please and thank you. It’s kind of the shitty icing on a shitty cake, as I was already battling a myriad of chronic conditions. I cannot imagine what things will be like as this thing progresses over the years. Ten to twenty years of endless night sweats and crippling fatigue? Gee. Thanks, I guess? I’m such a grateful person, in general. So, this journey has got me in all of my feels. Can gratitude and frustration exist at the same time? Lord yes, friend.
In the meantime, I will try to keep my PJs dry and my attitude from tanking, because on days like this, I just want to fahgettaboutit. But I cannot just fahgettaboutit, because I have people who love me, dammit. They still depend on me for less sophomoric troubles. And I have such a wonderful circle of support; people who soothe me like a colicky baby when I want to give up. They know they can’t “fix” it, and I appreciate their trying anyway.
I know this piece would leave one to believe I’m a bitcher and a moaner. But see, I’m also a fighter, even as I cannot feel rested, and I’m flummoxed by the unknown. So, like a one-year-old learning to walk, I put one unsteady foot in front of the other, garnering self-praise when I teeter without falling, and crying when I do fall.
And in this 2-4 a.m. hustle, I will soothe myself and accept the soothing from others, and hopefully grow in the interim, just like a child, y’all. Because just like our children did under our watch, we are all still growing up. And we all live right in the moment, whether we like it or not.
Get offended by poverty. Get offended by kids who cannot afford school lunch. Get offended by sick people who cannot afford medical care. I highly recommend following The New Evangelicals.
By: JANA GREENE
I am embarrassed for Christians, and I AM one. My precious faith has been hijacked by extremists and I am none too happy. Between the Trumpers and this nonsense, it’s barely recognizable as adherents who feed the poor, help the helpless, and minister GOOD NEWS for ALL. Stop it. Please just stop it. Please study up on cultures that are NOT your own.
The Olympics did not originate under Christianity. Every single thing on the planet is not based in Christianity. I can’t believe I have to say this, but every single thing from another culture is not demonic and against your beliefs. Stop with the persecution complex already, holy cow (cows are sacred in India, but it’s just an expression, not a jab at your faith. See how easy it is to not “holy-ize” everything?)
The Olympics is an event that began in Ancient Greece. The Greeks had their own mythology, which is what is portrayed in celebration of the games, which also originated in Greece. What you see as a drag show, the ancient Greeks saw as theater. What you see as… you know what? Nevermind. Closed minds don’t hear a thing. And that makes me sad for us all.
A conversation between Fundamentalist Me and New Me:
FUNDIE ME: “Lord, if I ever stray from your will, please just take me home before I disappoint you.”
NEW ME: “Wow. That’s a little dramatic. You are asking God to let you die if you ever start asking questions of a spiritual nature? Isn’t that basically crossing all the “t”s and “i”s, so in case you ever DO stray you can get God on a technicality?”
“No. He’s a good, good father. I will walk each day by faith each day. Because Oh! how he loves me so...”
“He is. And he does love you so. But that prayer is literally the definition of ‘living by the letter of the law. I remember how much you love music. You’ll appreciate it even more in the future. Did you know, all music is worship, by virtue of being a creation of the Universe? Led Zepplin, Indigo Girls….”
“Deceived. Let’s change the subject. This country is going down the tubes! Jesus must be ready to return! Turn before you burn!”
“But ‘it is finished,’ I thought. “To me, that means that it’s a finished work.”
“Speaking of work, this nation was built on…”
“Yeah, in the future, you don’t support blind nationalism.”
“I know that’s not true, because God would have taken me home already if I stopped supporting the nationalist movement. I love my country!”
“Sweet girl, it won’t be the same country by the time you get here, trust me. Better in some ways and so much worse in others. You will care about social justice…”
“Gosh dang! NO.”
“And the death-wish-before-doubt prayer that God will take you right off this earth before he’d let you become liberal….er, um, I mean unholy fallen daughter of the Highest King. You’ll see how whack that is.”
“We are all born unholy. Did you just say ‘whack?’”
“We are all already holy. We are all redeemed. We are all saved. All means all.”
“WELL, I NEVER!”
“Actually, you do. You will ‘never.’ And your heart will be full, because you have no other motive than love. You’ll go to Pride rallies and pass out Free Mom Hugs…”
“No. There’s no way. You can love them without approving of their lifestyles.”
“… And the people there will sometimes dissolve into your arms and sob, because their own parents reject them just on the basis of their sexuality.”
“Well, they shouldn’t. BUT you’re playing fast and loose with ‘grace’ to ‘condone’ all that.”
“What’s to condone? As turns out, that’s not what loving unconditionally is supposed to look like; having ‘buts‘.”
“I mean, love the sinner, hate the sin. You keep saying ‘love.’ Love is discipline. So that’s not what God meant.”
“Isn’t it? Once I filtered the BS out that I feel like Jesus wouldn’t approve of, it made things so clear.”
“Did you just say ‘BS’?”
“Yes. And I say a lot of other potty words too. After repressed for so long. I now know that cussing is not what God meant about keeping our language and hearts pure. He meant don’t use your words – even scripture – as a weapon towards others. Using language for cruelty, exclusion…”
“You don’t say the ‘F word,’ Lord, please say ‘no.”
“Oh yes, you’re quite fond of that word. And the funny thing is, so are many of your ex-evangelical girlfriends who never swore because a Proverbs 31 woman wouldn’t say naughty words, and that was the standard for the godly faith of a woman.”
*Plugs ears* “LALALALALA…”
“Oh, you will learn that Eastern religions have a lot of truth. You’ll do yoga on occasion, and…”
“NOT YOGA!”
“Listen. It’s perfectly effin’ okay.”
“You went and said the ‘F’ word.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“God corrects…”
“Then let God correct, as he is far more persuasive and compassionate than we could ever be. Just love one another. He wasn’t just whistling Dixie when he said, ‘love is the greatest of these.”
“It can’t be that simple. You cannot go around willy-nilly approving of people the way they ARE, when they should…’
“Yeah, you’ll learn not to ‘should’ all over other people. And it IS that simple.”
“Well, that’s not ‘love.’ The BIBLE CLEARLY SAYS -“
“Yeah, about that…once you study Christ without 2,000 years of human dogma considered, you’ll learn the Bible ain’t too clear, period.”
“Lord, why am I still living? Oh the humanity!”
“Calm down, you’re going to love God more than ever when all is said and done. Not the concept of God you grew up with, though.”
“Well, I KNOW God, and…”
“You know the absent or spiteful god. God is incredible. So let him out of the box, sister girlfriend.”
“That’s scary. That’s gotta be the devil talking.”
“Yeah, that’s a whole other subject for another time. In the future, Fundie Jana, I’m going to love you, too. Because you strived so hard for a God to accept you, when your very existence proves that acceptance.”
“That’s New-Agey. Please repent. Before it’s too late.”
“I’m extending grace to you. The grace that you have deserved all along, but never claimed.”
“That’s prideful. We don’t ‘deserve’ anything.”
“And you’ll see the bigger picture and realize every single belief you practiced was necessary for you to be free in the end. And you will be free.”
“That doesn’t sound right.” *Wrings hands*
“You’re so afraid just to be. Please believe God is not trying to get you on a technicality.”
“But the ‘human heart is deceitful….”
“God wouldn’t have place a curious mind if you weren’t allowed to doubt and delve.”
“I’m so worried I’m going to lose the love of God if I open my mind.”
“Yes, that’s what kept you sick and stuck for a long time.Reconstructed You will be safe. You will be strong. It is truly for freedom that you have been set free.I love you just the way you are.”
I do my best spiritual work from on the ground, apparently.
I can remember laying on my mat Kindergarten at naptimes at school, a skinny little girl laying curled in a ball, watching all my classmates fall asleep like falling asleep is just a normal thing people do or something.
From birth, my brain never shut up, and my home life was dysfunctional to the point of chaos. So, I would lay with my budding anxious neurosis on the vinal mat, unable to sleep; afraid to close my eyes (and afraid not to.) No sleep, only unease.
My teacher, Mrs. Carter would stand over me and holler in front of the whole class, “CLOSE YOUR EYES, JANA!” I can remember squeezing them together and doing a rudimentary version of praying. It was a crude and simple exchange with the God of my Vacation Bible School stories. Even as a child, I seemed to know instinctively that there is more help available from the Divine than we ask for or expect.
“I can’t calm my mind,” I would have said to the adults in my life, had I the language to ask for what I needed. But I didn’t. Little girls with big, grown-up worries don’t know how to self-soothe, because OF COURSE they don’t; and they surely don’t know how to articulate anxiety or ask for help calming their minds.
That’s where I remember doing my first earnest prayers – on the kindergarten mat – asking of Jesus who already lives in my heart to be seen and soothed, comforted and feel less alone.
Twenty-seven years later, I found myself on the bathroom floor of my house, battling an alcohol addiction, wishing to die. On January 3, 2001, I came to the end of myself on that floor. Wretching, sick, alone, and desperate. From flat on the tiled floor, my fist in the air, eyes tinged in red, and skin yellowing, yelling at God and no one in particular, I came to the end of myself.
It reminded me of the biblical story of Jacob “going to the mat” with God in an all-night WrestleMania event. “I’m not going to take this laying down!” Jacob was thinking. But he ended up exhausted and limping, which is how most of us end up in that mindset, if we are not careful.
I had prayed many, many times before for sobriety, but there was a different outcome on that day. A peace descended on me like a dove. In my sickness and desperation, I was met on the floor by a God undeterred from my anxiety. One minute at a time, and then one hour, then one day, week, month, year… that was 23 years ago. A lifetime ago.
“I CAN’T CALM MY MIND” I simply told him. And here’s the thing: I know the same Spirit who curled up with me on my kindergarten nap mat is the same Spirit who met me in the bathroom, me clinging to the toilet, him not at all afraid to get the hem of his garment dirty on my behalf.
I am now learning to meditate now, and it’s a challenge. My husband, who never seems to tire of my endless new “hobbies” took me to get a nice, double-padded yoga mat. I’ve been on quite the little awakening for several years now and am learning so much. I absolutely love incorporating the tools I’m learning into my faith life, which is not a conflict with the holiness of God at all, no matter what Debbie at the Pentecostal church says. (I plan to write at length about what I’m learning, if you’d like to journey with me.)
The first group meditation session I went to, I dutifully spread out my mat amongst the hippies and lovers and seekers at the group event, excited to learn this new coping mechanism. The atmosphere was thick with love and cleansing. Yet can you guess what the prevailing thought was upon getting situated?
I CAN’T CALM MY MIND.
“Okay,” I felt Spirit say, over the Native American flute music and swirling clouds of burning sage (that former evangelical ‘me’ would be scandalized by.) “I am in you and with you and around you.”
If you feel you are on the “floor” in some regard to your life, I just want to remind you that it’s a nice, stable surface from which to start. You are simply grounding, darlings. The floor is a very vulnerable place to be, but be vulnerable we must, if we are to grow. We glorify striving, when simply being is enough.
So just ‘be’ today, friends.
Just be, Groundlings. And don’t forget to breathe. And ask the Universe to make you ever more aware of his presence. If we increase our awareness of this supernatural experience, we begin to see God everywhere – in every ONE.
In you, too! Ready to see, soothe, and comfort you – meeting you on hallowed ground.
WRITING PROMPT: “Write about the first time you fell in love.”
– Anne Lamott, (A Writing Room)
By: JANA GREENE
I have a tendency to fall in love instantly. I fell head over heels in love with my husband nearly 18 years ago, but I’ve made lifelong friends that I’ve loved since day one. Dogs, cats, people I mentor – doesn’t matter. If my soul recognizes you, I can love you genuinely right away. I’ve hated that about myself most of my life (it’s illogical, according to this cold, hard world,) but I’m at such peace with it now. If people can hate without even getting to know a person, I can certainly love right out of the gate.
The fist time it happened was in 1983.
His name was Trace, and I met him at the skating rink. I still cannot hear Loverboy’s “Take me to the Top” without recalling the scent of Giorgio for Men and the whisp-whisp-whisp of his parachute pants as he whooshed by me in an eternally moving loop on his “peanut butters.”
Peanut butters – for those not in the know – are what we called those iconic brown rental skates at the rink – the ones that you tried not to think about the foot that was there before yours. Only the very popular, rich kids brought their own skates.
I was born with a painful and injurious connective tissue condition. When I was a kid, my family called it “clumsiness,” but it was actually many of my joints subluxing and dislocating constantly. I remember my ankles were janky that day, so I skated in a slow, steady loop, acting casual. Each time he’d pass me, he would wink at me over his shoulder. I guess because it was the early-eighties and we flirted like we were in a John Hughes film (what other template could we have used? Mr. Hughes defined our generation!)
It turned out, Trace was in the grade about me at the middle school. I was in seventh, he in eighth, and going to high school the following year. An almost-high-school boy liked me! That’s better than having custom roller skates!
And so began my first foray into “love.” And it was love, to some degree. I thought of nothing else but him. That evening, he asked me if I wanted to skate to the couples only skate. Actually, I think I was sitting on a bench festooned with neon colored patterns that glowed in the dark. When they cut the lights down, Journey’s “Open Arms” called us to the floor. I skated backwards and he forwards, but I saw nothing but his eyes. They were yellow-green, like a cat’s – but maybe those of a friendly cat. His hair was long, curly, and very blonde, like Sebastian Bach of the band “Skid Row.” And I was there for it. We became girlfriend/boyfriend that day and would be together off-and-on for the next couple of years – which is an eternity when you’re a teenager.
“I want to marry you,” he’d say, “and have lots of babies.” And I believed that’s what he wanted because his home was so unstable. We both wanted an opportunity to do better. Looking back, it’s a gigantic red flag, but my passionate 14 year old heart would not hear of anything less that marriage and babies. Oh the naivety!
Trace was wounded, in a way. And I worried about him constantly, which is another good indicator that this was different. He was sadness masquerading as a cowboy, in his hat and a pair of shit-kickers. I was sad too, but his love made me warm, and warm sadness is better than the regular kind, because any teenage couple worth their salt is plodding through angst. Me and you against the WORLD, right?
So I fell in love for the first time, with a boy from a broken home who called me his “angel,” and broke up with me because I was so afraid that he was going to expect me to do things after Prom that I canceled it altogether. I was terrified of intimacy; I simply was not ready. And he – being 17 – had “needs” that my Bible-toting, scripture-quoting, uber “good girl” self was not willing to facilitate. (Ugh. Could she not loosen up just a little?)
We had all the wonderful “firsts.” First couple’s skate. First hickey (“I burned my neck with the curling iron, Mom!”) First cheap but thoughtful necklace that turned my skin green. First experience with obsessing over a boy. First concept that I was adored by someone, and I was happy to adore in return. Of course, Trace was my first break-up too. I think break-ups teach us just as much about ourselves as relationships do. Maybe more.
Eventually it fell apart because – like every good John Hughes movie – there was drama. He had a rough childhood, and things were bad at my home too. Trauma-bonding does not make for the best relationship foundation. I moved away from Texas, and I have no idea what became of him. But I hope he is okay, and thriving somewhere with some special lady who is his “angel.”
First loves are practice; an art, not a science. We had all the standard-issue problems that teen couples do. But we also had stolen kisses behind the bleachers, sweet, corny love letters, and phone calls that ended with, “No, YOU hang up first…” “NO, you hang up first.’ “No, YOU” ad-nauseum so we could hear each other fall asleep.
He was such a sweet, troubled soul, and in truth – so was I. But all first loves should be equal parts magic and tragic, I think. It’s our first foray into accepting another human being for who they are, parachute pants, Peanut Butters, and all.
The year of our Lord 2023 can go suck eggs. It can suck eggs, eat my shorts, lick rust, and eat glass. I’m not one for oversimplifying (I can’t stand it when people say “the whole YEAR sucked!” because I’ve learned that the same year that held loss and grief also has it’s moments too. I can’t recall many right now, but they definitely happened. Small victories like medical lab results marginally improving, family birthday parties, lunch with friends.
Well, was it a bad year? It either was or it wasn’t, right?
At the beginning of 2023, one of my acquaintances posted to Facebook this ALL CAPS EXCITEMENT BOMB, and for good reason. “PRAISE GOD, YA’LL! HE IS SOOOO GOOD! IT WASN’T CANCER!” They had a cancer scare, and it turned out to be ‘nothing.’ So I rejoiced alongside my friend, with the cringe-comment, “WOOHOOO! GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME!” Hey, I was an evangelical a long time. The catchphrases die hard.
The very next day, I received news that a friend who was like a sister to me was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. She was given months to live. What the actual HELL, God? God did NOT seem so good anymore, in that moment – less than 24 hours after celebrating my acquaintances’ good news.
I was angry, and it set the tone for the whole year. I wanted to retract my praise for my FB friend’s diagnosis – not because I wasn’t thankful that they’d be okay, but because God knew devastating news was coming and he let me rant about how ‘good’ he is! SO good at healing, knowing good and damn well he was going to take my sisterfriend from us.
I don’t know about you, but I like absolutes – something this world is stingy with.
God is good, or he’s not.
Either “it is finished” by Jesus, or we are all still waiting in spiritual limbo.
Either God heals or he doesn’t.
A funny thing happened on Bitterness Road though. Our close friend group rallied around our sick friend. She herself had beautiful spiritual revelations in the last months of her life. REALLY profound, amazing realizations. We – the ladies in our tribe – learned more about facing death with grace and dignity than we had never known. She too was angry for a time, because of COURSE she was!
But in her terrible struggle, she also introduced us all to a peace that truly passes understanding; a peace not sullied by all the temporal shit we contend with every day. She was going home, and she showed us all how to do it with grace.
I still say 2023 was awful, as a whole. But there were so many glimmers. The high points didn’t look like winning the lottery, or losing weight, or getting a promotion, or any of the other things we think of as manifestations of God’s love for us (that we label as “success.”)
Manifestations of God’s love show up in the grace of going through the very worst life has to offer. And I guess I’d prefer that to a holy love that only manifests as “good” things. That’s a love entirely too shallow.
Today, I choose to believe the lovingness of God far surpasses the crappiness of life.
And on days (years?) when I struggle with thinking of God as pure love, I choose to believe God is only, simply love – no fillers or by-products. We can lean into that love. We MUST lean into it.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, because my spirit knows it to be true. So maybe don’t lick rust, 2023 – you taught me a lot. But I welcome 2024 with the expectation that God is good, and the assurance that when life isn’t, he still is. Blessed be, Friends.
Maybe my first blog – my first child in many ways – was preparing me to write more transparently (and ergo, more dangerously.) It would only make sense. I had an agenda with my first blog, “thebeggarsbakery.com,” without meaning to. The goal – even as it was unspoken to myself – was to be a grown-up “Writer” with a capital “w.” I wanted to carry answers to the big questions confidently, armed only with a background of religiosity and unrealistic expectations. I thought maybe I could even have one of those thingies that everyone else found so attainable, but I have never accomplished – an actual career!
What’s it like to have one of THOSE? I’ve had many jobs throughout the years, but none that brought me fulfillment or made me financially successful. I’ve wanted to write for a living since I could hold a crayon, but although I’ve been published in a national magazine (once), I still just write for therapy and funzies. Maybe that will change one day, but now I write from a place of peace, if not resignation. I’m okay with the fact that I may write for an audience of 1,900 (the total readership of my flagship blog after 11 years,) or 50 acquaintances, or a dozen close friends, or just the two – myself, and my endlessly supportive husband (who has read every word I’ve written since August of 2006, and even some archival stuff.) All of these options are okay with me. I don’t need to get it right, I just need to get this moving.
I MUST write like I must breathe (ugh, how dramatic! But it’s breathwork to me. I’ve recently started attending a writing workshop by my favorite author, Anne Lamott, and every little word she writes is magic because she shares her whole heart, not just the shiny pieces. What a time to start a new blog, I thought. I’ve shared a lot of shiny pieces, but I’m ready to share the rest of it.
So, welcome to my headspace. But more succinctly, welcome to my heart-space. I write in spite of the fact that I still don’t have quick answers to the big questions. My words will come at you, stream-of-consciousness-style. Although I am under no obligation to make sense to you, I’ll give it my level best!
My goal is to write a bit each day; that is my challenge to myself. I aim to “write clear and hard about what hurts,” as Ernest Hemmingway opined. Doesn’t matter about what.
Writing hard and clear about what matters is all I can asplire to. I’ve done myself a disservice in the past by writing about only what is hard and what is clear, since so much of this journey is neither (and/or both.)
And it’s all God’s fault. The Creator of the Cosmos wouldn’t stay in the little box-on-wheels the church gifted me, even though I implored him to keep his arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. You know, for his own safety and mine. He wouldn’t, and so I stuck a finger out the window, just to feel the wind, and now I’m ruined for stale spiritual air heretofore.
Maybe it’s all just practice, ya’ll. Maybe practice is where it’s at anyway. The best things in life are not the things we collect, but what we put into practice in our hearts. Day in, day out, practicing radical love – even when it looks sloppy and we feel unhinged.
So pull up a chair and come alongside me. There will be pearls of wisdom, and absolute drivel, because my headspace is full of both (and more!) Engage with me – I want to know what makes you tick, Dear Reader.
Let’s get this party started, with open minds and hearts. Blessed be, friends. ❤
Words by Jana Greene 