But Think of the EXPOSURE! (Starting a new blog; giving The Hustle the boot)

By: JANA GREENE

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.”

Blessed be friends.

August 29, 2024 0

Eggshells, Generational Trauma, and the Light I See Now.

By: JANA GREENE

When I met my husband 18 years ago, I had to explain why my family of origin are not part of my life. “What do you mean, you don’t really have family?” he may have wanted to ask. Estrangement due to differences? You don’t get along with others? Witness Protection Program?” No. Just dysfunction that I had to let go of in order to protect my sobriety. My getting sober in 2001 was kind of the death knell on family relations: I simply became less easy to manipulate, and my tolerance for the bullshittery of dysfunction tanked. It was like blinders came off and I decided the cycle breaks here. For my daughters, if not for me. When a child grows up in a volatile, unpredictably violent home, she learns. She learns to make herself as small as possible, to expect an outburst or violence out of the clear blue, and to monitor the moods of an abuser in order to stay “safe.” These “skills” never completely leave her. The nervous system reacts before the brain or the rest of the body, which seems to forever be in fight, flight, or fawn. Add a layer of s*xual abuse to a child, and expect her to grow up unaffected by this trauma? Was that the expectation for her? The whole plan was just “don’t tell anybody,” and she was supposed to just go on her merry way? She remains attuned to eggshells under her feet to this day, but has also become hyper-attuned to any shift in anyone’s energies – forever and ever, amen. The slightest variations in tone of voice or movement, an affront to her lizard brain, that’s just trying to keep her safe. How to tame that ancient lizard? I’m not 100% sure. It’s a squeaky little bastard. How is she to un-become hyper-attuned to energies foreign (outside of herself) and domestic (in her own body?) I did not acquire the nerve to confront this facet of my healing until I got into therapy, about seven years ago. I learned that the body keeps score and the mind likes to cling on to the ways it knows. How are we ever to be able to function like normal people in society, kind and productive people?
If not for therapy, spiritual practices, a loving and safe home life now, an incredible family, a network of friends, I would be a mental illness goner. What they don’t know is that it takes audacity to confront your upbringing. Had I not deviated from the family “norm,” I would no doubt still be a practicing alcoholic, or dead. Certainly, I would have lost my own children or followed in the long chain of my tragic ancestry. That would be the easier thing to do. Easier than dealing with the emotional reflux that rises on occasion from the pain I’ve tried to stuff down my gullet and keep there. But the extreme dysfunction I was born into has come undone, been lit on fire, the ashes blown away by my own breath. There is no joy in dismantling the trauma and losing people as a result. The sad truth is that it’s the family curse – each person who is supposed to provide care has had none themselves, no blueprint to do it differently. They didn’t know how to protect you, so they threw you to the wolves. The wolves, they knew by name; they never went hungry for long. I was told, “well, no family is perfect” – the most invalidating thing a person can say. It rings hollow where “I’m sorry” could have been a steppingstone to reconciliation. But it is not reconciliation I long for anymore. Most family has been out of my life for the entire 18 years, which is God’s providence. I suspect they worry about how much I’ll share (what would the neighbors think!? The same neighbors who heard the screaming through paper thin walls? I think they had a clue.) Or the knowing other family members who knew but did nothing; sometimes because their homes were even more toxic. They needn’t worry. I keep those details for my private journal, stained with tears and written in a quest for my own sense of justice. Some things I will never write about for public consumption. But the damage done? I’m not going to ghost my own soul because feelings might be hurt. Little Me deserves to be heard, and she deserves to heal, through the words that I write, and therapy. And she has, because she’s surrounded by love and light, which we all know vanquishes darkness. Eggshells are not meant to be stepped on. They are a pod to grow life, not an obstacle course to navigate, and my nervous system – the seemingly last vestige of my antique pain – will heal as well. Darkness I knew as a child. Light I know now. Yep. Light, I know now.

August 25, 2024 4

Remembering Eden – Finding God in Nature

By: JANA GREENE

If you’d never even seen a Bible, where would you find evidence of God?

It isn’t heresy to wonder, friends. He put the wonder there, in our spirits.

Think on it a second. If you’d never been “formally” introduced to the concept of God, would you believe in a higher power?

While we were busy paving paradise and putting up a parking lot, we decided Eden was all that great and that we could do better.

I see God as the vastness of the ocean, not fully understandable to us, but too full of life and wonder to be random occurrence.

But he is also made obvious by the minutia.

Tiny, insignificant plankton feed the krill, which in turn feed the whales. Imagine explaining to our ancestors that the largest animal on Earth subsists on the smallest!

And here’s the hook – phytoplankton exist because they turn sunshine into energy. Sunshine. In the great trickle-up of nature, we are made of sunshine, too. Not just anxiety, and angst, and sciatica pain.

If you had never read the words of a tome highlighted in red, would you walk through a forest and find evidence of his majesty? Knowing every bit of flora and fauna was making breathable air to sustain us all? I know we have been apt to describe the Spirit of God as “wind,” but what of his breath?

In a brick-and-mortar church, I learned that God made the earth, and it was good. It’s right there in the Bible.

In 9th grade biology, I learned that photosynthesis is the process of plants turn light energy into breathable oxygen. And that’s also good.

But both of those things, while true, can be dry as kindling or old bones, if Spirit is taken for granted. If the wind doesn’t reach us.

Do we know God beyond book-learning?

Because that’s where the synthesis in us takes place. As in every seed, we carry a holy blueprint. As in the lungs of the trees, we are continually provided refreshment and life. The sometimes slow, indivisible forces sustaining us are forever turning us from sunshine to being. And it is in the trusting of this that we are able to grow.

I pray you find God outside of the Bible today. I hope you smell a flower, hug a tree, or swim in the incredible proof of God that we call “water.” I hope a switch clicks in the recesses of your soul, and you realize the same care taken to create the world, went into making you.

God is real. He is majestic in the minutia of even this shit show, lending us his light to make our energy sustainable. His breath our existence. Our existence his breath.

Blessed be.

August 21, 2024 2

Pilgrimage to Self (a little poetry jam)

I kind of love this image that WordPress so generously offered me. Never mind I would break both ankles (plus probably fall off of the dang mountain) if I tried hiking this. It also occurred to me that every journey we take in life is perilous, and every hike takes us somewhere. Might be the Garden of Eden. Might be the Donner Party encampment. Wheeeee! *insert inappropriate laughter here *

By: JANA GREENE

I stumble along on

a path untread,

afraid to follow

the drops I’ve bled

on roads before,

a pilgrimage known,

with no blood trail

to follow,

I do it alone.

I’m taking a new way,

not following tears,

I’ve been on that journey,

been steered

by those fears.

So familiar is the

that way of despair,

But I think I’d rather

try a path to self-care.

So now I walk on a path

I don’t know,

all my fears and tears

in tow.

Where will it lead me?

How will I grow?

I grab my walking stick

and go,

on this path

I have not trodden,

sure of foot

on rough terrain,

still questioning

the road ahead,

still asking God

for help again,

resolute

in striking out,

feeling stronger

than my fear,

I peek ahead

and look about,

and think

I just might like it here.

August 19, 2024 0

Summer of the Constant Rumble

By: JANA GREENE

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 thunder again. Here we go…

Amen.

August 13, 2024 2

Letter to an Old Friend

By: JANA GREENE

Dear Old Friend,

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.

Your friend, Jana

August 5, 2024 0

Menu for Dreams (a little poetry jam)

By: JANA GREENE

I wish there was a menu for dreams,

so I could order

the Puppies and Kittens Special,

and not the heartache of dreaming of old

people, places, and things.

I would choose to dream

of a trip to the mountains,

just as an appetizer,

and dream of all the blues

in the Blue Ridge,

instead of dreaming

I’m lost somewhere,

and alone.

I would choose the

Soaring in the Sky entree,

and dream of flying high

over the earth,

and above all the chaos

And for a side dish,

that dream where I’m a mermaid,

breathing underwater,

instead of the nightmare

where I can’t breathe at all.

For dessert I shall choose the

Dreaming of Heaven,

the sweetest of all dreams.

It will come to the table smartly

dressed in a ganache of peace,

just how I like it,

and I would not

miss the dreams of rejection

one bit.

Yes, I wish there was

a menu for dreams,

for I would choose

a different path

for the astral projection

we call sleep.

Until then,

I’ll wish myself sweet dreams

and wait.

Because some dreams

come true eventually.

August 5, 2024 0

When it’s Simply a Hell of a Day (My CLL Journey)

By: JANA GREENE

In the interest of transparency, today sucks a little. I share when I have good days and get gussied up – admittedly those are fewer and further apart. And I share when I’m struggling because I don’t want to pretend I have my shit together for social media. That benefits no one. I don’t. And I won’t. Life is messy (and also great and awful, in turn. So who can give up yet?) But today the fatigue is crushing me, literally feels like a smothering blanket I can’t get out from under. And my pain level is crazytown. People get tired of hearing about my pain, I’m certain. But I’m tired of feeling it. So I spent some time meditating. And some time worshipping. And crying. And that’s the truth. That’s me, pulling myself up by my bootstraps. Leukemia sucks. Ehlers Danlos sucks. I’m tired of physical weakness making me feel less strong as a whole person. It’s just a hell of a day.

August 4, 2024 2

Made of Stardust, and All Connected

Thor’s Helmet in Canis Major. This image captures NGC 2359, a nebula shaped like Thor’s helmet in the constellation Canis Major (the Greater Dog.) Behold the absolute majesty of such creation!

By: JANA GREENE

I have always loved space. I think maybe I was born the year of the moon landing, that event which eclipsed my birth but began my own personal Age of Aquarius. I am also from Houston, where NASA was cause celebre – a field trip destination when I was a child, a portal to the great unknown.

I am 55 now, much more jaded about the conditions here on this planet, and a little obsessed with the beauty of the unknown. And now BEHOLD! The James Webb Telescope is capturing all of the glory I felt was surely “out there.” It’s like a great confirmation that our every day is not just every day in the vast universe. And that is super comforting to me.

Because here we mostly just see what’s here now, and experienceable through a finite number of human senses. It’s easy to forget we are divine beings living in a mousetrap of sorts.

Our daily lives are driving to work and driving past long, rectangular shopping strip malls, each less remarkable than the last. We shop in grocery stores that shelve our sustenance; items stocked neatly in a row, affordable by only some of us, while others go hungry. Traffic lights telling us when we can move, stop signs telling us when to stop. Hospitals housing our infirm, and despondent. Skyscrapers places to while away the time in order to make this thing we have made our god called “money.”

We worship vacations, because they set us free from the mundane for a fleeting time. We marvel at theme parks, because they make us feel like we aren’t ants marching on a big, blue marble. They are fantasy, and we have made fantasy the be-all end-all, another god altogether – who will whisk us away from working, and strip-mall shopping, and boredom.

The two places that seem most like home to me are space and ocean. Something about the mystery of the unexplored, the hope of otherness. Two of my hyper fixations that shape my daydreams and my dream life. Every new image from the telescope making me swoon.

Can you imagine I mean seriously; can you imagine? The colors, thick with stars, speckled with other worlds. Worlds where maybe gravity isn’t such a drag, sucking us to the good Earth. It makes me starry-eyed, morphing me into a child again, who wishes to soar through the cosmos and escape this realm. Escape all of the violence that exists here, and the poverty that breaks my heart, and the man-made monuments we make to celebrate ourselves.

I’d like to astronaut myself right out of this earth suit of mine, with of its maladies and humanity, and soar through endlessness.

But Houston, we have a problem. My feet won’t seem to leave this plain. They are heavy with purpose here, even as my mind likes to travel “out there.” Out there where my mind will quiet, maybe. Out there where God himself decides the order, which celestial bodies to spin where, what galaxies should resemble earthly things. I think some majesty of the universe is that we recognize some of it in ourselves.

A compulsory Google search will show us the Helix Nebula, which appears like a giant eye in outer space. It is often referred to as “The Eye of God.” The “Butterfly Nebula,” captured in 2009 by the Hubble Telescope. The “Horsehead Nebula,” looking for all the world like the profile of a steed. The list is endless.

The ancient stargazers knew that the Universe ties itself to us, even without modern telecopy. It reflects our world so that we know we are a part of it.

Carl Sagan has famously said: “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” A way for the Universe to know itself.

We are literally made of stardust – from the elements God used to create everything. Our good earth in its natural, perfect state. And the great mystery of miracles we call the “sky.” There is so much more glory.

Look up from your day job. Look up from your pain. See that there is so much more! And I will try to keep looking up, too. To quote Carl Sagan again, “Some part of our being knows this (space) is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us.”

Star stuff, mind you. Made for bigger things, better things. Don’t give up hope that God can fix this world through us, through a much bigger reality. I will hold that hope too, as I obsess over the Great Beyond that we call “outer space.” And be reminded we – all of us, and the whole Universe too – are connected.

August 4, 2024 0

The “Best Self” Morning Huddle

Because sometimes our Current Selves and our Best Selves need a little pow-wow

By: JANA GREENE

BEST SELF: GOOD MORNING! It’s a beautiful day full of promise and potential miracles!”

CURRENT SELF: *HISSES IN UPPERCASE.*

BS: Gently rise from your slumber by birdsong! Thank the birds, as their melodies are the first track on the playlist that will be this day.

CS: I rise by cat, three hours before sunrise, by furry little entitled overlords, yelling “MRROOOOOOOWWWW,” and triggering me to greet the day with “Oh my GOD, not this sh*t again.”

BS: *Facepalm* That’s a little dramatic. Let’s continue.” Be sure to do that little stompy-windmill dance to ascertain which joints need bracing for the day, and then brace your knees and thumb so they don’t go completely sideways, speaking kindess to your body.

CS: We both know sh*t gonna go sideways anyway.

BS: *clears throat*: Okay, back to gratitude. Raise you hands Heavenward, lifts eyes to God, in awe of his majesty, and in preparation to receive the still, small voice of Spirit. *OHMMMM

CS: *Raises hands Heavenward* and promptly subluxes right shoulder joint, followed by the sound of 12 boxes of Rice Crispies being poured into the milk of God’s breakfast bowl as I do the stompy-windmill dance. My sacred and earnest prayer is actually” Snap! Crackle! Pop! Please make this sh*t stop!” (Hey, who’s to say I’m not making a joyful noise unto the Lord with my body, if only providing the percussion?)

BS: How about I steep us some healthy green tea? Full of antioxidants! *Opens cabinet and unopened boxes of green tea in every conceivable variety buries Best Self. * And in a muffled voice: Do it for your body, it is fighting cancer, Ehlers Danlos, POTs, and a bunch of other chronic and painful conditions. If anyone needs antioxidants, it’s us!

CS: Well, you see, for spiritual reasons, I’m brewing a cup of coffee like God intended – with sugar and half-and-half. It tastes like hopes and dreams, and not like God is withholding love from me, which – let’s face it – is what I can only assume with every sip of green tea.

BS: *Sigh* Time for Daily Affirmations! Go stand in front of the mirror and repeat after me: “I am strong!” “I am resilient!” “All will be well!” “I will handle my pain today like an enlightened Zen-Master, and not like a man with a common head cold or the flu.”

CS: Um, I’m kind of feeling ‘man with a common head cold or flu’ vibe today. Woke up feeling sick. How about some “Sh*tfire, this HURTS!” punctuated by “Oh well, make the best of it!” Followed by some primal screaming (what’s the matter CATS? I can scream TOO!) that leads into “I AM A STRONG WARRIOR! “

BS: Well, it’s a little dramatic but….

CS: I’m not done. Concluded by saying all seven of George Carlin’s 7 Dirty Words as my hip rolls out of place, before this prayer: “Thanks for the grace, God. I really need it.”

BS: Um, ending affirmations on a positive – that’s the ticket! Kinda. Wanna hang out tomorrow? We could do all of this together – you and me. Our Best Self and our Current Self don’t have to be at odds, imagine if we joined forces! I’ll allow you the occasional pity party, and you allow me to help you manifest hope, healing, and general badassery?

CS: Can I have an exoskeleton? I saw them on Amazon. They support every joint in the body, plus also makes you look like Optimus Prime. Makes you a bona fide superhero – the kind who leaps tall buildings in a single bound.

BS: Can we settle for some Tiger Balm, braces from CVS, and mobility aid? It’s from Amazon too, just like that exoskeleton.

CS: what.

BS: You could be the kind of superhero who can open jars without dislocating her thumb, put compression socks on by herself, step over a cat without tripping, do laundry without being too tired to complete it, and sometimes have enough energy to join friends for lunch?

CS: I suppose that’ll have to do. Hey, I think maybe we can be friends.

BEST SELF: We can, if you let us. I have such wonderful things to teach you, so that you can enjoy this beautiful, messy, challenging life.

CS: What the hell! I’m IN. Can I at least wear a cape?

August 2, 2024 1

Soothing the Savage Baby Within (My CLL Journey)

By: JANA GREENE

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.

Blessed be friends.

July 30, 2024 0

Friendship Gratitude ❤️

Right this image at the Britt Floyd
concert last year.

By: JANA GREENE

If we were tight once, but life and traumas and the life stages, and circumstances that mucked with our strong friendship….I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I let us drift apart. Please drift back to me when you need someone to listen.

Or maybe we “outgrew” one another, or had distance put between us – geographically and emotionally, physically.

If I loved you once, I love you still.
No matter how we drifted apart or parted ways, You need to know I am always rooting for you, and always will! Nothing would make me happier than to see every last friend succeed and live her best life.

No matter what happened between us. I’m cheering you on. And even when some relationships didn’t end on the best note, Please forgive me for my part in whatever hurt you. I am handing you a (cyber) olive branch.

Exceedingly grateful for so many incredible friends. You inspire me! Love you.

We are all just walking one another home, at the end of the day. ❤️

I DO NOT TAKE TOU FOR GRANTED.

July 28, 2024 0

The Olympics are not Demonic, and Other Things That Should Go Without Saying

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.

July 28, 2024 5

Political Lies and Fraying Ties – a little poetry jam

Listen, friends. I feel passionately too. But I am writing this as a simple observer, stepping back and noticing what is happening. And what’s happening is so ugly. Blessed be, and remember that you are a light worker in a dark world. Open doors for people, compliment a stranger, be sloppy generous with the love you put out in the universe, and I will too. And hopefully we can make a difference as we flounder through this dystopian nightmare. Amen?

By: JANA GREENE

It’s interesting to me

that we gain one another

piecemeal,

one kind word at a time,

one kind deed after another,

until we call each other

“friend.”

Yet we are willing to

lose each other in whole,

all at once,

over politics,

over religion,

the two things

we were told would

bring us together,

really just cause

division and loss,

and I think we will

all regret that

one day.

July 24, 2024 0

Hardness, Heaviness, and the Gift of Unexpected Bliss

By: JANA GREENE

Today it’s raining like God has something fierce, like God has something to get off his chest. A bone to pick with humanity. Not a sprinkle but a torrential downpour, and like everything else right now, it comes hard and heavy.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of “hard and heavy.” As I sit sipping coffee on the front porch of a little log cabin, I consider society and watching its apparent downfall. And I let my mind play pretend for a bit. I am a pioneer woman, hearty and fulfilled with the simplest of pleasures.

Never mind that there were no Airbnb’s on the “Oregon Trail,” (Blue Ridge highway?) only thoughts of sustenance and probable dysentery. Never mind that I would be long dead if that were the case, because childbirth proved nearly fatal for me bringing my two biological children into the world. I come from weak, generic- European stock. We are sickly, pale, and given to dying in childbirth.

But I consider my surroundings as if it were 1847 and I had arrived here by hiking on sturdy legs and enduring hardship, not by Honda Insight. There are berries in these woods probably, and the soil would be fertile for growing vegetables. There are deer for venison (I’m certainly not hunting and killing it – I’ll leave that to the menfolk) and other rodent-based meat – squirrel and rabbit, which I’m also not killing, but would eat if there was no Chick-fil-A nearby.

This is my first vacation since receiving a Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia diagnosis. It’s good medicine to sit in the woods and contemplate your fate, it turns out. I walk barefoot on the dewey grass. I hug the big oak tree that shades the cabin and thank it for its shade. I listen to Teddy Swims and old Van Morrison on the cabin porch, rocking and blissed out.

I literally stood outside in the pouring rain with my face skyward with the intention of screaming into the void, but ended up thanking him for showing up and washing away my attitude with his tears.

The air is God-breathed, my ears are filled with birdsong. And even though is it’s pouring rain; I am glad for it. I watch the clouds tuck the mountains in goodnight. I love a good tucking-in.

I think this property was a Christmas tree farm at some point. Frasier Firs line the property. I guess we were all something else at one time or another. Each phase subject to its own rejoicing; each phase subject to hardness and heaviness. I reckon the land groaned as it weathered changes, just as I do now.

Every journey we find ourselves on – whether involuntary or self-led – is too much at some point. Things are a little too much now. So I groan. Oh how I groan. Oy vey!

We are home from our long weekend getaway now. I’m trying to carry some of the contentment that came so easy in the mountains into today. Nature made an investment in me during he course of our mini-vacay, and I’m trying not to squander the peace it gifted me.

Turn off the news and quiet the weeping and gnashing of teeth long enough to remember that God is close to the broken-hearted.

I am sick, but I am surrounded by love – even in the suburbs where the air does not carry the scent of God’s breath. Even when I’m spiking a fever at the least opportune times, or angsty about the state of the world.

Pain is a constant companion, but I’ve found it is more effective to run a three-legged race with it than to deny it altogether.

It is a part of me, and hating it ultimately ends in hating myself. So, I walk with it daily, with it. Running with it ends up tripping me up. Go one day at a time – the same way I got through getting sober.

Now that I think of it, perhaps pain is like my conjoined twin; one that dislikes all the things I love. We have to compromise, or nothing gets done. At any rate, it’s here to stay, and that can be the hardest, heaviest thing of all. This might sound defeatist, but it’s just acceptance. And as long as there is still nature and hugs and the Spirit of God, I can accept it with some measure of grace. Even as this land groans.

I hope your hard and heavy era passes soon, and you can find some peace in this crazy world.

Blessed be, friends.

July 23, 2024 4

Life’s not Fair (But it’s Still Pretty Good)

By: JANA GREENE

Being diagnosed with leukemia on top of managing a half dozen chronic medical conditions has made some folks state with a vague indignation:

“That’s not fair.”

And in response, I can only say “no shit.”

Bless them for recognizing it’s too much. Because it IS too much. But the truth – whether you are a believer in Jesus or not – is “too much” is a normal unit of measurement for the bullshittery we must endure in this life.

“It’s not fair” always takes me by surprise. It’s like, Huh. Whats that like…thinking fairness was a viable option in the first place?

I think of things should be fair, of course, and I will try to advocate against the mistreatment of others. But sometimes “others” are not the problem…standard issue humanity is. Our bodies get busted, our minds get screwy, our spirits falter.

Where one person fights health woes, another might struggle to put food on the table. When one is brokenhearted, another worries about her children constantly. Job troubles, anxiety problems, the list is endless.

If you’re really lucky, you won’t have to contend with all the above simultaneously, but perhaps you have. Or are. I have been all at once before, and I guess it lent me an anxiety-laced sense of a transcendent acceptance (whatever that is. I’ll have to ask my therapist.) Anxious some times, yes – but accepting.

I’m not angry with God, not anymore. , I’ve survived a bunch of really agonizing things, and somehow managed not to pick up a drink in 23 years. And that’s astounding. I never expected sobriety to “stick” for me, and I’m befuddled that it has to this day.

I pretended I had strength, until I did. God and I came to spiritual fisticuffs, and he won when I surrendered. White light meets white flag. Something shifted.

It was confirmed to me during the hard years what I’d known all along – life is not fair, but it’s really good. Even with cancer and alcoholism. There so many beautiful things in this world to appreciate, and beautiful people.

Yes, it’s “too much” sometimes – walking around in achy flesh, on a gravity-bound planet that doesn’t seem to get your vibe. But keep vibing, and so will I.

Occasional freak-outs will 100% happen again; I’m starting to think they have just as much right to be part of our vibe as does our holiest, Jesus-trustin’ selves. You know, for the sake of fairness.

Blessings.

July 19, 2024 1

A Golden Calf Becomes a Martyr – and Jesus Weeps

By: JANA GREENE

I struggled with whether or not to write this, but watched the Amazon Prime documentary, “Bad Faith” yesterday, and felt compelled to further the message by paraphrasing what of the social justice activists said: “The Christian Nationalists have a ‘Jesus,’ but it’s not MY Jesus!” And man, that resonated. I feel like my very best friend – Jesus – is being widely misrepresented, and it would be remiss of me not to defend his honor.

And I am also writing this because I can’t ignore the emperor’s-new-clothes mentality that has made his whole cult of personality, so that now he is some kind of “martyr.” I guess if you don’t believe that having someone shoot at you instantly gives you character and integrity, you are a part of the resistance? I wish no ill will or harm on anyone. But this seems to be the determining factor that made holdouts say, “The Lord made sure the bullet didn’t hit him! He MUST be the one!”

Resistance? So be it, then.

Jesus resisted institutions that persecuted the poor and marginalized. He resisted against the establishment who elevated the pious and religious, over the meek and humble. He was the resistance against self-righteous hypocrites who represented God with a cocky assuredness that theirs was the only way to please him. And he IS the Way. The Way himself was the Resistance.

We – as evangelicals – cut our teeth on scripture that gave us clear instructions: You will be able to tell followers of Jesus by the fruits of the Spirit. Show me one attribute of Trump’s – gentleness, kindness, peace-spreading, humbleness…go ahead, I’ll wait – that he has – even a low-hanging “fruit.” Jesus was laying down arms. Jesus was personal sacrifice. Feeding the poor. Providing aid to the sick. Jesus was humility. Jesus was Jesus-like. That’s kind of his whole bag.

But here we are – being asked to worship at the Golden Trump Calf, with nary a shriveled grape of the ONE THING we were told to expect as evidence that someone follows Jesus: LOVE. And it’s too bad for us, because he doesn’t display a single dingleberry. Anything at all.

Going back decades, this ex-POTUS’s MO had been screwing around on ALL his wives, cheating people, worshipping himself, making a god of money, looking down on religious folk as “weak,” stiffing the poor, grabbing women by the p*ssy (does reading that word in this context make you uncomfortable? It should.)

Now he slaps his name on the Bible and hints at encouraging domestic bloodshed, and we are all supposed to pretend like that’s holiness.

“But don’t you believe in forgiveness? Maybe he’s a changed man!” Okay. Again, I say, show me one single dingleberry of evidence that he operates from a pace of love now. He is USING CHRISTIANITY to further his agenda, and frankly, he is a shitty actor, and I feel like we are all living in a particularly terrifying episode of Black Mirror.

We are a nation blinded. And nothing and nobody will change the minds of those for whom cognitive dissonance is the accepted mindset. Open your ears, all that can hear. Open your eyes, all that can see. The Beast always comes in a savior suit. It’s a most clever disguise, but beloveds, we are supposed to know better. We are supposed to have graduated from “milk” to “meat,” spiritually. To be on the lookout for wolves in sheep’s clothing. We are supposed to have discernment – we were warned to expect this.

This IS the battle between good and evil, alright. Koo-koo bonkers on a whole other level. I want to be on the right side of history, and every cell in my sentient being heart is sickened by all of this.

Take heart, for Jesus has overcome this world. Good thing too. It’s WHACK here right now.

God help us all.

July 15, 2024 6

Good News I can Use (my CLL journey)

By: JANA GREENE

Yesterday was a very, very good day. It had been exactly a month since my diagnosis of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, and my husband and I met with my oncologist to get staged and get a prognosis, after a battery of tests.

I am stage ZERO! CLL begins with stage zero, unlike most other cancers. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I don’t have cancer – it just means that it’s in my marrow and blood but hasn’t spread anywhere else. My bone marrow biopsy confirmed that I definitely do have CLL, but the PET scan was clear!

My prognosis is good! We wait and watch now. I will go to the cancer center every three months forever to monitor my white cell blood count, lymphocytes, and web blood cells. But until my WBC doubles within a span of six months or I start to have lymph node problems, I am treatment free.

Will I need it someday? Most likely yes. CLL never entirely goes away. But I’m already on the one day at a time plan with my other chronic illnesses, I manage the POTs, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, and about another half dozen chronic conditions.

Life is crazy, man. Yesterday morning I was praying for the diagnosis of CLL rather than ALL – chronic vs. acute. Chronic has to be managed, acute is trouble. Funny that a month and a day ago, I would never been so flippin’ happy that I have any kind of cancer. Now I’m praising God that it is not acute, or do I require any treatment right now.

I didn’t need another major health concern, but I feel like my training wheels are off in this regard. I already live illness every day. And whatever this brings, I intend to rise to the occasion. Probably while doing a lot of bitching now and then, and maybe some crying, and a whole other layer of frustration…

But I’m pretty scrappy.

Thank you for all of you who have been praying for me. It is truly the best case scenario. I love my medical team and I’m so grateful for them as well.

Blessed be, friends. And again, thank you.

July 12, 2024 2

Hemorrhaging Gratitude (too)

By: JANA GREENE

Hi, Dear Reader.

I was alerted by the WordPress Bots that I have blogged 50 pieces now on “Words by Jana Greene.”

I started this blog and retired my first, because I have different things to say now, and I’m not writing just for Christians. At all. I am writing for people who maybe don’t know what they believe, but they believe in the search for it with all their heart, and appreciate a kindred spirit. (Christians are of course welcome too; I count myself amongst you.)

I wanted to write in a way that was cleansing, raw, and maybe a smidge inspirational. And I think I’ve accomplished that. I hope so, anyway.

Fifty bearings of the soul.

Fifty chances to be vulnerable, in case someone else is feeling vulnerable too.

Fifty articles by the same old person?

Or am I the same old person?

I have a dear friend who likes to say that instead of having one inner child, we all have a whole preschool in us. And we do. I am finding myself to be a whole class full of university students.

Or, since I never went to college, maybe just a whole demographic of sensitive souls. Some that laugh at inappropriate things, like a 12 year old boy. Some who feel wise as a sage. Some that whine and fight naps like a preschooler. Some who manifest peace that passes understanding, like a monk. And some that scream WTF???!! into the abyss, like….well me.

Every last one of them, emotional.

All of them passionate. (Some of them need to chill already!)

Every day, we learn something different, hoping to end up a better person in some small way.

And most days, I come here to free-bleed words into the internet abyss, or celebrate some small victory, or rejoice, or complain. Sometimes all of those in one day!

What I’m trying to say in way too many words (as usual) is – I appreciate that someone out there is reading my work, and hopefully not looking at it like a stain on the carpet. I do enough of that to myself.

Hopefully, every day we are gaining some measure of connection or hop Ee, and if I can be a part of that, mission accomplished. Everything arrives right on time, and it’s my honor to share it with you, fellow human.

Thanks for taking the time to read me. I am grateful for every single way God manages to connect us, even as we are being divided (and subdivided) by society. Let us press into one another, with the Truth – which is that we are all connected.

While I’m bleeding words, I may as well hemorrhage some gratitude too. ❤

God bless you.

July 10, 2024 3

Triggers and Glimmers and Peace, Oh MY! (my CLL Journey) – Part 2

By: JANA GREENE

I have been triggered by so many scary things lately, pending my prognosis for CLL.

If we can be “triggered” by things that make us anxious, surely, we can choose to focus on the “glimmers” instead. It sure does seem that feeling triggered is a natural response to stress – it’s automatic, at least for me. It’s my subconscious mind’s default when facing the unknown.

I can amass worries, panic, and thoughts of doom like a pile of dirty laundry that takes up a whole corner of the room, without me realizing I don’t have anything clean to “wear.” I don’t want to wear despair, but as an uber-feely person, I do.

Or, I can focus on the glimmers, instead of “researching” CLL into the ground, (which will not change an outcome either way.) Here’s to counterbalancing with some GLIMMERS:

I love my medical team and trust them.

I have an excellent therapist.

I do not feel abandoned by God, but instead warmly comforted by him (to my own surprise.)

I have the strong support of my husband, children, dad, and sister. And a circle of friends so tight, they have become family in every way. I’m so grateful for my tribe.

Every medical professional I meet – even in passing – has been kind.

Many people live 10-20 years with my condition.

I have insurance, which is a monumental blessing (but OH how it breaks my heart that not everyone has access to medical care! Alas, that’s a whole blog post in itself, for another day!)

But I have to think on these things ON PURPOSE, or fear takes completely over.

The nurse who administered the radioactive isotope for the PET scan was prepping me for yet another IV this past week. I thanked him

“I’m not sure you should be thanking me,” he said, with a chuckle. “I’m fixing to poke you, make you radioactive, and put you through a machine.”

“Yes,” I said. “But you are kinder than you have to be. And not many people are anymore. You explained everything, you are being gentle with my arm and my feelings. You are being a ‘glimmer’ in this otherwise dark journey I’m on. Thank you.”

Triggers cause anxieties to pile up. The more they pile up, the more they smother me. Glimmers inspire me to give my neurosis a good scrub, clean up my attitude, and fold and put away my worries.

But hons, them clothes ain’t gonna clean themselves. They just won’t. I have to notice them, and unless I make a concerted effort to be aware, they pass me by. Every morning, I do a little mindfulness session. I play affirmations on my playlist and encouraging music. A little hippie-dippy meditation alone time with God. Help me to be aware of glimmers, I ask of him. Because in truth, they happen to us all the time. In my natural state, I just need help with awareness. It’s been a game-changer.

Try to notice the glimmers today and strengthen your divine in whatever way that works for you. I’ll be over here praying and sage-ing, singing, and loving, and hoping and believing (with, of course, intermittent bouts of anxiety. Hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it can’t be ALL glimmers, ALL the time. We are only human, after all – but there is much beauty and joy that goes unrecognized.

Because, to quote Ferris Bueller, ““Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Util next piece, friends. Please be kinder than you have to. It’s a rough world out there. Spread all the glimmers you can.

Blessed be.

July 10, 2024 0