Tag: God

25 Years Without a Drink – Reflections on a Life Recovered

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By: JANA GREENE

Hi, Dear Reader.

In exactly 17 days, I will celebrate that it has been 25 years since my last drink.

Twenty-five years since I lay on my bathroom floor, begging God for help me quit drinking. Just as I had innumerous times before January 3rd, 2001. It was certainly not the first time. Or the fiftieth.

But because alcoholism is cunning and baffling, I couldn’t get sobriety to “stick.” If you knew me then, you probably had no idea. Nobody knew how much I was drinking. Active alcoholism requires mad distraction skills, a Masters in deflecting, a passel of excuses, and a side of lies, in order to keep the scam going.

I can’t be an alcoholic! I am Room Mother in my daughter’s 2nd grade classroom.

I can’t be an alcoholic! I don’t drink until the late afternoon.

I can’t be an alcoholic! I’m a regular church-goer.

But it was a scam; one I perpetuated on myself. I scammed myself into thinking I could drink “normally,” that I was okay so long as nobody knew my secret. I had at least a bottle of chardonnay a night, all by myself. But GOD, wouldn’t YOU? Kids are fighting, marriage is failing, I am constantly sick. The government is corrupt. The stars aligned in an unfavorable configuration. Tuesday. Any excuse to justify it.

See, that kept me from getting well for a long time. The rationalization that life was just too intense to raw-dog sober. The mental gymnastics of raising kids without my “reward” – Mommy’s “glass” of wine. The prospect of never (NEVER??!) having another drink. Not at my kids’ weddings? N E V E R?

I feel everything. I am a Deep Feeler. Feelings never stop coming. As Cynthia Plath famously remarked, “Even when I feel nothing, I feel it completely.” It has always been that way, even in childhood. Maybe especially in childhood.

So, you can imagine my delight at finding out that the antidote to my Deep Feeling came conveniently in a Bartles & Jaymes bottle. There was little trauma that Zima couldn’t smooth over. Boxed wine was the Holy of Holies. You can drink and drink, and nobody sees the level of wine disappearing. You could even take the foil bag out when the box got low, and drink out of it like a dang Capri Sun.

My new medicine came in LOADS of iterations – sweet, savory, celebratory! Every flavor profile. Drinking is sophisticated. You can’t have a toast without alcohol, or take real communion, or ring in the new year. How convenient that my drug of choice was associated with merriment and milestones. Society doesn’t care if you drink to excess. But it would have a fascination with people NOT drinking. Why aren’t you drinking?

I have written my entire story before, but I think only on my prior blog, and I might share it here again. It’s long and intense, but no less dark than my life before I got sober. By the time I was willing to work hard enough for it to “stick,” I was depleted. Turning yellow. I was not the mother my beautiful daughters really deserved. On the surface, maybe, but not in reality.

The heartache, desperation, loneliness, shame? I had it in spades back then. I had become careless, obsessed, and resentful of the drug that had been my salvation. I was poisoning myself. Alcohol got between me and my kids, me and my God.

That was 25 years ago, and that BLOWS. MY. MIND. I can remember sitting in the Rooms, listening to “Oldtimers” talk about their sober time, and thinking, that will never be me. I am not made of stuff that strong. But I stayed and no matter what – I did not pick up a drink. NO MATTER WHAT. I worked the steps, started taking self-care, and talking to God in earnest. I felt ALL THE FEELS and let them land where they wanted.

I imagined Jesus crouched down with me in that bathroom on the sickest night of my life, and that was my proof that I wasn’t in it alone. I can’t scientifically prove to you that he was sitting with me in my pain, but I can spiritually prove it. The proof is my recovery – my janky, imperfect, solid, triumphant, well-worn recovery.

A lot of things came to an end when I quit drinking. Dysfunctional and toxic relationships, chiefly. I could keenly feel the losses, I wish I could have had hope for the gains. Because when I lost my relationship with drinking, I gained a whole entire new life.

I had to love myself and believe I was worth loving at all. But slowly, I regained my self-respect. Any dumbass mistakes I made fell squarely on me, not my “drinking.” And when I am the origin of my own chaos, I can then fix it. The responsibility is mine.

Don’t get it twisted – alcohol is still poison to me. I will have 25 years of recovery, but I could lose it all tomorrow, easy as pie. I respect the addiction. It is still – always – cunning and baffling. I will never “arrive.” Alcoholism has no remission. But so long as I practice what has worked for me this long, I shall hold the monster at bay. One day at a time.

And what transpired is a beautiful, full, rich life. It’s not a perfect life, mind you. But it’s mine, wholly mine. My efforts – along with God’s grace – enable it. My efforts. The thing that I was sure would be the end of me, turned out to be the beginning of me. The thing that was going to ruin all the fun in my life actually made me more fun. The thing that signaled an old way of being coming to end, became my salvation. And I am so flipping grateful.

Blessed be.

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Prayer for a Flagging Heart

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Good day, dear readers. I woke up today with a version of this prayer on my lips. Even in times like these, it helps me to consider God as the kindest, gentlest keeper of our precious souls.

I am so tired of hardness and sharpness. It cannot all be bad news, so long as we all remember that we carry the divine that will save us. Amen?

By: JANA GREENE

Gracious Father,

Keeper of Souls,

Lover of all Mankind,

Empowerer of the People,

Strength in our weakness,

Brother in our suffering,

Mother-Spirit to our Inner Littles,

and Bravery for the adults

we have to be…

It’s a damn mess down here.

We need oil for our lamps,

if we are to share the Light.

We need a squeeze of your hand,

if we are to soldier on.

A whisper of encouragement,

for our flagging hearts.

Help us be extinguishers of hate,

purveyors of radical hope,

merchants of change,

So that we may take part

in The Great Awakening,

sharing your conciousness,

singing your praises,

and so loving this world,

just as you did.

Just as you do.

Amen.

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Intuition – Trusting What SELF has to Say

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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)

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Free and Loved and Wild (a little poetry jam)

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By: JANA GREENE

I hope somebody smiles at you

with their whole heart today.

I hope your coffee tastes dreamy,

and you get the chance to play.

I hope you listen closely

to your Inner Child.

I hope she comes rejoicing,

free and loved and wild.

I hope you get reminded

that you’re loved too by your Source.

I hope that you get good news today

that will take a favorable course.

I hope you feel the Spirit when

you set your best intentions.

I hope when your favorite song comes on,

you dance around your kitchen.

I hope you stay in pursuit

of all your hopes and dreams.

I hope you savor a tasty treat,

and receive some funny memes.

I hope somebody lets you over

when traffic gets too hairy.

I hope you keep a grain of faith,

even though these times are scary.

But most of all,

I hope you know that

you are literally divine,

made in God’s fine image,

body, soul, and mind.

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Table the Labels – Our Fluid Humanity

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By: JANA GREENE

Once upon a time, I was a mistake.

That is what I believed about myself, as an unplanned child. I carried the message that I was an “oopsie” for as long as I can remember. Nobody in my family outright said it, but I carried the shame as if it were by my own doing.

Once upon a time, I was s a very religious teenager, I carried my Bible to high school each day, hoping it would let everyone else know who I was – a Christian. I would not realize until much later, that Bible was a talisman to keep me safe from my peers, because I was scared of the world.

Once I was a young mother, absolutely certain that this – THIS! – was my true identity. All other things I had identified as melted away. This is it. I was a mother. I threw myself into raising my daughters with my whole heart. So, this is who I am, I thought. But I was a mother with a secret.

In a land far, far away, I had somehow also become an alcoholic. I could go through a box of wine (classy, eh?) in two days. Chardonnay was my savior, I could not function without either the promise of, or imbibing in, alcohol. I was not the mother I wanted to be for my kids, so when they were 5 and 8, I decided to get sober.

Then I came to identify as an alcoholic, albeit one in recovery. In each of the hundreds of AA meetings I attended, I would introduce myself to the group with, “Hi, my name is Jana and I’m an alcoholic.” So that was my identity too, in the early years of my recovery.

The next twenty years were a blur of trying on identities, macro and micro. I strove to be a career woman, which was a terrible fit for a person who would rather daydream and create art than push for corporate success.

I buried myself in church activates, becoming a prayer leader, a recovery coach, and a door greeter.

I was playing Identity Whack-a-Mole. Just keep moving and hitting on various things, until I hear DING DING DING! We have a winner! I’m a __________ after all!

Now, once upon a time – in a place not at all far away – I have become angry. Not angry as in a passing mood. Angry as in a whole-ass personality. I am mad all the time, since November 4th.

Every day, I worry and fret about what all of this means for the futures of my three daughters and granddaughter. Every day, I have flashbacks of being obsessed with the Book of Revelation, which I furiously studied way back in high school. Doom. Doom. DOOOOM. Anger is my least favorite emotion and the one I am poorest at.

Hi. My name is Jana, and I’m an angry woman, trying desperately to not become bitter.

And I hate that journey for me. I truly don’t want to be mad. The anger comes from a place of fear for the country I love. But even so, it is transformative in the worst of ways.

I will not get stuck here. I will one day move past anger, and I’m giving myself grace until then.

I now understand that we are all an amalgam of every experience we live. Every “identity” that makes us feel temporarily “special”, just a lily pad jump away from the next thing that will also reveal who we are. Not for us to cling to, but to learn from.

It made me feel special to be a teenaged evangelist, a mom, and even an alcoholic. Looking for ways to prove to myself that I alone – on my own merit – have worth.

And I guess I’m writing this to remind you that if you feel like a mistake; if your hardest struggles cause you to slap a label on yourself, you don’t have to cleave to it.

We are wondrously complex visitors in a place that is equal parts amazing and terrifying. A place that – as you enter and leave – erroneously insists you be labeled for safe consumption.

A society obsessed with asking “how do you identify?” lest your mark on the world be for naught, and your search for identity be rudderless.

Dear Reader, I’m glad we are on the planet at the same time, so that we can remind each other that we are not a fleeting identity, but a PERSON. A messy, floundering one, perhaps. But all the same…

Hi. My name is Jana, and I am not a mistake. I am a life-long learner, a grateful mother. I am indeed an alcoholic. I am a writer who doesn’t get paid a lick for her craft but does it anyway so the feels have somewhere to go. I’m a wife, a partner to the dearest of all to me – my husband.

I will hold doors open for people, even though I’m not a greeter at church. I will be a shoulder for the addict and alcoholic. And I will – heaven help me – learn how to manage anger in healthier ways, so I do not identify as such.

Because my true identity (and yours too?)

I am a lightworker. I am a human being.

And so are you, precious to this broken world.

Blessed be.

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Trinkets of Eden (Going Inward to Find God)

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By: JANA GREENE

We are always trying to pull contentment out of the ethers, somewhere – anywhere – but within. But when all the parts of Me Within feel confused, alone, and despaired, the last thing that seems natural to me is to go inward.

FOOL, THAT”S WHATG I’M TRYING TO ESCAPE FROM.

But I’m thinking I get lost sometimes on my way to my heart’s Eden. Took a wrong turn in Albuquerque, as Bugs Bunny would say. I have ended up in a wretched place, yelling “YOU CALL THIS EDEN?? Psssh.

INWARD is where I learned to be scared. That neighborhood is where I got lost in the first place.

INWARD is where I take to my bed, like an eighteenth-century woman who simply CANNOT with this world anymore.

INWARD has historically been a chasm rather than a resort.

It is a place I was warned against by the church proper. God is on high. He is above us, they say, after also reminding you that God also lives in our hearts.

But they say your heart is also full of deceit, so remember that. Remember that within you is The Creator. But also, indomitable darkness.

What, now?

Finding my way to the God inside me is quite the expedition. I still get turned around sometimes.

But through prayer and meditation, I am finding…

Surely, if God lives within our being, perhaps we all harbor an inner Garden of Eden. A garden where a holy Kudzu takes over, covering the darkness.

A place with so much air to breathe, you don’t feel choked by cruel realities.

A place where it’s safe to rest that was formerly a void.

A place where the grating anxiety has been buried in lush soil, and in its place, becomes a tall willow tree.

A place where the rocks themselves cry out in glorious praise, and music fills the atmosphere.

Where pain can be shushed, if not taken away entirely

Where I don’t have to hide or run.

Or conform to a certain expectation.

I’m learning – very slowly and deliberately – that INWARD is a safe place after all.

INWARD is where all the iterations of me gather in a circle to summon the Grace of God.

INWARD is where I am learning to be calm and quiet, and to search for the trinkets of Eden – calm, peace, balance, hope, and LOVE.

My inner Eden is lush with life, springing forth with new green shoots and popping with vibrant flowers.

It has a bounteous garden, a soft place to sit, and a babbling brook that assures me with each ripple you are safe here.

And in the Garden, which is myself, I find God.

Not so much as an entity of blinding light and booming voice, but as a wise little hobbit, living in a hollowed-out tree, who knows all the answers but whose presence makes me forget I had questions.

He sits with me in the ethers, fully content.

And he will dwell with me INWARD forever and ever, in this glorious place we co-created: my contribution being trust and surrender.

God, being big enough to create all that is glorious in existence; but small enough to come as a hobbit, who has time to sit under a Willow tree with me to consider the miracle of the Most High inhabiting my little human soul.

Amen.

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Love has not Failed Me (an Alcoholic Celebrates 24 Years Drink-Free)

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By: JANA GREENE

Every year, I am apt to say “well, that was a hard year to stay sober!” Some years I’d say it almost flippantly, because drinking didn’t seriously enter my mind.

Most times, I meant it though, because life is effing hard. Battling chronic pain and illness – all of it really difficult to raw-dog. But raw dog it I did and got to pick up a shiny token for my labors at the end of each year. Wheeee!

This year, staying sober has felt like having your bratty cousin hold your arm behind your back until you scream “UNCLE!” Now obviously, God is not a bratty cousin. But there have been days I’d have sworn he was just as bad.

How else to explain adding a cancer diagnosis to my already ridiculous list of health woes? How else to explain allowing the election results to carry consequences of harm to the most vulnerable among us? How else to explain THIS (*gestures wildly*.)

Even the” good” days felt like wearing wet socks with the seam all wonky, (emotionally.) Something was so off, all year.

On some of the bad days, I felt like drinking. And I thought about it way more than the usual amount, which is none.

“Humph,” said my internal narration.”Who in the heckin’ world would even blame me, if I were to pick up?”

“Nobody! Nobody would blame me! “I concluded, fist raised to the sky. “It’s TOO MUCH!”

I imagined people saying, “Bless her, it was the cancer that was the final straw.” Or “No wonder she fell off the wagon.” Or “At least it’s not hard drugs.” Or some such self-pitified bullshittery.

And then I laughed because silly alcoholic; mind games are for addicts! Of course, I recognized that voice from days of yore! It’s the one that kept me sick.

I’ve decided – for the sake of argument and a slightly fragmented faith – that God is not a fraud.

He is only love, and love has not failed me this year.

Love has shown up, hat-in-hand, smiling gently.

Love was with me during the bone biopsy, while they punctured my hip and sucked out the marrow, and hot, sad tears ran down my face, alone.

Love was with me when the biopsy confirmed that I have a form of leukemia, by lending me a calming essence not organic to my own understanding for comfort.

Love sat and listened to me primal scream in my car, when I’ve had unbearably painful days from Ehlers Danlos syndrome. When I couldn’t walk without agony or stay awake due to fatigue.

Love rocked out with me when I listened to purging metal music at full volume by myself, as if the genre could wick the anger out of me. (Thanks, AC/DC.)

Love was with me, rifling through my recovery toolbox, passing me whichever tool was the right one for the job. And I – much like the father in A Christmas Story trying to change a tire – cussing the whole way. “Again?!! Aw, blast it! Poop flirt rattletrap camel flirt! YOU BLONKER! Rattle feet sturcklefrat!” (Only not quite that wholesome. FUUUUDDDGGGGE.)

Love was with me when darkness enveloped me and hope was a little wisp in the ethers, so faint it barely had form.

Love manifested through my friends and family, who doggedly refuse to give up on me.

Love peeled off my wet, wonky socks, and then proceeded to wash my feet.

Love did all of those things, in the form of a God most compassionate.

My Higher Power provided everything alcohol would have withheld from me.

So this year, as I order a 24 Year sobriety chip, I say UNCLE, UNCLE, UNCLE!

I still say it’s TOO MUCH.

But I also say thank you, thank you, thank you. Because after the shitshow that was 2024, I will treasure that shiny 24 year chip. I earned it this year, homies. It was hard to stay sober.

But not impossible, you see. Because who in the heckin’ world would I be able to help, should I fall back into the drink? Surely not my family. Surely not myself. Surely not Love.

Bloodied and bruised, wild-minded and obstinate, and leaning into the Divine Love, I will pick up that shiny 24 Year chip and dance around with it on Friday.

And Love will dance with me too.

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For the Love of Loose-Cannon Jesus

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By: JANA GREENE

This election has proven we are as far from compassion as the East is from the West. And as for the trite moral question, “What would Jesus do?”

I’m pretty sure Jesus would go straight to the Temple (the church, or ‘body of Christ’) and throw out everyone who had set up shop, buying and selling. Matter of fact, maybe he’d kick over the tables of loan sharks and the stalls of dover merchants and declare “My house was designated a house of prayer; You have made it a hangout for thieves!” (Matthew 21:12-13)

That’s actually in the oft-touted Bible that gets trotted out by politicians every election year. But the rest of the verse – from The Message translation – is followed by this zinger: ” Now there was room for the blind and crippled to get in. They came to Jesus, and he healed them.”

Table-tipping Jesus is kind of my spirit animal right now. I’ve never related to him more. All my Christian life, I did not understand that verse. Because my black-and-white thinking could not relegate sweet white American Jesus, hands folded in prayer, eyes heavenward, to this renegade loose-cannon Jesus.

But LOOSE CANNON JESUS? I SEE YOU NOW.

I’m not going to turn this piece into an opportunist sermon. I’m all sermoned out, plus, since distancing myself from the church proper, I have no intention of evangelizing. It’s too late for that (but it’s never too late for God! you say? Bold claim for people who voted God off the island in his own name.) It’s too late for the next four years anyway.

But don’t expect to be considered the temple when you host thieves in your heart and elect criminals to run the free world. The thing about having a temple full of snakes and liars, is that there is no room for the blind and crippled, not even standing room. We are not getting our healing because we have made a rummage sale out of our freedoms, and a discount house of our blessings. We have done it in the name of a God who has been denied entrance at all, hawking our shiny, empty wares, and calling them holy. The only thing in short supply is love, which is supposed to be the Greatest of These, but has instead been relegated to the scratch n’ dent bin.

“You don’t want THAT,” say the merchants. “You want THIS!” And shown the whole world (this could all be yours!) we have settled.

We are the Temple, my friends. Us. And I will never take the spiritual inventory of another human, except for maybe the guy with his own translation of the Bible (a bold move! I thought for sure everyone would awaken to the audacity when that happened. But, no.) Maybe except for the man half of us elected to run the free(ish) world. We should have all at least peeked at the inventory, and not signed off on it en masse.

Maybe instead of basing our votes on the “economy” (the moneychanger’s specialty!) we should have had a pow-wow with Jesus about what he prioritized – the sick, who will lose insurance benefits. The hungry, which will manifest in children going lunch-less. The poor, who will only get poorer. And the rich, richer. God ain’t worried about the economy, he never has been. That’s our schtick. He’s worried about our hearts.

Make room for the crippled, the sick, and the hurting, so that they might be healed with the resources our creator has made us stewards of.

No wonder Jesus kicked tables over.

We should, too.

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Liberty Fails. And Jesus Weeps.

By: JANA GREENE

This morning, before the sun even rises, I am proper grieving for my daughters and granddaughter.

The election is over. The political ads will stop. Obnoxious snake oil salesmen will cease screaming at us through our television screens.. The mass mailings, like so much kindling for fire, will cease to stuff our mailboxes.

And we should be glad for that, at least. But we aren’t afforded that pleasure. There is no pleasure to be had at the feet of bullies and liars.

Old white men triumph, which should surprise none of us. We should be able to take a breath now, but instead we are gasping for air.

Tyranny has won. Hatred has its day.

I seem to remember reading in the very same ancient texts he used to pander to the people that evil will ultimately prosper on this plane of existence.

And so it is, as according to prophets and sages.

And Jesus wept.

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Hate is Trending (Love Anyway)

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By: JANA GREENE

We worked so hard to come by this love. Most of us, anyway. Maybe you – like me – have gone through a season of spiritual confusion, unable to justify a cruel creator to a loving spiritual force. And perhaps you have reached the same conclusion; that everything we’d been taught was dogma. That nobody knows better than we average people do, and that’s terrifying. Maybe you landed on love, like me. Scrap everything else, and act lovingly, like it’s the only thing that matters. Because it is.

This world is rumbling and laboring, every contraction pulsing to either bring us closer together or farther apart. We can all feel it, but we don’t all feel it the same. I rarely quote scripture anymore, but 1 Corinthians 13:1 comes to mind. It says that if you have “all the answers” but don’t have love, you are like a clanging gong – making a bunch of noise, but without any expression of love.

There is so much noise in this world. The gong is deafening, the drumbeats ever closer. The way we are treating one another is shameful. We correct our children when they are hateful to another person. We reward our leaders for it We say, “Here, have more power!” And how do we explain to our grandchildren that we should love our neighbors as ourselves, if grown-ass adults acting a fool on the world stage?

I simply cannot believe the vitriol this political season has wrought us. We people in high places, but also, we average folk. I came here to write about ways we can perhaps rally together, but it’s too late for that. Cult mentality has made certain no common sense is required. Every time we butt up against absolutes, we reap the worst in us. Time and time again, history has shown what happens when a small-minded, evil man collects cult members for his gain. Time and time again, the name of God rolls off the tongues of serpents. Always, there are followers who would die for the cause of a serpent’s dream. And so they do, perpetuating false righteousness.

I lost it all to side with love. Everything I thought I knew had to go in my spiritual fire sale. In churchy talk, they call it being “refined.” It cost me a lot, to come to the conclusion that love always wins. And it’s super easy to set that concept ablaze too, since there is so little evidence around us right now. But we can’t, you see. Some of us are banded together to lasso the hands of the doomsday clock and keep it from ticking further. But others of us have roped the hand from the other side, pulling toward the point of kablooey. There is so much at stake.

You’ll be told we all want the same thing, but that’s just another lie. We most certainly do not. I would like no part of throwing away the rights of others. I do not believe in withholding school lunches from children. And as a cancer / chronic illness patient, I know with certainty that a country that can afford to send billions of dollars to obscure causes half a world away can afford healthcare for all of its citizens. I don’t believe in demonizing whole demographics of human beings.

We are a real cocky bunch, singing about how God shed his grace on thee. I don’t believe God shed any more grace on us than anyone else. In our haughtiness, we have become puffed up with pride about ourselves. “MURICA. Greatest country on earth! This is God’s country! God favors us! (Wherever did we get the idea that God, in his infinite wisdom and love, sanctioned the thievery of an entire continent, the slaughter or decimation of its native people, and determined that our ill-begotten land is a gift from the Almighty.

Maybe that cockiness is part of the reason we are in this pickle.

And see, the funny thing is – I care about these things because I prayed that God would break my heart for what breaks his heart. And damn if he didn’t. He’s a little poky with a lot of requests, in my humble opinion, but not this one. And it’s ruined the person I was. And I’m glad of it. Because that refining took place without being anesthetized by church and political intervention. It was a wilderness experience, becoming who I am. Me and God. Mano a mano, on the mat.

And right now, less than a week until the election, I am feeling a wind blow in from the wilderness again. It certainly is a strange wind, like the breath of a laboring mother. Elections and contractions. Raging and rumbles. Ugliness of weaponized-biblical proportions. Hate.

I don’t know who you’ll vote for, Dear Reader. It is frankly none of my business, and I have no desire to make it my business. But as I sit here at 4 a.m. tapping onto the page what is haunting my mind, I do ask you to search your heart. I know the gong is loud, and I know that drumbeats are getting closer. And it would be easy – justifiable even! – to join in the war cries.

I know people are giving you ample reason to hate, and I know that hate is absolutely trending right now. Like hating is the baseline sentiment., and it’s awful. It seems to be running circles around love, and love – swelling and hopeful – is sitting dormant. But listen. Maybe love is waiting for hate to exhaust itself, and maybe that’s part of the process too. The haters don’t have all the answers; and they are hoping you won’t notice.

It may be too late to rally together, but it’s never too late to get into a quiet space, invite Divinity to show up, ask her to reveal her spark in you, and go forth into the dark places of a hurting world with it. It’s all we can do.

God,

Let us be heart-searchers and let us find love for others we didn’t know we had.

Let us be peacemakers, in that we prefer light to darkness.

Let us love people who think differently than we, with no political addendum attached.

May we be refined into our purest selves.

Amen.

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Identity Heft – The Weight of Learning Who we are

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels.com

By: JANA GREENE

When we are young, we grasp at labels in the striving to know who the heck we are. Our identity is in finding out identity. And we glom on to our role in each life stage until it describes us to a T; until it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. And when the wind changes, we are lost.

When I was a victim, I thought of myself as a victim. And the more trauma I experienced only convinced me that victimhood was my identity. Shitty things had happened to me, stacked-up evidence that I have every reason to be depressed and anxious. Who wouldn’t feel justified, coming out from under that abuse? I’m a victim here. That’s who I am.

Then, I became an alcoholic, and in recovery rooms they tell you “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic,” which is no lie. So, I said, “Oh! That’s who I am. An alcoholic.” And while there was certainly no joy about that revelation, it was better than just being a victim, at least. I did the programs, worked the steps. Really dug into recovery, because I am an alcoholic, you see. That’s who I am.

Then I became a mother, and then EUREKA! I found my identity for real! I even had a new name – “Mom.” I was obsessed with being good at it, and so my whole identity became hinged on being their Mama. Then Mommy. Then Mom. Each one of their life stages determined who I was, by virtue of who they were growing up to be. Until they were teenagers, carving out their identities, I was starting to lose my own. Children grow up, and you are left wondering, Gee…who exactly am I, apart from a mother? I’m a mother. that’s who I am.

Eventually I became a fundamentalist Christian. I would tell people that their identities are found only in God. I told people who were full of self-hatred to strive to be “less of you, and more of God.” It’s another confirmation to a hurting person that they themselves are of such little importance, God demands they become even smaller. And if they are like me, they have been trying to be empty of themselves all their lives, not realizing that the God is within them. So, for most of my adult life, being a Christian was my identity. I was on the Greeting Team, for crying out loud – me, an introvert. Being a Christian is who I am.

My husband jokes that I only like to watch TV shows with “complex” characters. Characters who don’t respond how you expected, and perhaps have a dark side. When the bottom fell out of my faith and I went through a deconstruction, I realize you don’t have to die to yourself and your human desires and interests to please God. He doesn’t turn away from our humanity.

Today, I am still those things, but the influence they have over my primary identity is nullified. The way we see ourselves is not static but flowing. I’m a survivor, rather than a victim. I’m still an alcoholic, but the stigma behind it has morphed into acceptance. I’m still a mom but relate to my children as adults now. I am still a follower of Christ but have a different relationship to him than I ever had. A better one. We never stay the same and thank God for that.

And we will never fully understand our identities in this dimension, I suspect. But maybe it’s because we are BOTH / AND a conglomeration of selves. Maybe our identity doesn’t require a label, and neither does the Universe require one. We put that pressure on ourselves. What complex, beautiful creatures we are!

We are complex characters, y’all. However we identify ourselves, we don’t always respond how you’d expect. We have a dark side. We are attributes and character defects, all rolled into one.

And we can all identify as that.

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Shooting the Breeze with my Spirit Guide

Photo by lil artsy on Pexels.com

By: JANA GREENE

SPIRIT GUIDE: “Welcome to Earth! You’ve been waiting a long time for your turn at being human! God has said LO! Tis time to exist earthside, for thouest have a lot to learn!“

ME: “You speak in King James English?”

SPIRIT GUIDE: “No. I’m just showing off. Now, there’s a lot of things you need to know to make your crazy little existence a little smoother. Let’s go over some of them. Says here that you have chosen Extreme Dysfunction under the ‘Family of Origin’ tab.”

ME: “I most certainly did not.”

SG: “Oh, but you did. We all choose each other – it’s the impetus of the Free Will Starter Pack, which has a “Memory” feature to remind you of every bad decision you made in your alcoholism.”

ME: “I’M AN ALCOHOLIC?!”

SG: …

ME: “So, you’re saying I am bad at Free Will?”

SG: * clears throat. * “No. I’m saying you are a little too good at it. Let’s continue. Now, you have all of the factory settings for all five senses, pretty standard. They are adding new senses all the time, so be sure to download your updates….OPE! I’m just seeing the Sense of Gratitude on the punch list. NICE!”

ME: “K.”

SG: “Oh! Here’s super cool feature. It’s the Response to Unmet Needs option, which has been streamlined for convenience. It’s called SCREAMING. Really, you wouldn’t think a nice girl like you could scream like that…”

ME: “Can I put Response to Unmet Needs on mute?”

SG: “You can, but I wouldn’t’ recommend it. It will just set you up for a lifetime of dismissing your unmet needs, even as an adult.”

ME: “And that’s bad?”

SG: “Usually, because you will deny you have any needs at all, while insisting on overzealously meeting the needs of everyone else – human, animal, vegetable, mineral – until you are a shred of who you used to be.”

ME: “Damn”.

SG: “And when you grow up, there’s an add-on called ‘Free Therapy,’ that allows you to sit in your car alone and cry whilst shoveling fast food down your gullet and listening to your “Crying Playlist” on Spotify. Trust me, it’s a lot more fun than it sounds. Always remember though, legit therapy is always best.”

ME: “Wait. I have a crying song list. What the hell?”

SG: “Yes. It’s superb, a real tear-jerker. You’re a little obsessed with music. And have many niche interests, which means you will know every possible thing about the Donner Party, the six wives of King Henry the eighth, the world of cheeses, beatboxing, and Venus flytraps, etc. And all of that makes you good at Jeopardy but gives you no marketable skills.”

ME: “That doesn’t sound very useful.”

SG: “Oh, it’s not. Now, this here (points to article B7 in user manual) says here you requested the Deluxe Feels Package.“

ME: “Why would I do such a thing?”

SG: “Matter of fact *SG checks inventory* Looks like you ordered a surplus of Feels. Like this is an Army surplus store amount. You were supposed to curate a well-balanced box of assorted Feels, but instead, it looks like you dumped the whole drawer upside down. Geez.”

ME: “Is Moderation installed?”

SG: “Says here it’s missing entirely.”

ME: “Why do I do the things I do. Dear GOD.”

SG” “Yeah, he’s the one who signed off on that.”

ME: “Magnificent.”

SG: “Don’t worry. I see here that you also come equipped with a great – if not janky – faith, and a twisted sense of humor. And your Gratitude add-on is a real dandy. You might even be thankful that you chose this particular all-inclusive Earthside Package. Oh, and you’re going to be really sick most of the time on your earth mission. So, make peace with that.”

ME: “Say I approved that feature, and I’ll punch you square in the face.”

SG: *Pushes glasses up on nose, thoughtfully* “You’re thinking too small. You see, your illness won’t even be about you. It’s about what a disability enables you to do to help others. Isn’t that something?!”

ME: “That’s something, alright.”

SG: “I promise, you’re going to be okay. And your brand of weird will attract other weirdos, and your Band of Weirdos will help you use every crappy thing that happens on your journey to make others feel less alone.”

ME: “How will I find my weirdos? Are there T-shirts?”

SG: “Oh, you’ll know.”

ME: “While you’re here, can you grant me three wishes?”

SG: “Ma’am, that’s a Genie…”

ME: “Oh. Doesn’t hurt to ask!”

SG: “Like I said, I’m here to guide you through a crazy little existence. I’ll be here watching over you. Me and God. It’s an adventure! Now go out and exercise that free will. Do beautiful things with it. Scream when necessary. Laugh every chance you get. Feel every single feeling without judging yourself. Go get ’em, Kiddo!”

ME: “Rah rah sis boom bah.”

SG: “That’s the Spirit!“

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Signs, Wonders, Chaos, Doom – and Hope (Still)

My goofy cat soaking up some vinyl prism rainbows through the window. Both of these things make me deliriously happy. I woke up hella depressed, in pain, and with a heavy heart. As so often happens, by the time I finish writing any given piece, I end up with some measure of comfort. It’s a weird phenomenon, but hey – what’s NOT weird these days? I wish you peace today, Dear Reader. Peace that passes understanding. And I pray you find evidence of God today in someone’s kindness.

By: JANA GREENE

I asked myself, “Where the Hell is God right now?” Because seriously WTF is happening? War and loss and disaster, oh my! I was feeling this way when I woke up this morning and sat down to write. Maybe that’ll help? God likes to slap me around with my own words at times…in a non-violent manner, of course, and with lots of love.

When you are having a depressive episode, the realization that a whole new day stretches before you is met with dread. Another one? Another whole day, chock full of pain in my body and pain in the world? Gee. Thanks.

Today we might have a new war. A new leukemia symptom. A new dislocation or migraine. A new issue with one of our kids. A new thing to grieve for, or about.

We occupy a doom-inducing, batshit crazy habitat full of awful unfolding of events in our world. Another day that we are supposed to be glad in rejoice! I do my best to please the Lord, but when he seems to be on sabbatical, it’s rough. Like having an emergency only your boss can fix, but he’s on vacation, left the office in complete disarray, and yelled, “SCREW THIS, I’M OUT!” on the way out. *SLAMS DOOR* Because that’s what I would do for sure.

For thousands of families that, this new day will bring heartache. They are looking for missing loved ones in a thick Carolina mudslide. It is a day that will either bring unresolved searching or crushing confirmation of loss. Again.

For so many around the world, a new day means missile sirens and the obliteration of their homes and possibly families. There is no holiness in war machines. Nothing sacred about violence. And so, for them, the new day brings devastation.

What the Hell is God doing right now? Where are you, God? It’s a mess down here!

But then I heard from one of my dearest friends, who live a couple of hours from the Blueridge portion of the Appalachians. This soft-souled woman and her kind and beautiful adult daughter had made a trip to pick up and foster a motley crew of terrified, traumatized cats and dogs. They brought them home, timid and scared, and are giving them a soft place to land and an environment that will envelop them in love (and probably spoil them, to be honest.) And I said, Oh. There you are, God. In the hands of people who care for the animals.

But that’s people, you say. And I say, how else would he make himself known but by people, made in his image to help and show love.

And then my husband held me for five whole minutes before leaving for work this morning (it would have been whole hours, if I’d have asked him.) He asked me what I needed, because he is so kind to bring me coffee or water when my body is creaky and sore. “Just hold me,” I said. In his embrace, I felt the presence of a loving deity within him. I know he is worried about me and my health and is frustrated that he cannot fix my pain. But in a way, he did, he does, in long, healing hugs. No words, just love so undiluted, I could not deny that God was loving me through my husband.

And as I was asking this very valid question, “Where are you, God?” I had a visit from Ollie, my 26-pound, longhaired black cat. I couldn’t get out of bed. Just couldn’t, too pained. Too sad. Ollie is so affectionate, and as the first tears of the day rolled down my cheeks, he pressed into me, nudging his head on my wet face. I told him good morning, and that I was sad, and he seemed to say, “I know, Mom. That’s what the extra smooshies are for.” Then his tabby brother Neo had his turn, coming to cuddle and say good morning. Purring and content, he let me bury my face in his fur. Yes, I decided. God is in the unconditional love of a pet. Absolutely. And you can never convince me otherwise.

Where are you, God? I was still asking. But as I was doom-scrolling through TikTok, the internet powers-that-be decided to add rescue videos to my algorithm, and dozens of clips of heroes took over my screen. It was like the Universe said, “Well she’s not going to get off of social media, so I’ll send her some digital hope.” And it was a little injection of hope. People being helpmates.

As if the heavenlies broke open, and I saw men and women standing amongst the worst devastation you can imagine, shell-shocked but intent on helping. They are administering first aid. They are in helicopters, eagle-eyed for any sign of life amongst the destruction, ready to drop a rope and climb into the muck themselves. Thousands of people in Appalachia have lost everything they have, but there are scores of volunteers gathering supplies, stepping up to do the administrative work to get them to the people in need. Good people, who carry that particle of God broken off into all of us, are fundraising and praying all hours of the day and night. Ah, God. There you are.

I am reminded of a story told by Mr. Fred Rogers – who carried and exercised his God particle more than most of us – from childhood. He was especially afraid of certain things -a very sensitive and thoughtful boy. When he would see scary things on the television news, his mother would say to him, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” His whole life -especially in times of great disaster – he remembered his mother’s words. ” I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world,” he continued.

Look for the helpers.

I still say WTF IS HAPPENING. Because hey, what the f*ck IS happening? But if you ask me – and you didn’t – I have a theory about why traumatic events are amping up all over the world. While my monkey-mind and lizard-brain are having a pow-wow about how we are DOOOOOMED, my Highest Self is aware that God is actually pressing into us right now. But not in religiosity. And not in a booming voice breaking open the heavens, or in The Big Zapping Up to heaven called “the rapture.”

He is pressing into us when we press into each other. He is comforting us with smooshies from big, fat, affectionate kitties, and rooms full of rainbows that get a little help from plastic vinyl stickers. He is reminding us that he’s still here by holding us for minutes (or hours) in the arms of a loved one. He rescues and fosters terrified doggies and gave them food, warmth, and love. He searches in the landslides for his creation, recovers the lost and returns them to their families. He grieves with the grieving. People forget the shortest sentence in the Bible – Jesus wept. His DNA is in our tears. He looks at the devastation and decides that he can become the hands and feet of volunteers. Made in his image, we carry the literal God.

And we carry him into our hurting world, whether we do it in his name or not. It is the good we carry. When I am hurting, worried, despondent – his voice isn’t booming. No hand comes through the clouds with the announcement BE HEALED MY CHILD, FOR I DECREE IT THUS! I HAVE COME TO COLLECT MY CHOSEN FEW! That’s movie stuff. That’s fundamentalist stuff. Evangelical teaching. There is no chosen few. ALL are made in his image. And anyway, that’s not how any of this works.

This is the “rapture;” his spirit is already present. We are in the thick of it, as we get ever closer to sharing God-consciousness in whole. Until then, chaos – that we ourselves create. It seems to run unchecked, until he comes for us with a compassionate whisper:

Please don’t lose hope. Look for the signs and wonders; they are as plentiful as the harbingers of doom; you just have to look in the right places. Rest in me when the pain comes. Don’t hold back tears, I am collecting them and will exchange them for joy. Keep loving my children, even though they can be brats. Keep loving my children, even though they are picking up arms. Love those who curse you. Throw grace around like confetti. Don’t bemoan your fate – it might be the one thing that gives another hope. Look for that hope in EACH new day. And do what you can for helpless people in hopeless situations, whether it be a personal hell or great disaster.

Look for the helpers. BE the helper.

I am still here. And I love you.

(Here….have some more rainbows…)

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Groanings of Spirit, Muffled by Flood (Grieving Alongside Western North Carolina)

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.

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It Rains Diamonds on Jupiter

Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric on Pexels.com

By: JANA GREENE

I heard the other day that it rains diamonds on Jupiter. It is believed that in the upper atmosphere, lightning strikes methane, turning it into carbon. As the pressure increases, it turns into graphite, and after falling another 4,000 miles or so, the pressure is so great, the graphite turns into diamonds. So, falls from their sky something so valuable, and stinky methane gas started the whole shebang.

But I doubt the Jupitarians appreciate it much – if Jupiter has sentient life. At least, if they are like us.

Well, shit,” I imagine them saying. “Eighty percent chance of showers. Better bring an umbrella. Rains going to leave dents on the spaceship! Might flood the streets. Damn diamonds.“

It makes me wonder how earthly beings find value in things. What if water is as much as a miracle as diamonds, and we just don’t see it? What if – over a cup of alien coffee – they say, “I heard it rains WATER on EARTH! Can you imagine?”

What if dandelions aren’t merely weeds? What if there is value in the Spanish moss that drips off of our trees here in the South? What if even the grass under our bare feet is adding to our human experience? Wiggle your bare toes in the grass fresh with morning dew and tell me there is no God.

I’m convinced this life is, as author Marianne Williamson says, a course in miracles. This season of life as a 55-year-old Earthling has me leaning into nature. And as a result, finding a more tangible God.

Spit a plain rock in half and find a geode. Forage for life in the woods and study mushrooms. Stargaze for the sake of stargazing.

Or stand in a forest and realize that every green thing you see is busy making air for you to breathe. Air! Thank God for the work they do. Maybe even thank the trees, as a nod of appreciation. Whie you’re embracing your mid-life crazy, hug a tree, like a proper hippie. Hold it and remember every cell in its brawny trunk and its wiry branches are alive.

Sit by the sea and consider the life within it. The tiny minnows and the monsters of the deep, animals we cannot yet imagine. The balance is delicate for a place so vast, full of yummy fishes and stunning coral. Like everything else, crafted by a creative force, no mistakes made.

And the heavens? Oh, the HEAVENS! More impressive than Jupiter – with its teasing rains of diamonds. The images from the James Webb Telescope confirm to my doubting heart that there is intelligence in its design. Butterfly Nebulas, supermassive Black Holes, endless galaxies made plain to us. I imagine surfing the universe, and some day, I know I will. I’ll be one with the Great Spirit, made stardust again.

Even the crunch of dead leaves underfoot is a reminder that we all have one precious life to live. And just like the leaves, we will become earth again.

So, it may rain diamonds on Jupiter, but we have miracles here too. I wonder if God ever turns to an angel and says, “I don’t know how much more proof they need?“

As we are all taking this Course in Miracles, held down by gravity and the aggravations of being human, let’s not forget to consider the part nature plays in our wellbeing. Every monumental mountain and every winding river hold proof of your own divinity. It is not separate from us.

All of it as precious as the diamonds that fall on Jupiter.

Jupitarians got nothin’ on us.

Hug a tree. And blessed be.

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Writing the Quirky-Worky (Prolific) Way

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By: JANA GREENE

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.

Blessed be.

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The Storms We Don’t See Coming

Photo by Daffa Rayhan Zein on Pexels.com

By: JANA GREENE

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.

EUREKA.

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But What Does Prayer Look Like Post-“Deconstruction?”

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By: JANA GREENE

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.

Even when words fail us.

His love never does.

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Calling Out the “Gospel of Get Over It” (or, Giving the Inner Child her Say)

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By: JANA GREENE

Can we talk honestly about denial in the name of religion?

For most of my marriage, I have unintentionally masked. I told my husband everything, but not everything.  Not intentionally by sin of omission, but because I couldn’t – I had stuffed it so far up my own ass for survival’s sake, I had built up a memory meltdown. Let’s just move forward. But you can’t move forward until you switch the gearshift from reverse. Otherwise, it’s just idling.

And it worked, for many years. If I was upset, I’d stuff it. Or banished it in the name of JESUS. Traumatic memory would surface, but I would rebut it with but you’re happy NOW. And to be honest, if some of it hadn’t happened to me, I wouldn’t believe it. It’s a got-damn wonder I am not locked away somewhere to protect me from myself, much less sober.

One of the reasons I am estranged from members of my family of origin is that they know. They know, they remember, and so long as there is distance, they don’t have to make amends. I have accepted that they can’t. I only write about the least violent incidents. I polish it up pretty nicely. I am not saying all that I could say, I promise you that. My intention is not to make anyone uncomfortable, but if it does, maybe it should. I am writing this transparently because I know so many, many souls are walking wounded here, being told that their trauma has been Houdini-ed in the name of Jesus, but still feeling bereft.

But I will admit I remain damaged, and that is okay. It all took a toll. How silly to expect growing up in an environment of daily screaming, physical violence – and indeed the worst thing that can be done to a little girl – is expected to be taped over by some of the laughs and good times, like an unfortunate VHS performance. That’s what a lot of people won’t tell you about growing up in an abusive home. There were good times too. I suppose they are supposed to override the bad? But the bad was bad, and it’s stuck in my gray matter, petrifying until solid, since childhood. I was steeped in it.

I dealt with it by Denial by Religion and Busyness. I engrossed myself in ALLTHETHINGS, all the distractions, the past 20 years. Raising three teenagers. Battling a chronic, as-of-then undiagnosed illness. Pretending to give a rat’s ass about my “career” – ANY “career.” Launching two city-wide recovery programs. Getting Recovery Coach Certification.

Need a greeter at the church? OKAY! Need a prayer person to pray with people crushed by their own abuse and pain? I’m ON IT. Fuck my own damage, let me weave sincere and elaborate prayers for the hurting. God is good. Amen?

I was getting up early every day to have coffee with Jesus and Joyce Meyer. Just feels like the devil is stompin’ me when I miss Joyce! I would say (and sincerely mean it.) Later, be the best wife, because you have the best husband. Your marriage is proof that miracles still happen. Don’t fuck it up with your trauma and neediness! Be the best friend, mother, warrior, Bible-reader. Smile, even though the physical pain is searing. Smile, even though you have unresolved trauma like some people have freckles. It’s all in your head anyway, you’re crazy. (It’s all in your head may be the gaslightiest self-gaslight of them all.)

I mentored the crap out of anybody with a heart-wound in those years. And for that, I am not sorry. Everyone broke my heart. Everybody got a little piece of me. Every ounce of trauma was healed in the NAME OF JESUS, AMEN?! God gave me permission to stuff it, what with all the Christian counseling I’d gotten that taught me to “pray it out!” It’s been CAST OUT, as far as the EAST from the WEST! God’s ways are not our ways, brethren.

In other words, GET OVER IT.

So, the trauma sat. Because whether by flaw of character or complete ignorance, I couldn’t seem to get over it. It took residence in my body, every tissue marked by it.

In all of us lives a whole preschool of children. Not in a multiple personality way, but layered like a cake of a hundred of layers. As many layers as went into our development, as many memories went into the batter at that time. We live in the frosting – the Present – but we sit upon years of joys and sorrows, expectations and traumas. Without it, there is no reason for the frosting. But frosting is no good all on its own.

My inner 4-year old’s pain hasn’t been cast out – ironically, because she had been cast out all her little life. Just try telling your 4-year-old that memories aren’t ghosts, and POOF! they are all gone because words were said over her, named and claimed. That’s not fair to her.

Joyce Mayer’s loud, booming voice frightens her. The Lord comforts her, but not in a magical instant as advertised. She used to hide in her toybox, when things got loud at home. The lid to the box slowly lifting with a great creak, and a hand of assistance is offered. It isn’t a “one and done” experience, though – that lifting. Every day, she hides in her toybox to some degree, and every day, the lid is lifted, the sun pours in, and a hand is offered. So, I, in my 4-year-old wisdom, take the hand again and again, and sometimes, that is what grace looks like – what miracles look like. We want out of the toybox altogether, but we do it by taking the hand every day, even when things are scary.

Getting the chance to nurture her with the help of The Greatest Therapist of All Time (PERIOT!) is an honor and privilege. I hope to hear out all the past versions of Me, with a little more compassion now. And I am writing raw for the first time, instead of just idling.

Blessed be, friends.

(Part 2 to come…)

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

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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.

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