How often do I feel like I’m spiritually “getting things right”? About as often as we see an eclipse. So let’s not lean on on our “understanding” of God and lean instead into Love (which is really just another name God goes by.) And yes, this is my lame attempt at photographing the eclipse.
By: JANA GREENE
If it’s God’s will, it will come easily. That’s how you know you’re operating in the Spirit. Things will click. Things will flow. His yoke is light, etc and so on.
But also, if you are in God’s will, it will be hard.
You’ll know you have holy favor when you’re downtrodden and at the end of your rope. That’s the ol’ devil, don’t you know. And he wouldn’t mess with you if you weren’t doing God’s work.
Well, which is it? Do you see the conundrum?
This is life, and it’s both and neither. It is, so far as I can tell, it’s ALLTHETHINGS, dammit.
I can’t trust a God whose mind I have to pick apart to get it “right.”
I don’t tell my adult children, “Okay, I’m feeling some type of way about you…but WHICH way? Let’s see if you can correctly guess based on interpretation of an ancient text and my jealous, vengeful nature. May the odds be ever in your favor!”
I learn alongside my children, you see. For everything I learn about them, they learn about me. And in the process, and I feel like we are all learning alongside God, with curiosity and wonder and grieving and suffering.
It will be easy, there will be times of flow.
It will be brutally difficult.
It’s all holy favor, you see, and that’s the confounding part.
God only feels ONE type of way about you.
We need not wring our hands in an attempt to earn love, because that’s the way we have been taught to please a world of broken people and an unpleasable diety.
In actuality, the odds are always, always in your favor, Beloved. Even (especially?) when you’re most hurt, downtrodden, and at the end of your rope.
Whether you invite God to a celebration of the soul or an old-fashioned pity party, just invite him. The Spirit shows up for both.
And not just “love” it like I love chocolate, or cats, or 70-degree days.
No. I mean it “ministers” to my soul, man. And not in the holy-roller way; but in a way that satisfies me to the core. Maybe you feel the same?
A few months ago, my husband took me to see a concert by the Black Crowes. Watching the lead singer, Chris Robinson, create and enjoy his music on stage was mesmerizing. He didn’t exactly dance like no one was watching; his dance was more like an inviation to join him.
He flailed his arms; he stomped his feet. Shades of Woodstock, I tell you. He danced about because his body had to follow the direction of his heart. Can you imagine the Black Crowes performing while sitting in stillness? Of course not.
His fancy footwork was unchoreographed, but in the freest, most uninhibited way. That man couldn’t care less if thousands of people were watching, he just let go and let the music take over 100%. And you cannot convince me that God himself was present, chillin’, and appreciating the fine artform his kid Chris was sharing. (We are all his kids, you know.)
“I want to get to that level of unbotherdness,” I told my husband. “That’s true spirituality right there.”
And it was.
What seems like both yesterday and an eternity ago, I read Eric Clapton’s autobiography (aptly named “Clapton”) on a sunny beach in Aruba. I was on my honeymoon. It was 2007.
“I have always been resistant to doctrine, and any spirituality I had experienced thus far in my life had been much more abstract and not aligned with any recognized religion. For me, the most trustworthy vehicle for spirituality had always proven to be music.” Eric Clapton said.
Ah yes….MUSIC.
I’ve always felt this way about music, but it scared me. Getting heavy into a vibe felt like giving in to secularism, unless the song was churchy. “Churchy” music was fine to dance too. Heck, you could sprawl yourself out on the floor whilst fellow congregants got their groove on. Because it was FOR GOD. “The bigger the spectacle, the closer to God” was kind of the thinking.
I’ve fought it my whole life, good music trying to settle into the marrow of my bones. In my teen years, our youth pastor hosted a “Devil’s Music” night, and I wish I were kidding. We listened to Led Zepplin – whose music I was already having a torrid affair with – and then we listened to it BACKWARDS.
OH MY GOD HAVE I BEEN WORSHIPPING DARK FORCES, just by listening? This scared me into an exclusively Amy Grant and Petra phase, which I really tried to adhere to, but have you HEARD Al Green? Have you felt the pulse and lull of David Bowie’s voice?
The bottom line of the theology I lived by for years was: If it’s not worshiping God, it’s worshiping the devil. Which – in my current de/reconstructed faith, sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it’s what millions of people think is true.
Maybe all music is of God, because it was his big idea. Feel that bass in your heart? Chris Robinson does, and he isn’t afraid to BE the music.
But what if the music has a dark message? I promise you it’s not too dark for God to hear. We are ALL in a dark place many times throughout life. We record it and remember it because it too is part of the human experience. I personally have a Spotify list of “Crying Songs,” because sometimes my antidepressants make it difficult to cry and these songs really get me going.
Emotion is not the enemy. Things that evoke emotion are not innately bad.
For the majority of my life, I’ve tried to temper what I assumed was “worldly,” lest I offend God with my listening choices. “You are what you listen to,” I was taught.
And what I’ve been taught has run my whole life up until this point. Obsessed with what the church sanctioned, all while doubting the church’s reasoning but being afraid to give it voice.
But the subjectivity of music is like appreciation for any other art. Only God could take doh, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, doh, and give us the liberty to arrange those simple sounds into millions of possibilities. And I have to believe that’s a holy process. Lots of things are part of a holy process. MOST things, I’d venture.
For God so loved the world, that he gave it music. And to make sure it properly,was executed properly, he gave us Chris Robinson, Van Morrison, Creed, Snoop Dogg, and Al Green.
And I’m grateful. I want to give myself over to music…become a spectacle not to impress others, but because the music is reaching a place in my soul that is so full, I have to get my body involved in what my heart is already enjoying.
God bless us, everyone. Crank up your tunes, and enjoy all the good gifts God has given!
When I thought I understood the hereafter in my evangelical days, I used to talk about the mansions we will all have in heaven, and looked forward to laying down this mortal burden and enjoying my “just reward” after fighting the good fight.
“Mansions!” all us Christians would insist. “We are all gonna have MANSIONS!”
In seems a strange form of idolatry now in hindsight. Entitlement, even. After all, it’s our birthright! In the end, it’s ego wanting what ego feels justified in wanting.
The way we all carried on about the specs for our abode in Heaven, missing the point and slipping into a prosperity gospel mindset.
So, God? You can give my heavenly “mansion” to someone else who struggled with homelessness while Earthside. Transfer the deed, and let it be so. Basking in the undiluted consciousness of the Universe is enough for me.
Perhaps God, you can see fit to let my address be YOU. Peace, not riches, in communion with the holiness we only get to see glimpses of here.
Although I surely won’t mind if you place me near water – perhaps a sea or a stream. I want to be cozy forever and ever, amen – safe finally and well. Whole and free in my little heavenly abode.
And I will invite all of my friends to my little UN-mansion; and that will be enough. A true just reward, eternally.
In my Father’s house, there are said to be many rooms, but I just need room enough for love.
I do my best spiritual work from on the ground, apparently.
I can remember laying on my mat Kindergarten at naptimes at school, a skinny little girl laying curled in a ball, watching all my classmates fall asleep like falling asleep is just a normal thing people do or something.
From birth, my brain never shut up, and my home life was dysfunctional to the point of chaos. So, I would lay with my budding anxious neurosis on the vinal mat, unable to sleep; afraid to close my eyes (and afraid not to.) No sleep, only unease.
My teacher, Mrs. Carter would stand over me and holler in front of the whole class, “CLOSE YOUR EYES, JANA!” I can remember squeezing them together and doing a rudimentary version of praying. It was a crude and simple exchange with the God of my Vacation Bible School stories. Even as a child, I seemed to know instinctively that there is more help available from the Divine than we ask for or expect.
“I can’t calm my mind,” I would have said to the adults in my life, had I the language to ask for what I needed. But I didn’t. Little girls with big, grown-up worries don’t know how to self-soothe, because OF COURSE they don’t; and they surely don’t know how to articulate anxiety or ask for help calming their minds.
That’s where I remember doing my first earnest prayers – on the kindergarten mat – asking of Jesus who already lives in my heart to be seen and soothed, comforted and feel less alone.
Twenty-seven years later, I found myself on the bathroom floor of my house, battling an alcohol addiction, wishing to die. On January 3, 2001, I came to the end of myself on that floor. Wretching, sick, alone, and desperate. From flat on the tiled floor, my fist in the air, eyes tinged in red, and skin yellowing, yelling at God and no one in particular, I came to the end of myself.
It reminded me of the biblical story of Jacob “going to the mat” with God in an all-night WrestleMania event. “I’m not going to take this laying down!” Jacob was thinking. But he ended up exhausted and limping, which is how most of us end up in that mindset, if we are not careful.
I had prayed many, many times before for sobriety, but there was a different outcome on that day. A peace descended on me like a dove. In my sickness and desperation, I was met on the floor by a God undeterred from my anxiety. One minute at a time, and then one hour, then one day, week, month, year… that was 23 years ago. A lifetime ago.
“I CAN’T CALM MY MIND” I simply told him. And here’s the thing: I know the same Spirit who curled up with me on my kindergarten nap mat is the same Spirit who met me in the bathroom, me clinging to the toilet, him not at all afraid to get the hem of his garment dirty on my behalf.
I am now learning to meditate now, and it’s a challenge. My husband, who never seems to tire of my endless new “hobbies” took me to get a nice, double-padded yoga mat. I’ve been on quite the little awakening for several years now and am learning so much. I absolutely love incorporating the tools I’m learning into my faith life, which is not a conflict with the holiness of God at all, no matter what Debbie at the Pentecostal church says. (I plan to write at length about what I’m learning, if you’d like to journey with me.)
The first group meditation session I went to, I dutifully spread out my mat amongst the hippies and lovers and seekers at the group event, excited to learn this new coping mechanism. The atmosphere was thick with love and cleansing. Yet can you guess what the prevailing thought was upon getting situated?
I CAN’T CALM MY MIND.
“Okay,” I felt Spirit say, over the Native American flute music and swirling clouds of burning sage (that former evangelical ‘me’ would be scandalized by.) “I am in you and with you and around you.”
If you feel you are on the “floor” in some regard to your life, I just want to remind you that it’s a nice, stable surface from which to start. You are simply grounding, darlings. The floor is a very vulnerable place to be, but be vulnerable we must, if we are to grow. We glorify striving, when simply being is enough.
So just ‘be’ today, friends.
Just be, Groundlings. And don’t forget to breathe. And ask the Universe to make you ever more aware of his presence. If we increase our awareness of this supernatural experience, we begin to see God everywhere – in every ONE.
In you, too! Ready to see, soothe, and comfort you – meeting you on hallowed ground.
Today’s writing prompt from The Writing Room Collective:
By: JANA GREENE
If you are going to trust with any degree of your tender, fleshy heart, you will get hurt. It isn’t a possibility. It isn’t a “might happen.” We all experience betrayal. Death has lost it’s eternal sting, but betrayal still really smarts.
Many years ago, a woman who was freshly out of rehab was being released into her natural habitat of Life on Life’s Terms. We had a mutual friend at the time, who asked me to reach out to her so I can hook her up with some meeting resources, and just generally be her friend. As a result of her past choices, she relied on others to get her around town – she lost her licence – and I was all too happy to be her recovery buddy and take her to meetings with me.
And become her friend, I did.
Not only did she confide in me, but I in her; and regularly. Looking back now, I cringe at the uber-vulnerability I felt comfortable engaging in with her. I wasn’t her sponsor, but I was her friend, and I have a propensity for letting it all hang out anyway.
She had close ties with people who used to be an intimate part of my life (ESTRANGED family, gee, that should have been a clue!) but I did a crazy thing, which is to trust her.
What I should have caught on to, but missed by a mile, was that her wildly elaborate and passionate stories about recovery were pockmarked with holes, hugs, and bullshit. My gut often doesn’t get consulted on these things, when it should be the FIRST consultation I make.
On our rides to meetings, she was super animated and would often even quote from my own blog to me. I would sometimes think, ‘okay…THAT was weird,’ but most of my friends – and certainly me – are weird. Some of the personal stories she told suspended belief!
Eventually, this friend needed witnesses who ‘knew’ her pretty well, and after taking her to meetings for damn near a year I felt confident about testifying on her behalf. “You’ve worked so hard on your recovery,” I said. “I would be honored to help!”
The Oscar for Best Actress goes to ….
My “friend.”
After I was a character witness for her, I never saw or heard from her again. She fell off the face of the Earth. It’s hard for me to imagine that degree of deception.
Turns out, this woman had been drinking all along – Vodka apparently, so I didn’t smell it. ALL ALONG.
I kind of pride myself on this mission statement: I don’t have relationships with people I don’t trust. That assumes I know untrustworthy people and can tell when they are lying. I thought I had decent discernment. Maybe that pride needs to go the way of ALL pridefulness. In the sh*tter, where it belongs.
The question I keep posing to myself is thus – HOW could I be so stupid and gullible? I honest to God just didn’t see it. I really hurt my own feelings about it. Then I realize, there is no betrayal that can’t teach us a thing or two.
There’s no way to wrap up this post up all clean and tidy-like, because life is just so messy. I don’t think I’ll hear from her again; she got what she had befriended me for.
What I experienced ain’t terribly original.
Active addicts lie. It’s kind of what they do. They deceive, minimize, maximize, lie, cheat, steal, and all to protect their best friend – the drug of choice. I myself used to strategically hide BOXES of wine all over the house (although I’m not sure why, as those in my life at the time didn’t seem to mind if I drank myself to death.)
But once I got into a program, I learned to call myself out on these behaviors and stop lying to myself. Because calling yourself out keeps you sober, frankly. “Rigorous honesty.”
Yeah, that old chestnut.
As with most things about recovery, I’ve learned tons about myself during this time. Had I to do it again, what would I change? Even if I knew she was using me and lying about her addiction?
I would still offer to take her to meetings with me. I would still give her a safe place to vent. I probably wouldn’t have shared as much of my personal life with her, and I surely wouldn’t have vouched for her. Like I said, it sometimes seems that no good deed goes unpunished.
Although the deception happened TO me, it is not ABOUT me. It’s not about me in the least. But it stings all the same – I’m just being honest about how this whole debacle made me feel.
Still, God calls me to be grace-full, and I’m trying. He never called me to be a sucker, though. I have forgiven this lady (although she never asked for it) after wasting precious hours and hours on trying to figure out what clues I missed.
But forgiving someone doesn’t mean you want to break bread with them. You can forgive, walk away, and be wiser for the trouble.
I need to throw a little tantrum right now. Not a full-on nervy-b, but a proper little hissy fit.
I’m so grateful for the health days lately that have allowed me to do some normalsauce stuffs recently, but Ehlers Danlos is a chronic pain and illness condition. It doesn’t take vacations.
My whole body is made up of faulty collagen. The last two nights (and eapecially today,) the pain flares had been almost unbearable.
So here Is my stupid little list of wishes, compiled to get my frustration under control, and maybe remind you that you’re not alone if you’re hurting too.
I wish I could pop my shoulders out of the sockets like Ms. Potato Head, and replace them with sturdier, less excruciating shoulder joints. They pained me so severely last night, I writhed around trying to get comfortable for several hours instead of sleeping.
I wish it didn’t feel like oyster shuckers have been wedged under my kneecaps, feeling like someone is trying to jimmy them off every day. I wish my hips didn’t roll around and sublux levery dadgum day. I can pop the joint in and out, and it’s not a fun party trick. It’s agony.
I wish I had one of those cool new “exoskeleton” robot suits. Have you seen them?? They hold you together from the OUTSIDE. Like a Transformer. I would t even care that I looked like a weirdo.
I wish people disnt give me the stink-eye when I need to park In handicapped. Look at her, walking Into the store! What people dont realize Is that every step can be a real challenge. You never know what a disabled person is really feeling In their bodies. Sometimes the fatigue makes every step seem Impossible.
I wish people’s understood that different days require different mobility aids. Sometimes you will see me using a cane. I need it for stability on Sundays and or because the pain is making it hard to walk other days. I don’t use it at all and I know that seems really confusing, but it’s quite simple – there are good days and bad days.
I live every day fully aware that I will most likely lose mobility from here on out, so the days I don’t need my cane I revel not needing It.
I wish people understood the fragility of an EDSers body, and the strength It takes to keep going. We are fragile, but unbreakable.
There is little to no stability in my joints because most of my lax connective tissue. Pain and injury are the result. I once broke my ankle in two places from stepping out of bed to go pee in the middle of the night; it just rolled. And lest you think I’m just a big wimp about pain, I walked on that ankle for eleven days before I had it looked at by a doctor. My threshold is very high.
I wish I had a decent immune system. I don’t.
I wish the migraines would cease and desist, but they are tied into some of my other genetic mutation conditions. They are a whole other Issue altogether.
And I wish I were way more zen about pain. It teaches me things, true. But I simply get tired of this shit. I am trying to live transcendently – find joy beyond suffering and camp out In the assurance that God’s got me (and I get by with a LOT of help from my friends.)
I currently have a post-it scrawled with medical appointments I need to make on my kitchen counter. Like I NEED to make these appointments – for specialists, physical therapy, another cortisone shot in my knee, major dental work, a trip to Duke next month for gastroperesis treatment, and labs galore. It had been on the counter for weeks and every day I pass it and get a mini-panic attack, on account of I’m simply overwhelmed.
Because this IS overwhelming. My job is to stay healthy enough to have a quality of life, but I sure could use some PTO days to just NOT feel like this.
Life is challenging, but we are never alone. That’s important to wish for – for God to use my crappy conditions to make others feel less alone. That’s the best reason I can come up with for any kind of suffering.
I think I’ve leveled-up on my woo-woo-ness. And I’m okay with that!
By: JANA GREENE
The best compliment I have ever been paid upon meeting someone that I have only known on social media previously is: “Wow! You have beautiful energy.”
I actually cried the first time someone said this. How wonderful to notice first the essence of a person; not the packaging. I can think of nothing better than receiving that “good word” (as I would say in my evangelical days.) It’s a big ‘ol NAMASTE – my soul recognizes yours. What could possibly be better?
And I am sure to comment on the energy of others too. Some people positively glow with it, so much so that their presence changes the entire trajectory of your day.
Energy isn’t the perfect lipstick or a flattering haircut. It doesn’t give a nod to trends, or consider an outward aesthetic.
It’s our very frequency, which the whole universe vibes with. People can actually “tune in” to yours and mine – it’s created to be shared. We are all just only energy anyway, might as well be good energy!
Wrinkles and fat come and go (mostly just come these days.) “Beauty” by conventional definition “fades.” Our mental health gets janky. Cellulite dimples our bodies. Hair grays. Boobs fall. Fupas happen. My physical health is falling apart due to chronic illness. But this little light of mine? It transcends this Earth Suit. Thank God for that.
Your frequency is like no other. We don’t need to be perfect; we just need to lean into the Oneness that we all belong to. Blessed be, Dear Reader.
And namaste, you beautiful energy vessel, you. Thanks for sharing your frequency with the world.
I was going to write about the subject of today’s writing prompt, which is “Describe your favorite childhood book.” How very light, fluffy, and FUN! Maybe I’ll write about that tomorrow. I’m not really feeling it today.
Yesterday, my husband and I went for a Sunday convertible drive, the weather was so lovely. We drove all the way down to Fort Fisher like we usually do because (I realize this is kind of nauseating) that’s where we had our very first kiss. We stop and kiss in that exact spot, and notice three guys with motorcycles watching the kiteboarders in the inlet.
“What a beautiful day for a bike ride!” we said aloud at one point. We admired the view for a bit. It really was a beautiful day.
We started back up Fort Fisher, stopping to take a few pictures (to use on my blog) and we heard sirens. An ambulance raced past, heading to the end of the long road. Then a firetruck. I am nosy, so I wondered aloud, should we go see what’s happening? Something told me “no.” Something told me (correctly) that I couldn’t handle whatever “this” was. We decided to head home as a state police car barreled past us. He was flying. The emergency presence was alarming…
CB and Kure police. State police. A fire truck. And, an ambulance. We both had a sick feeling about it for some weird reason, and it was a feeling we couldn’t shake.
Later in the afternoon, when we got home, we found out it was a motorcycle accident that happened minutes after we left Fort Fisher. Minutes.
Today I read the news that the motorcyclist did not survive the accident. I can not stop thinking about him today.
There had only been three guys on motorcycles and a tourist couple taking pictures, (and Bob and I) down that long stretch of road. That’s all. I could remember the faces, which seems odd – that my mind – which is not so swell at remembering anything else – could conjure their faces.
Which one, I wondered. Which gentleman was it? The one riding a trike or one of the two men who were riding together. Was it you, Guy in the royal blue shirt? Was it the dude on the trike? Or was it the short one with long hair?
I may never know. But here’s what I DO know… Life is effing short.
None of those men thought a ride to Fort Fisher would be the last thing he did on this earth. How absurd that someone in their prime of life would go for a bike ride and never come home? I’m crying thinking about it.
So I pray for the family, because what else are we supposed to do with these jarring realizations that this life is but one leg of an eternal journey. I’m so sorry for them. Their worlds make absolutely no sense today.
We have the time we have allotted and not a minute more, so what are we doing with the it? Learn to be present in the moment. Let the small stuff go. Enjoy the living daylights out of every minute. Which is difficult because in addition to being the most amazing ever, life is also the hardest, most bewildering thing ever.
In honor of the gentleman who lost his life minutes after we saw his face, I’m going to love on my family harder than necessary today. I’m going to be more aware in the moments with friends, which are so precious. Please take good care of yourself and each other today. God really does love you, and so do I.
On this second day of taking a cue from my favorite Author’s writing prompt suggestions, I bring you a little poetry jam. Anne Lamott’s prompt today? Write about: “It seemed like a good plan on paper.” This piece wholly turned into something completely different than I had in mind, as so often happens. I hope you enjoy, Dear Reader. From my paper heart to yours.
WRITING PROMPT: “Write about the first time you fell in love.”
– Anne Lamott, (A Writing Room)
By: JANA GREENE
I have a tendency to fall in love instantly. I fell head over heels in love with my husband nearly 18 years ago, but I’ve made lifelong friends that I’ve loved since day one. Dogs, cats, people I mentor – doesn’t matter. If my soul recognizes you, I can love you genuinely right away. I’ve hated that about myself most of my life (it’s illogical, according to this cold, hard world,) but I’m at such peace with it now. If people can hate without even getting to know a person, I can certainly love right out of the gate.
The fist time it happened was in 1983.
His name was Trace, and I met him at the skating rink. I still cannot hear Loverboy’s “Take me to the Top” without recalling the scent of Giorgio for Men and the whisp-whisp-whisp of his parachute pants as he whooshed by me in an eternally moving loop on his “peanut butters.”
Peanut butters – for those not in the know – are what we called those iconic brown rental skates at the rink – the ones that you tried not to think about the foot that was there before yours. Only the very popular, rich kids brought their own skates.
I was born with a painful and injurious connective tissue condition. When I was a kid, my family called it “clumsiness,” but it was actually many of my joints subluxing and dislocating constantly. I remember my ankles were janky that day, so I skated in a slow, steady loop, acting casual. Each time he’d pass me, he would wink at me over his shoulder. I guess because it was the early-eighties and we flirted like we were in a John Hughes film (what other template could we have used? Mr. Hughes defined our generation!)
It turned out, Trace was in the grade about me at the middle school. I was in seventh, he in eighth, and going to high school the following year. An almost-high-school boy liked me! That’s better than having custom roller skates!
And so began my first foray into “love.” And it was love, to some degree. I thought of nothing else but him. That evening, he asked me if I wanted to skate to the couples only skate. Actually, I think I was sitting on a bench festooned with neon colored patterns that glowed in the dark. When they cut the lights down, Journey’s “Open Arms” called us to the floor. I skated backwards and he forwards, but I saw nothing but his eyes. They were yellow-green, like a cat’s – but maybe those of a friendly cat. His hair was long, curly, and very blonde, like Sebastian Bach of the band “Skid Row.” And I was there for it. We became girlfriend/boyfriend that day and would be together off-and-on for the next couple of years – which is an eternity when you’re a teenager.
“I want to marry you,” he’d say, “and have lots of babies.” And I believed that’s what he wanted because his home was so unstable. We both wanted an opportunity to do better. Looking back, it’s a gigantic red flag, but my passionate 14 year old heart would not hear of anything less that marriage and babies. Oh the naivety!
Trace was wounded, in a way. And I worried about him constantly, which is another good indicator that this was different. He was sadness masquerading as a cowboy, in his hat and a pair of shit-kickers. I was sad too, but his love made me warm, and warm sadness is better than the regular kind, because any teenage couple worth their salt is plodding through angst. Me and you against the WORLD, right?
So I fell in love for the first time, with a boy from a broken home who called me his “angel,” and broke up with me because I was so afraid that he was going to expect me to do things after Prom that I canceled it altogether. I was terrified of intimacy; I simply was not ready. And he – being 17 – had “needs” that my Bible-toting, scripture-quoting, uber “good girl” self was not willing to facilitate. (Ugh. Could she not loosen up just a little?)
We had all the wonderful “firsts.” First couple’s skate. First hickey (“I burned my neck with the curling iron, Mom!”) First cheap but thoughtful necklace that turned my skin green. First experience with obsessing over a boy. First concept that I was adored by someone, and I was happy to adore in return. Of course, Trace was my first break-up too. I think break-ups teach us just as much about ourselves as relationships do. Maybe more.
Eventually it fell apart because – like every good John Hughes movie – there was drama. He had a rough childhood, and things were bad at my home too. Trauma-bonding does not make for the best relationship foundation. I moved away from Texas, and I have no idea what became of him. But I hope he is okay, and thriving somewhere with some special lady who is his “angel.”
First loves are practice; an art, not a science. We had all the standard-issue problems that teen couples do. But we also had stolen kisses behind the bleachers, sweet, corny love letters, and phone calls that ended with, “No, YOU hang up first…” “NO, you hang up first.’ “No, YOU” ad-nauseum so we could hear each other fall asleep.
He was such a sweet, troubled soul, and in truth – so was I. But all first loves should be equal parts magic and tragic, I think. It’s our first foray into accepting another human being for who they are, parachute pants, Peanut Butters, and all.
The year of our Lord 2023 can go suck eggs. It can suck eggs, eat my shorts, lick rust, and eat glass. I’m not one for oversimplifying (I can’t stand it when people say “the whole YEAR sucked!” because I’ve learned that the same year that held loss and grief also has it’s moments too. I can’t recall many right now, but they definitely happened. Small victories like medical lab results marginally improving, family birthday parties, lunch with friends.
Well, was it a bad year? It either was or it wasn’t, right?
At the beginning of 2023, one of my acquaintances posted to Facebook this ALL CAPS EXCITEMENT BOMB, and for good reason. “PRAISE GOD, YA’LL! HE IS SOOOO GOOD! IT WASN’T CANCER!” They had a cancer scare, and it turned out to be ‘nothing.’ So I rejoiced alongside my friend, with the cringe-comment, “WOOHOOO! GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME!” Hey, I was an evangelical a long time. The catchphrases die hard.
The very next day, I received news that a friend who was like a sister to me was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. She was given months to live. What the actual HELL, God? God did NOT seem so good anymore, in that moment – less than 24 hours after celebrating my acquaintances’ good news.
I was angry, and it set the tone for the whole year. I wanted to retract my praise for my FB friend’s diagnosis – not because I wasn’t thankful that they’d be okay, but because God knew devastating news was coming and he let me rant about how ‘good’ he is! SO good at healing, knowing good and damn well he was going to take my sisterfriend from us.
I don’t know about you, but I like absolutes – something this world is stingy with.
God is good, or he’s not.
Either “it is finished” by Jesus, or we are all still waiting in spiritual limbo.
Either God heals or he doesn’t.
A funny thing happened on Bitterness Road though. Our close friend group rallied around our sick friend. She herself had beautiful spiritual revelations in the last months of her life. REALLY profound, amazing realizations. We – the ladies in our tribe – learned more about facing death with grace and dignity than we had never known. She too was angry for a time, because of COURSE she was!
But in her terrible struggle, she also introduced us all to a peace that truly passes understanding; a peace not sullied by all the temporal shit we contend with every day. She was going home, and she showed us all how to do it with grace.
I still say 2023 was awful, as a whole. But there were so many glimmers. The high points didn’t look like winning the lottery, or losing weight, or getting a promotion, or any of the other things we think of as manifestations of God’s love for us (that we label as “success.”)
Manifestations of God’s love show up in the grace of going through the very worst life has to offer. And I guess I’d prefer that to a holy love that only manifests as “good” things. That’s a love entirely too shallow.
Today, I choose to believe the lovingness of God far surpasses the crappiness of life.
And on days (years?) when I struggle with thinking of God as pure love, I choose to believe God is only, simply love – no fillers or by-products. We can lean into that love. We MUST lean into it.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, because my spirit knows it to be true. So maybe don’t lick rust, 2023 – you taught me a lot. But I welcome 2024 with the expectation that God is good, and the assurance that when life isn’t, he still is. Blessed be, Friends.
Maybe my first blog – my first child in many ways – was preparing me to write more transparently (and ergo, more dangerously.) It would only make sense. I had an agenda with my first blog, “thebeggarsbakery.com,” without meaning to. The goal – even as it was unspoken to myself – was to be a grown-up “Writer” with a capital “w.” I wanted to carry answers to the big questions confidently, armed only with a background of religiosity and unrealistic expectations. I thought maybe I could even have one of those thingies that everyone else found so attainable, but I have never accomplished – an actual career!
What’s it like to have one of THOSE? I’ve had many jobs throughout the years, but none that brought me fulfillment or made me financially successful. I’ve wanted to write for a living since I could hold a crayon, but although I’ve been published in a national magazine (once), I still just write for therapy and funzies. Maybe that will change one day, but now I write from a place of peace, if not resignation. I’m okay with the fact that I may write for an audience of 1,900 (the total readership of my flagship blog after 11 years,) or 50 acquaintances, or a dozen close friends, or just the two – myself, and my endlessly supportive husband (who has read every word I’ve written since August of 2006, and even some archival stuff.) All of these options are okay with me. I don’t need to get it right, I just need to get this moving.
I MUST write like I must breathe (ugh, how dramatic! But it’s breathwork to me. I’ve recently started attending a writing workshop by my favorite author, Anne Lamott, and every little word she writes is magic because she shares her whole heart, not just the shiny pieces. What a time to start a new blog, I thought. I’ve shared a lot of shiny pieces, but I’m ready to share the rest of it.
So, welcome to my headspace. But more succinctly, welcome to my heart-space. I write in spite of the fact that I still don’t have quick answers to the big questions. My words will come at you, stream-of-consciousness-style. Although I am under no obligation to make sense to you, I’ll give it my level best!
My goal is to write a bit each day; that is my challenge to myself. I aim to “write clear and hard about what hurts,” as Ernest Hemmingway opined. Doesn’t matter about what.
Writing hard and clear about what matters is all I can asplire to. I’ve done myself a disservice in the past by writing about only what is hard and what is clear, since so much of this journey is neither (and/or both.)
And it’s all God’s fault. The Creator of the Cosmos wouldn’t stay in the little box-on-wheels the church gifted me, even though I implored him to keep his arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. You know, for his own safety and mine. He wouldn’t, and so I stuck a finger out the window, just to feel the wind, and now I’m ruined for stale spiritual air heretofore.
Maybe it’s all just practice, ya’ll. Maybe practice is where it’s at anyway. The best things in life are not the things we collect, but what we put into practice in our hearts. Day in, day out, practicing radical love – even when it looks sloppy and we feel unhinged.
So pull up a chair and come alongside me. There will be pearls of wisdom, and absolute drivel, because my headspace is full of both (and more!) Engage with me – I want to know what makes you tick, Dear Reader.
Let’s get this party started, with open minds and hearts. Blessed be, friends. ❤
Words by Jana Greene 