Being Hopeful and Open....

The Holidays, love 'em or hate 'em, they come around every year. And each year I look in the subtext for a lesson or thought that I might take with me into the new year. This year I feel like I receved two words; hope and openness. Those were the theme words for my holidays. Everything that came up became another lesson in how to be more hopeful or more open.

Hope to me means openness. The optimism that follows a really good day, the feeling we get when we have accomplished something, those are examples of when I feel most hopeful. But hope to me is a state of mind more than anything. I have to go there, even when I don't feel like it. And I think that at the core of all of us, there is a little bit of hope, even when all seems lost. Even the most hardened pessimist can feel a shred of hope in something good, even if it is just a nice piece of cake.

Openness is a little harder for me. I think I am an open book most of the time, but I don't always allow for the possibilities that COULD be. I tend to live in my safety bubble, hoping that things will turn out for the best, no one will be angry or hurt, no one will be uncomfortable, the doors will be safely locked against the outside world. But as I look at my locked doors, I wonder how many good things I have kept out. I don't want to live with regret, but I also don't want to stay walled up against the scary (yet ultimately rewarding) parts of being a grown-up.

So 2010 to me is about openness and hope... I call it my year of hopenness :-)

Fall goes so fast

I love looking out the window and watching the seasons change. But it seems like this year is going so fast. And in the midst of all the busy-ness, I have had so many opportunities to do new things, find new finds, and meet new people. Here is a fall recap:

• Samuel George Gladfelter was born... to be there and watch Jen and Dave become parents and add to their family was a wonderful, indescribable moment of happiness.
• I got to do a book review for a major magazine! More details to come.
• Mom had a great visit, she ironed everything I own and made my life really easy!
• Brandi Carlile's new album is really great. You should get it.
• Ellie is so gown-up and fabulous. All of two; she is the smartest, the keee-uwt-ist little lady. She dressed up as a puppy dog for Halloween. Loved the sudden realization she had when we went trick or treating... wait... they are putting CANDY in my bag??
• A fantastic student teacher has been so wonderful. Also, I have a really awesome, funny, smart set of students this year. Good students always make the year go fast.

So what is new with you?

They're writing songs of love, but not for me

Sometimes I feel like everyone in the world has someone except me. Sometimes I feel like I have so many wonderful single friends and who needs a man anyway. Sometimes I feel like Gerard Butler just needs to meet me so we can fall in love and have a huge Scottish-themed wedding. (kidding) Loneliness is hard. Poets, scholars, theologians, scientists and Beyonce have all examined this topic thoroughly. I always go back to John Donne when I talk to people about loneliness:

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

So we are meant to be in relationship, right? I mean, that is what Donne suggests here. All of us are interconnected, part of a larger... something. And really, who wants to be alone. Tom Hanks couldn't even be alone on a deserted island.

Even though I live alone, I have a large network of people I love and care about who love and care about me. Isn't that enough? I love and desire a relationship with God and he pursues me and loves me, that should be enough. But there is a longing in me that hasn't been fulfilled, yet.

It is that YET that contains the difference between my feeling of isolated, Bridget-Jonesian loneliness or my feeling of content, Gloria-Steinem singlehood. Today there is a yet. Tomorrow there may not be. Hope comes and goes and it is the hardest part of me to pin down. Just like the wind today--whipping the leaves into frenzied circles, my hope shouldn't be so flighty. I am certain of a few things, but I wish I knew with as much certainty that there is someone out there for me. But maybe if I had that same certainty, I wouldn't have faith.

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Living with an open hand

I went to the David Wilcox concert tonight... it was like a revival for my poor, weary heart. It brought up a lot of epiphanies about stuff going on in my life right now. Most of my epiphany was how good it felt to just chill out and listen. I don't do that very often. Stopping my life to listen to David Wilcox's story-songs seems like a luxury and also a little scary because he might bring some stuff up in his songs that open up some truths in my life. I found myself spontaneously weeping and thinking "Crap, I so don't want to deal with this feeling right now". But there I was, weeping. It wasn't that I felt sad, it was just that I felt home. So in a way it was like a "good" sad, you know?

He played two songs that really met me where I am right now. The first is a song called "Deeper Still" which is about as heartbreaking as a song can get, but also sings of hope. How do we go on when life gets so hard? As David Wilcox sings, "you will always have what you gave to love".

The next song he sang that really touched me was a song called "Open Hand". If you want to live life, live it with an open hand. Receiving something is always better than demanding it, right? I want to be able to receive what God gives to me with an open hand, I know that if I clutch onto anything, my appreciation of the gift decreases by about 10.

i dunno...David Wilcox is just amazing. This posting is just to say that and give you an opportunity to agree with me. :-)

The sea is still the sea...

How much does anger cost?

I'll admit, I've been frustrated lately. It is easy for that frustration to manifest into anger and then for the anger to manifest into bitterness. And then the bitterness makes us feel more bloated than a hot dog eating contest. The truth is, anger does nothing for us. It is like drinking poison and expecting the object of our anger to die. And yet, we have such a hard time releasing ourselves from it. It is almost addictive. If we could just get a witness or some validation for our anger, then we'd be free of it.

Well, that doesn't solve problems. The truth is that life is sometimes unfair and sometimes we don't agree with people or practices. And instead of accepting that, we get angry-er-er. These are the people at health care reform town hall meetings, these are the people who have talk shows on news networks, these are the people who have escalated to near stroke levels in their inability to process difficult emotions.

I was told this summer that I am in the "in" group where I work. I don't know about that. I tend to deal with difficult situations by problem solving or rationalizing, rather than escalating the situation to epic levels of "THIS-IS-SPARTA!!-push-you-off-a-cliff" madness. I wasn't always this way. I can be pretty emotional and scream-y and blood pressure raisingly grrrrrrr sometimes. But that emotional torment has never aided my cause. I found outlets for my grrrr-ness; yoga, counselling, chips and salsa, and visualizing that stone cottage in Scotland. If nothing else, I have great "shower rants" in which I rant and argue with nonexistent people while I shower.

Yesterday, I read this idea that the sea may ebb and flow, but it is still the sea. What is constant in my life is God. God is. The troubles of my life and the anger that I feel may come and go, and come again, but God is God. He is my anchor when I feel adrift. And honestly, why participate in anger when it produces so few results? Anger doesn't make us healthier, smarter, more popular... it is a moment of torment that we have a hard time casting off.

What does anger cost us?