Very belated Friday Five: Surprised by Joy

From RevGalBlogPals, which I, err, seem to have joined.

Jesus said to them, "Children, you have no fish, have you?" They answered him, "No." He said to them, "Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some." So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. (John 21:5-7)

Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. (Psalm 30:5b)

This week I've been watching parents of the young people slain at Virgina Tech trying to make meaning out of the lives of their lost children, and each one seems to begin by focusing on something joyful about that child. It's a gift that most humans have brains wired to respond in that way. For some of us it can be harder to work our way out of dark places, but I believe joy remains the key. It is the spirit of resurrection.

Tell us about five people, places, or things that have brought surprising, healing joy into your life.

This is a particularly appropriate day for me to finally get round to this post. Half of yesterday and all of today I've been buried under a crushing 'cannot do anything' depression; I have the feeling that it's a crash from the up-and-down emotions of the weekend. Not surprising on reflection but I wish I'd realized it might happen.

I've been forcing myself into a semblance of usefulness anyway. I'm at work, and have done most of the things the boss wanted me to get done today (saving a bit of pricing, as I can't find the bloody pricing gun). I did a logo for my mom earlier, and a bit of jobhunting. So not a day entirely wasted, though at times it feels like I'm dragging myself through molasses to move; at times I have to remind myself to breathe.

So why joy, on a day which doesn't hold much joy for me? Because I need the reminder. It's good for me to think about what is good, at this moment when it feels like there is so very much that's not good. So herewith my five.

1) Shanti, who came into my life entirely unexpectedly. Back when I worked in Boulder, Tim and I were outside taking a smoke break (well, he was smoking, I wasn't) and saw, trotting across the field, a beautiful long-haired black cat. I made pss-pss-pss noises (I am rather a sucker when it comes to cats) and she ran over, crying, and began to rub furiously against my legs. I bent to pet her, and found that she was skinny, and her fur was terribly matted down her sides.

Needless to say, I now have a lovely, long-haired, spoiled, well-fed, frequently-brushed black cat. She walks between me and the monitor, and then lays down on my wrist rest so that I simply cannot type. She's nearly shredded her way through one of the two window screens in my bedroom. She's escaped upwards of fifteen times, never longer than ten minutes at a time since she usually runs a little way and then lays down. She's not a lap cat, won't lay down on top of me or on my pillow when I'm in bed, but consistently lays curled up next to my pillow. She goes for walks with me, on a leash, and if I'm not going to the apartment office anyway she'll drag me there so the apartment ladies pay attention to her. She poings. She zooms. She tries to chase birds, dragging me clumsy and loud along behind her, and I always scare them off. And then she'll come back to me and rub against my legs just to let me know she loves me anyway.

2) The people I've met, mostly here at blogspot and more generally through my blogs here. Hedwyg and her daily gratitude posts, reminding me that there's still joy to be had. Plain Foolish who brought me here in the first place and never fails to make me think. Wulfila for reminding me that you can be Christian and something else at the same time, and make it work. Brian and his inspiring, and fascinating, quest for equality and understanding. Mother Laura for constant encouragement and the occasional well-placed provocation. And so, so many others; check my blogroll, and I know I'm missing people who should be in that list, too.

3) Ray. I knew what I was going to get from Tim when I moved out here, more or less. We'd known each other for years, after all; talked online incessantly, met for brief, intense and all-too-rare flings a few times a year. Ray and I? Had met once, talked on the phone a few times. Only knew each other through Tim. I had very little idea what to expect and I don't think he did either. And we drive each other nuts, we've had our snippy moments, days of avoiding each other, total lacks of understanding. And we've also had moments of encouraging each other to keep moving, days when each dragged the other out of the house for a bike ride or to go work in the garden. Shared laughter and sometimes tears, worked on dinner together. Joined forces in jollying Tim out of a bad mood. Walked the dog, and chased Shanti across the parking lot. (Repeatedly; Ray no longer walks into my apartment without crouching down to catch the cat). It's been a lot of frustration, some heartache, but mostly? A lot of fun.

4) All the many, many things I can do on my own. Go grocery shopping and plan meals. Make a budget and stick to it (more or less). Make the money to pay the bills. Decorate an apartment, and keep it clean and livable, and change things around when I like, or when it makes sense to. Get to work on time and work until the work is done. Get car insurance, investigate health insurance, do my own taxes. Get my own apartment in my own name after discovering that my credit score was not only not craptastic, but actually really, really good. Keep that credit score good.

All really basic simple life stuff, right? And stuff I hadn't done on my own before, much of it stuff that scared me white at the thought of doing it by myself. Nobody else to do it for me, though, and so I'm doing it, pushing myself out of the house to get things done at times, but doing it and getting it done.

5) Faith. I'm still not entirely sure what I believe in, or at least all of what I believe in, but I've come to realize that yes, there are things I believe in, and that still comes as a total shock to me, miss skeptic, miss unbeliever, miss Created Without Faith. But I believe that both Ganesha and St. Michael are keeping an eye on me; I believe that there's a Something out there behind them, there's a light beyond the darkness. How it expresses itself in my life is still up for debate (a lot) but that? Is okay.

And the mental repetition of 'I only ever wanted to come inside' has been replaced by 'Domine, non sum dignus' with the occasional reply of 'neither's anyone else; your point?'. I keep wanting to look over my shoulder to see who They're talking to, but Tim rolled his eyes at me, so.

The weekend, and a lot of babbling.

When we left our hero, she was about to go find a local church, therein to kneel and pray and in general try to come to terms with my baptism and confirmation. With my belief, or lack of same, or unsureness about it, or...whatever state I'm in, which I'm not sure about. To pray for what I need to become who I need to be.

What I hadn't considered was the difficulty of finding an open church at seven on a Saturday evening. Apparently they lock the things these days, which I have to admit surprised me, though it shouldn't. People are as likely to steal things out of a church as anywhere else, after all.

I tried the one closest to work, and then another down the street; both were locked up tight. So I sat down on the back porch of the second one, where if I leaned up I could look in the window and at least see the altar, and got started.

The prayer was for transformation -- Let us look within ourselves to see that which needs to be transformed so that we may become the people God has called us to be, and fitted to perform the work He has called us to do. I hadn't thought at all, ahead of time, about what that might be; and as I finished the prayer and started to think, the thing that came to my mind was 'faith'. I need faith, and that's what I prayed for.

And wound up, to my total surprise, sobbing. Bawling my eyes out. I don't cry too much, see, as I mentioned recently. So, yeah, erm. What?

And what kept going through my mind was 'I wanted to go inside, but the door was locked.'. The door was locked. I wound up kneeling in front of the back door of the church, crying, and repeating 'I only ever wanted to come inside, I only ever wanted to come inside'.

This is the point where, if this were a Chicken Soup story or something in Reader's Digest, there would have been a click, and when I tried it again, the door was mysteriously unlocked; or the kindly minister came up, held me while I cried, and unlocked the door for me. This is real life, so none of that happened (and I did try the door again, just in case). What happened was I cried for a while, and then stopped, wiped my eyes, and said okay, this is what I have, now let's see what I can do with it.

I prayed the closing prayer and went back to the car. Blew my nose a couple times, called Tim to let him know I was on my way and he could start the pasta. He asked if I could pick up wine to go with dinner; I told him I had some at my place already, and that I'd grab it before I came over. I'd kept my voice level up until then, and the crying had mostly retreated, but I almost burst into tears again -- at the image, fleeting but powerful, of my hands, pouring wine.

By the time came to actually pour wine I was fine and the whole thing was retreating into fuzzy memory. Dinner and wine helps with that sort of thing, too. I didn't get a chance to tell Tim about it that night, so I locked it all away and figured I'd just see what happened at church the next morning.

--

Got not-quite-enough sleep, decided to eat breakfast because it was going to be late by the time I got out of church and I didn't plan to go up for communion anyway. Changed what I was going to wear five times, settled on a simple black linen skirt and a light blue sweater. Got the directions and drove.

The congregation shares the building with the local Lutheran church, who has their services at ten-thirty. Usually there's a pretty good gap between the two, but the Lutheran congregation had two baptisms that day and ran late. So I milled around with people heading out and people heading in, confused and feeling very out of place, quietly hoping someone would come up and say something to me. Eventually someone did -- an older woman, part of the Lutheran congregation, who asked me if I was with Light of Christ and apologized for their service taking so long. I hesitated a bit before I answered her question. I don't know if I'm with Light of Christ yet, but simpler to say 'yes, I am' than to launch into explanations. And besides which, I had an image of Peter denying Jesus three times and not wanting to do the same.

Odd...

Mass was...I don't know. I guess I want a little more joy in my worship. There was music, a two-member choir, a few members of the congregation who specifically spread out around the room to support the (rather quiet) singing. But it was still quiet, the choir looking more businesslike than joyous, the lady who read the lessons solemn. Perhaps it's just that they're small. Maybe they got thrown off by the other congregation running late. I don't know.

The gospel reading was strong, and I liked the sermon. And then communion. I like how they do it; everyone goes up front and makes a circle around the priest while he does his thing (sorry, tired and not remembering of proper words). One of the ladies who greeted me waved me up, but didn't push when I shook my head a little. I appreciate both. I did wish that I felt as if I could, but...I didn't feel that way. I wanted to go up. I just didn't feel right doing so.

After Mass I asked to talk to the priest when he had a moment. He said yes, of course, cos that's his job; on the way to his office we talked a little about light stuff, where do I live, he's moving up here soon with his family, they'll be moving close to me...

And when we got to his office, I didn't know how to say what I wanted to say. I finally stumbled through it all, the baptism and confirmation, the fact that I didn't believe but said I did anyway, that that I didn't feel right coming up for communion because of it. That I wasn't sure that they counted.

He talked about the Sacraments, told me that for all we try to understand them, they're a mystery, we can't entirely understand how God works. Did they count? Only God knows, but it was his belief that surely they must. He told me about his confirmation, that the only reason he did it was so he could stop going to CCD. I chuckled a bit; sometime later, I'm sure, I'll ask him how he came to the priesthood.

He said that of course I'd've been welcome at communion, and I reassured him that I didn't feel that anyone there would have kept me from it -- it was something internal to me, something I had to deal with before I felt like I could receive. Something I had to make right, and I wasn't sure how.

He smiled at me. "I don't know how this will work for you," he said, "and I don't mean to push, but I think you just did."

I thought about that one for a while. And, you know? I think he's right. Confession is a powerful thing if done right, and though this wasn't a formal confession (I don't even know if the ECC does them) I think it helped me a lot.

So...that was that. No huge revelations, but I did leave with a good feeling about things.

--

Gardening that afternoon, and then dinner, and finally got to telling Tim about it all pretty late Sunday night. Told him about 'I wanted to go inside, but the door was locked' and 'I only ever wanted to come inside' and my hands, pouring wine. Told him about mass and how I might change things there if I could. About talking to the priest. And the whole time he has this little smile on his face.

Told him about the dream I had a few weeks ago and blamed on Mother Laura, in which I got ordained. Still that little smile. Musing, now -- about belief, about faith. He tells me that Ray's nervous about my whole turn towards religion, worried he'll say something wrong and offend me. That Tim's not so worried about Ray offending me as he is that the Awakening that Ray had planned for my Mage character might just mess with my head, given my fairly fragile mental state when it comes to religion.

I'll skip the details cos I don't figure most of you do any roleplaying and simply say that what Ray had planned for my character was something involving archangels. I chuckled and told Tim, hey, I might not be entirely sure about this whole God and Jesus thing quite yet, but I know where I stand with Michael. I'm good with the archangels; no danger there. He chuckled and said, yeah. That's because you have faith.

I think I blushed; I know I threatened to whack him on the head. But whatever; I guess he's right though I certainly never expected anything like faith to appear in my life. More musings; I told him about Mother Laura confessing to me in comments on another post, and my discomfort with that -- not with her telling me about a thing she felt she'd done wrong, just with the format of it. I can't hear confession, I'm not... but I'd always been good at counseling people, a good listener; it's always been one of the things I do. Never felt any urge to go into social work or become a psychologist or anything much like, though, and what else is there to do for someone who's a listener at heart?

Still smiling. Verging on a smirk.

What do you think, I asked him (and I blush to even type it here; it seems so presumptuous), this is leading to? I dream of ordination, of pouring wine; am I heading towards...I couldn't say it then, I can't type it now. It just feels so improbable...

Pretty much, he said, he's been waiting a few years for me to figure it out.

I really did almost hit him that time.

Right now? Really have no idea where, if anywhere, this is going. It might fade in a couple weeks, never to be thought of again (though Tim expressed his opinion on the likelihood of that). I figure I'll find out as I go, and I'm okay with that. I'm...serene, heading into the unknown. It's been a long, long time since I've felt that way. It's gonna be a good journey.

Well, despair didn't work...

...so I'll try joy.

Least that's what Christy's saying over at Dry Bones Dance. An excerpt:

I think I am just increasingly seeing joy and hope as acts of defiance in a violent world. Life is uncertain. Bad things happen. Joy says, "Well, I'm here today, and if the world spins off its axis tomorrow - and it just might - it won't help matters to suck all the life out of right now." I think I'm beginning to figure out that me being miserable and weighed down by the sorrows of the world just adds one more bit of pain to the already enormous pile. Maybe being reasonably happy would create some sort of cosmic ripple in the universe.

I think a lot of people could use a good reading of this message; I know I needed it.

Desirous of communion

A nice little quote from Quaker Pagan Reflections:

I'm trying to remember in whose blog I read, recently, about a woman who found herself crying in meeting when worship gets deep for her, and I was so glad to read it. She wrote, too, that she wishes she didn't--she said she chooses to sit in the balcony in her meeting so as to be as unobtrusive as possible, and the tears that come make her feel painfully visible. It was freeing to read this, because I feel that way, too. Not always, but often enough I also find tears running down my face. (They were during Beethoven's 9th today, for sure.) And I always feel awkward about it, as if it is some kind of boast of specialness, or posturing for attention.

It occurred to me that it's been a long, long time since I've felt comfortable enough in my skin to allow that kind of reaction to something emotionally powerful. I can't blame it entirely on Lewis, either, though it certainly got worse during that time; it started before I was with him. In fact, I'm not entirely sure when it started.

It's starting to ease, though. Little by little, bit by bit, as I heal. I cried like a little girl over a lovely compliment someone gave me recently, and I can tear up a bit at the sun over the mountains, or a touch of welcome rain, or snugglings from my kitten.

I'd like to get to the point where I can feel that in worship. I don't know if it's possible; Christian or pagan, worship services have generally elicited more eye-rolling than eye-tearing in me. The pagan ones, especially, always felt ... silly, I suppose, though that's not entirely the right word. And I've enough bad history with Christianity (or, at least, people who call themselves Christian) that it's hard to feel comfortable at a Christian service.

At the same time I find myself wanting the Eucharist very, very badly. Is it tacky to say 'I want it so bad I can taste it'? I remember the taste and the feel, the crisp little bit of not-much that took just long enough to melt away that I always chewed, and then wondered if I was supposed to or if I was breaking some obscure point of canon law. But it never felt, never tasted, like communion, like the body and blood of a God made man who gave his life for all of us (which concept I am only now beginning to really understand thanks to some dear friends of mine). It only ever tasted like thin, stale bread, unfilling and unsatisfying.

I want more than that. I wanted more than that, even then, and the lack of it was a lot of why I drifted away from the church. There were plenty of other reasons, mind you; reasons I've mostly worked through in the years since then. But this one? I don't know if it'll change. I want it to, badly.

And it's not that my church experiences have all been without meaning. Christmas Eve services at the church I grew up in were always lovely -- the candles, the singing, all of the energy focused on the return of the light -- I found them very moving. Even in my least-Christian phases I always enjoyed Christmas, and not just because of the presents. The birth of the Son, the rebirth of the Sun, however you wish to put it; it meant, and means, a lot to me. Maybe that experience will help.

I keep not actually going to church, though. I was telling myself it was because I'm usually up late on Saturday night (it's the only day none of the three of us has to get up, so we tend to stay up late the night before) but honestly? I think I'm nervous. Partly that I won't be accepted; I was baptized and confirmed, yes, but I've rather fallen apostate since then and frankly, neither baptism or confirmation meant anything to me. I only went through the motions because my mother wanted me to. Partly, though, it's worry that the experience won't be what I so desperately want it to be, that it'll again be dry, tasteless, unfilling.

I've told the tale before, in my Livejournal: how I wanted to believe, and couldn't find it in myself to do so. It's my Letter of Intent for joining the Order of St. Michael, and I'd locked it so that Lewis couldn't read it. He's got issues with Christianity, it seems, and despite the fact that he's got plenty of friends in the Order, he 'preferred' that I didn't join, because somehow the good people he knew individually became Bad when gathered together as a group of (mostly) Christians. I joined without telling him (his 'prefer' is more 'I will blame the next six months' worth of problems on you not listening to my wishes on this if you join') and only now had the nerve to unlock the thing.

So now? Kinda nervous. What if it doesn't do anything for me...again? What's left to me?

Becoming myself again

I recently left a not-particularly-healthy relationship. I'm not going to take all the blame for its failure, and neither am I going to heap all the blame on my ex; we both bear responsibility for it. I've spent the last few months discovering all the damage I suffered over the last fifteen years, and slowly beginning to heal it.

See, somehow I'd gotten to this point where Lewis's approval was more important to me than my own opinion of my life and what I was doing. So the least little 'failure' on my part would send me into paroxysms of guilt and shame. He didn't help with this; he had an unfortunate tendency to point out the bad at the expense of the good, and then to overreact to said bad.

His first words upon coming home from work were more often 'this place is a wreck' or 'all I smell is litterbox' or 'aren't you making dinner tonight' than something more loving like 'hi honey, I'm home, how was your day'. I longed for the occasional times he did express a bit of that love, and eventually got to the point where I'd put up with any amount of yelling and grumpitude, then excuse it after a kind word because 'see, he does love me and so it's okay'.

Then there were the times he'd come home and I hadn't scooped the litter boxes, or hadn't made dinner, or some other 'failing'; and he'd had a bad day at work, or a tough ride home; and where I might say 'hey, I've had a really crappy day, I'm going to go and hide in my room for a while so I'm not an asshole' he'd just explode, yelling over the least little thing and blaming me for his mood. Eventually he did begin to tell me, once he'd cooled down hours later, that the problem wasn't actually me; but by then the damage had been done. If I messed up, I got yelled at, and that was the lesson I learned.

So I've a fear of messing up, and I've had a very hard time not carrying this over to my relationships with Tim and Ray. Much more Tim than Ray, since in a lot of ways Tim reminds me very much of my ex (fortunately not in the bad ways!). I've caught myself cringing from fear of Tim getting upset at me for something like making the wrong thing for dinner. I know in my head that he won't; he's happy enough just to not have to cook himself, and quite frankly he eats just about anything. But that fear is still there. My rational mind can say 'he's not like that' all it wants, but in the back of my head I still expect a scolding.

He's caught me at it, too. I've done something dumbassed but minor any number of times and then stood there, cringing, and he'll quietly and patiently tell me I've done nothing to apologize for. And then, half the time, he'll lean over and lick my nose or something smartassed like that. Even Ray's caught me doing it once or twice; and they both do their part towards pushing me to make my own decisions.

And I've made progress. I've made decisions for me; big ones, like 'which job am I going to take'. I've made decisions for the lot of us. Mostly small ones, like 'what's for dinner' or 'where are we going today' (though 'what's for dinner' has a lot of baggage for me) but one fairly big one, that being 'we're getting Tim to the hospital now'.

I've made progress in other ways, too. Tim can say 'hey, you're doing a thing that annoys me' and instead of groveling and apologizing and feeling as if I've been Bad I simply apologize and try not to do it again. He can say 'when you get home we have something to talk about' and I'm not terrified until the conversation happens. This stuff? It's all pretty new.

I caught myself while I was back in Pennsylvania for Christmas. I was having a bit of trouble breathing; there's more oxygen in the air, but all the extra humidity in the air apparently sets off my asthma now. I looked at myself and said 'I need to get into shape'. The problem was when I wondered if I could get enough exercise in a week to make enough of a difference that Tim would notice it.

And then I caught myself. I'm not doing this for Tim. I'm doing it for me. Could I get enough exercise that I would notice the difference?

Which I didn't manage (though I have done so since then). But the mental shift was more important, right then, than beginning the exercise program.

It's a small step; they're all small steps. But each one is a step and each one gets me closer to being me

And I could say that every small step is one step closer to me and Tim and Ray all in a happy triad...and that'll be a lovely thing if it works out, but that's not what it's about. It's about me becoming me.