Some thoughts on shame

In her work on shame, Brene Brown notes there is nothing more frustrating or even frightening then feeling pain and not being able to describe or explain it to someone. Many times I have either been involved in conversations or overheard someone mention to someone else being bi-polar or manic-depression. It always provokes a response in me that I've never been able to capture or completely comprehend. At time there has been fear on my part of being exposed as someone who has dealt with that illness. At other times, I have become angry at how we talk about people with mental illnesses as other. I harken back to my experience of people treating me differently before and after the diagnosis and hospital in 1987, my senior year of college. I get angry about how we think of people as limited in capability and we offer them tools and strategies that reinforce those limitations. I do believe it all starts with how we talk about mental illness. After many years of being quite open about my situation, I stopped telling people because I did not want own, claim it, or be limited by it. I've come to realize in so doing if increased my shame. Although after reading Brown, I do wonder if my past honesty was, at least in part, what she characterizes as honesty motivated by shame, fear, anger or hurt. I could own that at the very least I was angry at a mental health system that did not seem to serve my needs well.

Last Thursday, I participated in a conversation where I made another person the other by commenting that he seemed a little off. The response I got was he is bi-polar. I pulled in a little a bit and felt guilty for my remark. I always get the impression in the labeling that the person who is labelled becomes less than. I get angry at my own memories of being the less than or the other. A few days later, I overhead someone describe another person as manic -depressive. I had no context for the conversation. The same feeling came into my body.

During a journaling session the next morning, I was writing about all this and I realized that feeling in my body was familiar. I asked myself when was the first time I had that feeling. It dated back to when I was kid in elementary school. My memory does not allow me to pinpoint the exact year, but maybe first, second, or third grade. It was on the playground. It was one some of the kids were tormenting or even bullying another kid, telling her she must have been adopted. She was not. As an adopted kid it was frightening. I concluded that that was something about myself that I must keep secret. (I do not have a moment that I can identify where I learned that I was adopted; it was something that I always knew). Perhaps, that was an early lesson in shame for me. It would be many years before I was comfortable telling people I was adopted. While I can share that now with ease, the shame has shifted to something else... to the mental illness. I'd like for it to be because I do not want people to define me by that aspect of my life, of what to me is not really relevant to how I function in the present. The truth is as I've been able to live without medicines and in a relatively normal range of moods and emotions (at least according to my therapist), I have actually become more ashamed of that part of my past. When someone new comes into my life, I agonize over whether I should or need to tell that person.

It seems to be a shame grounded in the fear of being made other, a fear of being seen as less than capable. In one relationship I really struggled with how to talk about it because I did not say anything early on. That person had a son who was bi-polar, which made it harder. I remember when I finally did reveal it, the response I got was I would have never guessed. It really did not seem to matter. I continue to keep that information locked up. I'm not sure what purpose it serves. Somewhere inside is still that little kid that thinks keeping secrets will keep her safe somehow. Maybe all I did was transfer shame over being adopted to shame over being bi-polar. It is made harder because part of me would like to claim I'm not bi-polar at least I do not manifest symptoms of it anymore, but that is probably a story of another day. I really cannot be truly free of it as long as I carry around all this shame.

The question becomes how can I be genuinely and authentically honest first with myself and then with others ? Tonight, I know I do not have the answer. It seems like a decent enough question to chew on for awhile.

Where is God

have been unable to separate myself from the screen this evening and head to bed following my completion of today's Examen. Shorlty after I finished and said Compline, I logged onto facebook one last time. I discovered an article about a 5 year old who shot his two year old sister. He had received a kid's gun at the age of four. According to this article that is normal in parts of Kentuckey. I grew up in New Jersey and I know it was not normal there. I've exchanged some banter about guns with friend in comments on facebook since sharing the article. It is horrifying and as one person said makes her sick to her stomach.

I was wondering why I could not let go of it. I'm sure many people would read the article and find it outrageous and anger producing. It just occurred to me that was is so hard about it is to see God at work. As tragic as the Boston marathon bombing was, it was easy for me to see God's hand. People rallied together both at the time and after in the running community around the country and even around the globe. People coming together does inspire a sense of the divine. This just seems plain tragic. A family is left grieving a two year old child. There is a five year old out there whose life I just can't even begin to imagine. Who knows how the parents will go on... what kind of guilt they may feel for the rest of their lives. What good can come of this ? It is hard to fathom.

I listen to the song Immanuel, as sung by choirs of kids from around England. There is line in it that goes “and if God is with us, who can stand against us”. How can God be with us when things like this happen. I get that we as humans let it happen with our values and our political systems and all. Guns in the hands of kids are no doubt in my mind tragedies waiting to happen. I suppose I could surmise that we in our sinful state created this dynamic. That doesn't provide me with comfort or offer a means to experience God's grace in this situation. I suppose faith would determine that even if I can't see God at work, I still know that God is there. Sometimes it is hard to know that.

Impressive or Not

Tonight I turned in my first assignment for my first class in my doctoral program at Creighton. I have all the angst that goes along with a first assignment. It was a blog that I posted. I reasonably pleased with the angle I found; however, after I put it other there, I discovered some additional instructions for the assignment and wonder if including my thoughts on that in comments as opposed to my own post is sufficient.

I also looked at the rubric again. In that there is a scale that goes

1. I did not participate
2. I did the minimum
3. I impressed my family (and I'll add or my friends)
4. I impressed my classmates
5. I impressed my instructor
6. I impressed myself.

I know I did more than the minimum as I brought in outside sources. I impressed at least one friend and am working on my mother (she required a special explanation of how to access the blog).

I find out about 4 and 5 as the week unfolds.

Impressing myself is a tough nut to crack. About a year ago I finished my first marathon and was not impressed with that feat. It was a hot day and my time was not where I expected it to be. In fact, I walked almost the entire second half of it because I did not want to get over heated. The best I could say about it, is that I was able to come up with a strategy that allowed me to finish. My second marathon at Disney in January was no more impressive. It was the the day after completing a ½ marathon. At least the medals were better. That marathon also ended up being a very hot day. I had not adequately trained, so I went to it disappointed in myself for not following through on my plan. At 23 miles I was behind the 7 hour pace and so lucky I did not get pulled off the course.

This evening I have been mulling over when I have impressed myself and what it would take to impress myself. I was extremely proud of myself when I finished my first half marathon in March of 2009. I trained hard for that one, with more regularity and diligence than the first marathon. I finished in a very respectable 2 hours and 29 minutes. I was impressed with myself. The problem with the marathons is that I knew I could do better. The reality is in the Nashville marathon is that I did do the best I could under the conditions of that particular day. The next morning I signed up for Disney because I wanted another crack at it. I failed to live up to the expectations I set for myself in the preparation and as a result I barely finished. I also swore I never had to do that again.. the Goofy.

So what did I go and do a few weeks ago. I signed up for the Dopey in 2014. It adds a 5k and 10k for a total of four days in a row of runs. I sat on registering for four days. I really did not want to train that hard will I started down this school endeavors. Somehow the bug got me in the midst of feeling like I was getting old as I struggled with perimenopausal symptoms and an existential crisis. I saw it as a chance for redemption... maybe have a chance to impress myself. Certainly this feats impress my family and friends.

An interesting thing happened with the bombing of the Boston marathon. I suddenly felt part of a community of people... people who have completed marathons. Running now seems more purposeful, not just about me and what I want to prove to myself. I also read something that in a blog post that so resonated and began to change my attitude about my own marathons.

The blog is: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-959560

The paragraph I love in it is this one:

No matter how hard you train, no matter how experienced you are, no matter how many marathons you've run, the easiest a marathon ever gets is "really difficult." On a bad day, it's a long, painful, demoralizing nightmare.

Somehow in reading this my own demoralizing nightmares became more impressive to me. Or maybe just that I am willing to enduring it again to see if I can get down merely really difficult. It is not just the marathon itself. It is the long, for me 5 hour, training runs, where it is just me and my head. Maybe on the next one I can search long and deep for the ways that I do impress myself.

Going back to the rubric standard, I realize that in this case it took seeing my experience through some else's eyes to find it impressive. I'm not sure that impressing myself is a good academic standard for me.

The other times I have impressed myself have been moments in human interaction where I have shown up as more than I thought I could be. The most notable is a time when someone was moving out of my house in 2008. Prior to the exchange where I showed up as empathetic and understanding and we ending laughing together, she had been on the phone with a then mutual friend screaming. I don't think she knew I was at that friend's house. It was even suggested I not go home right away as no good would come from it. I did and then had this exchange. In moments like that I think I impress myself because I get out of the way and let God flow through me. Those are rare moments.

It seems like the everyday things that I do no longer have the capacity to impress me. I wonder if my expectations for myself are too high or I do need to look at myself through another set of eyes. I am tempted to ask how do I look at myself through God's eye. I tend to believe that God has pretty high standards for us.  

Launching Holy Week

Holy Week

I have decided a good way to get started with this blog thing is to blog for Holy Week. I've never done much with the days between Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday. This year my church, All Saints, is having services every night. I hear an award is on the offing for the person who attends the most services, so how can I resist.

The first being the dramatic nature of Holy Week for me last year. During the Palm Sunday service the fire alarm in the parish hall went off and fire trucks came. Singing Ride On Ride On with a dalmatian looking at us made it almost seem like a donkey was there. I didn't think much about it as March Madness and the NCAA final games for men and women occupied the early part of the week. I went out to see the women's final game with the person I was dating at the time. At the end of the evening there was a storming out into the parking lot and driving off in a huff event that left me stunned at first. Wednesday I attemtped to work and go to an IYG event in the evening, where a great conversation with our program coordinator gave me a vocabulary to address my relationship frustration of going from full-time to part-time girlfriend. During the event I received a text from a friend asking me to help with some house stuff on Saturday; however, I planned my 23 mile marathon training run for that day. I later offered to take Thursday off work and help her understand. I spent a beautiful Thursday on her roof sledge hammering her fireplace chimney. She was more than happy to let me sledge hammer while she carted off bricks. Her contractor had said there was no way we could get it down to the roof line in a day. The next morning when he came, my friend said to him you were right. He started to nod to which she responded we got it down to the ceiling. I also spend Friday helping to dismantle the inside part of the fireplace. I worked during the day and went to church in the evening. Saturday I ran 23 miles. Luckily there isn't kneeling in the Easter vigil service. My memories of the time are as much of physical activity as spiritual enrichment. It did note it was a good way to bury a relationship. (If only the story had ended there).

So this year I'd like to have a more spiritual orientation to Holy Week. With exception of work, I don't have other plans for the week. I hope I can make the space to keep the time sacred. I had pre-cursor with the funeral I attended Friday. It was a truly beautiful and moving service. A funeral is a chance to remember the resurrection. Although the Alleluia was buried under a chapel altar for Lent, the word was brought back into play during the funeral. Unlike a Taize service I had been to Sunday where the use of Alleluia felt bad, it felt so appropriate. We keep Holy Week to walk the walk of the cross with Jesus, yet we do know the outcome. On Monday night I spent time with an icon of the resurrection. What was drawing me was the women watching Jesus suffer on the cross. It was in part wonder in how they could watch his pain in light of my own difficulties sitting with people who are suffering / dying. It also occurred to me they did not know the outcome. How much braver and courageous they must of have been to walk through the final hours of Jesus's life and death not knowing something more would come after. In some ways don't we all face situations where we sit and wait or even take action uncertain of the outcome. I wonder how would life be different if I was or we were certain. I am reminded of a sermon I heard on Thurs by Erin Hoagland. She started asking who was afraid of death. She talked about Jesus's death and ended on the note that love not death had the final word. How would life be different if any of us was sure in times of uncertainity that love would have the final word ?

The damn birds

This morning, March 19, 2013, I woke up really missing my Dad.  In learning to live with grief, I’ve mostly come to accept that is going to happen from time to time without delving too deeply into why now, why today type of questions?  It wasn’t close to any milestone events.  I did note it was my niece’s birthday, so I think about family a little more on such days.  Other, more significant days have passed without such an emotional response.  Then I wondered if it had something to do with being at a vestry meeting last night, a common experience the two of us now share.  It is something I wish I could talk to him about.  When I got to the daily office and it was the feast of St. Joseph, something clicked. It struck me that it would make sense to feel that loss of my own father on a day when we are celebrating Jesus’s father or stepfather depending on one’s perspective. I decided breathe and explore this a little further.

            When my Mom was moving to a smaller unit in her life care community in 2011, she need to downsize and asked my brother and I to select some items of my Dad’s for our own homes.  I had wanted my Dad’s toy circus wagon, a Hudson River oil painting, and a print of Cranmoor farm.  (Cranmoor farm in Toms River, NJ was the property that became both the ground for the church in which I was raised and the country club where I spent my childhood summers).  On the morning I was set to leave, my Mom asked me about six Mark Catesby bird prints. (Catesby was a naturalist who travelled in the colonies and draw birds and fauna, considered a forerunner to Audubon).  Although valuable, she was having difficulty with the idea of sending them to auction.  I wasn’t sure I wanted them, but unlike my brother, I did have space to hang them in unadorned hallway. 

            My Mom had made me promise that if I took the prints, I would hang them. Not too long after I returned home, I had some friends over to help me get them on the wall and properly aligned.  I was surprised to learn that one of the six prints was in a smaller frame then the others.  It was so uncharacteristic of my German; love for order, cleanliness is next to Godliness, father to have tolerated that.  I even remember as a kid when he had the prints sent out to be cleaned and re-matted, so am particularly curious as to why the discrepancy. My mother was unable to shed light on the mystery.  Nor did she even recall that one was smaller.  I don’t know that they had been hung as a group since being in the dining room of the house I lived in until I was 11 or so.  I suspect my Dad had done what I did, have the smaller one strategically located over a light switch.

            Once the prints were decorating my hallway, my fondness and attachment to them grew.  Although I had lived in the house for 12 years without them, I almost couldn’t remember a time when they weren’t there.  I also learned that I spent more time walking from my office to the bathroom or kitchen then I knew.  Some days I would linger in the bathroom, phone in hand, so I could look at them longer while listening to people babble on some or the other conference call. I affectionately referred to them as the damn birds. I would describe my relationship with them as passive, but they were always there.  Perhaps, somewhere in my psyche, it reassured me my father was still around too.

About a year later, I began to consider purchasing a new home; where I would put the damn birds became a factor in my decision-making.  I was selecting an open concept home with no hall.  The seller suggested the sunroom as an option, but my knowledge of archival preservation was still intact enough to want to keep old prints away from that much light.  Then I discovered the basement option added a beautiful hall with a French door opening into the basement.  It even had a light switch in just the right place.  I was sold.  I even bought a book of the prints, so I could have bookstand at the end of the hall and have almost an exhibit type space.  I symbolically hung the birds on the third anniversary of my Dad’s death. It looked beautiful.

As I settled into my new home, I began to miss the constant presence of the birds.  Sure the Hudson River oil painting is prominently located over the fireplace, but that painting was more about the kind of art I like to have around; the tranquility of the water scene.  I liked the table with the circus wagon and other artifacts that represent a blending of my father’s circus things and my own animal mementos, but even with his picture, that display has never carried the same connection I feel with the birds.  The Cranmoor farm piece was really my mother’s print.  Since I had invested so much in creating this sacred space for the birds, I was loathe to move them.  With the exception of less than daily trips to the basement, seeing the birds requires an intentional visit.  I hope that does not reflect a change in my psyche about my father’s presence.

I wonder about Jesus and his earthly father, whom we don’t very much about.  Did he grief Joseph’s passing?  Matthew 12:46-50, does not leave me with the impression has family of origin concerned him.  Yet it is hard to imagine a loving, compassionate deity in human form not experiencing grief over the loss of someone who had a profound impact on shaping his life.

I was raised with the church as a big part of my life and the life of my family.  Both my parents served in the church community in different ways and ensured, sometimes to my chagrin, which my brother and I participated as well.  I never really knew the extent of my Dad’s faith, like did he have it, or did he think going to church was something you were supposed to do.  Not very long ago it dawned on me he must of have had great faith to face his death with kind of courage he displayed.  A recent death in my own church community has provoked some of my own thinking about my mortality. I only hope I can face my own death with that kind of courage.  I hope that my own fears of being alone with no one to care for me, physically or emotionally, will be replaced with an ability to lean into my faith and trust God to provide.  I also need to start to live life now with the same kind of courage.  It seems as appropriate time as any to begin a blog I have long considered writing, entitled longing and belonging.

As I have welled up with tears a number of times while writing this, I reminded of my Dad’s final speech to my family… We are going to do with this grace and remember no blubbering.  My mother later claimed he may have said that, but we never agreed to it.