Serendipitious

January 1, 2014

        

New Year, 365 days spread out before me, untouched, unlived. Like everyone else, I have no guarantee of getting those days, they come one at a time, unbought, free gifts waiting to be unwrapped. Today, I am here, a gray Northwest winter morning, chilly, damp, clouds masking the skies with blankets of softness.

         I have the day off work, a luxury I am treasuring. Woke up pre-dawn and reminded myself I could still sleep, sinking back into the depth of warm quilts and soft pillows. Once awake, the fragrant smell of fresh-ground coffee beans welcomes me to my day. Three teenagers, having “x-boxed” the night away send their echoing good morning laughs up the stairs. I barely saw or heard from them except when they would come up to get more pizza, or chips and nacho cheese. At midnight however, they joined the rest of the gathered family to watch the count down to the New Year. Me, sleeping on and off in my recliner was woken up with, “Gramma, Mom, Robin, wake up its New Years!!”

        

             Then the joy of watching a four year old grandson discover the keyboard I’d gotten him and his brother for Christmas. Him trying out the keys, then preforming elaborate dance routines, complete with bows. Then after a few dramatic statements of, “New Years makes me sad”, finally joining in the festivities and yelling out the back deck door, “Happy New Year!”

         An evening rich with food, family, safety. Watching Jeopardy with my youngest daughter, her finally winning after me giving her a surprising run for the money. Catching bits and pieces of the movie “Walli”. The grandkids, Kindles, computers set up, Lincoln logs, Walkie Talkies, running jumping, busy.  Just a comfortable way to usher in the New Year.

         After writing dozens of blogs last year, I didn’t plan anything to solemnize the New Year. At work, I had prepared a handout for the clients. We went over resolutions, the importance of goal setting, the SMART system of goal setting. We looked at how their personhood involves systems of physical, spiritual, emotionally, relational, educational, and recovery. We analyzed the effects of drugs and alcohol on their ability to want to make goals, and the need to make goals in spite of the “blahs” that occur in early recovery.

         The kids asked me last week, how come we can’t come here (treatment) and just watch movies? I gave them an illustration of a person who was malnourished to the point of dying unless they were fed  carefully with nutrient rich foods. How unethical would that be if when faced with that scenario I told them, “Hey there’s some breakfast cereal (sugar-laden) over there, eat that.” If I didn’t follow the Dr’s orders and give them the foods they needed they could die.

        

It’s the same way when people are trying to quit drugs and alcohol use. Their use impacts their lives creating chaos in all the systems of their lives. Unless I as their counselor try to provide them with as much opportunity to learn and change as I can, I would be depriving them of the chance to maybe, just maybe get and stay clean and sober. There are no miracle cures in recovery, but there are some things that contribute to a greater chance of quitting use. I focus on those things in my groups and in 1x1 sessions.

         My own life, well, this last year has taught me that heart-break has the potential to derail my good intentions of reaching my goals. For a number of months I was very dedicated to getting fit. I ate right, I exercised. I made significant progress. Then mid-year, some catastrophic things happened in the lives of people I love. I was knocked for a loop and in the six months remaining I essentially threw away my good habits and lost the motivation to keep on my fitness goals.

      

   Slowly, ever so slowly, the desire is creeping back to begin again, to begin again. I know I can’t control what happens in the lives of people I know. I know I can’t control the weather, the economy, or even whether or not I develop some unexpected disease or illness.

         My love of my family, and wanting to be in close, happy relationship to all of them is my Achilles heel. It is here that I am at my weakest.  Maybe it’s a mom thing.  There are mom’s however, who have had “wayward” children and they stay focused, keep on track and have “successful” lives. I however limped through many months of last year with an ever-present awareness of the ache in my heart for my children and grandchildren who are still struggling with serious issues in their lives.

         So, has anything changed this last month?  Have several of those relationships been healed, changed? No, they haven’t. I’ve been focusing on appreciating the family I still have who are trying to do right; to connect with God, family, society, and me. I also have some people in my life at  my job who are kind, funny and supportive. They have their own issues with life, health and family, God, but as they share their struggles it helps me to understand, I am not alone. Family problems throw many people in an unhappy place.

         So, New Year, I begin again, continuing to read my Bible, to have my morning devotions. Continuing to keep a home for myself and my one remaining child. Continuing to work, continuing to go to church, just continuing.

         C.S. Lewis wrote a book I read years ago, Surprised by Joy. As I remember it, he was going along in his own life, continuing, not triumphing, not joyus, but continuing, attempting to be faithful to his responsibilities. He met someone and fell in love, unexpectedly.

         Well, I don’t anticipate falling in love, unexpectedly at this stage of the game, (63) but maybe something unexpectedly good will happen. That would be nice.  Like watching my young grandson dance and sing and realizing he is talented, creative.

         When young there was a word in vogue, serendipity. I think it was a made up word of sorts, it means, something good, unexpected.

         I think my word for 2014 will be Serendipity. Yep, that’s what I’m going to choose. To Believe that I’m going to have a serendipitous New Year. God in my heart, hope in my being.  I love the verse:

         His compassions fail not, they are new every morning.  I continue on, God is faithful. 

           Someday I will wake up, surprised by

         Joy in the Morning.

         

Surviving

Well,

        I've been away for a while. In the land of work and sleep, work and sleep with continued responsibilities surrounding me. I am one of millions of people, hand to mouth, shoulder to the wheel. I am grateful since, not eating, not having heat, lights, water, can't be all that great. Ask anyone in that situation and the desolation is pretty complete.

        I am not there. We have food, we have a home, we have heat. I also have the tiredness. Much like "the emptiness" in the Never-Ending Story, the "Tiredness" keeps me chained with aching back, dark circles under my eyes, and sighs upon sighs as visions of Christmas's past taunt me with elusive memories.

      Living in the now requires I regroup.  It might be reflective of the kind of work I do. I'm not sure. I only know that I keep praying, I keep reading my Bible and I keep trying to keep my chin up and keep on doing what I have to do.

     This year is perhaps the last year of 42 years of being a mother with a child in the home. My child is 18 and already reading want ads for jobs and apartments. The empty nest syndrome is upon me with all its  vicissitudes and force. Me, caught in the spiral of could of beens, would have beens, and never again will be agains.

       I will have a number of days off these next few holiday weeks. Days to rest, rethink and hopefully refuel.  I have a few more miles before I sleep.....................

      To all those who struggle with finding Christmas cheer in the middle of being oh so tired, Merry Christmas. To those who will never read these words, who might be suffering from lack of food, lack of heat, lack of safety. I wish I could have reached out more, I never knew how short life would be and believed there would always be time to help the helpless. I'm sorry, not of much value if you have children crying for lack of food, or you are cowering, hiding.

     Perhaps next year, I will look back on times when I was able to reach out and touch a life, (or lives) of someone who so desperately needed me to be one of those who helped lighten the load of poverty and despair.

      I'm not exactly at the point of Bah Humbug, but I'm kind of at the point of emotional and physical detachment where for me holidays were the time where my own children were little......

     

Day 107 - Into the shadow lands

Into the shadow lands……………..

It was, I fear inevitable. 

I've been ill. The rejoicing in good health, energy, strength could only continue so long, until I came unto my own shadow lands. Outside, it is morning, winds whistling through the trees, sending the red, yellowed leaves of my trees spilling down as the chimes on the back deck send their frantic chorus through the wooden hills. For weeks I have felt my strength ebbing out, with dull, throbbing headaches making smiling an awkward feat of will forcing facial muscles into a contortion of sorts I can only hope passes as a greeting.

Finally, it was too much and as I sat listening to clients at work I realized I was going to vomit or pass out, possibly in tandem and I went home hoping to reach my bed as a refuge from the waves of sickness cascading over me. For a while, too weak to venture far from the bathroom floor or my bed I lived in a land where the sick feeling drowned out other realities and I hovered, captured in the momentum of unpleasantness it controlled. There was a point in feeling ill where I absolutely didn't care if I lived or died, I was too weak to care. It is now a few days later, and I am still weak, but no longer drowning in the sea of nausea and headaches.

During these weeks, I've had an epiphany of sorts, a realization I've perhaps blocked out with boundless hope, and ceaseless believing that eventually things would turn for the better, that I would experience joy in the morning. The fact of the matter, the sum total of my reality is:  I am not happy. I’m grateful for a having food, a place to live and those essentials that make up the critical elements of sustaining life; but I am not happy. Instead I am disappointed in life, in my family, in my career, in my ability to achieve worthwhile goals. You name it and there’s a great big disappointment written all over it. No, I’m not wallowing in a sea of pity, far worse I’ve woken up in the sea of reality that realizes at age 63 I’ve made some bad choices, I can’t fix, God can’t fix, and I’m stuck with.

I had a dream several nights ago, I was trying to find something, somewhere, it wasn't clear, and then suddenly I was in an opening and everywhere I looked there were red brick walls. No doorways, no openings only red brick walls. Ah, there’s symbolism there for sure. The fact of the matter is, I feel trapped. Trapped by a house I can’t sell; trapped by the desire to travel, explore the world and realizing I’ve spent my money on my kids; trapped by a career where there is little success, little or no thanks and desolate, desolate human stories and crisis; every day, every week; unending human suffering due to addiction, gangs, abuse, and human degradation of all sorts, sizes, and every imaginable evil. Oh, I’m not in “burn out”, I’m more in painful, high def reality.

And so, I've put aside my normal daily routine of reading my comforting, encouraging devotionals and I found another book to read or kind of, it found me. I sort of felt like going to my book cases and finding something new, (no not an audible voice), just a nudging. I looked at one book, another, none seemed right until a book I never noticed seemed to call to me, “This one,” the inaudible voice seemed to say, “Read this one.”  When Invisible Children Sing, by Dr. Chi Huang. It’s a new book. I don’t know where I got it, maybe in my mothers books, maybe a library book sale,

 I don’t’ know. The quote on the back cover gives me some clue of what lies within,

 “To know the street children is to have one’s life transformed.”

I grab a couple more books from my shelf. Beautiful books with poems of inspiration set on pages decorated with artistic drawings of nature, home and family scenes. I realize I will need something to counteract the harsh reality of the content of the other book. These poetry books are ones my mother owned. These books are ones printed and sold by the Salesian Missions, http://www.salesianmissions.org/  whose stated purposed on the inside cover it two-fold; 1. To offer comfort, encouragement and support to the readers and 2. To help support its outreach to hurting children in over 120 countries.

 I pick up the book about street children and realize,  this is going to be a tough read. As a child, I always told my mom that someday I was going to grow up and work in an orphanage. I was going to be a missionary. A kind of scary feeling creeps into my awareness, why this book now? Isn’t what I’ve been doing for the last six years close enough to being a missionary?  Being a drug and alcohol counselor pretty much gets about as down and dirty as you can get.  But then is it about dealing with human suffering or is it about being able to offer the cure for sin-sick souls?  Is it about being able to tell someone about the love of Jesus? The Hope that is in Jesus? The salvation that is in Jesus?

I’m not sure but I pick up the book and read the first chapter. Dr. Huang, takes a year sabbatical from Harvard medical school and flies to Bolivia to be the physician to a girls and boys orphanage. The first chapter introduces us to a child he treats. At the end of the chapter, I feel sort of sick. The life of the girl he treats isn’t all that foreign to me. I’ve worked with cutters; I’ve worked with young people caught up in exchanging sexual favors for drugs. But somehow, how he graphically describes her medical conditions makes it seem so much more horrible. I can’t read more than a chapter today.

This morning, a little stronger I read the second chapter, along with some of the Salesian poems. The second chapter is as brutally graphic as the first. I set the book down, determined I will not flinch but face the realities painted within the pages of this book. A chapter a day, no more, and no less. Somewhere in these pages, I sense an awareness will develop of something I’m supposed to do. Maybe not;  been wrong before. But for the present moment, I am committed.  I’m not sure where this new journey will lead me. Am I just accumulating more data about the sorry state of our world? Am I only still being a kind of participant in other people’s suffering through kind of a passive, untouchable position of safety? Safety ( that’s wearing on the nerves, exhausting of the spirit) but safety none-the-less.

I've thought I've been in the trenches doing what I’ve been doing these last six years. But a nagging doubt assails me that reading this book will reveal that there is a whole world of desperate situations that makes my corner of the world look like easy street.

The wind continues to blow the trees. The late fall sun paints the branches with golden light.  My grandson, a little frightened by my recent illness brought me a lighted candle and set it on the desk in my room a few minutes ago. Its golden flame flickers as the drafts in the house batter it about. A small symbol of his caring, it makes me happy to see its glow.  Essentially I’ve been mom and dad to him his whole life and it must be a little scary to see me so ill even though he kinds of covers it up with the “I’m so tough” exterior. 

Writing has exhausted me and I realize I’d better try to rest tomorrow will come sooner than I want and I must try to be ready to meet the day.

Golden leaves of summer’s harvest

Grace the carpet lawn below

Autumn winds breathe through the valley

Echoes of a winter’s snow

Purpose born of pride and passion

Flame renewed from seasons past

Future burns with unknown pathways

Cries of anguish, sorrows gasp.

“When you did it unto

the least of these my brethren,

 you did it unto Me.”

Jesus