Power Struggle

Out at a coffee shop drinking tea this snowy morning a friend and I admitted that being in a relationship means consistently giving up power.  

Say you are someone who likes plans.  You enjoy going out to dinner with friends and you enjoy going home when you decided you would go home.  What was in your head comes to pass because you are master of your own destiny.  All of sudden, you find yourself in a relationship with someone who likes to go with the flow, who thinks that going to ice cream after dinner on a whim is so fun!  You realize that you are no longer the sole decision-maker, that this inconsiderate person saying YAY is the person wrenching that decision out of your hands.  You feel angry and confused and unprepared for ice cream.  

Or, take the reverse:  when you were single you liked to see where the night took you.  Once you were out, you were out until things died down or you got too tired to drive home.  Now, you're with someone who can't roll with the punches as easily as you can.  When, after dinner, your friends say, "Let's go to a bar!" you stop mid-YAY when you see your partner's distressed head shake.  Suddenly you feel weighted down by that person and their complete spontaneous ineptitude.  Are all your fun, unplanned adventurous nights behind you?

My friend and I are strong, independent, smart women.  We rocked singleness.  We loved being where we wanted to be when we wanted to be there and leaving when we were done.  We governed our own lives responsibly and well.  And now, we are learning that becoming someone's life-partner means loosening our white-knuckled grip on control.  Which is tough, since we know what is best and how it is best done.  It is hard to give up control and know that the other person might not use it wisely (according to us).   

Sometimes we're very unhappy about it.  But relationships aren't about making you happy all of the time.  Sometimes you will be very very bitter and unhappy about the loss of control and Head Honcho Status.  It's true.  

This is reality.  If you want to be on a team, you cannot make all of the decisions all of the time.  

Damn it.  

dreaming ...

Wouldn't it be crazy if lower-class, gay friendly, minority women were the voice of Christian faith in this country?

Dancing Sugar-less Plums

Yesterday in the car, Audrey and Henry and I were resolving to do and NOT do a lot of very important things.

Lisa:  "I resolve to not drop babies on their heads." (note:  this is not a habit of mine)
Henry:  "I resolve to not go in the men's bathroom if I'm a woman and not go in the woman's bathroom if I'm a man."
Audrey: "I resolve to love everyone in my life."

Audrey for the win.

One thing I am currently resolving to do with my in-laws Kiersten and Seth and my out-law Laura is not eat sugar for two weeks.  Think of it as a reset button after the holidays.  Unfortunately, sugars are in a lot of things.  The peanut butter I was spreading on crackers.  Milk.  Tomato soup.  So, I'm going to go with no obvious sugars.  No candy.  No frozen yogurt.  Peter is playing the part of the enforcer, which is something this extremely undisciplined woman needs from time to time.  He is making me start over every time I mess up, like yesterday at the frozen yogurt store when I deliberately ate chocolate yogurt.  Today, it was an absentminded handful of chocolate chips.  I claimed accident and pleaded need for progress, so he compromised by adding a day to the end of my two weeks rather than making me start from scratch.

Normally, I don't do resolutions.  September is a more natural start to the year for me.  My birthday is at the end of August, so thinking of each year starting in the fall as my age changes works better than the arbitrary January 1st date.  HOWEVER!  I have one resolution and it will be put to the test quickly. 

I want to remember and acknowledge birthdays.  Ben Van Raden and Drew Haskell were born January 6th.  I will call them and say "Happy Birthday!" 

Friends will get calls; Family will get cards.  That is the plan.  Challenging, but do-able.  And I will do it.  I will be that person that remembers birthdays. 

and I will keep away from sugars for the next two weeks. 

and not drop babies on their heads.

DEATH TO SUGARS!!!

When Death Comes, by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse 

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox; 

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, 

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? 

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility, 

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular, 

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence, 

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth. 

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. 

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument. 

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Eeheehee!!!

This is everything wonderful.
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!

Brave Thoughts.

Today I read something that hit me in the heart and I want to share it.  I find it brave to kindly and gently say what you believe, especially when it's about something that can easily become so hateful.  This is what I read today.  I found it to be brave.  I found it to be full of grace.  And, perhaps surprisingly, I found it to be very important to me.  If you comment, please read twice.

Abortion, by Frederick Buechner

Speaking against abortion, someone has said, "No one should be denied access to the great feast of life," to which the rebuttal, obviously enough, is that life isn't much of a feast for the child born to people who don't want it or can't afford it or are one way or another incapable of taking care of it and will one way or another probably end up abusing or abandoning it.

And yet, and yet.  Who knows what treasure life may hold for even such a child as that, or what a treasure even such a child as that may grow up to become?  To bear a child even under the best of circumstances, or to abort a child even under the worst--the risks are hair-raising either way and the results incalculable.

How would Jesus himself decide, he who is hailed as Lord of Life and yet who says that it is not the ones who, like an abortionist, can kill the body we should fear but the ones who can kill body and soul together the way only the world into which it is born can kill the unloved, unwanted child (Matthew 10:28)?

There is perhaps no better illustration of the truth that in an imperfect world there are no perfect solutions.  All we can do, as Luther said, is sin bravely, which is to say (a) know that neither to have the child nor not to have the child is without the possibility of tragic consequences for everybody yet (b) be brave in knowing also that not even that can put us beyond the forgiving love of God.

Community Brainstorm

Have you ever noticed that the "talks" in movies never last as long as they would in real life?  A break-up talk, something that might last all night and be horrible and mean and sad, is less than two minutes in Movie Time.  Pretty much every time I watch a movie or see a show in which they have a serious conversation I find myself thinking, "that would last SO MUCH longer in reality."  Really, your reconciliation talk after much distrust and bitterness is only going to be a few phrases?  And you feel satisfied with that?  I wanna see a movie where they break-up for a whole episode.  Give me the exhausting, gut-wrenching, trivial, hour-long conversation where people say everything they say.

OK.

That's not what this post is about.  We don't need a community brainstorm about Movie Talks.

I want to hear what you do that is good for you this time of year when it gets dark and sad.  I want to know what keeps you hopeful, what brings you peace, what makes you brave.  I'm going to write down some of the things that I know help me hold onto sanity, but I would love for everyone who reads this and struggles with darkness to share as well.  Here goes:

1.  Running in the rain and the cold.  I feel like I battle the elements and come out stronger and better afterwards.

2.  Hot tea with a blanket and a good book.  But really, it's about allowing myself to be and not need to accomplish anything.

3.  A movie that gives me a means of catharsis.  Bawling my eyes out to Moulin Rouge is surprisingly helpful.

4.  Regular time with friends.

5 - 10.  Going to the beach.

Your turn please.