finding peace

i am married to a very wise man.  he is many other things too, but perhaps what i value most is his wisdom. today he came home for lunch which was wonderful, but it was more than that- it was needed. i needed him- his presence- his words.

we are going to greece in a few weeks for a medical missionary conference. i so need this. we so need this.  it's been almost three years here and we need to reconnect with ourselves and each other and our mission. because there is this thing called burn out and it's real and it happens with time and multiple losses and being far away and more losses and stress- lots of stress. some of the stress would be with us anywhere (i won't mention any names) and some of the stress is unique to living as a foreigner in the developing world, and some of it is unique to this title of missionary and what that means, and raising our support to live and work.

on sunday the sermon was on peace.  on being at peace with God and with ourselves and with others.  i wasn't feeling very at peace with anyone- but maybe most of all, myself.  i was feeling mostly non-peaceful feelings- like restlessness and agitation.

so when mike came home for lunch- we talked about it. he was saying that this lenten period for him has been about learning to un-think.  that for him, and me, and our "types"- types who like to accomplish a lot and control things and fix problems and find solutions- we usually try to find peace this way- by thinking our way to it.  we try to identify the "problems" or create a mental list of all the good things, the things in our lives that should bring us peace, we try to be reasonable, to create plans and paths that will result in peace.  but it just doesn't work.  it doesn't.

"obedience is the path to peace."  that is what he said.  that was his lenten conclusion. 

we've been doing it wrong. 

our "types" tend to try discipline as the path. we identify what is preventing our peace or what we need to put in place to achieve peace and we do it- we are disciplined. and we are good at it.  it's in our comfort zone.  discipline has worked for us in the past. it's gotten us where we are today....(wait....that should perhaps be a clue that it's not going to be the solution... since where we are today is looking for peace...)   but the problem with discipline, is that it's still all about us. and control. we are the masters of our universe. we are solving the problem.  we are working our way through it. 

but true peace is found in the letting go.  real peace is found in surrender.  peace is found often and ironically in the seasons and times when we are most out of control, most vulnerable, most dependent.

and that is where obedience comes in.  being compliant or submissive to the will of another- a very unpopular concept today especially in the west.  obedience requires humility, it requires letting go of our agenda, it is giving up control.  for those of us who try to find and walk with God, it's being obedient to what we are called into or not into. it's still very active- it's still doing- but it's doing what God wants, not what we want. it's choosing in our day and our moments to be obedient - and in that we are choosing peace.

what does this mean? it depends.  i think it means finding ourselves in the mundane parts of life.  it means doing what is in front of us, instead of thinking about why we have to.  it means being the parent and making the sandwich and listening (really listening)  to the retelling of "secret agent cody banks" for the 100th time.  it means being kind and gentle when someone in clinic wants malaria treatment for sore on their mouth. it means saying "no" to our quick fix easy fixer-upers when they are not good for us.  it means being active and present with your partner at the end of the day, instead of just saying "fine" or "nothing".   it means trusting in the everlasting arms- finding the things in life that we really do have no control over, and giving them up. 

a few hours after our lovely discussion on finding peace, zoe came home from school- and God was like, ok- here you go.  she literally walked up the driveway roaring like an angry lion, stormed through the door, threw her bag on the floor, threw her water bottle, and her glasses and her ipod and went to her room where she proceeded to strip her bed and throw that on the floor, and then strip off her own clothes and come out to the kitchen butt naked and shout, "what do you think of that mom?"

oh dear.

really?? really??

i had a guest over.  rose needed a snack because she had just come home too. jude was in the kitchen wondering what he was supposed to make of his naked older sister.  it was 4 o'clock. 

i told the guest it was time to go, gave rosie a yogurt, jude said he wished there was a cure for nonverbal learning disability and made himself scarce, and i took a very deep breath, and went into the den of zoe.  i sat on her stripped bed and calmly asked her to get dressed, which she did. i calmly asked her what her day had been like, and under my breath i was saying to God....really?? really??

because in that moment i wanted to run like the wind away from my life. far away.  i wanted to be anywhere but in that room with that girl- (preferable somewhere with a gin and tonic and the sound of the ocean).  because in that moment i was looking at the rest of peoples lives.  i was looking at her life and my life and mikes life and i was seeing a whole lot of crazy.  i was seeing jail and mental hospitals and 5150's.  i was seeing cutting behaviors and anxiety and depression and suicide.  because in that moment i was tired and terrified, and i was about to ask why and why not something else  and how long, but i remembered- obedience is the path to peace.  not thinking.  not even asking why and when.  obedience. obedience in this. this is what you have been given and called into-in all it's messiness and challenge and heartbreak- so be in it, be in it with her- be present- be quiet- listen. 

and do you know what? we are given the things we need in the moment when we chose to be obedient. it's true.  i wasn't being asked to be obedient forever- to always chose correctly- to be perfect.  i was just being asked in that moment to not run away. to be still.

she told me that she'd struggled a bit in the morning with the new girl in her class (change is very hard for zoe).  then she'd had standardized testing all day (the first day of 4), then on the ride home she'd gotten mad because her neighbor didn't want to talk, and the whole thing was just too much she said- her brain started spinning- she was feeling out of control (ya think?)

it was a hard day- standardized tests are awful! especially for kids like zoe (even if it's adapted).  no wonder she felt so out of control.  the challenge is how to help her unwind her spinning head while remaining clothed and not throwing things. 

i thanked her for telling me about her day- asked her to please remake her bed- (which rose did with her) and we all ate popcorns.  i told her i understood how hard her day must have been- and that we are here for her- to help her -and to hear her- and to find with her, other ways to deal with feeling out of control.  thanks she said. and i went inside to make risotto. 

the funny thing was- i was at peace. the miracle was, by not screaming at her, by not running away, or avoiding it, but by being in my life- in the thick of it- in the mess of it- the rawness of it- i let go. in the admission of my inability to change her brain, or even her actions, despite all kids of discipline and routine, and in the grace i was given in that moment to be obedient, i found peace.

i am a very simple person, who despite multiple attempts, rarely gets things right- so i will just be thankful for that moment.  for the grace given to be there for someone else before myself.  for the strength given to stay put and listen.  and for the peace that followed.

obedience is the path to peace....

only once

isn't it strange that we only get one life? i mean in our skin. 

it came to me, when i was reading the journey by mary oliver, 
 

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.


that we have to make choices.  choices like will we live in a place with seasons where the trees change their clothes or where they wear green all year? will we look up and see our breath in the cold crisp night air where the naked branches scrape at the sky? or will we see the southern cross and feel the warm earth holding us into the darkness?  like will we take risks? or what kind of risks will those be? will we grow roots and live with our neighbors and will our children grow up together? or only see each other on special occasions and in Christmas cards?  will we forget that we like to paint or write and then wake up and remember that there are stories and pictures inside of us? will we ever give them a voice?

maybe because i'm in the middle of my life, i feel these things.  maybe because my choices have been fairly dramatic, i know their weight.  i won't get back these years.  these years that have been with and with out.  these days that have been full and empty.  their far-away-ness.  their perpetual green.  their difference from my years of normal.  the hot sun and the hard rain.

we don't get a do over.  we sit with our choices- in their beauty and their challenge- and hopefully we open up our hands. hopefully we listen to our lives.  and learn and grow from where we have been. hopefully we remember the cold winters and the smell of wet wool mittens; and the parks full of eucalyptus and fennel; and shores of seaweed and shells.

where we are now becomes where we were and a part of who we are.  who we are now, becomes who we were and who we will be. we are all our parts and our paths and our choices and our days. we are, as buechner says, our feet- because where our feet takes us- that is who we are.  

sometimes art and words and song and the way the clouds are moving, call us to stop and look and ask- who am i, or where am i going, or where have been?  what is to be today? what path am i on? where are my feet taking me? are they to places of peace? am i walking with intention? or in pattern? or in desperation? what am i dragging behind me? am i seeing what is sitting in the moment with me?

i think the time is ripe.....

“The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things we have left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or worse, we are becoming. But again and again we avoid the long thoughts….We cling to the present out of wariness of the past. And why not, after all? We get confused. We need such escape as we can find. But there is a deeper need yet, I think, and that is the need—not all the time, surely, but from time to time—to enter that still room within us all where the past lives on as a part of the present, where the dead are alive again, where we are most alive ourselves to turnings and to where our journeys have brought us. The name of the room is Remember—the room where with patience, with charity, with quietness of heart, we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived.”  buechner.

somehow

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.  
                -mary oliver

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.
               -buechner

maybe because it's lent. or maybe because i just feel my own broken neediness these days- i have been really searching, and looking, and listening to find the voice of God in the words of others. and as promised, when we search, we find.  when we look, we see. when we listen, we hear- at least....something.

these days, i'm struggling a lot.  these days i feel and see zoe struggling- i hear about it - i watch it- and often i am the target of it.  being 14 years old is hard.  for everyone.  but 14 with significant learning challenges and difficultly reading social cues, with no good friends?  that's REALLY hard.  so zoe is angry and moody and crabby and likes to take most of it out on me. i don't blame her, but i really don't like it.

yesterday i was driving back from kampala and i was listening to the words of dave thompson- a very wise missionary surgeon. every time i hear him- i hear the voice of God- and i get some insight- and some peace. he told a lot of stories about his life and when we tell stories about our lives they are usually about the hard parts, and the hard parts make us ask a lot of questions. but often the questions we ask- the why's and the why not's come back to us, as God asks back - is my love enough?  and - do you trust me?

it's really easy to say- YES- to both questions when things are easy.  when life is going well- when things are not complicated. when we have energy and reserve and hope about life, and joy.  but when things are darkish and hard and you're tired and wondering what to do and where to do it- those answers can be slower to come....

the month of march is finally over.  it took forever.  it was the month that my jude turned 9. the month lent began. the month emmanuel died of his cancer. this month- full of all that- left me with a lot of questions about life and death and healing and God and our histories and what's in our names.

emmanuel had a picture of st. jude on the wall in his house where i saw him when he couldn't breathe and needed to go the the big city hospital where i knew he'd take his last breath. st jude.  the patron saint of lost or hopeless causes.


the day he died they brought his body back to the house.  i'm now used to this. to the main room emptied of furniture- straw mats placed on the floor- the body laid out- the family surrounding it- a fire outside- porridge being made and eaten.  quiet voices. tears. long sitting.  long staying.  being together. 

on the yellow walls across from where he lay- was that picture of st. jude. looking down.  remaining.  this cause over- at least on this side of things. i sat on that straw mat, bit my lip and through teary eyes i glared at st. jude.  really? i thought.  where was the intercession? i was just so tired of the dust and the heat and the death and the knowness of it all. i was so tired of what i heard- the thanks to me for caring for him when all i wanted to do was apologize and disappear. another cancer death.  another failed attempt at cure.

jude is the name of my son. my son who just turned 9, when he wasn't even supposed to turn 1.  when he was supposed to be disabled.  my smart, beautiful, amazing son.  st. jude hung over his crib. i had bought it at the catholic cathedral bookstore on the edge of chinatown in san francisco.  i bought it because it gave me hope when i wasn't being given much.  i bought it to remember that with God - all things are possible.  that miracle still exists. that the divine touches the finite world. there are brushes of holy- moments of clarity beyond ourselves.  they are all around us.

emmanuel's name means God with us. in his coffin, surrounded by those yellow walls and his family and friends and beneath st. jude, through that little window over his face, i could see his smile- even in death-even though his treatment didn't stop his cancer- what his name meant- that was enough.

really, i don't know why my jude was restored and emmanuel wasn't.  i don't know why timothy died of his cancer at age 14, and jude didn't. i don't know why bad things happen to people- over and over again.  i don't know why my zoe has to struggle as much as she does.  or why much of the world has to walk far still for clean water. or why there is so much poverty and disparity. 

but.  there is. and what i'm left with is- is Gods love enough?

is it enough for me to hold on to and chose joy, even when i can't do much for late stage cancer and find myself sitting on mats beside coffins? is it enough when zoe is freaking out because there is a new kid in the class, or because the thunder is just too loud? is it enough when i keep messing it all up over and over again? is it enough in the red dust, yellow jerrycan, tin roof place i live? is it enough even though...

somehow it is enough-  somehow.

so we do as mary oliver and frederick buechner have said- to be- to be and live in our lives-
we pay attention. 
we listen to it.
we see it for the fathomless mystery that it is.
we remain astonished.
we touch and taste and smell our way to the heart of it.
and we tell about it.
we tell about the grace.