Joy and Woe (And Babies?)

"Joy and woe are woven fine, 

a clothing for the soul divine..."

This quote from a William Blake poem has been so very true in my life, especially more recently. 

Growing up, I never really wanted marriage and family. Having babies was far from my vision of my future. I was kind of awkward around other people's children and didn't care to gush over pictures of their chubby jellybean offspring. While other girls in school did school projects on their future selves having a husband and children, I wanted to be a filmmaker and screenwriter in Hollywood. I envisioned myself alone, living by myself, creating art and being free from the chains of a life where someone held me down or forced my direction. I wanted to be able to do what I wanted, and not end up living someone else's life instead of mine. I majored in film production in college, but ultimately, living that kind of life was not in God's plan for me. Nothing ever really came to fruition, and everything was always a struggle. 

I glamourized the life of a loner in my mind (I even got my motorcycle license to further enhance my sense of "freedom") and really, I was living a selfish life. Not selfish as a PERSON, but I didn't have to be responsible for anyone else's life. Not until I became a caregiver for my mother when she was sick and nearly died. 

I wanted passion, but I skirted away from settling down. I wanted love. I wanted a soul mate. I wanted to have sex with that person all day on every inch of the house and on every piece of furniture, but never really desired kids. I thought maybe I might want one child if I met the right person. Perhaps I clung to this independent vision of life for far too long. I even subconsciously sabotaged a relationship with someone who had a young child a long time ago. On some level I knew that's not what I wanted to be. I didn't want to be "Mom". I was almost married twice. I was engaged to someone for a very long time, and my last relationship I thought was going to be “it”. I lived with him and his cat, Moksha, for three years before God forced me out of that situation to care for my mom. Ultimately, our relationship was toxic and we work better as friends. I do enjoy my alone time and I enjoy reading and working out on my own schedule, but I wonder if my soul is meant to have a family or not. 

Now that I'm turning forty this year and approaching the point where I may not be able to have children of my own or a family at all... it's kind of hitting me differently. Especially since I'm the youngest person in my family, with no siblings, no nieces or nephews and no children. I used to fear the idea of watching everyone I love die before me and then having no one. That is becoming a very real possibility now. I also wonder if I'm squandering the gift of what it is to be a woman. To experience the gift of giving birth and fulfill my purpose as a woman. What if I never get to experience that at all? Am I okay with that? Have I wasted my being here on this Earth?

Now I'm left wondering what God's plan for me actually is. Will I ever even find the kind of love that strengthens my relationship with Christ and prepares my heart for unity with his? Can I hold out for that? Will I have the kind of sex with someone that not only doesn't close the door on God, but invites him in and is truly giving and unselfish? Can I feel someone so deeply inside me that they inhabit my entire being? Their soul within mine and mine within theirs? Maybe it's just the same little girl inside me that wanted to believe in Santa Claus that still wants to believe that there is a mate for my soul--not to complete me because I'm incomplete or anything, I know I am complete, but to be my compliment in every way--the one that God has always intended for me. I probably have always wanted that above all else, and I always ran away if anything told me it was less than exactly that thing. The thing that is right. This might all sound like ego-drama, but what I really am searching for is my place in the grand theo-drama, and how I fit into this theological play that I feel so deeply written into. My essence yearns to be one with the grand Love Story.

While there is a longing and pain in my life, I also feel an overwhelming joy as I draw closer to the Lord.

This whole past year has been woven with both joy and woe. Even when driving exhausted to and from the hospital every day when my mother was there, I would sometimes catch the golden morning sun glimmering off the Utah mountainside and be struck by its awe and beauty. I almost felt guilty for the sense of peace that would come over me. But this golden light was a foreshadowing of God's love and his impending miracles and blessings that he would bestow. He certainly did surround my mother with his golden healing light and showed me how to lay hands upon her and what words to pray, before I even knew what to say. I will never forget everything he has done. Everything he has given. The movements he caused in my heart and the rippling impact on those around me. He saved my mom's body and life, but that saved ME. And she was saved again (her soul) when I then brought her back to God.

Lent and Transmutation

Earlier today I was discussing with a friend how, when thinking about what to sacrifice for Lent, there has to be a transmutation, not just a replacement. It's not enough to just remove something and then arbitrarily put something good in its place so that you can swap them again after Lent. The original thing should be changed into something good. Its nature should be changed. We can't create or destroy energy, ourselves, but we can transmute.

What does Jesus want from me that I'm not giving him? What can I sacrifice for the good of another? Better yet--how can I transform something in myself for the good of another? What makes me squirm in discomfort to think of giving up or changing? That's how I know where my heart is--and that's what needs transmutation, so I can be closer to Christ. What does a healed version of that thing look like? The word sacrifice means "To Make Holy". How can I not only give up something, but be changed within? How can I be more holy?

Have I been putting any of these principles of transmutation into practice in my life lately? I think I have, in fact. Especially when it comes to transmuting distorted or disordered desire--lust--into something spiritually nourishing.

I've recently met a couple people through the Bible in a Year/Catechism in a Year groups who I'm really grateful to have met. Yes, they are men, and yes, initially they approached me with sexual interest or invitations, but my response in the moment where it could have gone either way--a spiritually damaging relationship of use and reductivism, or a spiritually nourishing relationship of sacredness--transformed the entire dynamic. People feel safe sharing things with me, and I would never shame anyone or make them feel dirty or guilty. However, I did not encourage the continuation of behaviors that are damaging, but instead emphasized the sacredness of sexuality. One of them has actually become a sort of prayer accountability partner now. We encourage one another to pray the rosary, go to confession, go to mass, and our discussions definitely go deeper than it would have if I indulged certain behaviors. Now, it was a bit of a challenge at first, because I'm kind of like Roger Rabbit with the old "Shave and a Haircut"--It's kind of hard for me to resist things like that, and not take them to levels that are UNHEARD of. Lol. But, I am proud of this. It may seem like a little thing, but I actually think it's a pretty big deal. We are all transformed for the better. 

I feel like the theme lately in my life is transmutation. This time of Lent is a perfect time to really focus on things in my life that are possibly twisted and in need of transmutation. I will likely be meditating on this a lot over the next several weeks.

Desiderio

In another life

I could have found bliss in the worldly things.

Making love by French doors, cracked open,

on some Parisian balcony.

Billowing curtains and the smell of rain.

Thunder muffling tender gasps. 

Finding ways to kill the pain 

of ending up without you.

Desiring more...

It's never enough. 

Bodies come together and pull apart--

Always left separated, alone, wanting again.

Crying out to you on my back, on the floor;

You yearned for my need.

Called me to more.

In the dark, you held me--

Whispered into the cracks of my broken heart.

My purpose was never mine to keep.

I surrendered my life to save another--

You pulled me from his grasp.

Maybe my last chance at being a mother.

I left him in my past.

I'm back in this place you keep calling me to.

A place that's not quite home.

In another life 

I could have loved what the world had to give.

You knew my light would never be so bright

without bringing me into the dark.

To the gentle breezes of your urgings, I let myself bend and sway. 

With joy, I surrender. I have no idea where we are going, but I'm with you all the way.

"Father's Day" CIY - Day 33

 ..."Human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought, therefore, to recall that God transcends human distinctions between sexes. He is neither man nor woman, he is God."

"And if you had a rough relationship with your father, if you had a rough dad--someone who might have been not just distant, not just cruel, but maybe downright, you know, evil. You can see in that evil, the flip side. You have to almost see it like a negative image. For all the evil that one's own father might have brought into the world and brought into your life, God the Father is opposite that."

--Father Mike Schmitz (Catechism in a Year, Day 33)

It's strange that we are diving into this right now in the Catechism, because it's a subject that I've been giving a lot of thought to lately. In my previous blog ("What is Love"), I explained how I have been thinking about what Love is and how residual father wounds might be distorting the way I approach the heavenly Father. I really want to heal these wounds. However, maybe the wounds are actually healed and they're not holding me back at all, but I'm like a wolf with a wounded paw, and I've become so used to "licking" it, that I don't realize that it's actually healed, and I can run free on it. 

What Father Mike talked about today makes sense and I get it. My logical mind can definitely imagine what a healthy and loving relationship with a Father looks like. I have seen it and I have known people with amazing, loving fathers and have witnessed these relationships and their dynamics. I just have never experienced it myself, subjectively. It's kind of like trying to explain what sex feels like to someone who has never had sex. Or an orgasm. You can explain it until you're blue in the face, but it's just not going to cut it. It's something you have to experience to truly know. 

I have never had a man in my life with whom I have had a truly loving, non-sexual relationship. Besides the broken relationships with my father and grandfather, I don't have any brothers or nephews, no uncles I'm close to, and I've never had a close relationship with any male friends, professors or colleagues that wasn't sexual at some point, whether mutual or on one side or the other. So, I may not have a basis for comparison, but it doesn't mean that it's not possible for me to be receptive to a future relationship of the sort, or to cultivate such a relationship with God, the Father--to know that he loves me like a father now, even if I don't fully comprehend the nature of that love. He is giving it, anyway. Not just like the love of a father, but like a mother's love, too. "Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense." These are the things I love contemplating.

Now that I'm thinking of it, though... Perhaps God's love is also being revealed to me in my current job that God called me to. I do Recreational Therapy with elderly memory care residents in a rehabilitation facility. Many of them have Alzheimer's and varying degrees of cognitive ability. They may not always remember the conversations you have with them or what you do together, but they WILL remember how you make them FEEL. One of the higher-cognitive residents, Darrel, has really come to love me. He trusts me over anyone else and always tells me he loves me and that when he was gone for a week in another wing doing rehab, he came back only because of me. Lol He's adorable. I shouldn't overlook that because it's my job or because he's not cognitively all there. If anything, the love is purer and more unfiltered and innocent. That job has really brought me out of myself a lot. I was always pretty reserved and quiet in many of my jobs, but I really have to be enthusiastic and excited with the residents. I'm not self-conscious around them. I often have to sing or dance or perform in some way in front of them (which I guess my college acting classes come in handy here) or engage them in sensory/cognitive/spiritual/emotional/social activities. I also am very "touchy"--even though I'm used to touching people as a massage therapist, this is different, because there's constant contact and emotional nurturing. I often hold their hands and touch their backs. Handholding is something that would be inappropriate in my position as a massage therapist, but in this case is appropriate. I don't have any children of my own, but maybe God knows I am good for this position because I have so much love and nurturing to give and this allows me to give the kind of love I want to give. That I need to give. 

And there, hidden in plain sight, is the nature of God's love. I don't have to overthink whether or not I'm doing it right. I don't have to hem and haw about whether I'm feeling God's love correctly when I allow him to love me. I just need to relax and trust in him, and always say "Yes".