Category: peace

Of (not politics, but) Bullying

Featured ~ Kristin ~ 1 Comment

Some people don’t like it when I talk about politics….I get it. If, as Wikipedia* states, politics is “the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of status or resources,” I can see why the topic might make some people feel uncomfortable.

I mean, why would you want to examine the reality of which folks hold the power, which groups benefit from the decisions of those folks, and which groups are historically and perpetually disenfranchised by those decisions. That examination could lead to unsavory images, to be sure, and we wouldn’t want anyone to have to see that, so, let’s not talk about politics.

Instead, class, today let’s talk about bullies.

Every single school I have been a part of has had its bullies.

They don’t have to be the stereotypical intimidatingly oversized thugs that might be populating on your brain screen. In fact the bully of my first class was quite undersized. Physicality is not essential to the bully. Rather what characterizes the bully is the behavior that seeks to dehumanize, belittle, embarrass, or otherwise harm others and the presence of, at first, a yes man, then a crew, and ultimately the compliance of the larger group in allowing the bully to continue harming others.

It often starts with the bully targeting someone who is demonstrably “weak”. The bully might make fun of the disabled, denigrate immigrants, or even make jokes about someone’s weight. He (or she) looks around for a target then slings a grenade with the intent to do harm. But the harm is not where the power lies.

No. The power lies in the reaction to the harm. He gets a laugh at the expense of the disabled, a snicker at the expense of the immigrant, a guffaw at the expense of the overweight. And those responses are the fuel for the next attack.

Still high from the reaction of the yes men, the bully begins to scope out his next target — maybe someone with a little more clout — maybe a classmate or a peer. First he spreads rumors to harm his target’s reputation, he engages in name-calling to dehumanize his foe, he might even accuse others of wrong-doing, whether or not there is credence to his claims.

Throughout all of this, those around him, seeing the power he is building, have to make a choice — do they want to land in the bully’s sites or take a position at his side?

That’s a tough call, especially if you are in middle school or still have the insecurities that you had when you were in middle school. You might not think you can handle humiliation. You might not think you could weather the name-calling. You might not think you could bear up under the rumors. So, you chuckle at his antics, you move to his side of the room, you excuse his behavior as harmless, and you turn your eyes away from the victim.

And you continue to live with that decision because it still feels safer than having him turn the attention on you.

But then the assaults escalate. The blows become physical. And he’s going after someone who is or who used to be your friend. He might even attack a member of your family. Then you have to face a crisis of identity — who do you want to be? Do you want to stand behind this guy, smiling for the camera in your suit, waving your flag of allegiance, as he takes shots at not only the least of these but also at your neighbor, your brother, your friend, or your mom?

This moment happens in every bullying movie you’ve ever watched — The Karate Kid, when Danny LaRusso takes the blows of Johnny Lawrence almost to his peril in the final match, Mean Girls when Cady, who was once part of Regina George’s crew, finds herself a target when the burn book is circulated — the individual who had chosen to capitulate or even join a bully has to decide if they are going to stand up.

The rare ones who, despite their inner terror, find the courage to say “Not here, not today,” rise up from their devastation and face the bully. In the movies, this usually results in the bully walking away in shame or, in the most ideal of scenarios, having a change of heart and determining to be a different kind of person.

This sometimes happens in real life, too, although not inside the space of 90 minutes, and certainly not when the bully has been allowed to gain control beyond the schoolyard and into the community. No, in those cases, one person standing up will not be enough. To stop a bully who has, through all the text-book tactics of instilling fear through intimidation, established a culture of systemic compliance to the most ludicrous of actions, the community must come together and take a collective stand. They must, united, shout “Not here, not today!”

One person might not stop a bully, but a lot of single people, together, can do almost anything.

The bully can’t continue unless the community lets him.

Certainly the community will wake up and put a stop to it — it’s not politics, after all, it’s just refusing to let one person dehumanize another.

Defend the weak and fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Psalm 82:3

A couple of notes:

*If you were a student of mine in the early 2000s and cannot believe that I actually cited Wikipedia, see also lecture #497 entitled “Anybody Can Change”**.

**And when I say “anybody can change”, I do mean even bullies.

Also, if you listened to this post, you might be interested to know that the text version has several embedded links.

10 Years Later, #3

~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

I’ve just spent the last five days lounging around the house, moving from bed to couch to chair to bed to couch much like a cat thanks to the MLK weekend followed by a few days of below-0 wind chills. I have accomplished very little since last week, and it’s been lovely. It wasn’t always easy for me to be inactive — in fact, it was downright anxiety-inducing. Being busy was a coping strategy, but thanks to a chronic illness, a lot of therapy, and a new way of living, I am going more and more comfortable with being still. Below you’ll find a post from the beginning of my journey, when I had not yet learned to appreciate stillness.


The Backstory on Doing

 ~ KRISTIN ~ EDIT”THE BACKSTORY ON DOING”

I got my first job when I was 10.  No, it wasn’t it in sweatshop. My neighbor called my mother and asked if I could babysit her two sons while she and her husband went out.  They would be home by midnight.  Well, they weren’t home by midnight.  They were gone for seven hours and, at the extravagant rate of $0.50 per hour, I made a whopping $3.50.  It’s true. I continued to babysit for that family and then practically every family in my small town of 4,000 until I went to college.

My first tax-paying job was at a small dress shop on the main street of my home town.  I vacuumed, opened shipments, attached price tags, washed windows, etc.  This manual labor earned me the hourly wage of $2.00.  I worked Monday through Friday after school from 3:30-5:00.  Do the math — I was really pulling in the dough.

When I got my driver’s license I could venture to the neighboring town where I became employed at McDonald’s.  I climbed that ladder from mop-girl to fry-girl to order-girl to drive-thru-girl in no time flat.

In my senior year of high school I got a second job opening and closing at a public school day care center.  I arrived at 6:00 am to let the little critters in, went to school mid-morning, then returned after school to wave goodbye and close the place down.  Somehow I managed to work there, keep my job at McDonald’s, and graduate!

When I went off to college I worked several places — day care center, cafeteria, and development office.  Since then I have been a camp counselor, residential care staff, teacher, freelance writer, census worker (seriously), and who knows what else.

I think you get the point.  I have, almost always, had a job.  I took a brief sabbatical when my kids were babies.  I was blessed to stay home with them for seven years, but even then I was always busy baking, cleaning, homeschooling (seriously), leading Bible studies for women and teens, writing chancel dramas and worship songs, and (wait for it) becoming a Mary Kay consultant.

For the third day in a row I am going to say, I am not accustomed to being still.  Ten years ago we moved to St. Louis so that my husband could go to the Seminary.  For the next four years I was the primary wage earner in the family.  By the time he became a pastor,  I had become not only a teacher and department chair, but also the curriculum coordinator and member of the administrative team.

It is in my DNA to be doing.  I see opportunities and know I can meet them.  I see gaps and I know I can fill them. I see problems and I know I can fix them.  So when my husband took the job in Ann Arbor, I immediately started looking for what I could do!  (See yesterday’s post to more effectively roll your eyes at this.) I found several options.  I won’t get into all of those now, because I am trying to be still! (I told you this was going to be a challenge for me.)

The words from this morning’s Bible reading were written just for me, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will put on, [or dear Kristin, what you will do]…Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns [they aren’t busy doing, they are being], and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?…But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6: 25ff)

Doesn’t get much clearer than that, does it? I am a child of God. That is my identify. My identity does not come from my work — from what I do.  It comes from whose I am. I continue my mantra. I am a human, being HIs, trusting that He will feed me — literally and metaphorically. I will not be anxious. I will just be.

The Camera’s View

~ Kristin ~ 2 Comments
Click the arrow to listen.

The camera can’t catch everything.

Over the weekend, a friend sent me a photo to show me how she was spending her evening. In her shot, I could see the television screen and a Piston’s game in progress; I could see her polished toes propped up in front of her, but I couldn’t see her face or who she was watching with. She showed me what she wanted me to see — just a slice of the whole.

Media cameras give us a slice, too. They use selected images and create a neatly packaged narrative to create a story about what’s happening in the world, and while a picture paints a thousand words, actual stories with all their nuances, often take thousands of words to write.

Although we’ve been watching news of Covid-19 for 10 months and we’ve seen images of sickness and death every, we have not seen the true devastation caused by this disease. The screens in our living rooms can’t show us the pain of the 375,000 families who’ve lost loved ones since March. They can’t convey the stress, the weariness, the weight that our health care workers have been carrying. They can’t transport the heaviness of heart of those who are lifting bodies into refrigerated storage units because the morgues are full.

The camera gives a glimpse, but it’s can’t convey the whole.

Last Spring, along with shots of the empty streets of downtown Manhattan and the long lines of people waiting for food, the camera also held its focus for over eight minutes as a police officer kneeled on the neck of a man while officers stood by watching him die. It turned its gaze to another man out for an afternoon jog and watched as he was chased down by men in trucks, assaulted, and killed in the middle of the street. Not long after, the camera found in its frame a man taking the last steps of his life moments before a police officer shot seven bullets into his back severing his spinal cord and rendering him paralyzed.

It showed us these moments when everything changed, but it hasn’t shown us the ongoing impact in the lives of the people who loved those men.

It hasn’t shown us the grieving families — how they struggle to face another day in their forever-altered reality, knowing that those who inflicted violence on their loved ones get to keep right on living, some not facing any consequences at all. The camera hasn’t focused on that.

Throughout the pandemic, we have watched scenes of citizens responding to circumstances that seem unjust. We’ve seen outraged masses demonstrating against police brutality and others infuriated at orders to stay at home and wear a mask. The cameras have marched along, capturing images, and creating narratives.

And this week cameras were in the crowd as the leader of the free world — a man who has never experienced police brutality or had to stand in a line to get food, who has never been forced to stay at home or wear a mask — stood on the mall in Washington, DC, dressed in a fine suit and freshly coiffed, and spoke to thousands who adore him, who view him as the answer to society’s ills, who believe him to be a man of God and a fighter for the people. Cameras recored as he spoke to these people who had travelled across the country at his bidding, paying with their own hard-earned money, or charging flights and hotel rooms on credit cards they may or may not be able to pay back. They were dressed as warriors and carrying weapons; they brought strategies and tactics and stood there ready when he told them to march. The President of the United States said “you can’t be weak” but you must “save our democracy.” And, after listening to him decry our nation for over an hour, these thousands of citizens followed his orders and marched. The camera caught them screaming war cries, pushing police out of the way, breaking windows, climbing walls, destroying property, and terrifying the nation.

Not long after, the camera showed most of them walking away without consequence — not with knees on their necks, not with bullets in their backs, not chased down by vehicles and killed in the street.

And since Wednesday, as we’ve heard cries for justice, for impeachment, for accountability and watched the tapes of that attack played and replayed, we’ve been tempted to shake our fists at our screens, shouting at the ineptitude of the local and federal governments that respond unequally to the actions of black and white bodies, at the corruption of politicians, and at the devastating division in our country. And certainly, we are justified to do so, but all of our shouting and fist-shaking will not, of itself, cause transformation.

However, if we dare, we might turn away from the camera and its limited gaze to see that the issues plaguing the United States are both national and local. They are both political and personal. The same divisions we saw through a camera lens last week, and that we have been seeing for the last several years, are present in our own communities, in our own friend groups, in our own families, and in our own selves. We are a nation — a people — infected with selfishness, pride, racism, and self-righteousness.

And, as our pastor, Marcus Lane, said this morning, “We cannot confront evil in the world without confronting it in ourselves.” No, we sure can’t.

We will not change as a culture until we, as individuals, take intentional steps toward change — toward self-examination, confession, repentance, and walking in a new way. It’s going to take a collective effort to turn the dial, and to right our course.

We’re going to have to step away from our screens and the limited view of life that they display. We’re going to have to take a broader view, putting down our finger-pointing judgmental attitudes and extending not only consequences but grace to those who’ve gotten it wrong, including ourselves. We’re going to have to open up space so that as those around us try to change course, they will find the room to do so.

Look, we are all guilty here. We are all complicit — we’ve all contributed to this very tragic narrative.

We can no longer deny that much of what the camera shows us not only illustrates but perpetuates systemic racism and the privilege of the few. We saw with our own eyes that among the insurrectionists, who were mostly white, were those who carried Confederate flags and wore t-shirts emblazoned with anti-Semitic and racist messages. It is nauseating to see such hatred so blatantly on display — right on the cameras –but really, that’s where it should be, out where we can see it, because for too long it has been carried surreptitiously inside our hearts.

I’ve been idly watching this narrative for too long.

I feel compelled to take an inward look to face the evil within myself so that I will be better equipped to call it out in our world and to give the camera something new to look at. We’ve got to right this ship, friends. We’ve got to change the trajectory of our story.

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts. See if there is any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

Psalm 139:23-24

Applied Learning

~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

In the spirit of learning from my lessons, let’s apply the last two blogs to my current reality.

Fact #1 – I can’t plan for everything.

Fact #2 – I’m not in control.

How do we live in the tension of recognizing these facts while living out our daily realities?

My current reality is this: I just returned from three weeks away from my home.  I intentionally didn’t plan any work for this week — not even tutoring — because I knew I would need a week of recovery.  Autoimmune disease is such that any stressor — good or bad — can cause a physiological response.  Flying can cause a response. Eating a delicious Cuban sandwich on fresh – delicious –  glutinous bread can cause a response. Working seven days in a row in an unfamiliar environment can cause a response.  Seeing an old friend can cause a response. Taking a detour can cause a response. Eating sorbet — before or after lunch — if it is out of the routine, can cause a response.  (Yes, in the past three weeks I have done all of those things.)

A ‘response’ can mean different things to different people.  For me, a ‘response’ is typically any of the following — fatigue, eye inflammation, increase in pain or fatigue, or, if the stressors are cumulative or particularly intense, what I call a ‘knock down’.  I got ‘knocked down’ a couple of times during the vacation. It’s really not pleasant.  I usually get a pretty solid headache, gastrointestinal distress, systemic pain and fatigue, and usually, the symptoms are so intense that I can’t sleep.

In the past five years, I have been knocked down enough times that I recognize the feeling and have come to take these episodes as reminders that I am trying too hard, that I am doing too much, and that I have to be mindful. I used to feel frantic during a knock down; now I lean in.  I fill a tub full of epsom salt water and slither in.  I lie there for as long as I can with a cool cloth across my forehead.  I drink a lot of water.  I take a homeopathic remedy called nux vomica (as recommended by my doctor), and I rest. I eat healing foods — rice, popsicles, scrambled eggs — and I prop myself in front of something mindless on the television. A standard knock down takes about twenty-four hours of intentional recovery.  Some have taken longer, some have resolved more quickly.

I fully anticipated a knock down during this week.  So, I planned nothing.  Well, not nothing. I planned things that would set me up for success in the coming weeks.

While stressors can lead to a ‘response’, intentionally proactive behaviors can build resilience, like money in the bank.  They don’t prevent a knock down, but they do build my core strength so that the likelihood of a knock down is reduced and the recovery from one is perhaps shorter.  What builds resilience for me?  Well, a regular schedule, for one.

If I follow routines — get up at the same time every day, eat the same breakfast (gluten-free oatmeal with coconut oil and honey has been a recent trend), drink the same drinks (one green tea followed by one black tea), exercise, complete a task or two around the house, have one or two social interactions, and complete one or two professional tasks, all while taking periodic breaks throughout the day — I build resilience.  If I am being proactive,  I have to create my to-do list with this in mind.  I have to ‘plan’ blank spaces into my day.  Margin is essential.

Intentional reading and blogging are perhaps more important steps to building my resiliency than I give them credit for. Long ago, I learned to override feeling with doing. Because I didn’t want to feel pain or get lost in any type of emotion at all, I busied myself. That is a temporary fix, but feelings don’t go away.  They get buried.  Deeply buried.  I have found that if I read a particular genre of books (I’ve referred to many of these types of writers in this blog — Ann Voskamp, Shauna Niequist, David Sedaris, Joan Didion, and the like), then I gain access to emotions that I long ago buried.  While I am ‘hearing’ and feeling the stories of others, I recall my own stories and am able to attach meaning to them.  The follow-up, of course, is this blog.  If, in the wake of reading and reflecting, I sit down at my computer here in the quiet of my little house by the river, I give myself time to process the emotions that have been stirred up.  For you teachers out there, the reading is the receptive portion of the lesson; the blogging is the expressive.  I, like most students, need both in order for the lessons to have any hope of sticking. (And, like most students, I need repetition of most lessons in order to achieve mastery.)

How did I get the privilege of the time that enables a lifestyle with margin? that allows for reading and processing?  The only explanation I have is that the One who has eyes to see me and who knows my needs better than I know my own, determined that because I would never plan this type of life for myself, He would plan it for me. I was living a life that powered through and led to an epic ‘knock down’.  He saw it, and in compassion, He set me down into a new reality–one that allows for margin, one that allows for reflection, one that allows for healing.  Which exposes the next lesson:

Fact #3 – I am held in the palm of His hand.

I am really trying to rest in this reality.  Muscle memory makes me want to jump up and start doing so that I won’t have to feel the pain that has been exposed in the stillness of this chapter.  However, the knowledge that comes through the power of the knock down coupled with the words of some key people that are speaking into my life right now remind me of the words of Elizabeth Elliot that Ann Voskamp quoted in The Broken Way :

…”out of the deepest pain has come the strongest conviction of the presence of God and the love of God.” [Voskamp follows with] The most crushing lie a life can hold on to is that life is supposed to avoid suffering, avoid loss, avoid anything that breaks.  Loss is our very air; we, like the certain spring rains, are always falling toward the waiting earth…

I embrace the knock down because His hand is holding me and leading me to a better life in this next chapter.

Psalm 103: 13

The Lord is as kind to his followers as a father is to his children.

Controlling and Carrying, revisit

~ Kristin ~ 1 Comment

This post, first written in June of 2017 and polished a bit in March 2019, reminds me of one of the most powerful life lessons I continue to learn.

I began trying to control my life at a very early age. At the risk of making this a confessional, let me just say that I routinely lied, falsely (and sometimes accurately) implicated my brothers, and physically overpowered my friends to get what I wanted. And that was all by the time I was in elementary school! As I grew older and learned what was socially acceptable, I found other methods such as emotional outbursts, dramatic power plays, and sly slips of the hand to orchestrate my life. My college years brought more maturity.  I learned that I could not control my environment, my peers, or my family, so I controlled my body through anorexia.

You would think that therapy and recovery would’ve exposed the truth that I am not in charge of my own life either, but I am either a slow learner or a control savant. I have devised many ways to create an illusion of control.  In fact, once I had children of my own, I was sure to create a rigid daily schedule to ensure that their lives were under control. I was going to make sure that they were safe and secure. No harm would come to them under my watch. We prayed together. We memorized scripture verses. I only let them watch PBS.  We ate dinner together every evening. They went to church every Sunday and often several times during the week. I was going to do this parenting thing right. My kids would be perfect, you know?

I couldn’t control everything, though, as I’m sure you can imagine. They didn’t stay safe and secure. Harm did come to them. Heart-breaking harm.

Many sleepless nights I have cried over my failed attempts at controlling my life; many more I have cried over my realization that I could not prevent my children from being hurt. And where has it led me?  Literally to my knees.

For many years now, when I have found myself facing the stark realization of my own powerlessness in the lives of my children, I call to mind an image that gives me great peace. I picture a cupped hand with my child nestled safely inside. I imagine that cupped hand held close to an all-powerful chest much like I might hold a newborn chick or kitten. The hand is strong and able to lift my child out of harm’s way, and sometimes, when harm determinedly finds its way inside of that hand, two compassionate eyes are bearing witness — they are seeing and knowing and caring in ways that I am unable to see, to know, to care.  This image of the One who does have control gives me peace in those moments when I am able to acknowledge that I have none

Photo of original artwork by Mike Lorenz, St. Louis, MO.

But there are many moments when I am not able to acknowledge that. Most of the moments, actually. Most of my moments I am filling with doing. Doing gives me an illusion of control. It calms my anxiety. It makes me feel like everything is going to be ok if I just get my house clean, if I just meet one more student, if I complete one more task.

But that is a lie. Everything is not going to be ok. 

Last night, when I finally admitted that I had done enough for the day and I finally lay down in my bed, I picked up Ann Voskamp’s The Broken Way.  This is what I read:

Suffering asks us to bear under that which is ultimately not under our control, which proves to us we have no control.  And maybe that’s too much for us in our autonomous, do-it-yourself culture to bear.  Maybe more than we can’t stand physical suffering, we can’t stand not feeling in control (171). 

It’s silly when she puts it like that, isn’t it? And if I admit that trying to be in control is silly, then I have to admit that much of my life has been one big futile exercise. That’s embarrassing. And humiliating. And heartbreaking.

But it’s true.

However, it is also true that regardless of my foolish attempts, I, too, have been sitting in that all-powerful hand. I have been kept out of harm’s way many, many times. And, when harm has found me, One has born witness with compassion, forgiveness, and love. I am His child, after all. He has ordered my world.  He has hemmed me in on all sides. And He will continue to carry me.

You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.

Psalm 139:5

Making Up for Lost Time, revisit

~ Kristin ~ 1 Comment

Editor’s Note, January 24, 2019: I’m looking back at old posts and seeing how they resonate with me now. This one, in light of what I wrote on January 21, 2019, reminds me of all the ground work that God did in anticipation of 2018. While we were trudging through, my husband and I often reminded ourselves, “none of this is a surprise to God.” This post, originally written in 2017, is evidence that He knew what was coming and was preparing us in advance.

During all my years of soldiering — of butt-kicking and name-taking — I was in constant motion, often simultaneously cooking, doing laundry, answering email, talking on the phone, and granting or denying permission to one of my children.  I got a lot done.  It seems that I was able to keep a clean house, feed a family, teach hundreds of students, and arrive most places fully-clothed for quite a few years. The down side? Very little time to reflect — very little time to examine options, consider outcomes, or feel.

I’m making up for lost time. Obviously.

In days of yore (Why, sonny, when I was your age…), I looked at the myriad obligations of the members of my family, the limited functions of two vehicles, and the tight schedules my husband and I kept, and I quickly formulated and executed a plan that accommodated everyone.  I planned my work and worked my plan.  “Here’s what’s happening today,” I would say, “You two will come with me to school.  After school, while you are at practice, I will get groceries. I’ll be back to pick you up.  When we get home, you’ll unload and put away groceries while I cook dinner.  Meanwhile, Dad will take you (other child) to your different school.  He’ll go to work then pick you up after your practice, stop by Walgreens to fill your prescription, then meet us back here. We will eat at exactly 5:30 because then, Dad has a meeting, I have parent-teacher conferences, two of you have homework to do, and the third one has to be at a study session on the other side of town.”  I would hit the start button and the plan would be executed.

Nowhere was there time for contemplation, negotiation, or revision.  We were in “go” mode.  In some ways, it was necessary for the season of life we were in with three kids in high school all at the same time, however, it could’ve been handled differently. I could’ve let some stuff go. I could’ve slowed down, allowed the kids to eat cereal for dinner more often, and let my laundry pile up. I could’ve valued processing over producing. Contemplating over completing.

So, yeah, I’m making up for lost time.

I’m currently reading three books. One is a book I am reading with my Bible study gals, Ann Voskamp’s The Broken Way.  Another was given to me by my physical therapist/counselor/friend, Doing Well at Being Sick by Wendy Wallace.  I also picked up Shauna Niequist’s Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes.  Why am I telling you this?  Well, it’s interesting to me that I have time to read three books, for one thing.  Also, I notice that I am interacting with these books, writing notes in the margins, going back to my notes, and thinking about what the books are saying to me. And, third, I am intrigued by the fact that these three books are speaking to each other.  It’s like they are three friends that said to one another, “Hey, guys, Kristin’s been still for quite a while now.  She might finally be able to hear us.”

And what are they saying?  They are saying the same things that I have been discovering, thinking, speaking, and writing about for the past three and a half years.  However, I think what’s interesting is that I am noticing.  I am processing. I am digesting. I am not more interested in completing these books than I am in connecting with them.  I am not compelled to finish them; I am drawn to understand the meaning they have for me.

And really, the meaning is this — my soldiering is done. Even though I’m tempted almost every day to go back to that life, I am no longer capable. God, in His mercy, has chosen a better way for me.  He has allowed limitations in my life — real physical limitations — that stop me from soldiering so that I can live a life that reflects, that feels, and that makes space for others. Because on my own, I wouldn’t have stopped soldiering, guys.  I would’ve keep right on kicking butts and taking names.  God had something better for me. Yes, you heard me right. My “broken” life, my life with the limitations of chronic illness, is a higher quality life than my “un-broken” life.  In fact, my “broken” life is more whole than the “unbroken” one was.

It’s a paradox, to be sure. God is often paradoxical, isn’t He?  His brokenness makes us whole.  By His wounds we are healed. He turns our mourning into dancing. He doesn’t always make sense, but today I’m not going to question Him. I’ll just thank Him.

I Peter 2:24

“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”

Still my Soul

~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

Time change.  Spring Forward. I did not want to wake up this morning.  I stayed up to watch the end of a basketball game last night. You know, March Madness.  It’s the first weekend of our Spring Break and I guess I was feeling a little like celebrating.  I made popcorn and baked muffins.  I wanted to snack, sip wine, and watch collegiate basketball. It wasn’t terribly late, mind you, but when my husband gently woke me this morning at 7, I grumbled.  Ugh.  “Five more minutes.”

I’m not great at morning.  It seems I used to be.  I think I used to bound out of bed ready to face my day, but this has changed.  I’m a morning grumbler.  My husband is good in the mornings.  He is cheerful, kind, thoughtful, and ready to face his day.  Poor guy.  He unsuspectingly tries to engage with me, and I snarkily reply.  Before he knows it, my snark has inspired a response from him.  That’s when I notice that I’ve been less than kind.

So, yes, this all happened this morning.  By the time we were in the car making our way to church, the banter was a little testy.  I feel bad because he’s on his way to church to preach, and I am going to sit in our church’s coffee house for about two hours doing whatever I choose to do.  I can read, grade papers, blog. I have time to shed the snark before I go to the second service; he is going to walk right into serving.  He has to quickly use whatever skills he has acquired from twenty-six years of living with me to shed the snark and return to his normal cheerful self. I know he is able to do it, but still feel badly.

While he’s doing whatever he does to prepare to greet people and deliver the message that he’s been working with all week, I shuffle down the stairs to my corner seat, unpack my bag, open my computer, and begin to review an essay that I’ve been helping one of my students with.  I’m reading through her claims, her analysis, and her evidence when I find myself singing with the coffee house’s piped in music,

Be still my soul, Lord make me whole

Lord make me whole*

I pause.  Hm. Yes, that’s why I am snarky this morning.  My soul is restless. I’m tossing around complaints and worries. I’m holding them in my hands and examining them over and over.  Perhaps you know what I’m talking about.  I’ve gathered items all week — the health issues of family and friends, the knowledge that people in my life make choices that I don’t agree with or approve of, the constant barrage of the ‘news’ feed, my own persistent health issues, and countless other gems.  I’ve been caressing them all week, and I haven’t changed their reality one bit.  I involuntarily join the plea of the song, “Be still my soul, Lord make me whole, Lord make me whole…”

The song ends, and I go back to the essay.  I give the feedback I promised then order a pot of extra strong tea.  I can feel the snark hanging heavily on me, so I know I can’t turn right to my blog.  Come on, Kristin, you know the drill.  Turn to the Scripture, first.  That’s where you’ll find your truth.

If you aren’t convinced yet of the power of a regular reading plan, let me share with you what I found today. It was waiting for me — Day 132, Psalm 66.

For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried.  You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; 

As I’m reading, I’m shaking my head.  I’m embarrassed. It’s not like my worries and troubles are a crushing burden.  Yes, I do have concerns that are real. However, in the grand scheme, I have been very gently ‘tried’.  In just this past week I have heard stories of others who have had true ‘crushing burdens’ on their backs, who have actually felt like ‘men [were riding] over their heads’.  Comparatively, my troubles are small.  I read on.

yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.  

I just have to sit here for a minute.  Indeed, I have been brought to a place abundance. Even if I didn’t have a church I loved to come to every Sunday, even if I didn’t have a committed husband who wakes up happy each day, even if I didn’t get to live in a community that energizes me, even if I didn’t have my dream job, even if I didn’t have four children that make me very proud, I would still have much abundance to write about.

I’m convicted, obviously.  I examine the gems in my hands and realize that they are mere pebbles. I exhale and continue to read.

I will come into your house with burnt offerings; 

I mean, I’m already here.  In just a little while, I will ascend the stairs and enter the sanctuary.  I will carry my pebbles up with me and leave them there for You.  I think You’ll probably be more effective with them.

Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul.  

Truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer. 

Guys, I can’t make this stuff up.  Mere words transform my snark into confession, humility, and gratefulness.  It’s a miracle –one that I don’t want to overlook today.  He cares enough about me and my ‘burdens’ to speak directly to me. He has stilled my soul again.  May He still yours, too.

*The Brilliance. “Dust We Are and Shall Return.” Brother. 

Resolving to Return, a re-visit

~ Kristin ~ 1 Comment

I wrote this on January 1, 2017…and here I sit on January 1, 2020, resolving to return once again. This year, I have a little support — our faith community has committed to reading the Bible through chronologically, following The Bible Recap reading plan and podcast. Maybe you’d like to join me.

My daughter and I spent yesterday morning together at a “Breathe out 2016, Breathe in 2017” yoga class and afterward talked briefly about resolutions — the positive thrust toward change and the set-up for unrealistic expectations and imminent failure. The yoga instructor, intentionally or not, seemed to suggest that we could will good things to come to us by just opening our arms and our spirits to them.

Oh, that it were so.

Last night, at a New Year’s Eve worship service where my husband was filling in for local pastors away for the holidays, we sang the words, “Christ has done away with sadness,” and my daughter turned to me and cheekily said, “has He really done away with sadness?”

Oh, that it were so.

Truly, we don’t need to look far to see sadness. Every day we witness hatred, violence, murder, poverty, chaos, and, yes, sadness. Just last night in Turkey, thirty-nine people were senselessly murdered as they attempted to ring in the new year. The past year has had more than its share of sadness. Indeed, the coming year will not be immune.

So what are we to do? Wear sackcloth and ashes? Walk around wringing our hands and gnashing our teeth? Shall we shake our fists at God in anger, demanding that He do something?

Nah.

We should do the same thing He’s been telling us to do since the Creation of the world — return to the Lord our God. That’s all. Our salvation is not in losing our holiday weight, in getting our finances in order, or in building a better portfolio. It’s in recognizing that God is still God even when He hasn’t done away with sadness.

When my husband asked the congregation last night to write down one way to connect with God in the coming year, I wrote down the same thing I wrote down last year: return to daily Bible study, return to daily prayer, return to regular writing. I had to write it down again this year because, as we have established, I am bent on turning away and am in constant need of returning.

The world, which is full of sadness, needs Jesus followers to immerse themselves in the Word and in prayer, because when we do this, we can’t help but reflect His mercy and His grace. We become beacons when we allow His light to take residence within us. We point to our Source of Hope and spread love rather than fear.

Will you commit with me to return to the Lord and allow Him to use us to shine His love into the lives of those around us? Imagine a new year that is filled with hopefulness that comes from Christ’s light shining in the darkness.

Behold I am doing a new thing…I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

Isaiah 43:19

Reflection, re-visit

~ Kristin ~ 1 Comment

A weekend rich with family kept me away from my laptop, as it should have. When everyone had left, I scrolled through pictures of the weekend and reflected on how lovely it had been to have so many that are precious to us together in one place. Instead of coming right to the keys, I basked in the moments for a bit. So, this morning, I bring you a piece from August 2016, dusted off on this October day in 2019. What a blessing it is to reflect.

After long absences from my blog, I never know what is going to come out of my fingers when I finally make the time to sit down. Will I start writing about why I haven’t written sooner?  what we have been doing with our time? what kind of students I am working with? How my health is (or is not) progressing? Or how I am looking forward to what’s coming up in the next few weeks?

I don’t know. Today I don’t feel a drive to write about any of the above, but I do feel compelled to get back to my blog. I love the discipline of writing every day, and I love how it causes me to reflect on how I am living my life. Writing causes me to pause and take stock of what is happening and what I think and feel about it.

Last weekend, I visited our two daughters who live in Boston. We did some sightseeing, yes, but we also had chunks of time when we were just together. We rode in the car from the city center to where we were staying. We visited coffee houses. We sat together on the couch and watched the Olympics and reality TV.  I found myself, in those moments of sitting with my adult daughters, reflecting on how my husband and I parented our children. From time to time my musings became audible.

“I wish I wouldn’t have freaked out over the little things so much.”

“I wish I would’ve taken more time to show you kids how to do more things.”

“I wish I would have stepped into some situations more thoughtfully.”

My girls were very gracious.  Mom, you had three babies in three years!  We were a lot to take care of!  You did your best! Mom, we turned out pretty good.

They’re right. We did have three babies in three years and we were very busy for many consecutive minutes.hours.days.weeks.months.years.  And, our kids are pretty great. We are blessed.

But, you know, twenty-five years flew by pretty darn quickly. And sometimes I even wished that the moments would speed by. Parenting is hard work. It is exhausting and sometimes overwhelming. And, in true Kristin fashion, I muscled through.

At one moment last weekend,  in the proximity of my girls, I heard myself say out loud, “You know what I wish the most? I wish I would’ve taken more time to reflect. I wish I would’ve been still long enough to say to myself, ‘How is this working out?'”

They were silent, so I said, “If I could give you one piece of advice right now it would be that: take time to be still and reflect.”

It took me a chronic illness and a six-month vacation from work to realize the power of stillness and reflection. My writing, which began as a crutch to help me hobble through the uncharted territory of unemployment, turned into a vehicle that helped me explore my thoughts and feelings about my current reality.  In exploring those thoughts and feelings, I have also explored my past and its impact on my life and the lives of those that I love. These explorations have, I believe, contributed to my healing — if not my actual physical healing, then certainly my mental and emotional healing.

Over the past eighteen months, I have gradually transitioned from not working at all to working about 20-25 hours a week. This was part of the goal all along.  I love teaching, and God has provided so many opportunities for me to work with students that don’t require me to have a full-time position. However, in transitioning back to more regular work, I don’t want to flush the lessons I learned during the stillness.

This is a challenge of real life, isn’t it? How do I find balance?  How do I get the fulfillment that comes from work while also taking the time to care for myself? How do I care for myself through exercise, healthy eating, and time for reflection, without overlooking the needs of the people closest to me?  How do I attend to the needs of my family while still finding time to connect with friends?  How do I make time to connect with friends and still have regular time to connect with God?

I sure don’t have a simple answer.  However, what I have learned is that, for me, one way to take the pulse on how I am doing with finding that balance, is to take some moments to reflect through writing. So, here I am, returning and reflecting so that I can continue to heal and continue to grow.

Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.

Psalm 116:7

Have Mercy, re-visit

~ Kristin ~ 1 Comment

Written in July 2016, this post has something for me today. As I’m quarantining inside my home for going on two months, I have to ask myself if I’m willing to take a risk for my neighbor.

I’ve heard the story of “The Good Samaritan” countless times in my fifty-plus years. You know the one, the guy is traveling down a road when he is attacked by robbers and left for dead. He’s lying mangled in the dirt, gasping for breath, hoping against all hope that someone will stop and help him.

One of our pastors this morning recalled with us the tragedies of the last week, month, year, years, and asked us the question, “What does it mean for us? for the church? Who is our neighbor and how are we to treat him?”

Let me just go on record here and say that in the past weeks and months I have NOT immediately gone to that question as I’ve witnessed all kinds of horrendous acts. I have been more often found standing in front of the television, eyes wide, saying, “What the…”

It doesn’t take me long to launch into the words I used to hear my grandparents say, “What’s the world coming to?” From there it’s just a short trip to quoting scripture about the end times and “wars and rumors of wars”.  Before you know it, I’m in a frantic outrage trying to find someone to blame. It must be the Republicans. No, it’s the Democrats. Wait, I think it’s corporate America. No, no, it’s the extremists. I’m not really looking for what it means for me, or, to be honest, for ways that I could possibly help.

This morning, our pastor in his re-telling of “The Good Samaritan” flipped the script for me. He said that like the man in the story, each of us  is essentially half-dead, lying in the dirt, gasping for breath. He said, “Jesus is the good Samaritan.” Gasp! How did I get fifty years into my life and not realize that the point of the story is not that I would see myself as the good Samaritan and look for ways that I can be better than the priests and the Levites and actually help out the poor hurting soul? How have I not seen that I am the poor hurting soul!?!?!?

Jesus was telling this story to a respected expert in the law. The expert had asked him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” He, of course, knew what was written, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.”  He just needed a little clarification. “Uh, Jesus, who, uh, exactly, would you say qualifies as ‘my neighbor’?”

Can’t you just see Jesus inhaling slowly, thinking to Himself, “This one is gonna take a story.” He doesn’t just say, “Every living human, you moron!” like I might. Nope. He takes this expert in the law, pulls him onto his lap and has a little story time.

The Teacher tells the ‘expert’ that, in the story, the Samaritan didn’t first check to see what neighborhood the hurting man was from. He didn’t ask him his last name. He didn’t try to find out if he was an illegal immigrant. He didn’t check to see if he had a conceal and carry permit. He didn’t examine the color of his skin. He didn’t determine if they spoke the same language. He didn’t check his ID. No.

He saw a dude in the dirt that needed help. He used his own wine and oil to cleanse the man’s wounds. He bandaged him up, put him on his own donkey, and then walked with him to a place of shelter. He paid for the stranger’s care and promised to come back and pay more. Period.

The Teacher looks the ‘expert’ in the eyes and says, “Who was a neighbor to this man?” The ‘expert’ says, “The one who showed mercy.”  

And the punch line? “Go, and do likewise.”

Is it dangerous to meet the need of someone we do not know? Yes. Is it scary to reach out when we see someone hurting? It can be. Is it uncomfortable to stand up for the oppressed, the wounded, the outcast? Sometimes.

Our pastor’s challenge to us this morning was that we ask God to show us the people in our regular flow of life who need us to see them, to share with them what we have, to walk beside them, and to befriend them. His closing words? “Take the risk to love for the sake of the Gospel.”

Go, and do likewise.

Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid. For I, the Lord your God, will be with you wherever you go.

Joshua 1:9