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Be still. Listen. Write.

~ Kristin ~ 1 Comment

You may be thinking to yourself, “Isn’t blogging doing something? I thought you were just trying to be.”  Ah, grasshopper, things are not always as they appear. 

From a very early age I have used writing to explore my thoughts and feelings, to access my inner self, my human being. I’m not sure how that started, but I can remember lying in my bed as a young girl with Bible in one hand and journal in the other. In fact, in the process of moving this time around I have found dozens of journals — cute little fabric bound books, battered spiral notebooks, and the latest, a Google doc. I have been journaling, on and off, my whole life.  So, really, blogging, is just opening this process of exploration to others. 

On the first day of this blog I admitted that I use doing to escape feeling.  I use writing to explore feeling.  When I am moving at top-speed, which is my comfort zone, I don’t take time to feel. Or to write. However, when I intentionally get up each morning, have my Bible reading, do a little Pilates, pour a cup of tea and spend an hour writing, I am taking the time to feel — to explore what is happening in my life, to think about it, to be honest with myself, and to dwell in the moment.   In sharing this process with you, I have discovered I am building in a layer of accountability — to be consistent, to follow a thread, to not avoid the tough stuff that comes up.  In fact, a few of you have responded to me in a variety of ways — this has been affirming, and thought-provoking, and humbling. 

I am not sure what got into me the other day, when I jumped through all the hoops to create a blog. Perhaps the knowledge that I am entering the unknown territory of being still prompted me to go back to my comfort zone — Bible in one hand, words in the other.  Perhaps I am just following the current blogging trend.  Perhaps, at my age, I don’t mind having my thoughts open to a wider audience. 

One thing I do know, as long as I have been using this practice of writing, I have found peace in the process.  I sense that I hear more from God, that I am more calm, that I am more centered.  So why do I get busy doing and abandon the process over and over again?  Will I do that this time?  Will I blog every day for one hundred days and then get a job and forget about my blog — about my Bible and words? About connecting to my inner being?  I don’t know.  

One thing I am learning is that I can’t not do something because I might not stick with it.  Today I woke up, got out of bed, read Matthew 7, brewed a cup of tea, and sat down to write. I am planning on doing something similar tomorrow. I pray that this season of somewhat forced being will allow me to embrace this practice more fully than I have before, to more completely and consistently connect with my interior self, and to listen more carefully to God. 

 Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 7, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” It’s that simple.  I don’t need to do a lot in the next several months.  But I do need to ask, seek, and knock.  What do you want me to do, Lord?  Right now the answer I am getting is, “Be still.  Listen.  Write.”  Ok. 

 

The Backstory on Doing

~ Kristin ~ 1 Comment

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.

What to do, What to do?

~ Kristin ~ 2 Comments

Comment January 4, 2024 — As part of the 10 year anniversary of this blog, I will be posting older posts like this — the first one I ever wrote — from my dining room table in July 2014. 

That is the question of the year. Yes, year. One year ago, my husband and I were flying from St. Louis, Missouri to Ann Arbor, Michigan for a job interview. We knew almost immediately that he should take the position, and just moments later, that I would stay in St. Louis with our daughter for her senior year of high school and continue in my teaching position during that time. Yes, it would be challenging. Yes, all of us would be faced with tough choices, but it seemed like the best decision. After all, it was a position that was practically crafted with him in mind; I had been having some challenges with my health that were making a shift in profession seem inevitable; and, this move would take us home to Michigan after nine (for me, ten) years in Missouri.

The year did indeed have some challenges — hours and hours on the road for him so that he could spend short weekends with us, new responsibilities for all of us: groceries, cooking, yard work, car repairs, etc., and missing out on key moments such as his installation service, our daughter’s soccer games and late night study sessions, and my faculty farewells. However, I must also point out some of the unexpected perks. After twenty-three years of marriage, we experienced a bit of renewal through our ‘long-distance dating’ relationship. Don’t get me wrong, we annoyed each other at times and had failed communications, but we were genuinely happy to see one another after long stretches, enjoyed dinners and walking hand-in-hand, and even took advantage of FaceTime, texting, and (for me) the dreaded phone call. Additionally, our daughter and I got to have some great ‘roommate’ experiences: cooking for each other, watching late-night TV, helping each other out in a pinch, and yes, arguing.

But the year is just about over. The movers come in nine days. Our daughter is heading off to college in four weeks. My husband is well-established in his position, and I am faced with the question: What to do?

I am not accustomed to being still. I always have an agenda. Except now. On the advice of my doctors, I have committed to not working “at least until January”. I have Psoriatic Arthritis, an autoimmune disease that seems to worsen under fatigue and stress. The past year has pushed those limits, even though I have stepped back from many responsibilities.  In the past couple of months I have been virtually unemployed (other than the details of moving). This has, indeed, improved my health, but I may be losing my mind! I am the top scorer on Words with Friends, I have put together several jigsaw puzzles in those two months (one of them was 2000 pieces!), and I am reading novels of no literary merit whatsoever!  So, what am I gonna do???

I know, I know, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46). Did I mention, I am not accustomed to being still? I am trying. I am committing daily time to Bible study, I am taking a daily walk with my dog, and I am trying to be still. Really. But how am I supposed to do this until January???

I have been mother to four, graduate student, teacher, pastor’s wife, writer, English department chair, curriculum coordinator, and on and on and on. And now, the nest is empty, the pastor took a non-congregational position, and I am unemployed. What to do?

I have many options in front of me, but those aren’t important right now. I have committed to being still and watching to see what God places in front of me. It will be a challenge, to be sure. Just yesterday I was two pages into a job application before I deleted the file, chastising myself, “It’s not even August!”

I sense a long journey ahead of me. So, how about for the next several months I share my journey on this space and together we try to be still and see what God presents before us. I mean, I gotta do something!