Resolution

HAPPY NEW YEAR beloved cybspacians!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's been a crazy end of the year, but full of love and family. I just got back from my Aunt's. Her family is completely zany and full of shouting laughter. I love them so much. They are warm, intelligent, hysterically funny, thoughtful, and hospitable. I desperately wanted to stay longer, but I have to work tomorrow (Somehow, I ended up working Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day...) I work tomorrow because I had to get Monday off to spend with my niece and nephew. My parents took them for a stretch of five days and I knew I had to be there to help. They are quite a handful. I'm completely worn out, but I must say that it was worth it.

The neighbors, of the loudest bass, are out in full swing... laughing loudly too. I was hoping beyond all hopes the weather would deter them, but they're still outside on the porch YELLING. I think it's the intoxication.

And anyway, I never sleep well on New Year's Eve. I have troubles with resolution and endings. I hate endings. They wake the Sehnsucht in me or as C. S. Lewis (yes him again) says, the "inconsolable secret" or the "desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience" (From the Weight of Glory).

I also like to think deeply about my resolutions. New beginnings and second chances cannot be taken for granted. I've been thinking hard (as usual) about my life and finally feel ready to make changes. I was really laid low by the legalism of the church and religion in the last 3 or 4 years. It drove me to break many good habits and indulge in a general moral laziness. I've come back to the proper place now and want to engage my will again. Discipline and routine sound pleasing in the way exercise sounds pleasing. I know they will make me feel healthier and happier. The thing about Christianity is... it truly involves the whole person = body, mind, and will.

C. S. Lewis writes, 

“Love in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion.  It is a state not of feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people.” 

We cannot just aspire to love people, feel good feelings about them, etc. We must exercise our will and actions to follow. So it is with ourselves. However, we must come to this place on our own. God gave us free will after all. We must allow each other to come to these conclusions themselves. There is so much preaching to "better oneself". It is not that we must better ourselves, but that we must grow into our potential. After all, we are "gods and goddesses"

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - These are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” (Who else? C. S. Lewis)

So anyway, I would like to resolve, to write more, paint more, learn more, and study more... all under the realm of bringing in God's kingdom. And in order to make room for that. I'm canceling my Netflix (or severely shortening allowance for watching periods). I feel a great deal (being highly sensitive) and can no longer allow myself to numb it through escapism and fantasy. I must live in the real and now.

Block

Hullo my dear deserted WWWians (that's short for world wide webians)

I haven't forsaken you. Just taken a bit of a hiatus... or it's felt more like a Sabbatical. I've had time to rest and renew... and of course I've soaked up enough thoughts to expunge here.

I feel sort of bad for you. I started out this blog very logically and presentably. But as this blog was always for myself to practice and continue my writing/thinking... it became more of a crazy conglomeration of less provocative and professional (can those belong in the same sentence?) ramblings. Still, I feel somewhat braced because I have at least stayed authentic to myself. If I really wanted to be popular, I would fashion a blog that had more of a congruence to it. I would talk about current culture... fashion, food, gardening, or the like. But I'm afraid I'm much too scattered and full of life for that. I could never formulate too much routine in my life. In the end, I think I'm one of those demented arty types.

Hahaha. I have to confess, I finally got around to watching The Decoy Bride on Netflix... as I had been advised at least twice by my friends. That's where I'm endeavoring for some glue to hold this post together. As hard as I try not to be, I'm always half in love with the United Kingdom as a whole. At any rate, today was a day where I ended up on top of the roof. I'm rather fond of climbing on things. Always was. My mother used to refer to me as a monkey and had to resort to strapping me into the grocery carts. And my grandmother gradually stopped worrying about me perched precariously on things. Sorry rabbit trail. So I was sitting on the roof watching this magnificent sunset (it's the balmiest December ever), when I realized that living alone has been extremely good for my soul and creativity. I think I've had writer's block for quite some time (hence the subject title) and it's all other people's fault. Harsh. Just kidding of course.


I do think this period of isolation is giving me back some of my original imagination and creativity back (probably not entirely a good thing... since I used to pretend I was stuck on earth and Luke Skywalker was going to rescue me). I was quite a lonely child. I grew up without siblings around (as my sibling is quite elderly... I say that merely because it will make him quite grumpy even though he'll never actually read this). So I was that child... the one that talked to imaginary friends. It was my great solace to know that I could always be part of the inner circle at least in my own world. C. S. Lewis (still trending love for the UK) spoke brilliantly about a phenomenon called the Inner Ring. You can read about it here http://www.lewissociety.org/innerring.php

If you do your reading what I have to say next will make more sense, but even if you don't I imagine you can understand well enough what I'm referring to. I've always been lured by the desire to be part of the Inner Ring. It is a desire that I must break before it breaks me. For as Lewis says "As long as you are governed by that desire you will never get what you want. You are trying to peel an onion: if you succeed there will be nothing left. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain" Everyone struggles with this... some are more self-aware than others. I see it in my family, extended family, friends, generation, American culture, and especially in the rapidly burgeoning world of social media. It's a bit terrifying and it prompts me to want to ring the bells of warning.

But mostly I must ring them for myself. The difficulty in being creative... and also needing to be in the Inner Ring... is the risk of prostituting oneself for recognition. It is something I dread fearfully. I do not yet know how to tread the line of giving all of oneself without needing anything in return. I am still concave with longingness (grins). And perhaps this is a secret of the universe I will not know until I see the face of God. I just pray I will not fall trap to the hamster treadmill of *bootstraps achievement and acclaim. I want to create and belong... but not to create in order to belong. I do not want to be loved for what I can do, write, imagine, conjure up... but because I am who I am... even on terribly bad days where I have appalling writer's block or get irrationally mad at alcohol's existence.

*bootstraps refers to the idea that one has pulled oneself by one's own bootstraps... it does not play well with grace or humility.

Reflections

Photo credit: Me

Greetings lovely folks,

Frankly, it felt more like December in November... when this picture was taken. That reminds me... I wanted to share the "great phone miracle". Remember how I lost my snow in that crazy storm on the way to work? Well two weeks later, my parents got a call. A nice lady named Rachel had found the phone, across the street (where it had evidently been plowed), charged it up, and left a message. It's shockingly surprising both that an honest person found it and that it wasn't killed by being plowed across the street! I haven't gone back to using it, because it really is great to have a break from being glued to it... and it's so much more frugal! But I have to admit it gave me hope for greater things in my life. You know I've been in kind of a rut for a while. There are a culmination of things working against me. Sometimes it seems I'll be forever stuck in an unfulfilling state doing small things that don't seem to make any difference in the world.... or that I'll never survive this doctoral program I'm in. The miraculous recovery of the phone reminded me that things that are seemingly impossible (like a phone not getting completely obliterated by being plowed from one side of the road to the other) are not.

Anyway, I still have a killer two days to get through with defending my research proposal and also presenting it before our stakeholders to convince them to buy into it. But for now, I'm sitting peacefully in my living room, drinking honey sweetened chamomile tea, listening to my folk song mix, creating my yearly calendar gift for my brother and sister-in-law. It involves a lot of mindless exacting work... since I have to painstakingly stick on all the numbers... lol. Perhaps I should be practicing for my presentations, but it's good to take some time to be still.

I don't really feel like myself unless I'm creating something. Sometimes I feel like part of myself has been buried until people's negative accusations of myself or my emotions. Sometimes I even feel like one of those famous women poets who is going to go mad or end up in the grave too early. But that's not who I am. In the most lucid moments lit by God's life, I remember He created me to be someone who likewise creates... and creates life-giving situations, gifts, time, etc.  People often sense the spiritual side of me. Once I had a man come up and tell me the Holy Spirit was strong in me and he hoped I would pray over him. Sometimes I worry my spirit has been crushed by trouble. But this lonely season has been a time to regenerate that spirit. I needed it - the solitude. I've been too reliant on other people. I'm prone to depend on others and seek their approval. Somehow I forget that. I have to be reminded.

I feel like God is pulling me on the hand trying to draw me into a gleaming place of riches... and I am looking forward to seeing what he has in store. It is more hope than I have had in a few years. Solo deo gloria.

Upswing

Greetings dearly beloved cyberspacerians,

With honey chamomile in hand,

I would like to report a few things to treasure closely for darker days

1) A moment of rapturous glory. A lake of molten blue ruffled by a stiff breeze. Birds glimmering through a sky of softer sapphire - their white bellies capturing the light to reflect silver gleams. The strong pine tree and the startling white of the slender birch.

2) The warm hand of the sun to lean into and the whisper of how beloved I am

3) Remembering who I am and all that is possible. Remembering the taste of joy... and the laughter as it fills my mouth

4) Going to get my hair cut and getting a surprise hand massage in addition to the regular head and back relaxation treatment. Also, having multiple people work on me at one time (to get the job done on time) made me feel rather like a queen.

5) Being called beautiful in three different ways... once by the stylists over my hair, once by the receptionist as I paid about my smile, and once after I dressed up for dinner and actually did my makeup. After feeling (and seriously looking) like death all week, it was a treat.

Although one part of me struggles and thinks it's wrong to need words of affirmation... the other part of me realizes how much I've missed people appreciating parts of me. It may be superficial, but we all need to be admired and appreciated in various ways.

Charyn

My mother puts me to shame. She's had this horrifying sickness that she passed over to me on Thanksgiving Break. I know... I'm so thankful! (That's cynicism if you didn't catch it in the text). It's reduced me to taking work off which I know she never resorted to.  Granted, I called it pink eye which is highly contagious and of course I'm not allowed to work with pink eye as a nurse. So maybe my mom did have to quit work for a day or so. At any rate, it's one of those woeful lingering diseases. I'm not sure how she managed to put on Thanksgiving dinner and entertain my whole family while feeling this awful. But! In all the awfulness, I managed to finish the Lumatere series I never realized was a series.

In the last book, the characters bring out the phrase "seeing on the side of wonder". I think it's a fantastic concept. It reminded me to have hope even though it's been a rough week. The problem with having one's immune system down... is that one loses serotonin and endorphins by the gallon. I tried to exercise Monday because I felt someone tug on the plug to my Happy... but my body completely shut me down. Body 1: Lizzie:0. It was pretty ugly. Now I realize, it was because my body had all the troops rallied against Mr. Sap-sucking Disease.

At any rate, I've been in grad school for the last three years with the most ridiculous situation that repeats itself. If there's one thing that truly incites depression... it's feeling stuck. You can be trod on for so long... and then your spirit begins to lose hope. I've had a single continuing project for the last three years that keeps slamming in my face in the same manner. I feel alone, scared, inadequate, and confused most of the time. It's entirely depressing. But! Every day I'm one step closer to it being over. I may feel horrendously stuck, but I have to remind myself that there is a forseeable end. And. The real moral of the story is... there is always an end in sight. Most of us can keep that in mind. But some of us lose the ability to "see the side of wonder". We look at our surroundings and get trapped in our skins. We feel the sides of various oppression crushing in... and think "The only way out is death. Please let me go to sleep and never wake up". It is to you and sometimes myself, that I proclaim the truth! There is always a way out. And it is never death.

Sometimes you must forget yourself and allow someone to extract you from yourself. When you hover outside your skin... it is there you can see the bigger picture and know there is a way out. Sometimes, you need to stop fighting the immediate thing crushing you, and back away. You need to back out of the moment, the hour, the day, the week, the month, the year, the years.  This is the only way you'll be able to remember... Hope is always possible.

If Jesus really did rise from the dead... then life can come out of death
Health from sickness
Joy from despair
All the impossibles can be made possible

That's the good news.