Once upon a time we had no children, and then one day, we had one.
My delivery had not gone according to plan. Indeed, before the baby came we had the good instinct not to make an official plan, but the surprise, of course, was that we had a plan, we just didn't know it. And when that plan went south, well, let's just say it wasn't pretty. One un-pretty thing led to another, and by the time my first baby was three months old we found ourselves literally in the woods.
About a half mile from our house there is a grove of eucalyptus trees where we often went, and still do go, to play frisbee with our dog. It's close, but away--in that it's a different place--wild and woodsy--not neat and manicured like the blocks of our neighborhood. We go there a lot, and we went there one day when Gwendolyn was three months old.
We had a conversation that went something like this.
Me, sobbing and screaming: "I'm angry, I'm just so overwhelmed. I need help from you and I feel like I'm not getting it."
Graham, who, at the time was launching his second company: "Honey, just tell me what to do. All I want is to know what to do."
At which point, I burst out, "that's exactly my problem right there. I feel like I'm drowning and you're standing on the boat with a life ring in your hand, saying 'honey, tell me what to do.' I don't KNOW what to tell you what to do. I'm so tired and so overwhelmed. I just want you to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING."
And right there, in that moment of conversation, I made the biggest mistake I have made in my marriage so far. I'd like to say I've learned my lesson, which I haven't, but what I can say is I'm learning my lesson...and here's what I know so far.
The biggest mistake I ever make in my marriage is to perceive my husband and me as separate, him on the boat and me drowning at sea.
At the time of our conversation in the woods our first baby was very young, I had just had an emergency c-section, I was nursing for the first time and sleeping not at all, and I thought all of this was happening to me.
And, of course, it was happening to me. But what I failed to understand was that it was happening to him too.
He was a new father, he was launching a company, his new baby was crying every hour on the hour, and his wife was going down the tubes--how I thought that guy might be on a boat with a life ring just shows how desperate I was for SOMEONE to be on the boat with the life ring.
What it took me a long time to see, and still sometimes eludes me, is that when I am suffering, he is suffering too. My problems are his problems and his problems are my problems.
Over time, and with the help of wise counseling, the attitude we've tried to cultivate, and we're sometimes able to find when we need to is, "Um, Houston, we've got a problem here."
We use the clunky metaphor of a bucket to remember that we're in the colorful mess of our lives together. Some things fill up our bucket (date night, wrestling with kids before bed, action movie night for him, long walks in the hills for me) and some things drain our bucket (his meeting at the office with a blow hard colleague, a long morning of toddler negotiations, first, over mismatched sippy cups and, second, over our tragic lack of a clean pair of pink sparkle socks, cat barf on our new comforter).
Either way, being in the bucket together creates space for things to be complicated and helps us recognize that energizing one of us has the positive effect of filling our shared bucket at the same time.
This insight, of course, is no new or original enlightenment, just our way of claiming other people's hard won wisdom for ourselves.
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk and scholar, more elegantly explains it this way in his book Teachings on Love:
"Happiness is not an individual matter; it has the nature of interbeing. When you are able to make one friend smile, her happiness will nourish you also. When you find ways to peace, joy and happiness, you do it for everyone."
Everyone--the whole big bucket.
Working toward Thich Nhat Hanh's idea of interbeing is the work of a lifetime. Being in the bucket together, making space for shared frustrations and complications, as well as mutual joy is the work that most married couples find themselves up against. And to me, any couple, same-sex or heterosexual, who decides to take on that work, to bind their lives together, raise a family if they choose, and do the best they can to build a safe bucket for their children and each other, that couple deserves all the rights and privileges of any married couple.
Like the worst mistake I've ever made in my marriage, thinking that same sex couples and heterosexual couples are separate, is one of the worst mistakes we could make. Marriage is marriage. And any couple, same sex or heterosexual, who figures out how to keep their own bucket full is a treasure to families and communities. As each couple does it for themselves, they do it for everyone.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
An Afterlife I can Live With
The fault line in my Christian faith that eventually led to my seismic faith shake up, had to do with what happens when we die. I could never accept, and still do not accept, a concept of heaven in which good individuals who had not specifically accepted Jesus as their personal savior, would be excluded from Heaven.
When my uncle died this past May 2nd, I was reminded of how intense this personal fault line is for me. I was reminded of how mystifying the passing of a human being really is. And, as I ponder it, I join everyone who has ever lost someone in wondering how to make sense of the brutal shift between having someone day after day, and then having day after day without that person.
My uncle's funeral was held at The Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola in New York City, a cathedral so gorgeous, the sheer awe it inspires might tempt a skeptic to reconsider the possibility of becoming Catholic.
The mass's main message was that death is not the final chapter for Christians. For Christians, there is victory and hope in The Resurrection, so as Father Whit explained, "life does not end with death, Christians experience life, death, and Resurrection."
For me, the idea of a resurrection that includes a reunion at the pearly gates with Jesus and all my loved ones (who had the good sense to accept Jesus into their hearts) feels like the kind of confabulation that has been witnessed in split brain experiments, which have been described many places, but which I most recently read about in The Accidental Mind by David Linden. Here's his description of one split brain experiment:
"Split-brain patients provide a unique opportunity to see how the left and right cortices process information independently. In one famous experiment, a split-brain patient was placed before a specially constructed screen, designed so that the left cortex received only an image of a chicken's claw...while the right cortex saw a winter landscape with snow...When asked to pick a card with an image to match, the right cortex...picked a shovel to go with the theme of snow, while the left cortex...picked an image of a chicken to go with the claw....When the patient was asked why he chose those two images, the response...was, "Oh that's simple. The chicken claw goes with the chicken and you need a shovel to clean the chicken shed."
Linden's analysis follows:
"The left brain [which controls the language centers of the brain] saw the chicken claw, but not the snow scene. When faced with the shovel and the chicken, it retroactively constructed a story to make these disparate choices appear to make sense...The narrative-constructing capacity of the left cortex has now been clearly observed in more than 100 split-brain patients in many different situations."
These experiments prove that our brains, on their own, are driven to create narratives that make sense out of disparate and even conflicting facts. And with the recent passing of my uncle, I was reminded of how the finality of a death feels like it just doesn't make sense, like that it is something unreal, that one day someone is here, and then the next day their body is here, but their personality is gone. Disparate is an understatement for how death feels.
The mass the priest delivered at my uncle's funeral offered the following narrative for how to make sense of the jarring disparity of death. Humans are born, live life in a godly way, die and are resurrected in heaven with Jesus.
It's one possible story, but I have problems with it. The first is that it's not available to people who don't know Jesus. And the second is that intellectually, if taken literally, I can't wrap my head around a resurrection in which all the good souls end up in a real place called Heaven.
So in the wake of my uncle's passing, I've chosen to construct my own narrative that makes sense of the disparate facts of life and death. I've chosen to take comfort in what church offered--a magnificent ceremony that honors a human life in the most profound way--and from there I've gone my own way.
Here's how my narrative goes:
I choose to remember my uncle, as will my aunt, my mom, my cousins and everyone who knew him. Here is some of what we will remember:
He called me stretch;
He sat by me and sang Christmas carols and marveled at my kids;
He called me his hero;
He filled my drink;
He stood by me on the deck and teased me that he had to buy new deck chairs to make room for us;
He counted how many bottles of wine we drank;
He swept the patio;
He said, "you're a pain in my ass!" And he wasn't kidding, but he laughed and he loved us anyway;
He gave me a sparkling teardrop for Valentine's Day
The evening after the funeral we sit around a table at dinner and let memories swell. We tell stories out loud, we merge them together, and remember them again. We feel he is around us, because when we tell stories we remember what it was like to be with him. We resonate with one another, echoing for all time, what Ed feels like.
And this is happening, it has me thinking, perhaps this is my idea of resurrection, of life after death: for each of our lives to become stories that mean something, that merit re-telling, and that in the re-telling remind those left behind that they were loved.
That's an afterlife I can live with, and one I would be satisfied to have.
When my uncle died this past May 2nd, I was reminded of how intense this personal fault line is for me. I was reminded of how mystifying the passing of a human being really is. And, as I ponder it, I join everyone who has ever lost someone in wondering how to make sense of the brutal shift between having someone day after day, and then having day after day without that person.
My uncle's funeral was held at The Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola in New York City, a cathedral so gorgeous, the sheer awe it inspires might tempt a skeptic to reconsider the possibility of becoming Catholic.
The mass's main message was that death is not the final chapter for Christians. For Christians, there is victory and hope in The Resurrection, so as Father Whit explained, "life does not end with death, Christians experience life, death, and Resurrection."
For me, the idea of a resurrection that includes a reunion at the pearly gates with Jesus and all my loved ones (who had the good sense to accept Jesus into their hearts) feels like the kind of confabulation that has been witnessed in split brain experiments, which have been described many places, but which I most recently read about in The Accidental Mind by David Linden. Here's his description of one split brain experiment:
"Split-brain patients provide a unique opportunity to see how the left and right cortices process information independently. In one famous experiment, a split-brain patient was placed before a specially constructed screen, designed so that the left cortex received only an image of a chicken's claw...while the right cortex saw a winter landscape with snow...When asked to pick a card with an image to match, the right cortex...picked a shovel to go with the theme of snow, while the left cortex...picked an image of a chicken to go with the claw....When the patient was asked why he chose those two images, the response...was, "Oh that's simple. The chicken claw goes with the chicken and you need a shovel to clean the chicken shed."
Linden's analysis follows:
"The left brain [which controls the language centers of the brain] saw the chicken claw, but not the snow scene. When faced with the shovel and the chicken, it retroactively constructed a story to make these disparate choices appear to make sense...The narrative-constructing capacity of the left cortex has now been clearly observed in more than 100 split-brain patients in many different situations."
These experiments prove that our brains, on their own, are driven to create narratives that make sense out of disparate and even conflicting facts. And with the recent passing of my uncle, I was reminded of how the finality of a death feels like it just doesn't make sense, like that it is something unreal, that one day someone is here, and then the next day their body is here, but their personality is gone. Disparate is an understatement for how death feels.
The mass the priest delivered at my uncle's funeral offered the following narrative for how to make sense of the jarring disparity of death. Humans are born, live life in a godly way, die and are resurrected in heaven with Jesus.
It's one possible story, but I have problems with it. The first is that it's not available to people who don't know Jesus. And the second is that intellectually, if taken literally, I can't wrap my head around a resurrection in which all the good souls end up in a real place called Heaven.
So in the wake of my uncle's passing, I've chosen to construct my own narrative that makes sense of the disparate facts of life and death. I've chosen to take comfort in what church offered--a magnificent ceremony that honors a human life in the most profound way--and from there I've gone my own way.
Here's how my narrative goes:
I choose to remember my uncle, as will my aunt, my mom, my cousins and everyone who knew him. Here is some of what we will remember:
He called me stretch;
He sat by me and sang Christmas carols and marveled at my kids;
He called me his hero;
He filled my drink;
He stood by me on the deck and teased me that he had to buy new deck chairs to make room for us;
He counted how many bottles of wine we drank;
He swept the patio;
He said, "you're a pain in my ass!" And he wasn't kidding, but he laughed and he loved us anyway;
He gave me a sparkling teardrop for Valentine's Day
The evening after the funeral we sit around a table at dinner and let memories swell. We tell stories out loud, we merge them together, and remember them again. We feel he is around us, because when we tell stories we remember what it was like to be with him. We resonate with one another, echoing for all time, what Ed feels like.
And this is happening, it has me thinking, perhaps this is my idea of resurrection, of life after death: for each of our lives to become stories that mean something, that merit re-telling, and that in the re-telling remind those left behind that they were loved.
That's an afterlife I can live with, and one I would be satisfied to have.
Friday, May 8, 2009
I'm part of the largest growing religious group in America, are you?
This December I learned that I am part of the largest growing religious group in the United States. No, I'm not an Evangelical Christian (that segment is also a growing group), but that is where my interest in spirituality started.
I was 10 years old when I asked Jesus into my heart. It was my first summer at Camp Deer Run in Alton, NH. I did it silently sitting on a rock outside. I closed my eyes and prayed that Jesus would enter my heart. And then I prayed that he would open my mom's heart so that she could go to Heaven too.
I didn't feel rapture or receive mystical guidance, but I felt safer in the world. I knew I had a god on my side who could part rivers, move mountains with mustard seeds, could raise the dead and heal the sick. He was also promised to take me under his wing so that I would never have to feel my skin burn in Hell.
That guy, Jesus, would have been a big help the previous school year, which had been a rough one. At various times I was called Brain, Leech, and Loser. On the playground kick ball players migrated into a tight radius when I was up. And when arrived home after school the house was empty except for a Brazilian housekeeper/nanny who was gray faced and sad, and, and spoke no English at all.
Jesus sounded pretty good.
Twenty-seven years later. I've got a few friends. I'm rarely called names. And even though I'm probably still no good at kickball, at 37 it matters a lot less.
I still close my eyes to pray.
I continue to think highly of Jesus--I'm reminded of my husband's friend Kevin who says, "yeah, I'm into the Jeez."
But even though the idea of Jesus still means something to me, I don't consider myself Christian in a formal sense. Jesus has been demoted. He is no longer my spiritual sun, but one star in my Milky Way, one prick of light in a large somewhat ordered collection.
And oddly enough, in my undefined spiritual identity, I may have found my tribe.
A December 2008 poll (you'll need to scroll to read the general report) reported that the largest growing religious affiliation in America is not having one. That number has grown from 8% to 15% since 1999. In 2008 an additional 11% of respondents refused to answer the question at all. And, more telling than either of those, I think, is that 27% of Americans believe that their funeral will not be religious.
In my adult life, I happen to know a lot of people who have no religious affiliation. The authors of the ARIS poll call them "nones.". And, in my experience, these folks, like me, are not entirely un-spiritual. Many of them have a strong set of beliefs and moral values. They live meaningful lives and are looking for ways to articulate that meaning. Many of them, like me, even pray.
One of my friends in this group is an atheist, but I believe he is one of the most spiritual people I know. And as a therapist, my mom, who is also a "none," regularly offers spiritual advice and sees people through periods of spiritual growth, but she never did ask Jesus to be her savior like I hoped she would that summer (and for many years after).
These people--this group--you are my tribe--I dedicate my blog to you.
To anyone who has ever wondered why we're here, who has wondered what it means to have a meaningful life, and who has found their religion's official answer wanting--I offer my best effort to you.
That we may all be able to recognize goodness when we see it in ourselves and others, that we may leave our kids a world that is better than the one we found, and that we may all seek and know peace.
This is my prayer. Amen.
I was 10 years old when I asked Jesus into my heart. It was my first summer at Camp Deer Run in Alton, NH. I did it silently sitting on a rock outside. I closed my eyes and prayed that Jesus would enter my heart. And then I prayed that he would open my mom's heart so that she could go to Heaven too.
I didn't feel rapture or receive mystical guidance, but I felt safer in the world. I knew I had a god on my side who could part rivers, move mountains with mustard seeds, could raise the dead and heal the sick. He was also promised to take me under his wing so that I would never have to feel my skin burn in Hell.
That guy, Jesus, would have been a big help the previous school year, which had been a rough one. At various times I was called Brain, Leech, and Loser. On the playground kick ball players migrated into a tight radius when I was up. And when arrived home after school the house was empty except for a Brazilian housekeeper/nanny who was gray faced and sad, and, and spoke no English at all.
Jesus sounded pretty good.
Twenty-seven years later. I've got a few friends. I'm rarely called names. And even though I'm probably still no good at kickball, at 37 it matters a lot less.
I still close my eyes to pray.
I continue to think highly of Jesus--I'm reminded of my husband's friend Kevin who says, "yeah, I'm into the Jeez."
But even though the idea of Jesus still means something to me, I don't consider myself Christian in a formal sense. Jesus has been demoted. He is no longer my spiritual sun, but one star in my Milky Way, one prick of light in a large somewhat ordered collection.
And oddly enough, in my undefined spiritual identity, I may have found my tribe.
A December 2008 poll (you'll need to scroll to read the general report) reported that the largest growing religious affiliation in America is not having one. That number has grown from 8% to 15% since 1999. In 2008 an additional 11% of respondents refused to answer the question at all. And, more telling than either of those, I think, is that 27% of Americans believe that their funeral will not be religious.
In my adult life, I happen to know a lot of people who have no religious affiliation. The authors of the ARIS poll call them "nones.". And, in my experience, these folks, like me, are not entirely un-spiritual. Many of them have a strong set of beliefs and moral values. They live meaningful lives and are looking for ways to articulate that meaning. Many of them, like me, even pray.
One of my friends in this group is an atheist, but I believe he is one of the most spiritual people I know. And as a therapist, my mom, who is also a "none," regularly offers spiritual advice and sees people through periods of spiritual growth, but she never did ask Jesus to be her savior like I hoped she would that summer (and for many years after).
These people--this group--you are my tribe--I dedicate my blog to you.
To anyone who has ever wondered why we're here, who has wondered what it means to have a meaningful life, and who has found their religion's official answer wanting--I offer my best effort to you.
That we may all be able to recognize goodness when we see it in ourselves and others, that we may leave our kids a world that is better than the one we found, and that we may all seek and know peace.
This is my prayer. Amen.
Monday, April 27, 2009
This is going to get personal
Consider yourself fore-warned:
There are a few people out there who have signed up to follow my Twitter and my blog posts. You've seen occasional quotes, but not too much else.
I'm giving you fair warning that I'm going to start posting more frequently, and that some of my posts are going to have to do with religion and spirituality. If that is too woo-woo for you, now's your chance to disembark from my thought train.
However, let me try to persuade you that it might be worth staying subscribed.
As many friends of mine know, I have a long and somewhat tangled religious/spiritual history. Most notably, I was an enthusiastic "born again Christian" from age 10 to about 18, despite the fact that my family barely ever went to church. Strange, right? If you want to hear about that, stay subscribed.
Between the ages of 16 and 18, I experienced a genuine crisis of faith. I stayed up late at night crying about whether or not my family was going to Hell. I prayed that God would help me understand why innocent good people would go to Hell if they had not specifically asked Jesus Christ to be their Savior. This was before I started reading The Sacred Canopy and other philosophy texts in college, which dealt the final blows to my childhood faith. It was a dark time for me, and if you have ever had one yourself, stay subscribed.
Life went on, I lived in New York City, moved to California, and got married. My wedding was the first occasion I returned to the patterns of religion and spirituality on my own terms, which healed some things for me.
But soon after, I had a personal crisis, which landed me in therapy (no surprise since my mom is a therapist). If you're curious about therapy, what it's like, what it can do, and what its weaknesses are, stay subscribed, because I'll probably talk about that too.
As a preview, I'll just tell you, that I think good therapy is a kind of spiritual practice. This and other experiences have led me to circle back to my interest in faith and spiritual practice. And while spirituality does not, on the surface, appeal to everyone, there are core patterns which when you separate them out from woo-woo, mystical and fundamentalist belief systems, have real benefit for people who crave purpose and passion in their lives. Intrigued? stay subscribed.
I will be drawing on stories from real life experiences (mine and others), research in neuroscience, anthropology, sociology and new evidence in psychology to try to convince you that spiritual basics like saying prayers, following the "golden rule," selecting a "guru,"and finding a like-minded values-based community are endeavors that still matter and can be of benefit.
Oh, and, like all bloggers I reserve the right to chat about whatever happens to be on my mind, even if it doesn't fit exactly ;-)
There are a few people out there who have signed up to follow my Twitter and my blog posts. You've seen occasional quotes, but not too much else.
I'm giving you fair warning that I'm going to start posting more frequently, and that some of my posts are going to have to do with religion and spirituality. If that is too woo-woo for you, now's your chance to disembark from my thought train.
However, let me try to persuade you that it might be worth staying subscribed.
As many friends of mine know, I have a long and somewhat tangled religious/spiritual history. Most notably, I was an enthusiastic "born again Christian" from age 10 to about 18, despite the fact that my family barely ever went to church. Strange, right? If you want to hear about that, stay subscribed.
Between the ages of 16 and 18, I experienced a genuine crisis of faith. I stayed up late at night crying about whether or not my family was going to Hell. I prayed that God would help me understand why innocent good people would go to Hell if they had not specifically asked Jesus Christ to be their Savior. This was before I started reading The Sacred Canopy and other philosophy texts in college, which dealt the final blows to my childhood faith. It was a dark time for me, and if you have ever had one yourself, stay subscribed.
Life went on, I lived in New York City, moved to California, and got married. My wedding was the first occasion I returned to the patterns of religion and spirituality on my own terms, which healed some things for me.
But soon after, I had a personal crisis, which landed me in therapy (no surprise since my mom is a therapist). If you're curious about therapy, what it's like, what it can do, and what its weaknesses are, stay subscribed, because I'll probably talk about that too.
As a preview, I'll just tell you, that I think good therapy is a kind of spiritual practice. This and other experiences have led me to circle back to my interest in faith and spiritual practice. And while spirituality does not, on the surface, appeal to everyone, there are core patterns which when you separate them out from woo-woo, mystical and fundamentalist belief systems, have real benefit for people who crave purpose and passion in their lives. Intrigued? stay subscribed.
I will be drawing on stories from real life experiences (mine and others), research in neuroscience, anthropology, sociology and new evidence in psychology to try to convince you that spiritual basics like saying prayers, following the "golden rule," selecting a "guru,"and finding a like-minded values-based community are endeavors that still matter and can be of benefit.
Oh, and, like all bloggers I reserve the right to chat about whatever happens to be on my mind, even if it doesn't fit exactly ;-)
Friday, April 17, 2009
Share your stories
From The Shelter of Each other by Mary Pipher:
"Good stories have the power to save us. Reality is full of cautionary tales, heroes and difficult obstacles overcome through persistence. The best resource against the world's stupidity, meanness and despair is simply telling the truth with all its ambiguity and complexity. We can all make a difference by simply sharing our own stories with real people in real times and places."
"Good stories have the power to save us. Reality is full of cautionary tales, heroes and difficult obstacles overcome through persistence. The best resource against the world's stupidity, meanness and despair is simply telling the truth with all its ambiguity and complexity. We can all make a difference by simply sharing our own stories with real people in real times and places."
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Who are the Future Priests?
From the Carol Cosman's introduction to Emile Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious Life:
"Durkheim believed--or hoped--that scientists in the future, especially the social scientists, would substantially ameliorate our social policies and institutional arrangements by leading them toward social justice and economic stability. Indeed, scientists and educators would be come something like our future priests: sacred figures leading us toward a genuine humanism--the religion of humanity. This development would entail, among other things, translating the moral treasures of religious traditions into a rational, secular language."
"Durkheim believed--or hoped--that scientists in the future, especially the social scientists, would substantially ameliorate our social policies and institutional arrangements by leading them toward social justice and economic stability. Indeed, scientists and educators would be come something like our future priests: sacred figures leading us toward a genuine humanism--the religion of humanity. This development would entail, among other things, translating the moral treasures of religious traditions into a rational, secular language."
Sunday, January 25, 2009
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