usually hate

Transition is like a trek into a wilderness. It seems equilibrium, balance, and pattern are all in question. This wandering is foolishness. What kind of a leader abandons the post and moves into the woods, away from the people she came to serve? There isn’t much to do out here but pay attention to myself and those who are willing to risk a visit. It is a frightening negotiation to pay such attention to myself, to raise the drawbridge against the onslaught of opinions and feelings in order to protect those sequestered close to me.
My friend Donna says that when you stop trying to win the fight by getting big, you can actually shrink your ego, dig a hole, climb out from under the fence and be on your way… away from the things that kept you penned in and scared. Care of the soul is such an important part of ministry, but who will care for mine? I suppose only I will be able to do that. I only wish it didn’t seem like I was doing it at the expense of caring for the souls of others.
So that is where frustration hardens into hatred, for myself as I seem to be running like a bandit from the scene of the crime, and for others who would cover me.
I usually hate (I was going to keep going with that sentence but maybe it should stop there for a moment and rest).

I usually hate.

But its time for something different and this is how I can tell.
There is this book.
It’s the kind I usually hate because of its polished look, bible bookstore styling and cloying, inefficient title. Not to mention the lengthy forward, far-reaching preachy “Praise for…” page, and prescriptive subheadings—even the title has one (apparently six words wasn’t enough)! But I also worry because it was written by someone who used to work for Willow Creek Community Church and still claims her work there in her author’s bio, like it’s a huge accomplishment, when really, I find it to be more like a warning. See, plenty of reasons to hate it, right? Of course. But I don’t.
Turns out you can’t judge a book by its cover… or by its title, subheadings, references, its author’s so-called credentials, or awful serif!
Turns out there are lots of good ideas in this book. Ideas about wilderness that came at just the right time for a lot of people I know and love, but especially me. Try this on: “Just as the physical law of gravity ensures that sediment swirling in a jar of muddy river water will eventually settle and the water will become clear, so the spiritual law of gravity ensures that the chaos of the human soul will settle if it sits still long enough.” Or this: “Some of us will wear ourselves out trying to change ourselves before we realize that it is not about fixing; it is about letting go—letting go of old patterns that no longer serve us.”
I freaked out yesterday. It was lunch time, which is such a wicked time for the unemployed. You know how Carson McCullers wrote in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter that 3 o’ clock is the worst time of day or night? Well, I think she must have been employed when she wrote that because clearly, were she unemployed she would have realized that lunchtime can happen at 3! So I think, logically, we should go with lunchtime, don’t you agree? Anyway, I am Hispanic and always have been, so it seems strange that I would burn myself making a quesadilla. But I did. And I blame it on Lunchtime being such an awful time to be cooking. I began cursing, and swearing (yes, they are two different things when I do them) and I accidentally turned the whole kitchen into quesadilla. Not a very domesticated way to do things, I know, because if there is one thing I know for sure: I am the kind of woman who is willing to entertain the notion that I am better behind at typing than making lunches.
I burned my arm. It’s going to leave a mark. I’ll have this scar for a while. A pink mark, in the spot where my friends have tattoos, I have this reminder that the skin I’m in is fragile.
I have such self-loathing when I end up acting like a real domestic. For example the laundry piles up and I consider it evidence that I must be getting the writing done instead of the wash. When I’m in a good mood that means I am busy doing important things; when I’m in a bad mood that means I’m busy with trivial things. I hate it piling, but I really don’t appreciate doing the laundry alone these days. It just seems so responsible of me, and that seems disingenuous. I do like going to the Laundromat, I like the smell of clean laundry, I like the sorting and folding but this week I feel like it’s too house-wifeish a task for someone like me.
This shouldn’t bother me because I have such respect for women who run the household while the men are behind desks or hammers. These brave women are the domestic technicians, efficiency experts and nurturing whizzes. I admire their ability to self-motivate, micromanage or see the big picture and then conduct with aplomb the speeding bullet train of family life. I am not angry with them for doing all these things with such grace and dignity, I just get angry with myself for participating as though I know how to do these things—as though I am one of them. It feels like such fakery.
I hate how I must have been such a let-down as a domestic partner. How I missed the mark because I couldn’t pull it all off perfectly anymore. Moreover, I hate that I tried so hard. and I hate knowing that, in the end, I handed over the housekey, even though I’ll be responsible for the mortgage if something goes wrong. What is more I’ll be paying for that house and all that went on inside of it (and inside of me when I was there) for many years. And it is now impossible to go to the office and hide behind work.
So Laurita has come in and saved me once again. Even though she is all the way out in Gulu learning about reconciliation between murderers and rape victims she is unabashed to reconcile me to myself when I just don't know what to do about this new rhythm of life. I feel a little lazy for not working but so exhausted by the idea of working because I have so much to do that has nothing to do with parish ministry and even less to do with house keeping. In fact, the things I have to do have more to do with cleaning out my little brain, rather than the kitchen sink or organizing my gentler thoughts instead of organizing Sunday school volunteers.
I know this is getting a little sickening but don’t you dare stop reading now because I’m trying to tell you something really important: I’m trying to tell you that it is okay to take some time to think this sort of thing. In fact its so important that if you don’t stop and think about why you hate what you hate or love what you love you’ll go crazy. Or you’ll have to quit your job too. You won’t be you if you don’t take time to think about yourself, for yourself, in between driving your kids (either in the car or crazy), reading theological texts (Calvin! Hobbes! Even Calvin and Hobbes), paying rent, convincing your boss to give you a raise so you can pay your rent, shaving your armpits, flossing your teeth, planting perennials and rearranging furniture. Find time, make time and do it goddamnit.
So here is what Laurita and I came up with: Grace.
But not your average, cheap, two for a dollar, gravelly turn-out, moss-covered, pasteurized prepared cheese product grace. She has it figured out like there is a certain kind of grace offered to renegade women like us who don’t have a soul connection to what composes everybody’s everyday dishes and wishes and washing. What I mean is that there are plenty of women out there who found a way to see the divine in doing the chores—I’m just not there yet.
And I will never get there by forcing myself.
Laurita said to tie on a bandanna and consider myself a kind of renegade partner… you know, more like somebody who’d ride the dusty trail with you, cook over an open flame and risk the burn. We are the grace-rustling, hope-hustling, grin-toting few and we’ve been riding all day. We’re more likely to break the dishes than wash them, tickle the babies or encourage them to wail it out—this life is rough! We’re prone to running after buses, pouring cocktails out on mean men, and, well, we dance like we mean it and don’t care who knows it. We even stop them dead in their tracks. We even stop ourselves as we ramble on… we brake mid-sentence and decide to shut up, whenever we tire of nagging our partners, or over-explaining things to little ones. We are the William Wallaces of womanhood, making ourselves up with blusher and mascara like war-paint, embellishing, but never covering up these good eyes God granted, with which we survey the terrain and spot the target of our affection. We raise our fists and spears and then we wisely shout, “Hold!” And we know this requires its own brand of wisdom and grace.
So we offer ourselves grace, the expensive kind, that is so hard to find. And lots of it. I’m sure it’s the same quality of grace that the classic forms of wifehood and motherhood require, because it comes from the same source. It is the grace that we know as a result of giving in to what we have discerned to best for ourselves and those we love, right now.
And that means I’m holding, still, and in a way I never have been before: the way a woman knows how to wait and watch even when there are dirty dishes in the sink and dust on the window ledge. So thank you to Ruth Haley Barton. I’m sorry I judged you so harshly at first but you won me over because you seem to be one of us. If you don’t want to be associated with us I apologize. And for superimposing the image of renegade, I apologize—I may have misread your pages. But I will say this: ever since you nearly crashed into a fellow employee as you ran down the office hall, cell phone stuck to your ear, checking on your sick child as you rush toward a meeting—ever since that is what it took to make you realize the importance of holding still—you are one of us. So welcome: welcome to my affection and admiration, welcome to the renegade band.