On Love and Willpower

"Only love is capable of genuine transformation. Willpower is inadequate. Even spiritual effort is not up to the task. If we are to become great lovers, we must return again and again to the great love of the Great Lover." - David Benner in Sacred Companions

Be still, and let God love you.

With love,

Kelly

Love Leads Us Out, Love Draws Us Back Again

* This piece of writing is 6 years old. Much has changed in those years and much has stayed the same. 

All four kids took turns rummaging through the large metal pot that my husband uses to store old nuts, bolts, washers, and nails. After choosing their wares, they made robots, tiny friends composed of wing bolts and screws. They each made three or four and named them based on appearance and abilities. 

Then Solomon made a “weapon,” something like nunchucks, by tying nuts on either end of a piece of string. He practiced throwing it until he could get it to wrap around a tree. Then, the other kids joined in with their own string and nut creations. Later, Solomon tied a washer in the middle of the string and, pulling the two ends taunt, observed the washer spinning first in one direction, then another.

This fall, my four kids will be spread among three different schools. Two will climb on separate buses within minutes of each other, heading in opposite directions. Then the other two will ride with me in yet a third direction for drop-off. 

I have three separate Back to School nights listed on the calendar, all requiring babysitting. There are two other Meet the Teacher events that include some, but not all, of the kids. I have large sheaf of papers pinned to the bulletin board filled with teachers’ names, room numbers, and other essential information.  

I feel a bit like that nut tied in the middle of the string, spinning first in one direction, then another, as my kids fly out into the world. How lucky we've been, piled together for the summer, like those nuts and bolts in that old, metal pot. We've clattered around the house and yard together, merging and separating at will. With fall, we're all flung a bit wider, but I'm grateful, always, for the bonds of love and mercy that draw us back together again. 

Finding God in the Appliance Section of Lowes

 

It seems
a little scarier and

the sky may

be falling. But 

even we can

change

when

we discover

kindness and compassion.

- K. Chripczuk (found poetry)

As I mentioned in a recent video on my fb page, our washing machine died over the weekend. It was the last straw in a series of frustrating, flummoxing events. Although we have the money to replace it (thank you, thank you) it's not an easy fix and certainly not a project we would choose to tackle this week.  

All I wanted to do Monday morning was nestle into the Little House - to read, pray, practice yoga and return to my own sweet center. But what I needed to do was pick up my son's negative Covid test, drop him at school, and then look at our laundry closet and make decisions about stacking or not, used or new, and (because we live in an old, old house) which walls or outlets or plaster we might want to move or replace in the near or distant future. 

These were not conversations I wanted to be having, not decisions I wanted to be making. I didn't want to be googling "best dryer brands" or messaging people on fb marketplace for the dimensions of their used washing machines. And, even though a new washing machine is a miracle in itself, I really didn't want to be riding in the old red pickup truck to Home Depot (where everything was on back order) or Lowes. 

I struggled to see how God or spirituality might be part of the day I found myself in. But I tried to stay present. I tried to have patience with the sales woman who could not get us what we wanted when we wanted it. I tried to remember her humanity as well as my own. 

I tried, again, to find patience for the salesman at Lowes, who was a bit of a talker ,when all I wanted to know is which items were in stock. Looking back, I can see that it's hard to connect with people, hard to look them in the eye, when you don't want to be where you are, don't want to connect with your own circumstances or yourself.

I'm sure we seemed worried and stressed, but we lightened up a bit once a decision was made. The salesman got chattier still when he found out where we live and he somehow rambled on to the topic of pets, cats in particular. In the end, holding our receipt hostage, he told us a story about "the best cat we ever had," a small cat name Pickles. 

Pickles, he told us, was procured one year when he and his wife went to pick out a tree at a local Christmas tree farm. "There was a little girl wearing a long prairie-like dress," he said, gesturing with his hands as if to paint the dress before our eyes. "She had a little basket with a kitten in it." 

Again, he gestured with his working-man hands, creating an imaginary basket. Then, he placed one hand, palm up, in the center of his chest, just where someone would hold a wee kitten. 

"She was this little," he marveled. "She fit right in the palm of my hand. Except for her tail, hanging over the side. Except for her tail, she was just that big." Again, he gestured, showing with his other hand how the sweet little tail would have draped out over his wrist. Pickles lived to be 17 years old and, finally, just stopped eating. The vet told them to let her be, it was "just her time." 

Isn't it something, how that cat story showed up so unexpectedly right in the middle of our day? Our salesman went to a farm looking for a Christmas tree and came home with a kitten. We went to Lowes looking for a washing machine and came home with a love story. 

I watched the salesman's hands eyes as he wove his tale, they were cinnamon brown with gold flecks. Even though the day was harder than I wanted and, in some ways, the sky did feel like it was falling, this man and his story helped me find what I was looking for all along. Sometimes all it takes is a story and a stranger's eyes, to lead our hearts back home. 

Turn

 

Turn verb: to (cause to) change the direction in which you are facing or moving. 

It’s the end of a long day at the end of a longer week and I’m finally beginning unwind as I sit on the loveseat preparing to read to my youngest boys. One boy sits on the radiator behind the couch with his back pressed against the window, his legs are stretched out on either side of my shoulders. 

His mouth is packed with gum and he alternates between seriousness and giggles as he attempts to blow a gigantic bubble. He focuses, pursing his lips, then collapses in laughter as I stare at him with bright eyes and a wide smile. Several small bubbles expand, then pop across his face. The biggest ones cover his nose and mouth with a thin, pink mask. After several bubbles and fits of laughter, I turn back to the book we planned to read. 

But, every time I start to read, he leans forward, grabs my head in his hands and turns me to face him. The bubbles, the giggling, the sticky masks continue on extended repeat. As he turns my face again and again, I’m transported to another time and place. 

This boy, now nine, is the same one I carried at age three – chest to chest, with his legs wrapped around my back. He always had so much to say, his eager face inches from my own, as a torrent of observations and ideas poured out. While he talked, I would sometimes dare look away – look past him, around him, at the dishes waiting in the sink or dinner simmering on the stove. Noticing my distraction, he would shift his face, leaning his whole body to re-center himself in my gaze. If my inattention persisted, he placed his small, chubby hands, one on each of my cheeks, and forcibly turned my face toward his own. It was a dance, my distraction set in time to his focus and persistence. 

Sitting on the loveseat I see again how his hands turning me, his willingness to repeat the motion, to re-center me, is a grace. Maybe this is how all things are turned– by gentle, but persistent hands of love.

Far Too Dangerous: The U.S. Elections, Violence, and Love

Half Dome, U.S. Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash

Out

of a great need

we are all holding hands

and climbing.

Not loving is a letting go.

Listen,

the terrain around here

is

far too

dangerous

for

that.

- Hafiz

Here in the US, pre-election, I hear the words "civil war" being tossed about - as though violence is a real possibility, a real option, in the wake of whatever happens in the next 48 hours or weeks or months. I wonder if we really hear ourselves when we toss those words about? I hear the fear in our voices, that much is clear, but I wonder: do we hear the pain, the loss in those words; the devastation? I can't imagine we do if we're tossing them about so freely.

Then again, maybe those words describe a reality that's already present - a nation divided, at war with its self, ready to cut off its nose to spite its face. I hear the arguments too, on many sides, that sometimes violence is necessary. I hear you.

But, I am an anabaptist. I am dedicated to the way of Christ which I understand to be a way of deep, costly love. Love for enemy, because violence toward another is also, in the end, violence toward my own deepest self.

Do you remember, way back in the beginning of the pandemic, how clear it was that we are all connected - my wellbeing tied up in yours and yours mine? "We are all holding hands," as the poet says. "Not loving is a letting go."

Everywhere around us, the voices of fear are chanting, loud enough to shake the very ground upon which we stand. Yet, the voice of love is here too. Can you hear it? Beneath the tumult, love's voice hums, quiet as the gentle whisper Elijah heard after the wind, earthquake, and fire had passed.

Get out and vote. Work at the polls. Offer a ride to anyone who needs it. I'm not saying this election doesn't matter - I believe it matters very much. I feel, some days, that America is perched on the very edge of a deep well of darkness - not a new darkness, but shadows we have dabbled in and out of since the founding of our country. The terrain is, indeed, dangerous.

We cannot afford to abandon love.

Smile with your eyes, if you can, at the poll workers, the store clerk, your children. Make eye contact long enough to remember that the person across from you - politically, socially, ethnically - is human too. Listen for the whispers of love. Listen harder when fear is loud. Let your actions give voice to love. The terrain around here is far too dangerous for anything less.

Anger

Anger is

the bastard child,

black sheep,

danger to the flock. 

This I know,

for I've been told. 

But, by night,

when the world is still,

I slip out the back door

to find anger huddled

in darkness

at the yard's edge. 

"What do you want?"
I ask. "Something is wrong,"
she says, her eyes

wide with fear, longing,

and love. 

By instinct, I open

my arms. I take her small, 

dark figure into myself and

she settles there, like a worn 

out child. 

"Something was wrong,"

she murmurs, "I wanted

you to know."

//

I've spent a lot of time thinking, reading, and learning about anger. As an Enneagram type 1, anger is a key emotional dynamic for me - both a sinful temptation and a key indicator of underlying feelings, as well as a source of creative and prophetic energy. This spring, as I again pondered the role of anger in my life, particularly as a clergy person, I remembered a life-changing essay I'd read years ago, written by psychiatrist and spiritual teacher, Gerald May. 

I was on a quiet solo retreat when I first stumbled across an article entitled "Love and Anger," in Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation's journal, Shalem News. Remembering the essay, I tracked it down (you can order a collection of all of May's articles for Shalem News by contacting the institute directly) and I want to share a little of it here with you. 

But first, I want to say that this poem came to me at a time when I felt called to embrace my anger as a messenger and a source of strength. As a person of peace, I have wrestled with anger, wary of its capacity master me and move me to sin. I have learned to listen to anger, as a warning bell, and to channel its energy into steadiness and strength in the face of evil. 

One of the church fathers, Augustine of Hippo said it well, "Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are." Perhaps the key to our hope in the weeks and months ahead lies in our willingness to allow love to move us both in anger and courage. 

//

Some words on anger, from Gerald May's article "Love and Anger," (Summer 1984 edition of Shalem News):

". . . even in the midst of a heated situation, it is occasionally possible to experience love and anger simultaneously. . . Love does not necessarily destroy anger, but it does transform and illuminate it. It is an error, I think, to assume we must get rid of anger in order to feel and be loving. 

The illumination of anger by love cannot be attained by trying to substitute love for anger, and certainly not by stifling anger. Instead, one first needs to accept the anger, letting it be what it is, and pause for a moment to look around for love. . . .

There is a radical difference between experiencing anger (or anything else) on one's own and experiencing it in the context of God's love. . . With even just the slightest breath of God . . . compassionate action can spring forth from the energy of anger. It is especially important to remember the good, energetic side of anger and that looking for love in no way implies getting rid of anger. Instead, love is added to the anger. Then God's alchemy of human emotions can be free to work.

. . . Love is always there. At a deep level, we wouldn't even become angry if it weren't for some kind of love; we wouldn't care. Love is at once the source of anger and the source of hope for its creative transformation."

What messages have you received about anger (particularly from the church)? What might happen if you were to work on developing a deeper awareness of and relationship with the energy of your own anger?

The Landscape of Love: Affection

Behold the one beholding you, and smiling. - Anthony DeMello

Our cat Blackie’s breath routinely reeks of all sorts of ungodly foulness.

He snores, day and night, like a bear in hibernation. 

He leaves small puddles of drool on the bed and couch.

He bosses the dog, bosses the other cat, bosses me.

He does all of these things and more, and yet I love him. Not despite of these things, but for them, in the midst of them.

When I lay awake at night, listening to him sawing logs at the foot of the bed, my affection rises and falls gently, like my own breath, moving in time with each of his foggy inhales and exhales. When I lean in to hug him on a quiet afternoon, he turns his head and yawns, blasting me with a wave of vile stench, and somehow I still feel tenderness, even as I hold my own breath and turn my face aside.

The love I feel for this silly, grand cat is more than a gravitation toward that which pleases or offers a good return. What I feel might be best referred to as affection or fondness, a feeling that occupies one small corner of the wide and wild landscape of love. 

//

Online dictionaries tell me affection is a feeling of liking or caring, often associated with gentleness or tenderness.  

My favorite definition describes affection as:

“a bent of mind towards a particular object, holding a middle place between disposition, which is natural, and passion, which is excited by the presence of its exciting object. affection is a permanent bent of the mind, formed by the presence of an object, or by some act of another person, and existing without the presence of its object.” 

There's a steadiness to affection; it persists despite arguments and evidence to the contrary. Affection is more than a feeling or reaction, it’s a persistent and consistent orientation.

//

As a parent, I suppose affection could explain the way I feel about my children’s stinky feet, that strange disgust mingled with pride. Or the way I simultaneously dread and delight in their small rebellions and even, when the heat of the moment has passed, their flaws. For these, along with their beauty and graces, are the things that make them human and, if we are to love well and wide, we must find a love that somehow encompasses all, even while wishing and working toward wholeness.

Affection also might describe the source of the gentle sympathy I sometimes feel toward my own flaws and mistakes and the feeling I’m working to conjure toward my stretch-marked belly, and my slowly but steadily graying hair.

If affection lies between natural disposition and passion, then it is a feeling that can be cultivated, learned and employed; injected into one’s relationship with self and others.

//

And affection, of course, must be what DeMello had in mind when he referred to our relationship with God: "Behold the one beholding you, and smiling." God's smile, God's affection, has nothing to do with our worthiness and everything to do with God's steadiness toward us, with God's inexplicable predisposition to a love that's deep and wide, encompassing even our own most devastating flaws.

God looks and leans toward our humble humanity and we are all encompassed in God's gaze - behold the one beholding you, with deep affection.  

On Boundaries and the Necessary Magic of the Word, 'No!'

no

is a necessary magic

no

draws a circle around you

with chalk

and says

i have given enough

- boundaries

(anonymous)

//

I was walking down to the garden the other morning, when a line from Maurice Sendak’s, Where the Wild Things Are ran through my mind. A friend had texted, asking if I might bring flowers in to work. I had paused before replying – I didn’t know if we had flowers left in the garden or not.  More importantly, though, I didn’t know if I had it in me to bring flowers or not.

I texted back, “Lemme see . . .”

After the boys got on the bus, I did a quick internal scan. Did I have it in me to bring in flowers? Yes, I did. Plus, the act of walking through the early morning dew, scanning stems for suitable blossoms, and arranging them in a vase would be good for me.

//

I am someone who grows and cuts flowers to bring into the office. I am someone who spreads poetry in the world, who writes, who tells jokes, and listens, and gives, and gives, and gives.

Most of the time, people like this about me. “We appreciate you,” they say. “You bring something we need.”

Most of the time, I like being liked.

Maybe you do too?

//

Liking being liked can be a problem.

Needing to be liked can be a more serious problem still.

It can lead to a giving that depletes so completely that the giver is left with an empty shell of self.

//

“. . . we’ll eat you up – we love you so!”

This the line I recalled from Sendak’s book. It’s what the wild things say to Max when he’s feeling lonely and longing for “someone who loves him best of all.”

I thought of that line and recognized something in it about the way church work can be; about the way parenting or teaching or any other form of service that involves deep self-giving and sacrifice can be. Caring for young children, tending a sick loved one, feeding a hungry church – all of these have the potential to eat us up, especially if we're looking to them to replace "someone who loves us best of all."

//

I went back and re-read Where the Wild Things Are a few days later.  I read how it’s Max’s realization of his loneliness and need for love that causes him to give up his position as “king” of where the wild things are. Aware of his own needs, Max prepares to leave. This is when the wild things cry, “Oh please don’t go – we’ll eat you up – we love you so!”

Then, a wonderful, magical thing happens in the story: Max says, ‘No!’

Of course, the wild things don’t like this one bit. In response, they “roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.

But Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye . . .”

//

I hope you know the power of the word ‘no.’

I hope you see how every ‘no’ is also a ‘yes’ and that choosing self care is sometimes the best gift you can give to the wild things who love you so.

I hope you don’t give in to the “terrible roars” and “gnashing teeth” and “terrible claws;” I hope you have the wisdom to see they love you so and they're just afraid you won’t return.

Go ahead, step into your boat and sail away, “in and out of weeks and through a day” and find yourself home, again, in “your own room” where Someone who loves you best can care for you for a while.

Don’t worry. We know you’ll be back. We know you’ll bring flowers and, probably, a poem or two. We know. Because that’s who you are. 

But that's only part of why we love you so. We love you also for your ability to say, and to help us to learn to say, that magic word, 'no.' 

Back to School Shopping (A Mother's Gaze)

She stands, arms outstretched, 
under fluorescent lights.
She holds up empty shorts,
t-shirts, and tanks.

Her mother-eyes focus
on what is not there,
gauging the cloth's
ability to hold, to hug,
the ones she loves.

Her gaze is fixed just past 
the things she holds, imagining 
the shape of belly, thigh,
chest, and shoulders,
practicing the maternal art
of reconstruction.

We cannot see
the child she sees,
we do not know his dimensions.
All we can see is her love-struck gaze
that brings someone into being
out of nothing. 

What I Learned When I Was Dying

Edge of the Conodoguinet Creek, Still Waters Retreat, Carlisle, PA

“Don’t forget, you’re going to die.” – WeCroak.com

I had been keeping an eye on the spot for weeks.  I thought it was a bug bite.  I thought it would go away.  But it didn’t.  Finally, on the first free morning I had, the morning I was set to go on silent retreat, I googled my symptoms and found out I was dying.

Well, I’m not dying (I repeat: NOT DYING), but that morning, based on what I read online, death suddenly seemed like a plausible possibility.  Not only was my symptom a possible sign of something bad, it was a symptom of something very bad.  I called my Dr and made an appointment for the following day.  I called back again and said I’d be more than happy to come in that very day if they happened to have a cancellation. 

Then, with nothing more to do, I left for my scheduled retreat, for six hours of silence and solitude with the news of my own impending death tagging along, an unwelcome, nagging companion. 

//

My husband and I recently learned about an app called WeCroak which sends users a text, five times a day, with a simple reminder, “Don’t forget, you’re going to die.”  The text arrives at random intervals (like death) and keeps things simple, clear, and direct.  

My husband learned about it through a counselor, discussing humanity’s fear of death as a source of generalized anxiety.  I heard about it from my Spiritual Director after sharing about my silent retreat.  “These kinds of experiences can help us wake up,” she said.

//

One would think a silent retreat, with death as your companion, would be The. Worst.  But, it wasn’t.

After driving to the tiny house in the woods, I sat in the kitchenette drinking tea.  Surrounded by windows, I watched bees flitting from plant to plant.  Upstairs, later, I rocked in a cushioned chair, reading Richard Foster’s, “Freedom of Simplicity.”  When reading grew tiresome, I stared out another set of windows and watched witless carpenter bees droning in lazy, senseless circles.  I took a nap, half-wrapped in a downy quilt, while the sun shone down on me.  I woke to a stink bug landing too near my face. 

Don’t get me wrong, I was distracted.  I fought back tears from time to time and found it nearly impossible to focus on my original intentions for the day.  I spiraled into moments of worry and anxiety.  

I thought about my kids and what would happen to them if something happened to me.  I want to say my concerns were selfless, but they weren’t.  I mourned my loss of influence in their lives, the things I would not get to see.  I realized, I will not last the test of time.  Which is to say, I will die, and the world will go on without me.   There isn’t really a single thing I can invest in that will last; as Theresa of Avila said in her famous bookmark prayer, “All things are passing away.”

Except, that is, for love.

//

Later in the day, I ate my lunch sitting in an old Adirondack chair near a wide and lazy creek.  The surface of the water hardly seemed to move at all.  If I shifted my focus, I could see long fish swimming loops along the muddy floor.  Dandelions, with heads gone white like old lady’s hair, stood along the edge of the water, bearing witness, I thought, to its passage.

Those dandelions are, I’m sure, gone today.  But the creek remains. 

It seems to me, that love must be something like that stream – constant, slow, enduring, and we are like those fading flowers on the shore.  In which case, the only sane thing to do is cast ourselves, wholeheartedly, into love’s great stream, to become – with heart, soul, and mind – part of the love that never fails. 

//

This is what death told me last week, when I allowed it to draw near via a googled symptom and online self-diagnosis.  Maybe others might learn the same by answering death’s texts five times a day for months on end.  The apostle Paul, who had his own travels with death as a companion, tells us the same, “now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” (I Cor 13:13)

Death’s message was clarifying and simple.  It put my world, which I thought had been tipped on its head, right-side-up again.  It brought my feet closer to solid ground, which is to say, it gave me level footing in the land of acceptance.  

I did not make peace with death over the course of six silent hours spent in the woods on a sunny Wednesday in early May.  I’m not that naive.  But I did catch a glimmer of a gift hiding in death’s hand, enough to make me understand what we lose living in a time and place where death is treated as an inconvenient truth, a reality best avoided at all costs.  

You can read more about the WeCroak App in this article in The Atlantic.  Let me know if you try it out!