Pleasant Surprises

I'll admit it; I've been slacking off a bit on this blog in the last couple of weeks. Maybe I'm still recovering from my grandmother's funeral, maybe it's because Lent is in full force, maybe it's because recently I led a youth retreat weekend--probably some combination of the three. But if I'm going to be intentional in my practice, I'm going to move forward and on, and not let busyness interfere with the business of gratitude.

Which is why a recent drive to work felt a bit serendipitous, when I felt an unexpected surge of gratitude. It was a sunny day, and I had birthday plans with some friends over the weekend. As I was thinking about them, it occurred to me what amazing people I have in my life. Not that this had never occurred to me before, but it struck me by how many thoughtful and caring friends I have, friends who live near me and celebrate and share with me important milestones. Friends who live far, yet stay connected, friends who I know are there in a heartbeat if I need their support. My family, too, are loving and kind, even if we get irritated with each other from time to time. I know so many people who love me unconditionally, and who appreciate the weirdest parts of me, who love even the parts of me that I like least.

I wonder if practicing gratitude is like opening an old faucet. Once you start, even if it only trickles in at first, if it eventually begins to seep into everyday parts of our lives, infusing within us and spreading out towards others. Surprise bouts of gratitude. I have to say, they're pretty fantastic.

The Unsent Letter

My mom called me last week, only a few hours after writing last week's post, to tell me that my grandmother had died. I've spent the past week with family, funeral planning, mourning, and remembering her. This week, as I return back to my regularly scheduled programming, I have realized I never got to send her a letter. The truth, is that I have a get well soon card sitting on my desk, unsent. I thought I was going to have more time.

It's one of the things I'm realizing through this practice, that gratitude demands that we not assume there will be more time. More time to say, "I love you", more time to say. "I'm sorry", more time to say, "Thank you for loving me the best you could." What I often do is fill that time complaining, being unsatisfied or irritated about things that are absolutely inconsequential. Part of this practice is my attempt to do more of the former and less of the latter. But sometimes, the letter remains unsent. So in lieu of her letter, I'm going to post the eulogy I read at her funeral. They are the truest words I could write about her, and it is, at heart, a letter of gratitude. Miss you, Grandma.

          When my family and I were talking last night, we spent some time discussing some of the things that we were grateful that Grandma had passed on to us. We all appreciated the many British qualities she passed down, particularly a dry sense of humor. When I was little, I remember being very proud of our heritage. I told my class that my grandma was English. You know, from England.  The truth is though, that she was always a very private person, and I only learned about her in bits in pieces. I learned more about her as an adult, hearing about how she was born in London, and was moved into the country during the blitz after part of her house was damaged during a bomb raid. She was a singer as a young adult, and performed at different venues before recording a record and moving to the States. While I never have heard her sing, I think that’s where B---- gets her vocal talent, and is probably why my sisters and I love to harmonize to the Indigo Girls on long car rides.

            I was glad to see Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 scrawled in the front of her bible yesterday, because it’s one of my favorite passages of scripture. I love this passage because it simultaneously comforts and unsettles me. There are moments in my life where I feel like things happen when they should, when I find meaning behind change and blessing, when I see a reason to disappointment and even loss. But there are other times, when I hear “to everything there is a season, to every matter under heaven”, and I think, “God, this is the worst possible season for this thing to happen to me.” And the truth is, is that like all of our lives, Grandma’s life was not all rainbows and sunshine. She went through many hard things, some outside of her control, and some of her own making.

Many of us who love her deeply, our lives are informed by her life, decisions, and circumstances. She spent many years as a single mom, at a time when it was not socially acceptable to be a single mom. And she did it far from her family. But to everything there is a season, and there is a time to plant, and where there was no family, she planted one, and built a family in her children, and in the people she met and loved like Aunt K--- and Grandma P----. And any woman who can grow a garden in untilled ground is a hero in my book.

I didn’t know her during those years, but I reaped the rewards of her strength and love through my mom, aunts and uncles, and through her presence in my life. And I learned about her quiet way to love as I grew up.

Grandma was able to articulate a lot with very few words, and one of her favorite memories of me, that she would tease me about was not one of my finest moments. Grandma was able to convey her disapproval without saying anything. And one lesson I had learned from my mom was don’t sass Grandma. One day, when I was 7 or 8,  she was at our house with my mom and Grandma had given me some advice about something. And I remember thinking, I don’t know who this woman thinks she is, but she has no idea what she is talking about. So I turned around and said, “Grandma, why don’t you mind your own beeswax.” And her face that said, "I cannot believe you just said that to me", and my Mom's presence behind me, that I can only describe as the wrath of God, taught me a valuable lesson. The writer of Ecclesiastes said there is a season for many things. But there is never a season for sassing Grandmas.

I will miss Grandma a lot. I will miss our phone conversations about politics. I will miss her loving birthday cards, and her sweet tooth, and her love of animals. But I will carry her with me through all of the seasons of my life, and I will cherish what she has taught me about family, and faith, and the power of love.

Living the Time That's Left

I attended a funeral this morning. This isn't a particularly uncommon in my profession, since funerals, death, and grief are as much a part of faith as anything. This morning, however, I attended the funeral of a parishioner, whose spouse is Catholic, so rather than officiating, I attended. Sat in the pews, sang the hymns, listened to the homily. You know, worship. It is a rare gift as clergy to be able to receive worship rather than to be the one making it happen, even on sad occasions. 

The priest shared a great deal about the way this person had lived. The joy he had spread to others, the generosity he had had for the community, the way he had shared himself to those he loved. The man being memorialized was an embodiment of gratitude--it permeated every aspect of his life. He had been a walking, talking letter of gratitude. It got me thinking about what kind of effect gratitude has had and will continue to have on me. My hope is that as I continue this practice, gratitude will slip into other aspects of my life, tucked into quiet conversations and important moments. My hope is that this practice will become infectious, so that I will feel gratitude in unsuspecting places, and will feel free to share gratitude with anyone. 

So far, to be honest, it's still hard. It makes me feel vulnerable and sometimes uncomfortable to put myself out there, even to people I cherish. But someday, my loved ones will be gone, and I don't want to spend the moments after regretting the things I've left unsaid. And somedays after, I will be gone, too. I want those who have known me to know gratitude, through the ways that I lived, for the things that I said, for the ways that I was afraid but didn't let fear stop me. If I can do that and know with my last breath that I could and did embody gratitude, then I will be satisfied. That is worth the risk. 

Reunioning

This past summer, I officiated a wedding for a couple of friends from college. It had been a year of officiating a number of weddings for friends, actually. Despite the fact that I consider myself a romantic at heart, I tend to be a curmudgeon when it comes to weddings. One of the downsides of being a minister is that you see the worst of weddings. People who don't show they love each other well. Bridezillas or groomzillas (yes, there are plenty of both). Families who can't get along and aren't emotionally mature enough to knock off the drama for one. damn. afternoon. Family members or friends who can't manage to stay sober until after the ceremony is over. People obsessed with perfection. Weddings, I have learned, can go from lovely to a hot mess in a matter of minutes.

Yet last year's weddings have reminded me of how beautiful and touching the day can be. They were testaments to the fact that for those couples who have their priorities in the right place, the day will be just fine. And the wedding I officiated over the summer were for two lovely people, both of whom are generous and warm and kind, and love each other deeply.

It was a double blessing, because it gave me a chance to see many friends from college who I hadn't seen in years. I wondered whether it would be awkward, and whether we would still have things to talk about after the long stretch of time and distance. I shouldn't have worried. It's the wonderful thing about having chosen friends well; even after many years, you're able to pick up where you've left off. The weekend of the wedding felt like a reunion; it was so good to see old friends who knew me in a particular way during a formative time in my life. Which is why I felt so much warmth when I selected this week's person to write a letter to--one of the friends from that group. I lived with Maya* in a house with 10 other people for a year in college. It was one of the best and weirdest experiences I had. Living with 10 people taught me a lot. Maya taught me a lot, too, and it was in that house that we and other housemates would exchange ideas, philosophies, theologies (or reasons against theology), beliefs, fears,  and jokes. Maya has this hilarious dry wit that only comes from someone who pays attention and is smart as a whip. One of the things I realized this summer, and that came back for me as I wrote this letter was that I missed that space, and I missed those people whose lives changed me in subtle but important ways.

It's one of the growing pains of growing up; you can't always be in touch with all of the people who have impacted your life. People move away. People get married. Some have babies. Priorities change. But even if time or circumstance or miles change your relationship, it doesn't change the effect those people have had on you. Sometimes you get the blessing of reconnection. Sometimes you don't. But it feels good to be grateful for moments already gone by, and moments yet to come.


*name changed

On Mysteries and Mentors

My grandmother believes in angels. In many ways, she has much more of a metaphysical kind of faith than I do. I grew up learning about stars and science from my dad.  He taught me to uncover the mysteries of the universe through the slow churning creation of of galaxies, from the power and precision of the Big Bang, and through him I learned the art of speculation, the scientific method, and a healthy dose of skepticism. So angels and miracles, prophetic dreams and visions that I read in the Hebrew scriptures and that I heard from my grandmother seemed far away from me for many years.

I meandered my way into spirituality--love for meditation, for transformation, for truth-telling---through important people who entered my life at right places. One thing that has never been lost on me is the presence of important mentors who have appeared in my life at a critical crossroads. Someone who could stand with me and see me as I am, a person who would allow me to be wherever I was in my life and take those experiences seriously.

I wrote a letter of gratitude to one of those women this past week. The letter was itself a sort of spiritual practice. It allowed me time to reflect on where I had come and who had helped me get to where I am now. Mentors have taken on many forms for me--this person in particular, she and a group of women, in fact, were with me as I was being birthed into adulthood.  I was reaching moments of awareness about the world around me and injustice, I was coming into a truer sense of myself as a feminist and a person of faith, and I was trying to figure out how to love and be who I was. And like birthing does, sometimes I screamed and fought and grieved and pushed and hurt my way through. The women in this group that I was a part of saw me clearly, and loved me unconditionally, and challenged me greatly. Most importantly, as a young adult, they took me seriously. Not "for my age". Not with any "in my day" caveats. Period. The ways they modeled womanhood and adulthood gave me permission to be imperfect, gave me space to speak (even if in hindsight the things I said were not particularly revelatory or meaningful), and held me accountable to those things that I had said I valued.

When God came to Sarah and Abraham in the desert to tell Sarah that she was pregnant, she giggled to herself in her tent while she was baking. "Apparently God don't know I'm old," she laughed. I don't know that I believe in angels the way my grandmother does, but I do believe that God sends surprising people into our lives when we're ready to give birth to something new, even if we don't believe that new things are coming. So for all of the angels who have been there with me in the screaming and the fighting and the grieving and the pushing and the hurting and the insurmountable love, I thank God.

Gratitude for the Hard Roads

This past weekend, I was talking with some close friends about this blog specifically, and gratitude in general. I asked them who they would send letters of gratitude to, and why. We talked about who we would definitely not send letters to, and why. We talked about the spectrum of people who have walked through our lives--those who have done miracles, those who have done harm, and those who fall somewhere in between. The three of us have all learned things about ourselves through a spectrum of experiences. What does this practice have to say to that? Moreover, what should we do about those people in our lives who have taught us something very important, something for which we are very grateful, but it's something we learned through pain, or trauma, or betrayal? Can I, should I, how would I write a letter of gratitude for someone who has wronged me?

One one hand, sending a letter of gratitude to a former bully, particularly one that indicates how their misdeeds made me a better person, is a pretty passive-aggressive way to get revenge. But let's be real, I can't say there isn't some part of me who is tempted to send a few carefully crafted letters to the handful of people who have caused me some serious and unnecessary pain.

Maybe something like this?

But that's not the purpose of this project, and I want to make less space for that kind of behavior, not more. My purpose is to create more good in this world, in my relationship, and in me. And I'm pretty sure spiteful vindication isn't the best way to achieve those goals. Yet there is more at the root of this desire than vengeance. There is deep soul-healing in naming painful experiences that also taught me very important lessons. Learning the hard way is sometimes the only way to learn, and I want to honor the hard roads I've been down as well as those who have helped me lift myself into a better place. On the hard roads, I learned fundamental things. I learned to trust my intuition, but to keep my mind open to those few trusted friends who will tell me hard truths. I learned that negotiating by withholding is a surefire way to burn a relationship to ash. I learned that people who leave are not worth waiting for. I learned that I deserve mutuality, love, and trust. All of these I have learned the hard way, sometimes at my own hand, and sometimes at the hand of others. Although they were painful, they were also essential to my growth and maturity. 

However, I want to include one huge caveat. Sometimes, maybe even most times, trauma is just trauma. Maybe the only lesson to learn is "that never should have happened to me". I have known and loved too many survivors of abuse and neglect to believe that pain is redemptive. It absolutely is not. Individuals may find some redemption in the midst of or in spite of their experience, but that is a very different thing. 

I also don't want to give a pass to those who cause others pain. Which is to say, I don't want to give a pass to anyone. Just because I may have found meaning in a painful experience, does not take the perpetrator off the hook. Nor am I off the hook when someone has found meaning from pain I have caused. Each person is responsible for their actions, and its is their responsibility to do right by whomever they have wronged. Sometimes, that means reconciliation. Sometimes, that means ending a relationship. Sometimes, that means jail time. But it is the choice each of us make when we are processing grief, trauma, heartache, anger, or pain, to choose how to respond, and how or whether to find meaning in our experiences. Every person should feel empowered to take the path that leads to healing, regardless of whether lessons are learned or rejected. 

In my life, some of those experiences taught me how to love and live better. Recognizing those lessons have helped me to heal some of that pain. I will write a letter to those who have hurt me and taught me painful lessons. But I won't send them. Those letters are for me, really, to remind me of the hard roads I've walked, and how I came back. To remind me of how far I have come, and to point me to where I want to go from here. 

The Mechanics of Self-Deception

One letter sent, one letter written and on my desk. I wouldn't call it a compendium yet, but it is exciting to have started. I am doing a thing! It is getting completed! That momentum in writing and doing has always been very motivating for me. For the first letter, I decided to explain my project. This person, Amy*, knows me well, but it seemed a little strange to randomly send her a letter of gratitude. Would I feel weird if someone did that to me?

This time, I decided just to start. The more I tried to write another explanation of my project for this second letter, the more it felt like I was explaining away some of the feeling behind it. If this letter was just a project, then I wasn't sending it because I wanted to; I was sending the letter because I had to. My gratitude was just a part of a project; I wasn't allowing the message to stand on it's own.

Why was I doing that?

Sometimes, I have a tendency to hedge feelings in something more comfortable, in a reason or intention other than what it is. It's a way to detach myself a bit. It's an interesting form of self-deception, one I think many people are guilty of. I'm going to share my feelings with you, Amy, but it's for a project/a holiday/because Mom told me to say it, so, you know, don't get too excited, because I'm not that invested. It's this notion that someone could share their feelings in stealth-mode, so that no one has to invest without a way out. Because, FEELINGS.

The truth is, though, is that that is not what I'm looking for anymore. I don't want to hedge my bets, I don't want to couch my feelings in something feels more palatable. Because the two women I wrote letters to? They're amazing. Brave, thoughtful, loving, kind. Amazing. And they should know.


*Not her real name.