I was in a car accident today. Not my fault, but the smash up was not so fun. Most wrecks are like that. I’ve personally had two car wrecks in my life with me behind the wheel.
Have you ever noticed after any calamity the number one asked question is always, “How are you feeling?” Everyone asks. Some ask sincerely. Some asks politely. Some ask because they don’t know what else to say.
Carolyn Arends writes in her song “We Are Not Alone” from her album Pollyanna’s Attic, “There are friends who offer comfort and they mean well, but sometimes it’s like salt inside awound…and it’s good to speak of heaven when it feels more like a hell, but we ask our hearts for healing much too soon…” .
So for all those curious about how I ‘feel’ with deep love and respect I’d love to say with Sara Bettens:
I use to play with a tornado. I use to fish, swim, cook, sing with a tornado. For 18 yrs. Then there was the promise of college and a new life. For awhile, there was real peace. Real healing. And I began to believe again. Began to hope again. Began to dream again. I wanted to be free. I thought I was free.
(Sara Groves, album It’s Alright Here, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4059026978811388895#)
When working with victims of a ’tornado’ I pray:
God save me from offering advice when there is pain.
God save me from comforting through Christian cliche’s.
God save me from offering false hope because it stops the pain for a moment.
God save me from quick fix plans and pat prayers for other’s pain.
In the middle of a tornado, you duck and cover. After it passes over you rise from the rubble if you’re able. You can’t recognize the landscape anymore. It resembles the hopes and dreams you built. It bears similarities. But it isn’t the life you wanted or worked for. No disaster leaves anyone near it unscathed. Oh, some fair better than others, but those close to it are impacted. If in no other way, they bear the burden of wanting to shoulder the burdens of other, the guilt of why wasn’t it me but I’m grateful, and the agony of not being able to relate and share with all they are. They were there, but they weren’t in there.
I think sometimes we create our tornado. Sometimes we are caught in the middle of someone else’s disaster. Sometimes there’s just a catastrophe and no why or who’s to blame. “…and I am learning the real meaning of forgiveness….” – Sara Groves.
It is spring time in Texas. How can you tell? The blue bonnet, red clover, and Indian paint brush are blooming. And kiddos are restless. I love the spring.
I find myself feeling restless like my kids. I want to travel and see things coming back to life. I love living things.
There are times I am still such a child. I run from blossom to blossom. I love the spring time discoveries.
Today a dear friend of mine posted some pics of her boys. She added commentary only a mom comes up with and we all laughed. But it reminded me of a few things I’ve committed to memory. When Mat was younger I often worried about how different he was. Mat was reading at a really early age and he was wasn’t content to stick with Dick and Jane or Dr. Seuss. Neither of my children are academically average, but Mat’s reading level is unique. There have been other beautiful differences about my children. Some I prayed fervently would stay from birth, some we cultivated, and some I instilled accidentally.
If you have a child (even the non-human kind who are often hairy and occasionally slobbery) you know that worry is part of caring. Some fears are legitimate. Some are projections from our lives to the child. Some are just plain silly, but you worry anyway.
Children’s singer Joe Scruggs, whom I adore, sang a song that really helped me as a parent.
Different Drum
You like to run in the sun
I like to dance in the shade
I’m marching in my own parade
You say follow but I may not come
I hear the beat of a different drum.
Some say I’m crazy
Some say I’m weird
I’m just marching to the beat I hear
Sometimes it’s hard
But sometimes it’s fun
I hear the beat of a different drum
When I look around
Sometimes I find
I may not be right in time
You have to tilt your head
When you talk to me
I’ve got a different center of gravity
You like to run in the sun
I like to dance in the shade
I’m marching in my own parade
You say follow but I may not come
I hear the beat of a different drum.
(Joe Scruggs from his album Ants
Audio CD (February 4, 1997)
Original Release Date: April 15, 1997
Number of Discs: 1
Label:Lyons / Hit Ent.
ASIN: B0000058A2 )
My hero, Madeleine L’Engle wrote,
That night during a wakeful period I thought about all the people in history, liturature, art, who I most admire: Mozart, Shakespeare, Homer, El Greco, St. John, Chekhov, Gregory of Nyssa, Dostoevsky, Emily Bronte: not one of them would qualify for a mental-health certificate. It’s been a small game with me this summer to ask, “Do you know anybody you really admire, who would qualify for a mental health certificate?” So far nobody has come up with one.
What is mental health, anyhow? If we were all what is generally thought of as mentally healthy, I have a terrible fear that we’d all be alike. Even as we’re rushing towards the end of another thousand years, we are still terrified by non conformity… I can’t think of one great human being in the arts, or in history generally, who conformed, who succeeded, as educational experts tell us children must succeed, with his peer group….
If we ever, God forbid, manage to make each child succeed with his peer group, we will produce a race of bland and faceless nonentities, and all the poetry and mystery will vanish from the face of the earth….
I am encouraged as I look at some of those who have listened to their ‘different drums’: Einstein was hopeless at school math and commented wryly on his inadequacy in human relations. Winston Churchill was an abysmal failure in his early school years. Byron, that revolutionary student, had to compensate for a club foot. Demosthenes for a stutter; and Homer was blind. Socrates couldn’t manage his wife, and infuriated his countrymen. And what about Jesus, if we need an ultimate example of failure with one’s own peers?
Or an ultimate example of love?
(L’Engle, Madeleine. A Circle of Quiet. HarperOne, 1984. Print.)
I pray that my kids will alway march to the beat of a different drum.
This time of year is the time of green beer, shamrocks, leprechauns and rainbows ends, but also of St. Patrick! Every year about this time I try to remind my kids about Paddy.
I read to them the story of Patrick and his friends who were on a trip to see King Laoghhaire. They were traveling and Patrick sensed an ambush about to occur. So he and his friends chanted or prayed the following:
Fáed Fíada – The Cry of the Deer
I arise today through a mighty strength, the invocation of the
Trinity, through belief in the Threeness, through confession
of the Oneness of the Creator of creation.
I arise today through the strength of Christ with His Baptism,
through the strength of His Crucifixion with His Burial
through the strength of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
through the strength of His descent for the Judgment of Doom.
I arise today through the strength of the love of Cherubim
in obedience of Angels, in the service of the Archangels,
in hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
in prayers of Patriarchs, in predictions of Prophets,
in preachings of Apostles, in faiths of Confessors,
in innocence of Holy Virgins, in deeds of righteous men.
I arise today, through the strength of Heaven:
light of Sun, brilliance of Moon, splendour of Fire,
speed of Lightning, swiftness of Wind, depth of Sea,
stability of Earth, firmness of Rock.
I arise today, through God’s strength to pilot me:
God’s might to uphold me, God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me, God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me, God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me, God’s shield to protect me,
God’s host to secure me:
against snares of devils, against temptations of vices,
against inclinations of nature, against everyone who
shall wish me ill, afar and anear, alone and in a crowd.
I summon today all these powers between me (and these evils):
against every cruel and merciless power that may oppose
my body and my soul,
against incantations of false prophets,
against black laws of heathenry,
against false laws of heretics, against craft of idolatry,
against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
against every knowledge that endangers man’s body and soul.
Christ to protect me today
against poison, against burning, against drowning,
against wounding, so that there may come abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right,
Christ on my left, Christ in breadth, Christ in length,
Christ in height, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.
I arise today through a mighty strength, the invocation of the
Trinity, through belief in the Threeness, through confession of the
Oneness of the Creator of creation.
Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord.
Salvation is of Christ. May Thy Salvation, O Lord, be ever with us.
I also like to read some of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Swiftly Tilting Planet . Patrick’s Breastplate is the thread through the whole book. I love her works but this one in particular so very much.
The kids and I try to hunt for four leaf clovers. We eat a picnic somewhere green and full of spring. That is St. Patrick’s day for us. A celebration of a man of peace. Peace should be celebrated often.
It’s two a.m. I hear, “Mom!” Eyes open. It’s a migraine and she’s thrown up all over the bathroom floor. Just a few days ago she was playing with her big brother. We were out at the lake.
We were laughing with her newest cousin.
The day before today, we were at the zoo.
Tide can change so fast with little people. Looking at her lying here worn out and feeling poorly makes me love her more. It’s not that I’m a fan of early moring ralphfests, but I love her. I always will.
There are many days I feel defeated at the hands of my lack; my “drive for more- ness,” to make up a phrase, from myself. I remember once reading Herbert’s The Pulley.
The Pulley.
When God at first made man,
Having a glasse of blessings standing by;
Let us (said he) poure on him all we can:
Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.
So strength first made a way;
Then beautie flow’d, then wisdome, honour, pleasure;
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone, of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottome lay.
For if I should (said he)
Bestow this jewell also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts in stead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.
Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlesnesse;
Let him be rich and wearie, that at least,
If goodnesse leade him not, yet wearinesse
May tosse him to my breast. (Herbert 1)
I read it in British Literature class in college. I was so excited to think that maybe this 17th Century Metaphysical poet had the answer. Maybe the drive, the hunger, the need to do, know, and be more was my lack of rest.
Carolyn Arends wrote a song called “Reaching” on her album Seize the Day. (Arends 1)
I think Arends is saying the ache the more maybe similar though a bit more forward than Herbert’s answer of “rest”.
Sara Groves also expresses a similar wanting or aching.
(Groves 1)
It’s threaded all over in literature and art. From Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamzov to children’s literature like Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series. It’s found in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trillogy, Lewis’ Narnian chronicles, L’Engle’s Wrinkle in Time Quartet, and more. Styx writes about it in Show Me the Way. Joan Ozborne’s writes it out in One of Us. I hear echoes of this from my heart as I read or watch every heroic epic from the Odyssey to the today’s Scifi shows like the Stargates to Star Treks. Each example shows signs of man wanting to be more and discover more.
I’m not promoting an answer specifically here. I’m just saying if you’re looking… you are not alone. Don’t be discouraged. Ask the big questions.
