Rise Up!

If stress is mitigated by finding a life of meaning, where do we discover it? Look inside.

Years ago I had some exposure to a wonderful tool called the Enneagram. Something inside me sang when I studied it. I thought it was comprehensive, complicated and intriguing. I wanted to learn more. I had this hunch that this might make a difference for people in recovery. My friend Jean and I even took a summer road trip to study with some folks who are well-respected in the field. We pursued more education, made some great friends and kept talking and learning and studying.

I got some emails about this suggesting that this was a tool of the devil and I was a bad pastor for talking about it. Some people complained about me talking about it too much - guilty as charged. They were right. The negative feedback stirred my insecurity about what I was learning and why I thought it was valuable. It reminded me of those conversations decades ago when some people through the 12-Steps were terrible and others through the 12-Steps were great but I was not equipped to understand them. This feedback did not bother me twenty years ago, but because I was already flirting with a nervous breakdown, the feedback on the Enneagram stung.

I began asking myself a question every evening as a spiritual discipline: So what? So what if I talk about it more than I should? So what if someone confuses a drawing of the Enneagram with the symbol of a Pentagram? So what?

This was a good growth question for me and it has changed my life.

The answer is this: I am a human being. I have the right to be a goofball. I have the right to get super enthusiastic about a subject that interests me. It is ok if someone does not agree or misunderstands. If they are curious, I have an opportunity to explain, if they are not, I really do not need the hassle of trying to explain to a person whose objective is to criticize. And the biggest "so what" of all...So what if no one else sees its potential, I see it and it is calling to me for further exploration.

Here's the most beautiful thing I discovered. While I lay on the floor in a puddle of defeat, I asked myself - what are you willing to sit up for? (Walking was too hard.) I am willing to sit up to hug my grandchildren and love my children and husband. What are you still interested in? I am still interested in loving others. How will you find the strength to do that if you can barely sit up? I do not know.

But one thing I did know: I could no longer get my cues from outside myself. I needed to dig in and dig deep. Who do I want to be when I grow up? This question was one I was willing, even eager, to explore. One of the topics that I was willing to explore was the Enneagram.

If you are smacked down, what is something you are willing to rise up for? Stay tuned.

When is Enough, Enough?

One of the questions I began to ask myself in the face of some pretty harsh conditions was this one: "How much more do I have to do before I've done enough?" This is a great question to ask when we are under a lot of stress, especially if we have wise companions to help us sort out our confusion. "Done enough," might best be understood as thinking about living out our core values and sacrificing for them. This is a good thing; but it can also be quite destructive. The gift of the pandemic and family suffering for me was coming to realize that I was doing the wrong stuff for the right reasons.

If my life and spiritual path and love for scientific data taught me that personal freedom and chocolate cake for breakfast leads to a fulfilling life, then I am quite sure my goals for myself would look different. I would have, perhaps, become a baker who refuses to work according to anyone else's schedule. But this is not what life and the pursuit of faithfulness has taught me. For me, what I happen to believe is that a meaningful life requires that we all find a way to connect to something larger than ourselves. I assume this will be hard and not always fun.

Years ago, I noticed how hard it was for people in recovery or in need of recovery to fit into some of the traditional environments for meaningful connection. I was in a position to participate in changing this dynamic and it felt like a worthy goal to me as a woman who grew up in a family that could have used this kind of community but never found one. I still believe and support this dream.

When I thought my work included helping others find a meaningful life and provide them the tools to accomplish it, I was a failure. And presumptuous too. But once I burned out, I realized that my success was not dependent on convincing others how to do hard things; my truest goal is to be present for people who are having a hard life. My desire is to continue to show up because it is who I am. This shift is seismic. I am not responsible for making it easy for people to be faithful; I am responsible for being a faithful person.

I cannot tell you how much added stress I have heaped on myself over the years because I had this misguided notion that somehow I was supposed to be helpful to people in this particular way. I have quit this life of hoping that if I try hard enough others will try hard too. I do not plan to return.

Using Your Influence

"Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."

Winston Churchill

According to Churchill, I am killing it. I have NEVER felt as much enthusiasm for life as I do today. In the middle of a pandemic, a time of political unrest, with grandchildren growing up so fast that I've started thinking about college options and really great trade schools, not everyone would find it in their heart to latch onto enthusiasm.

Soooo, what's my secret?

My people - those who have been influential in my life in a million big and small ways. Although their influence has not turned me into a person the world would consider successful, that's ok. My candle is kindled in my heart and my soul sings. This has been a long and winding journey that included a recent protracted depression. (I personally think if the past few years have not caused you to rethink life, maybe you're not paying attention.)

I've been ruminating with gratitude on how I got here, back to the place where I have reasonable amounts of peace and joy. What's happened to me? And why would you care? I suppose because I do believe Rumi and I think all of us want to find a life of meaning and purpose - whether or not success is part of the plan. And maybe you, like me, has struggled of late to figure out if enthusiasm is even possible.

I believe that all of us have an opportunity to influence our world in some positive way, co-workers with God in slowly, laboriously, sometimes almost imperceptibly, inching the kingdom of God toward his vision for his people. What I needed, and have gratefully received as of late, is vocabulary for how true influence works. At my darkest moments, I need someone to influence me - to help pull me out from the confusion and lost sense of meaning that depression steals from us. In a world that prefers success, it is difficult to find help, so I want to share the various ways people showed up to help me. My prayer is that you might find yourself in these descriptions or recognize the helpers in your life. Tomorrow, we begin!

When Calling is Costly…

"Church forces us to march in and sing even when we are not in the singing mood. Church doesn't wait for you to have the proper motivation to worship in order to call you to worship. So many times you don't feel like being a pastor but still must act the part - in pain, over your head emotionally and theologically, not knowing how to publicly mark your own loss. You act like their pastor even when you don't want to...."

Dr. Will Willimon

Yes. This is true. It is also true for being a wife, mother, father, sister, brother, or a line cook. Maybe not everyone has to worry about the theology of their job, but everyone does have the opportunity to wrestle with how their life is lived out theologically.

So here's the thing. Stop and think for a second about this. When your beloved has a medical emergency, do you care if the EMT's who show up in the middle of the night to offer aid find personal satisfaction in their work or do you want them to be good at their job? When your car breaks down on the side of the road, do you want the AAA person to find her bliss in fixing your tire or charging your battery or do you want her to be competent and efficient? When you have to go into surgery, do you REALLY want your surgeon to NOT wear a mask for fear it violates her rights?

More from Willimon...

"The deceit of modern life is the role of individual and stripped role of individuality. There is no YOU there without the roles, the assignments, the relationships. This is a very unglamorous view of service."

I will paraphrase poorly, but this is important. Willimon suggests that to experience a sense of calling, determine to make service part of the requirement of living. And guess what? There is no requirement in a calling that it be meaningful to us before we do it. Calling is not about our fulfillment. It allows other people's lives to be enriched but it doesn't necessarily make our life better. (Can I get an amen?)

Calling costs. It's your choice whether or not to enter into the fray of it all but if you do choose a life of purpose and meaning don't expect it to be meaningful or make your heart go pitter pat all the damn time.

Our goal is to become fully human

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”[1]

~Theodore Roosevelt

What really counts, what really matters, what makes all the difference in life satisfaction is about what you decide to do with your one wild and precious life (Mary Oliver paraphrase). No matter how much others might disagree with your perspective, it is yours and no one can or should try to take ownership of your life from you.

My prayer is that we continue to encourage one another to enter the arena and fight for a life of purpose. Dare to believe that you can and are worth doing hard things so that you might enjoy a life of meaning. You are capable and uniquely qualified to bear the image of God. You are made, and it was a custom job, to show up in this world as a person of virtue. Fully human.

“If you don’t go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don’t deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.”

~Matthew 10:39, The Message

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7-it-is-not-the-critic-who-counts-not-the-man