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Yearly Archives: 2014

Cornered – physical boundaries and confrontational conversation styles.

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One of the worst things you can do is make someone feel threatened when you talk with them. It is important to be mindful of the physical space between you and another person. A safe rule is to put out your arm, fingers extended, at a 90 degree angle away from your body. Don’t stand any closer than that to a person you don’t know unless they have given you permission. If you want to make them feel even more comfortable, stand even further away.

Just because you work with someone doesn’t mean you have permission. The boundaries are even more important if you are a manager, or of the opposite gender. Physical space is the same as people’s homes. In the same way that you wouldn’t invite yourself over to someone’s home you don’t know, you shouldn’t stand right next to someone you don’t know.

Cornering is another thing to think about. You may not be close to them, but they may not be able to leave. Your conversation will go much more smoothly if you pay attention to their physical comfort. If you are mindful of their physical comfort, they will mentally feel more comfortable as well. A simple conversation can become a confrontation if someone feels physically threatened.

Consider whether they are literally up against the wall. Are they able to physically back away from where you are when you’re having a conversation? Even if they’re not up against the wall are you blocking their method of escape? They may not want to escape but if you physically block them then they will feel like they need too. If you are essentially trapping them in a room it is very threatening.

If you need to talk to a person who is sitting in a chair at a desk, be mindful of cornering them there. They are blocked on their front and back, and depending on the chair they are blocked on their sides as well. If you are within an arm’s length of them at the same time, you’ve just doubled their discomfort. If they have to look up into a light to talk to you, and at an angle, you’ve achieved the trifecta of terrible communication styles.

Having a conversation while standing up is also a bad idea. It will make the conversation more confrontational. Sit down if at all possible, and make sure you are both at eye level. Having a table between you can make the other person feel more comfortable. Be mindful though that it might establish a sense of hierarchy. If you are a manager and the conversation is at your desk, it will not be an equal conversation.

Also it is important for you to consider your body posture. Is it open or closed? Do you have your arms crossed in front of you? Do you have your legs crossed? Are you looking away from them? All of these are “closed” body postures and indicate to the listener that you aren’t listening to them. Do the opposite to let them know you are fully present.

If you want them to listen to you, then you have to make it look like you are listening to them by altering your body posture. But you have to get some sort of middle ground. It is important not to fling your arms around a lot. It is important not to open your legs up wide and scoot your pelvis towards them. Both of those are very aggressive moves. They are too open. Look for a balance and remain neutral, not too forward, not too far back.

Sobriety sucks

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I hate being sober. The lights are too bright, the music is too loud. Everything is too much, too fast, too close. I feel too much.

When I’m sober, I feel everything without a filter. Perhaps I have Asperger’s. Perhaps I have sensory processing disorder. Perhaps I’m empathic. Perhaps I’m just human. Perhaps this is normal, and I’d spent so long being altered that I don’t know what normal feels like.

Being sober means that my normal coping mechanism is gone. It was my teddy bear and my security blanket. It was my shield against the onslaught of the world. It was my go-to-thing for everything. If I was happy, I was stoned. If I was sad, I was stoned. If I was with friends, I was stoned. If I was lonely, I was stoned.

I started using it to enhance life. If food tasted good while I was sober, it tasted even better stoned. If a movie was cool sober, it was even more interesting stoned. But then it got to the point that the average everyday wasn’t good enough, and I had to be stoned to do everything. Life was vanilla, and stoned was 31 flavors. Who wants to have vanilla when you’ve had it all?

I don’t like myself sober. I’ve discovered I’m a very angry person. I don’t like being angry. I don’t think it is very ladylike.

So I write, and exercise, and do yoga, and paint, and collage, and bead, and drum. I fill my time with different ways to process my feelings, because I’ve got a lot of processing that has backed up. Instead of having the normal process of feelings go in, get dealt with, and then they go out, I shoved them deep down. I shoved feelings into myself the same way that people shove broken and unwanted things into their basement or attic or storage unit. Eventually, the reckoning time comes and you have to do the work to get all that stuff out of there so you can have room to breathe. It is like poop – if poop doesn’t get out in a timely manner, it backs up and you get sick.

I’ve been sober for four years this time. I say “this time” because I was sober for about the same time, about fourteen years ago. Sobriety, like being messed up, comes in waves. You think the high is going to last forever and it doesn’t. You think being sober is going to last forever, and it might. I’ve given it up, and walked right back. Just like a person in an abusive relationship, I keep going back until I put enough value on myself to stay away, or I find someone new. With sobriety, “finding someone new” just means finding another high – trading alcohol for cigarettes, for instance.

Being sober longer is seen as better, but in a way it is worse. You forget why you left in the first place. You forget how bad it was. You’re tempted to go back, just for a taste. Except a taste is never good enough when you are an addict. One bite becomes a bunch. Next thing you know you are right back where you were, stoned, sick, and stupid.

I don’t want to find another addiction to fill this hole. I just don’t want it to be so big, or gaping. I can feel the wind whistling through me.

The bead poem at Bead Box in Boone, NC.

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bead box

THE BEAD
alone and complete is a prayer.
A strand of beads or fringe is a reminder to pray.
The hole in the center, a negative space
is to make us aware.
It is a balance of positive and negative
that sustains our lives each day.
To know the bead
is to understand the apex of creation.
To wear the bead
is to acknowledge the gift of life.

(This poem was behind the cash register, painted as a huge mural, at a bead store in Boone, North Carolina on King Street. The store has changed hands and the mural is now gone. I’m grateful I took a picture of it when I did, so I could share it here. I do not know the author.)

Before and after

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There is a Zen saying – “Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.”

Sobriety is much the same way. After you become sober, the problems are still there, but your coping mechanism isn’t. The troubles just trouble you more. You safe cocoon that you spun around yourself is gone. You realize that you got stuck in your own web of lies and avoidances. You realize that you were cramped by that cocoon, not comforted.

But those daily things are still there, those annoyances. You’ve spent years not learning how to deal with them in a healthy way. You are at least a decade behind the curve. Even though chronologically you are an adult, you are a child when it comes to dealing with life.

It sucks. It’s hard. It makes you want to start using again. Dependency groups seem to focus on the disease, not on how to live life. They seem to glorify the illness of addiction, rather than teach new and healthy ways of dealing with everyday and extraordinary stresses.

Sometimes just getting out of bed is a stressor. Sometimes coming home is one too. Sometimes the people you used to hang out with when you used were the only friends you had – and they still use.

So how do create this new life, this life without using? Plenty of people just trade one addiction for another. A lot of ex-drinkers become smokers. I remember one year I gave up smoking pot for Lent, and ended up drinking every day instead. I know a guy whose parents were recovering alcoholics. He loudly proclaimed that drinking was evil, but then every Tuesday when they would go to AA meetings, he would get stoned at home.

Addiction is addiction is addiction.

It isn’t about being a recovering former user. It isn’t about counting the number of days you’ve been without your intoxicant of choice. It is about every day forward and what now.

Back to chopping wood and carrying water.

Sometimes the only way to learn is to just do it, painful though it is. Nobody can tell you how to best live your life. They can tell you how they did it, how they got over the hump. They can offer suggestions. But for you, you just have to do it, step by fumbling step.

Stuck again. Maybe I never left.

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I’m tired of being thankful. I’m tired of feeling like I’m stuck in the belly of the whale. I’m tired, and angry, and frustrated, and I want to quit. I want to quit it all. I want to retreat to a safe warm hole and curl up and wait until the winter of my own personal discontent passes or at least thaws. I envy bears.

I’m tired of the fact that I’ve taken all these classes to learn how to be compassionate to other people and they don’t seem to have taken the same time or effort to learn how to be compassionate towards me. Pastoral care, two series of Dialogues in Diversity, The Circle Process, and then Remo Health Rhythms drum circle facilitator – all of these are about peacemaking. All of them are about learning how to help people communicate in different ways. Even my tutoring that I do feeds into this. Yet nobody seems to take the time to learn how to communicate with me.

I feel betrayed by my job, which then leads me to remembering that I was betrayed by my church and my social group I was in, and my friends from high school. There have been too many changes in the past few years. Too many new things. Too many new rules that don’t make sense. Too many people trained and gone. Too much to keep up with. And now there is a new manager that has a communication and leadership style that I don’t know how to deal with. I can’t make sense of it. I feel lost.

My last performance review said that I was the reason the department held together for the year that we didn’t have a manager. A year, without a manager, and we were better organized than branches that had a manager. I’ve been there for 14 years, and I’ve got a pretty good idea of what we need to have done day by day to keep the place going well. I care about my job. I care, in part, because I’m there all the time it seems. This is my home in a way. I’m awake there more often than I am at my real home. I spend more time with these people than I do with the person I chose.

And that is part of the problem. I didn’t choose these people, and they didn’t choose me. We are a misfit family. We didn’t decide to be together. We learned how to work together. We learned how to adapt. And then it all changed. People moved, got transferred, died. People left, and I’m the only person in my department who was there from the very beginning. Even the upper administration is new. Everything that I knew to be true is up in the air now. Even basic rules – rules that formed the backbone of how we do our jobs – even those are up for grabs now.

I feel lost. I feel alone. I feel powerless. I feel unappreciated. I’m angry and sad and tired.

Perhaps I’ve been there too long. Perhaps I’ve grown out of it. Perhaps it is time to quit. But part of being at a place for a long time is that I’ve built up a lot of vacation time and sick time. If I start over at another place I start over at the bottom. I’ve built up a pension here. But the idea of staying another 13 years until I can retire makes me feel ill.

And after all that happened yesterday, I came home and that was the day that my hoarder husband decided to start cleaning out his room. Piles of stuff were all over the house. The mess that is my house got even worse. It was like a tornado had come to town and destroyed my job and my home.

In a way, I’ve hit rock bottom. In a way, I’ve killed myself. I asked Jesus into it, as far as I knew how. I said I can’t do this, and I need you to take over. I did this last night, trying to use the information one person has about “walk-ins”. I’m pretty sure she is talking about multiple personality disorder or possession, but I’m thinking that Jesus is a better guide than some random person from the ether like she means. I’d forgotten about this by the morning, and then both of the readings I did were about death and rebirth. So far I’ve remembered to say the prayers for everything I’m supposed to. So far I’m getting back into the groove of all the things that I can control, that make things work well. The worst thing I can do is try to deal with an unstable environment without my routine in the morning. It is the framework for my day, and thus my life.

I don’t know what to do – whether to stay or to go. I don’t know what my duties are at work anymore. So I’m waiting, and I’m open, and I’m listening. Perhaps stay in the system, but doing a different job? Perhaps stay where I am, but do more programs? I need to feel useful, that I’m not wasting my life and my skills. I need to feel that I matter, and I’m helping. I don’t just want to collect a paycheck, but make a living, a life. I’m very mindful of how short life is, and I don’t want to spend most of it doing something mindless and insignificant.

I’m tired of living this double life, where I take classes and create art, music, and writing on my own. It is like I have a second job that I don’t get paid for. It is as if I have to supplement my diet on my own because I’m not getting enough nutrition. If I was “fed” properly at my job, then I could actually enjoy my time away from it, rather than scrambling to make meaning in my off time.

Sobriety sucks sometimes.

Enlightened divorce?

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I have read about several women who divorced their husbands when they “found enlightenment”. I don’t think it is very enlightened to divorce your husband. There is something about having gotten married that means you have accepted that person as part of yourself. Remember the idea that “two become one” and “until death do us part”?

Divorce makes sense if there is abuse, but not if there is “enlightenment”.

If you find as you grow older that the person you were married to is not compatible with you it doesn’t necessarily mean you should get a divorce. You should reassess your relationship, definitely. Perhaps get marital counseling or learn how to take care of yourself better. You can establish new boundaries, if you even had any in the first place.

It is important that people learn how to be themselves within a marriage. I’ve read a Rabbi who said that sometimes for the benefit of peace some people need to get divorced. Peace is more important than anything else. And if people cannot achieve peace it is okay to separate.

I still think this is missing something. The person you married is in your life for a reason. You made a commitment before your friends and family (and for some people, God) to stay with this person forever. “Forever” doesn’t mean only when things are good.

People need to acknowledge the shadow sides of themselves. We all have dark parts about ourselves. When we are in therapy we don’t ignore those parts but we look at them and we study them. We learn how to use them in new ways. When we ignore our shadow side we are ignoring part of our selves.

Likewise, when you get married to someone you have incorporated that person into yourself. If you find that they are not strengthening you than they are now your shadow side. It doesn’t mean you get rid of it. It means that you learn what it is. You learn to work with it and through it and because of it. No, it isn’t easy, and it isn’t fun. But that is part of being an adult.

Part of being an adult is being sober, and awake, and conscious about life. Part of that is about learning to handle difficult things. Life is only beautiful and easy if you are a child. Only handling life when it is smooth sailing means that you aren’t an adult yet. So divorcing your husband because you are “enlightened” means that you aren’t.

Who is to build the Temple? Not Solomon.

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King David thought that he should build the Temple, but God told him otherwise through his prophet Nathan. God tells Nathan to tell David that the Temple, the holy House of God, will be built after David has died.

These verses are at the end of Nathan telling him to stop his plans –

1 Chronicles 17:11-14
11 And it shall come to pass, when thy days are fulfilled that thou must go to be with thy fathers, that I will set up thy seed after thee, who shall be of thy sons; and I will establish his kingdom. 12 He shall build me a house, and I will establish his throne for ever. 13 I will be his father, and he shall be my son: and I will not take my lovingkindness away from him, as I took it from him that was before thee; 14 but I will settle him in my house and in my kingdom for ever; and his throne shall be established for ever.

Note that God says God will “…set up thy seed after thee” after David has died. Clearly, this is not referring to his son Solomon, who was already alive at this time. God is talking about a descendant of David who will be born after David has died.

David seems to understand this when he talks to God a little later.

1 Chronicles 17:16-17
16 Then David the king went in, and sat before Jehovah; and he said, Who am I, O Jehovah God, and what is my house, that thou hast brought me thus far? 17 And this was a small thing in thine eyes, O God; but thou hast spoken of thy servant’s house for a great while to come, and hast regarded me according to the estate of a man of high degree, O Jehovah God.

Note David’s words in verse 17 – “…for a great while to come”. He is aware that this is in the far distant future.

Then David, like Abraham, tries to take matters into his own hands. Either he misunderstood what he seemed to understand earlier, or he just thought he’d get a head start on things.

1 Chronicles 22:6-10
6 Then he called for Solomon his son, and charged him to build a house for Jehovah, the God of Israel. 7 And David said to Solomon his son, As for me, it was in my heart to build a house unto the name of Jehovah my God. 8 But the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build a house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight. 9 Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about; for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days: 10 he shall build a house for my name; and he shall be my son, and I will be his father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever.

At no point did God tell David why he didn’t want him to build the Temple. Being a man of war wasn’t the reason he was prevented. It just wasn’t time yet. Solomon can’t be the one that God wanted to build it, because God talked about bringing forth a seed of David (a descendant of his) after David had died. Also important to realize is that at no point in the intervening chapters did David hear from God directly – it was always through a prophet, either Nathan or Gad.

David keeps telling himself this story, and it keeps being wrong. This is a little later –

1 Chronicles 28:5-7
5 And of all my sons (for Jehovah hath given me many sons), he hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of Jehovah over Israel. 6 And he said unto me, Solomon thy son, he shall build my house and my courts; for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father. 7 And I will establish his kingdom for ever, if he be constant to do my commandments and mine ordinances, as at this day.

God didn’t choose Solomon. David did. David wanted the Temple built, and he wanted to make sure it happened.

Let’s go back to the beginning.

1 Chronicles 17:4-6
4 Go and tell David my servant, Thus saith Jehovah, Thou shalt not build me a house to dwell in: 5 for I have not dwelt in a house since the day that I brought up Israel, unto this day, but have gone from tent to tent, and from one tabernacle to another. 6 In all places wherein I have walked with all Israel, spake I a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to be shepherd of my people, saying, Why have ye not built me a house of cedar?

If God wanted a house, God would have asked for one. God would have made it happen. God was happy dwelling in a tent or a tabernacle. God was happy being free and not stuck in one place.

But David wouldn’t listen, and made sure that there were plenty of materials ready. He didn’t leave it to chance, but most importantly, he didn’t leave it to God.

1 Chronicles 22:2-5
2 And David commanded to gather together the sojourners that were in the land of Israel; and he set masons to hew wrought stones to build the house of God. 3 And David prepared iron in abundance for the nails for the doors of the gates, and for the couplings; and brass in abundance without weight; 4 and cedar-trees without number: for the Sidonians and they of Tyre brought cedar-trees in abundance to David. 5 And David said, Solomon my son is young and tender, and the house that is to be builded for Jehovah must be exceeding magnificent, of fame and of glory throughout all countries: I will therefore make preparation for it. So David prepared abundantly before his death.

Interestingly, some of the materials that were used for the Temple were gotten from David waging war. In 1 Chronicles 18 we learn that David went to war against the Philistines, the Moabites, and the Syrians. From those spoils came a huge amount of brass, which Solomon used to make the brass reservoir, pillars, and vessels. So much for not wanting David to build the temple because he was a man of war!

God does what God wants in God’s time, and in God’s way. We keep acting like it is all up to us to do. We have to wait patiently, knowing that God is in charge.

(All translations of the Bible are from the American Standard Version, which is in public domain.)

Menopause and art

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Menopause is a time of shifts and changes. It is a time where you are no longer physically able to be creative. And by creative, I mean procreative – you are no longer able to produce a baby. But the energy and desire to create is still part of being human, and still needs to be used. It just needs a different outlet.

We are the physical vessels through which God is revealed and works in this world. God gives us the energy and we provide the shape. We are created to be co-Creators with God.

When you go through menopause your ability to create changes and you have to navigate these unusual waters. I like to think about how a caterpillar knows what to do when it becomes a butterfly. Who tells it how to fly? How does it know how to move with these new legs? Everything is different and strange – yet it is normal. It isn’t like it was, but it is like it should be. Perhaps we forget that menopause isn’t a disease. We are transforming into something else. It doesn’t herald the end of life but the beginning of a whole new one.

Being creative saved me and taught me. Art is what saved me when my back hurt. Even though I had to hunch over my desk in order to make my art, somehow the slipped disc in my back no longer hurt.

I found this to be true with doing art now as well. The need isn’t as immediate, but rather it is cumulative. Now, doing art in some form every day centers and focuses me. When my mind was filled with too many ideas, writing helped me slow things down enough that I could think. Painting and making collage at least twice a week has given me a way to create and express myself that don’t use words. Drumming has restored my rhythm.

It took a while to learn how to navigate with these new wings. I didn’t have a guide. Mom died long before she thought about telling me how to “do” menopause. Even if she was alive now, I doubt she’d talk about this. Somehow the reality of being in a physical body was something that she just didn’t talk about. Perhaps being a person was too personal.

Part of my learning was done the hard way. There were a lot of nights where I didn’t get enough sleep, and days where I felt I was going to melt. Hot flashes aren’t a “Western construct” as one person (younger) told me. They are a reality. They aren’t in my mind. I didn’t expect them to happen so soon – so it certainly wasn’t something that I manifested. I’ll concede that perhaps hot flashes are a result of the Western lifestyle (eat whatever you want, don’t exercise).

Some of what I did was to get up when I couldn’t sleep. I would wake, hot in body and mind. Instead of staying in bed, I decided to use that energy. I didn’t want to disturb my husband or concern him though, so I didn’t get all the way up. I moved to another room and turned on one small light. I sat on a recliner in mostly darkness and wrote in my journal or in my Kindle. Some of what I wrote became this blog. Often I’d return to bed, having “burned off” that heat – yet I’d produced something useful with it.

I also started the practice of getting ready to go to work a little earlier. I made time every morning to do something artistic – watercolor pencil drawing, painting, collage, or my new “fortunate stamps” pieces. This took just 20 minutes in the morning, but it has been enough to help me immeasurably. I really notice when I don’t make time to do it. I’m starting to think of making art as a multi-vitamin. It strengthens and protects me.

I’m using this energy I’m finding to take new classes and discover what I want to do “when I grow up”. The coasting I was doing during my middle ages has changed. I no longer want to drift through life. I am trying to play it safe and be bold at the same time, so there is some tension there. I keep taking classes in helping people communicate with each other. There is something about peacemaking and leveling the playing field all rolled up together. My tutoring is factoring into this as well.

Menopause is a chance to discover new wings. It is a time to assess priorities. It is a shift of energy. It isn’t the end – but it is a reminder that life isn’t permanent. For me, creating has been a way to feel like I’m making a difference, that my existence matters. Deep down, that is the reason behind most human activity, according to Matthew Fox in his book “Creativity”. Properly channeled, it results in greatness.

Jumping – on inclusion and exclusion

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I was at a gathering once where there was an opening ceremony that was not inclusive. It was a breath exercise that had us chanting the name of Shiva, a Hindu god.

The group was mixed, and nobody was Hindu. Some were Christian, some had no religion, and some were openly pagan. Some people were quite opposed to Christianity, having been harmed by the church as they were growing up.

After the opening exercise, we were all asked what we felt. We were asked this after all parts of the event – not just here. Several Christians said that they felt uncomfortable with this exercise, because it sounded like they were being asked to pray to Shiva. Some Christians said that they said “Alleluia” instead, and one chanted “Do Re Me”. Some did it for a few chants, but then stopped. They were uncomfortable, so they didn’t want to participate.

I was one of those people, but I didn’t say it at the time. They were saying it for me. I didn’t want the participant who shared this thing which was important to him to feel like we were jumping on him. I did want him to be sensitive to the feelings of his audience, however.

What I did was pray beforehand. I thought of different Bible verses that would apply to this situation. I thought of how Jesus says that if we are connected to Him, nothing can harm us. We can be bitten by snakes and drink poison and we will be safe. This wasn’t that dramatic, but it seemed to apply in a way. Then I was concerned about giving the wrong impression to others. The apostle Paul tells us that we can eat meat that has been consecrated to gods – that it won’t harm us. But he also says that we shouldn’t, because it might give the wrong impression to new Christians. Our actions might cause them to stumble.

I chanted along for a little, but honestly it went on a lot longer than I thought it was going to. I got tired of it and stopped. I opened my eyes to see the teacher looking at me– she thought it was going on too long too.

We had a break immediately after our discussion and the lady sitting next to me stood up and started jumping up and down vigorously and shaking her hands and wrists. She looked a little manic. After a minute of this, I asked her what she was doing and she said that she was shaking it off. She was “so upset” by that discussion, and that it represents her “life’s work”. I got the impression that she thought the Christians were closed minded. She had said earlier that she participated in something called “Dances of Universal Peace”. Right then her “dance” looked like she was ready to jump off a cliff.

I am now very glad that I didn’t say anything before so I could see this happen.

Later we had a time where we were singing wordless sounds. We were given a few open chords, and we started adding in our own sounds – some drum, some shaker, some intoning. Eventually it all became the sound of “Alleluia” over and over. After that, we discussed it again. Several non-Christians said that they felt very uncomfortable with it. One even thought about leaving.

It seemed like an interesting counter to the opening. Now the other half of the room felt awkward. I didn’t notice any Christians jumping up and down, shaking off how angry they were at the non-Christians. Later, at lunch, I happened to sit with several Christians and we talked about

There seems to be an interesting dynamic happening these days. Christians are expected to be considerate of non-Christians feelings, but non-Christians aren’t expected to do the same.

I recall how I created a Thanksgiving dinner prayer that was inclusive and considered the feelings of relatives who were openly against Christianity. They don’t have a faith tradition – they have a visceral reaction against Christianity. The prayer didn’t mention Jesus or God at all, but did give thanks. I took quite a bit of time to make something that would work for both sides. Meanwhile, at all other gatherings, they don’t think about the fact that the Christians feel obliged to pray before a meal. I feel that to eat a meal without giving thanks for it is to act like a dog – just lunging in and devouring food. A compromise would be a moment of silence beforehand, where the non-Christians don’t have to hear a prayer, but the Christians can say one quietly to themselves. They don’t consider this.

I feel like this is happening more and more in our society.

Sure, plenty of Christians have been thoughtless. They have been pushy and aggressive. They have given people judgment and condemnation rather than love and service. They have not been Christ-like. We have had to soften our approach, certainly. But we also have to meet in the middle.

I’m OK with someone not being Christian, but I expect the same courtesy from them. If I’m OK with you living like you want to, I need you to also be OK with me living like I want to. I don’t need everybody in the room to pray to God, but I do need everybody to understand that I am going to. I don’t expect them to pray along with me. I’ll try to do it in a way that they don’t have to hear it. But if I have to participate in their belief system, then why do I have to be silent about my own?

In our desire to make a more inclusive society, we have to include everybody.

The center where we were meeting was a treatment center for addictions. It had elements from many faiths there – Buddhist and Native American being the most prominent. There were Tibetan bells, yoga mats, sage smudge sticks, and carved masks. There were books on mindfulness from Asian religions. There was only one thing that referred to Christianity, and it was a small painting of Mary. It was high up above the lintel of a door, and it was around a corner. There were things there that represented the wisdom traditions of the world – but with one prominent exception.

So much for equality.

Most of the people who were going to be coming to this center normally weren’t going to be members of those wisdom traditions – they were going to be middle-class white people from America. They were going to be surrounded by images of peace from cultures they aren’t part of. Meanwhile, their own culture wasn’t represented, out of a desire to not offend. Something seems odd about this.

I believe that we can share. I believe that we can all participate together. I believe that we can all get along. I believe that for one group to dominate the conversation is to change it from a conversation into a monologue. Yes – Christians have dominated the conversation for a long time. But the answer to that isn’t to silence the Christians and raise the voice of the non-believers.

We aren’t equal unless we all are equal. This applies to everything – belief, gender, race – everything.

Re-verse

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I have to re-verse my book. I’m not making it go backwards. I have to take out all the Bible versions in the translation I have, and change them to another translation. This is the third time I’ve had to do this. Not every chapter in my book has Bible verses, but enough do that this is a real task.

I started off using the Holman Christian Standard Bible translation. I find it very easy to read and understand. The words don’t get in the way. I started using it because I’d gotten a free version of the Bible in that translation at the time I had committed to reading the Bible the whole way through. When I was writing my blog, it was easy to copy from this translation online because it was the same as what I was reading. The website “Bible Gateway” made doing this very simple.

Then I started thinking about publishing my blog as a book. I also started thinking about copyright and permissions. The Bible is old enough that it is in public domain – but not all translations are. The HCSB is new enough that I’d need permission to use its translation if I’m going to make money off of it. I’d probably also have to give them some royalties too.

I wanted to avoid all of that mess, so I did a little more research and found a website that said if the translation is older than 25 years, then you can use it with no problem. One option is the Revised Standard Version. It is fairly readable, even though there are a few examples of “thy” and “saveth” going on. I had to entirely re-write one post to make it fit this translation.

That was the least of my troubles, though. My book as it was assembled was 76K words. That is 76K words I had to wade through, find all the Bible verses and switch them out from HCSB to RSV. That took a long time. That was really boring. I wanted to quit the whole idea of publishing and move on to something else. There were more posts to write. I couldn’t be bogged down in re-versing this whole book. I doubt I’m even going to make money off this thing. Why am I spending so much time on it?

I had to really fight with myself over this. I decided that even doing a little a day was better than doing nothing. It wasn’t going to do itself. Every day I’d work on re-versing one post. Some days I could fix two or three. Meanwhile, I was still writing a new post every day. This is in addition to running a household and working a full-time job.

Finally I was done. I started looking around for help in formatting. I have a friend who has self-published books and I thought I could hire her. She told me that she’s gone out of the book business, so she gave me the name and contact information of someone she worked with. I dislike contacting new people, but I finally worked up the courage. Turns out she too was unavailable, so she gave me the number and contact information for yet another person. By this point I wanted to do it all on my own or give up, again. But I pushed on.

His price was too high. I couldn’t get how I should be expected to give a stranger $500 to make my book look pretty on the inside. I had done all the work putting it together – he was just going to polish it. He didn’t even have to edit it. He wasn’t going to touch the words – just tweak the margins and put page numbers and headers in. I shopped around for other people who provide this service and found similar amounts. I even edited out 10K words of it to reduce the cost. I figured I could publish those chapters later in a second book, depending on how well this one does.

Remember that I still don’t think I’m going to make money on this. I still don’t have any spare time to do all of this. I’m shoehorning all of this into everything else I have to do to pay the bills.

Then I hit another snag. I found out that the RSV translation is fine to quote from only under specific circumstances. I was looking up the exact wording on how to cite my use of it, and the citation said “Used by permission”. It turns out that permission is automatically granted up to 500 verses. After that, you have to contact the copyright holder and get written permission. That is The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. I looked up their contact information and emailed them. I still have not heard a response, and it has been a week.

I am not going to take the time to count how many verses I have used, but I’m certain it is over 500. Time is slipping by. I’d like to publish this by Christmas.

Sure, in a way, it is already published. It still exists on my Betsy Beadhead blog. I created a second blog called “The Empty Cross Community” in order to put it together in a logical order. The words are out there. People are reading it and commenting on it. Two posts have been published in the Huffington Post. But it isn’t the same. It isn’t a real, physical book. I want that. Maybe some of that comes from having grown up in libraries. Maybe some of that comes from having an English degree. Books are special. Sure, the words are special – but there is something about having an actual printed book with real pages to turn that is satisfying and substantial.

Even the title was up in the air. I’d thought about using “The Empty Cross Community” for it, but found that there is a sculpture of a cross called “The Empty Cross”. There is a “trademark” symbol after that name. I wrote the group that is connected to the sculpture to ask for permission to use the name and didn’t hear back. This was yet another thing that blocked my forward progress. I’ve since contacted them again and found that they have the trademark on their design for the cross, but not the name. They can’t trademark the name (they tried) because it is not unique. I’m free to use it for my book title if I want, but by now I’ve committed to using another name. It is “Leaving Church, Finding Jesus”.

Meanwhile, I’ve started re-versing this book once again. I’ve saved it as a separate file, just in case the copyright holder gets back to me. Once again I’m grateful for the Bible Gateway website for making this a not-so-painful process of copying and pasting. There are a lot more examples of “thy” and “-th” at the end of verbs in the American Standard Version. There is nothing I can do about it. I’m using this version because it was put out in 1901 and is most certainly in the public domain. Anybody can use it for anything, with no restrictions on the amount of verses used.

Sometimes I feel like I’m in the story of Balaam with his donkey. Is there something in the way that is preventing me from moving forward that I can’t see? In that case an angel stood in his way and only the donkey could see it. He beat the donkey but it refused to budge, keeping him alive. Or is this entire ordeal like the struggle of Jacob wrestling with the angel all night long? He got blessed in the morning because he didn’t give up.

Maybe it is a little of both.