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Do you stay or do you go?

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It is easy to stay in a job, a friendship, a marriage when things are good. But it isn’t always good. What do you do then? Do you stay or do you go?

There are different ways of going other than actually leaving. You can stop participating. You can “go along to get along”.

You can write out your rebuttal and then say at the end that no reply is expected, and even if there is a reply it won’t be read.

That too is leaving, that too is running away.

But how do you stay? Staying is hard. It is being willing to listen to the other person. It is being willing to engage in dialogue.

Nobody likes a fight. Nobody likes to disagree. I’ve heard some people say that they are “conflict adverse”. Of course they are. Normal people don’t seek out arguments.

But arguments happen all the time. We see things differently. We like to be right. When someone speaks their mind and it differs from your mind, what happens then?

That is “where the rubber meets the road”. That is where things get real.

Do you stay, or do you go?

In part, it depends on your investment in the situation. Can you afford to leave? How much time and energy have you put into this relationship?

It is ok to cut out. It is ok to leave. It isn’t ok to do that all the time. If you make a habit of leaving when things get hard, when things get real, then you’re making a habit of leaving.

A life filled with leaving isn’t really a life.

Stay. Stay with it when it gets hard. Stay with it, because staying with it is all that stands between you and anonymity. Stay with it because to always leave is to disappear, to dissolve.

Cemetery walls

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Why do we wall off cemeteries? Even little ones, family ones? Ones that have only ten people in them?

Perhaps we wall them off to let people know that this land is different. Is it considered holy or sacred ground? Certainly there are taboos about walking over graves. Some people will not knowingly enter a graveyard, much less walk amongst the graves.

There was a graveyard next to the college that I went to. It was a Civil War cemetery. Once I realized what it was I spent time there writing and studying. It was like a park, nicely landscaped, with pleasing trees and shade, and of course graves. It was quiet there.

When people found out I was studying there they would get a little freaked out. To me, it is safer in a cemetery than elsewhere. All the people in here can’t harm me.

Perhaps the issue is death itself that people are afraid of. People think it is catching. We have to wall off the dead people, put them in a separate area, so we won’t get what they have.

That doesn’t work of course.

So perhaps we should be more open about death, and not wall it off. Perhaps we should bury our loved ones close to us, in our back yards. Or even our front yards. Why would it matter to them? They are dead. If they are buried in the front yard then we will remember them more often.

Does this sound sacrilegious? If so, why so?

Why do we even bury the dead at all, and put them in special places? The body is a shell. The part that mattered is gone. They aren’t coming back.

Some faith traditions say that the dead will rise again. If so, they are going to have a really hard time of it. Six feet under, in a lead lined coffin, which itself is in a concrete case. And this is not even talking about the embalming process. I hope that the dead don’t rise again. They’d have a bear of a time getting on the right side of the dirt, and being worthwhile after all that, what with their internal organs having been removed and their orifices sewn shut.

Sounds terrible, doesn’t it? The more I’ve read about modern embalming practices, the more I want my body to be cremated. Efficient. Takes up less space. Not icky.

So what is best? Have cemeteries visible, regularly viewable? This would remind people that death is a reality and not something to be afraid of. The more we are mindful of our death, the more we will pay attention to life and take it seriously. We won’t waste our life on things that don’t matter.

Or should we not have cemeteries at all because the body is not needed after death? Would it be better to “recycle” the body, to return it to the earth to let it provide nourishment to a tree? It isn’t really “ashes to ashes and dust to dust” going on the way that we have it now.

The Tattoo’d lady

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I have a lot of tattoos. I don’t have one little tattoo like a flower or a butterfly on my ankle. Fully half of my left calf is inked. It is impossible to miss when I wear shorts or a short dress. Half of my right shoulder is inked too, but that is only visible when I am at water aerobics. I rarely wear short sleeve shirts, but that was true even before I got tattoos.

The most interesting thing to me is that people will often say that I don’t look like someone who has tattoos. Oddly, that is in part a reason why I have so many tattoos. Sure, I have the tattoos I have because they are meaningful to me, but I also have them because I think it is important to shake up people’s expectations.

So many people don’t really think about anything, it seems. They have their patterns and their expectations, and they are happy to live with them. When they apply “the usual” pattern to a situation or a person, they stop seeing things as they are.

They start seeing things as they think they are.

They stop seeing at all.

I have tattoos as reminders. I have tattoos as goals. They are milestones and markers, of achievements I have made, yet also of aspirations I have.

They function as a sort of Rorschach test too. If people are brave enough to ask me about them, then I ask them which one caught their eye. Then I tell them the story that goes along with that tattoo. It turns out that is the story that they need to hear that day to learn something.

I expose myself when I tell these stories. I may let people know that I am bipolar and have been in a mental hospital twice. I may let people know that God has revealed himself to me.

Are these two things connected? Perhaps.

Sometimes my tattoos create a bridge, and sometimes they create a wall. I’m ok with either. I’m ok with anything that gets people to engage, to wake up, to notice. I’m ok with anything that shakes people out of their complacency and makes them think.

Sometimes this means people are against me from the beginning, because I have marked myself as “other”. I am one of “those people”. But then they look at my smile, and how I am dressed, and where I am and they start to wonder. Their hard expectations of who I must be start to wobble a bit.

When people decide that I’m not like them because of how I am marked, it says more about them than it does about me. This too is useful for me.

In the most literal way I am “colored”. I do feel “other”, an outcast, a minority. I have chosen to highlight it rather than hide it. I have chosen to express on my outside how I feel on my inside.

I don’t show my tattoos all the time, however. There are some situations where it is important to keep a low profile. There are some situations where discretion and decorum are an advantage. But there are others where I have revealed myself to be “in” by showing my tattoos.

Small-town Southerners are generally not welcoming of tattoos. I often get open stares in rural areas, you know, the ones where everybody is the same color and a member of the same faith.

In college towns or towns where there is a diversity of cultures and views my tattoos are often admired.

So, in a way, my tattoos are also like a barometer or a thermometer. They tell me a lot about the local culture.

Handout, handbag

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I was walking downtown and saw a black man cross my path. He was a bit shabbily dressed – worn t-shirt, baggy jeans. While I’ve been taught to be wary of strangers, I’ve been taught that message applies double to black men.

Is it fair? Is it fair that I have been taught to think that a black man wants something from me? My handbag. A handout. Or something more heinous.

How much have we created the very thing we expect, by expecting it? If the only interaction white people, white women especially, are able to have with black men is an adversarial one, it is all we will have.

People need to interact with each other. It is part of what makes us human. We live in community. It is our common life that sustains us.

We may think we live independently, but we don’t. We eat food that is grown and harvested by others. We use electricity and water that is harnessed and directed to us by others.

When we allow only a small kind of interaction, and a warped kind of interaction at that, to take place between entire groups all the time, then we are short-changing individuals of their basic humanity. We are seeing them as things and not as people.

Perhaps I was taught that black men are lesser are thieves and beggars because that is what was seen as the truth by my role models. Perhaps there were far more bad examples than good examples for them.

But perhaps there were far more bad examples because that is what they were looking for. Perhaps they created this reality.

In the child rearing books that I have read, you are supposed to ignore the bad behavior and praise the good. Children, like all people, crave attention. Even if it is negative attention, it is still attention. If we focus and give energy to bad behavior, we will get more of it.

If we tell black males that we will relate to them only in terms of being thieves or thugs or transients, we will get more of it.

Time to change the script.

Sacristy

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In the faith tradition I come from there is a room known as a sacristy which is right near the main worship space. It is sometimes two different rooms. It is the room where you prepare for the worship service.

It is the name for the room where the priest puts on vestments to celebrate Mass. It is also the name for the room where the altar guild cleans and prepares the elements and the vessels for communion. These are separate rooms but they have a similar function. They are set aside to get ready for the service. These rooms are used just for these purposes and nothing else.

They are kind of like airlocks, or vestibules. They are in between places. They are thin places. They help those people (the minister or the altar guild) get ready to celebrate and encounter the divine.

How interesting that we can’t get in our heads that God is present unless we switch gears. How interesting that we have to have separate rooms for this.

Why don’t we have such rooms everywhere?

Every place is a sacristy. Every moment is divine.

Your own kitchen, bathroom and closet are all places to prepare. You are always in transition from the secular to the sacred. You are always there, and here, at the same time.

Preparing yourself for worship is as simple and as sublime as eating breakfast, taking a shower, and dressing. Starting your car to drive to your worship hall is a sacrament. Taking your coat off and hanging it on a hook is preparing to receive the gift of God’s presence.

Be here, in the moment. Your ministry has begun.

God awaits you to celebrate.

The artistic life

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I’m on vacation, and I just haven’t written as much as I normally do. I’ve taken the time to draw, which is nice. It seems to take just as long to draw as to write. I’m not sure how I’d find the time to do both.
What is more important? Isn’t it just important that I’m engaging in art? Art of any sort is healing. The ideal is to have time to write, sketch, paint, drum… But then there is a job I have to go to.
I have a few friends who essentially have said that art is more important than a job. They have made art their job. They say things like “money is evil”. While I agree that loving money isn’t great, I do like the things that money can buy, like food, shelter, and clothing.
While I don’t live large, I do like to live comfortably. I have a small house. Most of my clothes come from thrift stores. I eat well, in part because I’ve learned how to cook. While I admire the gumption of people who have decided to strike out on their own, I feel a little like they are saying that my path isn’t valid, isn’t authentic. I feel a little like a meat eater versus a vegetarian.
Their way is seen as higher evolved or more mindful. My way is seen as hedging my bets and unwilling to cut loose from the shore. My way is seen as being a slave to “the man”, whoever that is.
They wonder why their friends and relatives don’t support their choice to follow their dreams. The only problem is that “support” means “pay for”. They expect their friends and relatives to buy what they’ve made or go to their seminars. Meanwhile they mock them on social media for staying with their secure job. You know, that job where they earn money to buy their art.
If we all quit our jobs and start making art, then how are we going to pay our bills? Because who is going to come to our our seminars and concerts? Who is going to buy our books and artwork? We will all be starving artists because we won’t have an audience to buy our stuff.
I feel it is very dangerous for an artist to mock her audience, or to make them feel like suckers. If everybody could draw or write or bead or dance then why would they need to see you do it? Why would they need to pay you to do it?
We need gas station attendants. We need janitors. We need garbage truck drivers. We need them the same as we need teachers, doctors, lawyers, and diplomats. Saying that someone is less evolved, less mindful, or is just plain less because they have a “real” job and haven’t cut loose and created a non-profit or live in a commune is thoughtless and cruel, and wrong. It is wrong in the sense of “mean”, but it is also wrong in the sense of “incorrect”.
You can be creative while working for “the man”. It just takes a little figuring out. And to knock down someone else’s lifestyle choice as being less enlightened than yours is, in itself, less enlightened.

Poem – water

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The same water is in each container.
Tall, short
straight, bumpy, rippled
opaque, translucent,
they all hold water –

the water we need to live
together.

No container is better than another.

Some containers make it hard
to see
the water
but it is still there.

Perhaps if we start looking at the water
the essence, the life
the soul
if you will
and ignore the container
we’ll start
to see the humanity
and the divine
in each person.

We have to be weak to be strong.

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We are taught how to be strong, but we aren’t taught how to be human. Weakness is seen as a bad thing. Loss is glossed over.

We are lying to ourselves and to each other.

In our lies we are killing ourselves.

Sometimes the death is dramatic – A school shooting. A suicide.

Sometimes the death is slower – Fifty years stuck in a job, a marriage, a life that doesn’t fit, doesn’t feel real.

In our desperation to conform, to put on a happy face, we lie to ourselves and deny our basic humanity.

One thing I try to tell people when I visit with them in hard circumstances (a death, a divorce, a dismissal from a job) is “It is OK to say ‘This sucks.'” Invariably they take me up on it.

I think this is what we all need – permission to be honest about our feelings, which is at the core, permission to be human. We spend so long putting on a happy face that we stop knowing what our real face is anymore.

I just found out that a friend I knew from high school has killed himself. Things hadn’t been going well but nobody expected him to take his life.

A few months ago a lady told me that her teenaged stepdaughter had committed suicide. She was distraught over being dumped by a boy.

My father attempted taking his own life several times in my childhood. His grandfather was successful, if you can think of killing yourself as something to succeed at.

These losses are all holes. We are lesser because they are not with us.

I wish there was a better answer than calling the police or the shrinks when someone is suicidal. I envision an intervention, an escape, where people are retrained how to take care of themselves. Not medicine and shock therapy, but true healing. I envision a vacation, a spa for the soul.

I committed myself twice. Twice I knew that I wasn’t well and I sought help. Twice I was in a mental hospital. I didn’t learn anything useful in either one. It was only when I got out and started reading about bipolar disorder for myself that I started to get better.

I wasn’t “healed” when I left the hospital. They let you out when the insurance benefits stop.

I started to heal when I started to take care of myself, but I feel that I should have been taught some of these skills in the hospital. It is hard to look out for yourself when it is your mind that is the part that is broken.

The best medicine is self care, and prevention. I’ve learned that there is a fine line for me for how much I can deviate in my routine.

The basics? No caffeine. Limited (or no) processed sugar. Drink lots of water. Avoid all stimulants. Regular exercise. Creating, in one form or another, every day. Making time to be alone, and time to be with friends. Learning to speak my truth, and set boundaries.

Sure I take my medicine. But I need a lot less than many people because I don’t get as off balance.

When I stop doing what I know I need to do to take care of myself I feel that I “have let my flame get low”. All I have to do to build it back up is to start doing those things again.

These are the skills that mental hospitals should teach. These are the skills that all hospitals should teach.

But until they get the clue, it is time for us to teach ourselves.

Mental health is not an accident. It is a lot of work.

Bully in the library.

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I can’t stand bullies, but I often wrestle with what to say or do so that I help but I don’t become a bully in turn.

It is easy to spot a bully when he is hitting someone. It is when he is using non physical forms of aggression that are harder to spot and to deal with.

I was in a library while on vacation and overheard a woman chiding some people. She kept going on and on about how they weren’t working fast enough, that it was almost time for lunch, that they weren’t going to get done in time.

She wasn’t helping. She was actually slowing them down by her constant harangue. She not only wasn’t trying to figure out what was causing the problem, she was becoming part of the problem.

She wasn’t using her library voice either. She was annoying me, a patron.

I looked through the stacks to see what was going on. There were three people at the table, all women. The lady who was doing the talking was about 40 years old and about 250 pounds. She had a binder open in front of her with a lot of charts. The other two ladies looked like they had some developmental disabilities. One was around 60, black, and had a brace on her wrist. The other was around 20, white, and had a beautiful smile.

I took a breath in and walked up to them. I said in a cheery voice “What are you all working on today?” while looking over what was on the table in front of each of them.

I feel I have an advantage with this tactic. While it is considered rude to initiate a conversation with a stranger, I’m physically very non-threatening. I’m short. I’m female. I don’t stick out. In some ways I’m invisible.

The lady said that she was their supervisor, but didn’t tell me what they were working on. I looked and it was an activity to help the library with summer reading. They were hand writing something for each reading log. Why the words hadn’t been printed on the sheet in the first place is beyond me.

It looked a bit like busy work. It looked a bit like their time was being wasted. Everybody needs to have meaningful work to do. Nobody likes busy work.

Since they were in a time crunch, (as evidenced by the constant reminders of the supervisor), I asked her why she wasn’t helping them. She pointed at her binder with its charts and graphs and said she couldn’t.

I said “A boat goes faster if all the oars are in the water.”

The younger lady gave me a huge smile at this. I feel like both she and her companion were frustrated at this lady but couldn’t say anything to her because of the hierarchical relationship they had.

I walked away, and listened. No more harangue. No more bullying. Bullies hate witnesses. Thinking that nobody is watching is what gives them power. I just let her know that she was being observed.

Ideally, she would have been working with these ladies – not necessarily doing the work with them, but finding out ways to get them to do their best.

I have seen quite a bit of this kind of “supervisor” of people with developmental disabilities at my workplace. So many are short tempered with their clients. So many are snappish. For some reason they feel it is ok to show off how smart they are by subtly making fun of people who have cognitive impairments. They treat them like children. They treat them like dummies.

The only dummy is the supervisor.

Getting impatient with how “slow” a person with a mental disability is makes no sense. It is like getting upset at a person who is missing a leg for not being able to keep up with you. They can’t compete.

But they shouldn’t have to.

The caregiver forgets that this person is doing the best she can, and that it is really hard all the time. They forget that their client is a person, first and foremost, and deserves to be treated with respect and kindness.

Mental health isn’t an accident

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Mental health is just like physical health. If you don’t take care of it every day, you’ll get sick.

The bad part is that there isn’t an immediate symptom that something is wrong, with both things. It takes weeks or months of not taking care of yourself to fall ill. By then it is hard to pull yourself back together.

It isn’t like if you touch a hot stove and you get burned. The repercussion is quick in that instance. There is a simple one to one relationship. You learn very fast that if you don’t want that kind of pain, don’t do that kind of action.

But mental illness, like physical illness, is cumulative. It is a slow wearing away of yourself and your strength.

But it isn’t an accident. And it can be prevented.