“Be perfect…”

Posted on September 27, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

The word “perfect” in Greek is “teleios”, which is phonetically spelled (tel’-i-os). According to Strong’s Concordance it means “(a) complete in all its parts, (b) full grown, of full age”, in the sense of having reached its end, complete, mature, and adult.

I was at a meeting at a friend’s house and a lady brought forth the concept that the word is related to “telescope”. She understood for this word to mean that “perfect” isn’t an end, but a continuum. With her idea, the seed, the sapling, and the tree are all the same. They are perfect. She related it to when Jesus says in Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Jesus says this at the end of the section with the Beatitudes, and where he tells us to be kind to everybody, not just the nice people.

Now, her translation of the word isn’t accurate as far as I can determine, but I still like the idea, so I’m going to go with it. I think her understanding of it is far more helpful when we are trying to have patience with ourselves.

With her translation, Jesus isn’t talking about perfect in the way we think of the word perfect. How can we possibly be perfect like God is perfect? That is impossible. That is completely against human nature. We are fallible. We make mistakes. Making mistakes is part of the package deal for mortality.

God sees us on a continuum. We are not stopped in time with God. We are past and future and present all at the same time. Remember, God is the alpha and omega all at once. God is, was, and shall be.

There is a book called “Trout are Made of Trees”. It is a children’s biology book. The concept is that trees rot and fall into the water. Bugs eat the rotted trees. Trout eat the bugs. Thus, trout are made of trees. Subsequently, if we eat the trout, we are eating the bugs that ate the trees, so we too are made of trees (and bugs, and trout…) There is no beginning or end.

Thich Nhat Hahn says in “Living Buddha, Living Christ” that when we look at a flower, we are actually looking at time. We are looking at all the time it took for it to develop, and all the elements required to create it. We are looking at the sun and the rain that it took to grow the flower. It is simply those elements combining in that way at that moment that we name “flower”.

It isn’t a flower, really. It is elements, and time, and our perception.

We humans only see things as they are right now. How amazing it would be to see past and future at the same time, but I suspect it would be overwhelming. I just don’t think we are wired that way. I think it would short out our fuses. It is like trying to run a 110 appliance on a 220 outlet. It just can’t handle that input.

How much of that limitation is physical and how much of that is societal? How much of that is because that is how we are taught to see? We can imagine, however. Our Zen friends try to see this way. They slow time by meditating and by intensely focusing on the moment right in front of them.

We are perfect. We are made up of all that has come before us, and all that we will ever be. Where we are now is perfect. Who we are now is perfect. It may not seem like it, but try to see it with God’s perspective.

God knows our past and still loves us. God knows our future. God is in charge, and God is perfect. The prophet Jeremiah tells us “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

We are who we are today because of our struggles. We will be who we are tomorrow and a year from now because of what we overcame today.

Be perfect, knowing that you already are.

Fear and ignorance could have killed me.

Posted on September 26, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I can’t let other people’s fear keep me from taking care of my health.

I didn’t get a mammogram for years because everybody told me how painful it was. Friends and comedians would joke that getting a mammogram was like slamming your breast in the freezer door, or putting it in a vise. Who would want to do that?

I didn’t go to a gynecologist because my mother never impressed on me that I should. She never went as far as I knew, once she had stopped having children. She thought that sex was dirty. Sex was something you did once a week as a duty to your husband. So she certainly didn’t teach me how to keep my female parts healthy.

Also, friends talked about how uncomfortable it was to go to the gynecologist. Awkward, unpleasant, strange – they really weren’t selling it as something I should do. They always talked about going for a checkup as a chore, kind of like how my Mom talked about sex. One even said she’d rather have a root canal than go to the gynecologist. Either she has a great dentist or a terrible gynecologist.

Then three years ago I read “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” and I realized that a woman in her 30s could die of cervical cancer. For some reason I thought that was an older woman’s disease. So I went for my first checkup in 20 years. I found that I had moderate to severe cervical dysphasia. Not cancer, but cancer’s next door neighbor. I had surgery to get it removed. If I had waited, I’d be dead by now from something totally preventable.

Fear and ignorance could have killed me.

Now I’m going to a chiropractor. My friends are now saying what they’ve always said about chiropractors. They are quacks. They insist you come a lot and they don’t promise anything. They heard of somebody who got paralyzed by one. But if I’d gone to a regular doctor for my slipped disc a week ago I would have been given pain pills and muscle relaxers. I still would have had a slipped disc. I just wouldn’t have cared.

I’m sure there are true stories of chiropractors who have accidentally harmed patients. But how many regular doctors have perfect records? There is a reason medical malpractice insurance is expensive. Nobody is perfect.

My chiropractor has a good point. We get our teeth checked twice a year, and if one of them goes bad we can get a replacement. We can’t replace our spine, yet we never check it.

Sure, I’m not happy about having to go several times a week, but it isn’t forever. It is just for a few months, then it won’t be that often. Plus, it feels amazing.

I like to think of my back as like a bonsai tree. Change can’t happen overnight. When I had braces it took 4 years to get my teeth straight. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and my back won’t be healed overnight.

Meanwhile I’m going to try to unlearn a whole lot of nonsense that I was taught, and try not to spread any more of it around.

“What you focus on expands”

Posted on September 21, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I don’t have children. I read a lot of child-rearing books though. Whether someone is three or thirty, the same rules apply. Often you can learn about how to deal with adults by reading books about how to deal with children. Sometimes adults are simply children in bigger bodies. Getting older doesn’t always mean getting wiser.

I know a lady who insists that dog-training books are useful for learning how to deal with husbands. I know I’ve certainly learned a lot about customer service by watching “the Dog Whisperer.”

Either way, energy is energy. It is all about how you direct it and how you spend it. It has nothing to do with changing the other person. It has everything to do with changing yourself. If you present positive energy, you’ll get positive energy back. If you expect trouble, you’ll find it. So change yourself first.

The basic message that I’ve gotten from these sources is that any attention is better than no attention. So if you ignore your child (or dog, or coworker, or customer) when he is behaving correctly, and yell at him when he is misbehaving, he will keep misbehaving. Ignore the bad behavior, and praise the good.

Ignore what you don’t want. Don’t give it any energy.

People want energy, and they will take it any way they can. Even if it is negative, it is better than nothing.

Workplaces do their employees a huge disservice when they only communicate with their employees when they have made a mistake. It is far healthier to praise them for doing something right.

I have had several bosses who never got this. Their opinion was that you should know when you were doing right. You should know how to do your job, and take pride in it. They only talk to their employees when they messed up.

To them, they messed up a lot.

There is a lot to be said for praise. There is a lot to be said for letting people know that they are doing well. We all need to hear when we have done well.

Now, does this apply to everything? Can we take this and apply it to all things –not just people? Can we apply it to pain, and loss, and hurt? Can we apply it to physical as well as emotional pain?

Maybe. I’m working on it.

It seems like focusing on the good is always a good idea. Oprah says “What you focus on expands.” This seems very useful. You just have to be mindful of what you focus on – what you give attention to.

I’m reminded of the phrase “You’ll either find a way, or you’ll find an excuse.” It is your choice.

“Clean your plate!”

Posted on September 19, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I’m having to retrain myself how to eat. I was taught to “clean my plate” so I often would end up overeating and being miserable. I would also eat fast to make sure I’d eat everything on my lunch break. I’d get the signal that my stomach was full way past the point that I should have stopped.

My trick has been to take whatever it is and cut it in half. I’ll half a frozen dinner after I cooked it and put it in the fridge for tomorrow’s lunch. Then I’ll eat slowly, chewing each bite well. I aim for 20 chews for each mouthful. I’ve heard with macrobiotics you should aim for 100, but that seems excessive. 20 chews is still far better than the grab and gulp mentality of the way I and many other people usually eat.

I try to get less at buffets. Just because it is all you can eat doesn’t mean it is all you should eat. Sure, you’ve paid for as much as you can eat. But there is a hidden cost. If you eat 4 plates of food, you are going to gain a lot of weight.

For some people who are trying to be mindful about their weight, buffets are impossible. They are too much temptation. I like going because there is a lot of variety and a lot of vegetables.

I try to eat slowly at buffets, but it is harder because I haven’t halved my food. When I notice that I’m looking at my plate and thinking that there is still a lot of food left that I have to finish, I take note that I’ve gotten too much and try to get less next time. I’ve also noticed that when I push back from my plate, I’m full. I find I do this unconsciously. I’m trying to notice this sign from my body as a clue it is time to quit.

I’ve heard it takes 20 minutes after you are full for your brain to realize that. In twenty minutes you can shovel a lot more in. Then you’ll feel terrible. But by cutting the food in half the and eating slowly you have a good chance of getting the signal in time. Also, it doesn’t matter if you “feel full” yet or not. You know you have just eaten a whole meal, so quit.

This all takes a lot of unlearning to do, because we have been taught badly.

Finished. Are we there yet?

Posted on September 19, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

People want wine but they don’t want to harvest the grapes.

People want to be a best-selling author but they don’t want to take the time to write.

People want to be a famous artist but they don’t even want to doodle.

People want to be healthy and slim but they don’t want to go to the gym.

Everything worth having requires work.

Everything worth doing is worth doing well.

Nothing is easy at the beginning. Nothing is beautiful at the start.

Even Mozart wrote some bad songs.
Even Shakespeare wrote some lame plays.

They won’t all be winners.

But keep going. Keep trying.

Every day, work.
Every day, walk
toward your goal.

Have patience in the process.
For it is from humble beginnings
and great effort
That “overnight success” awakens.

On prayer – dialing in God.

Posted on September 18, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I find it heartening that the most popular topics that people are searching for that find my blog are about prayer. How to pray, prayer bracelets, and the power of group prayer are all read weekly. All other the stuff I’ve written sits quietly while these topics keep being looked at. People are also looking up how to recognize the signs of the Holy Spirit.

What is the interest? Why are people searching the internet for information on these things? Why aren’t they finding the answers from their faith community?

Perhaps they are like me. Perhaps they have felt mislead by their faith community and they are searching on their own. Perhaps they are waking up to the idea that we all need to take ownership of our lives, and after-lives. We are all waking up to taking care of ourselves, body mind and spirit. It is as if the “occupy” movement has shaken everything up and made us aware that we need to do things for ourselves. It has spread from being engaged with politics to education to healthcare to nutrition to religion. People are waking up and asking questions, rather than being spoon-fed.

So, prayer. What is it? Why pray?

Prayer is communicating with God. It is communion in the truest sense. It is connection. It is erasing the line between us and God. In reality there is no line, there is no separation. God is always with us. We just don’t know how to listen. We don’t know how to connect. We get distracted.

Learning how to pray is like tuning in a radio. For the longest time we stay on one channel. Then we hear about another channel, one that has useful information. The one we were listening to is full of pop tunes and negative news. We don’t learn anything from it, and we feel a little uneasy all the time.

We are either distracted or dissatisfied listening to that channel.

Then we hear about another channel and we try to dial it in. We’ve forgotten the call numbers. We wander around, spinning the dial. We hear that it has a positive take on things, that it isn’t all about war and violence and heartache. It is about how to live through all that and how to be helpful. The message is one of love, and a love so big that it can’t be written about in a greeting card.

Some people are suspicious about this station. Our society seems to think that people who are happy and who smile all the time just don’t get the big picture. They just don’t understand everything that is going on. They have their heads in the sand, so of course they are happy. They don’t know any better.

But it isn’t that at all. They do know what is going on. But they refuse to fill themselves with poison. It is like the difference between someone who eats well and someone who eats junk food. The person who eats well has vitality and energy, and the person who eats junk food feels lethargic and cranky. But if you tell the junk-food eater that he’ll feel better if he quits drinking soda and quits eating high-fat, high-salt food, he’ll start getting suspicious.

Many people would rather stay miserable, because it is what they know.

I mentioned to one friend that I was looking into other faith traditions, specifically the Baha’i community. He got very concerned and said that he didn’t think that was a good idea. He’d seen a cable access show that was Baha’i and they all seemed “so happy” that he thought something was up.

Yeah. That’s a reason to not check them out. Let’s stick with the miserable people.

Right now, I’m supplementing my need for church with a bunch of different things. I go on retreats. I’m part of a quarterly circle where people share their views on deep topics like forgiveness. I’m part of a group that is dedicated to compassion. I read scriptures daily. I listen to a Jewish podcast.

I don’t feel qualified to tell people how to pray. I think there are as many paths to God through prayer as there are people. I think the biggest thing I can tell you is that God wants to hear from you and wants to connect with you, and that however you do it is good.

Prayer doesn’t have to be about sitting and reciting words from a prayer book. It can be anything that gets you there. God is the destination, and prayer is the vehicle. It doesn’t matter if you take a car or a boat or a plane or you walk – you’ll still get there. Some ways may take longer, and some ways may be easier. It doesn’t matter. Just get going. The going-towards is what matters. God will make up the difference in distance.

I’ve written previously about various different ways to pray, so I’m not going to replicate that here. I’m trying not to duplicate myself, but that it hard sometimes. Sometimes I have a topic so big I try to open it from a bunch of different angles. I write a lot about Communion, and how church should be open to everybody.

Perhaps what I’m trying to do here is exactly the same thing. Prayer is for everybody, and there is no one right way to do it. But why pray? What is the point?

This is hard for me to explain. To me, this is like a fish trying to tell you the value of swimming. Prayer is essential for me. The more I do it, the more balanced and connected I feel. And I don’t mean just connected with God, but connected with everything and everyone.

Because God is everything. Everything came from God, and everything is part of God. No – I don’t worship God as a rock or a tree or a mountain. That is a whole different religion.

Prayer can be as simple and as essential as stopping for a moment, as often as possible, to “check in” with God. It is an inward look, a pause. It is taking a breath in and turning away from the everyday minutia of life and reflecting on the eternal.

Tuning in that radio channel isn’t easy. There is a lot of static. But the more you try, the better you’ll get. And just like in the story of the prodigal son, when you start walking towards God, God will start running towards you.

I don’t think I’ve told you anything about why or how to pray in this post. Sometimes blog posts are like prayer. They don’t seem like they stayed on topic. They don’t seem like they got anywhere. But prayer and writing and physical exercise are all the same. It is the effort that matters. We won’t be perfect every time. We won’t get it right. Sometimes we do it in fits and starts. But keep on. Keep on trying and stretching and growing. That is what matters.

Keep on reaching towards the light, little seed, and eventually you’ll see the light.

Grieving the parents that never were. On death, and healing when your experience doesn’t match up with the self-help books.

Posted on September 16, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

So many self-help books tell you how to deal with your parent’s death if it was a good relationship. What if it wasn’t good? What if it was terrible?

If your parents were less than ideal, you aren’t alone. Parents are people, and people aren’t perfect. But when a self-help book assumes you are sad and distraught because your “pillar of the family” of “chief cheerleader” dies, you may be feeling even more lost. Your feelings don’t match up with what it says in the book.

Sometimes your grief comes from the fact that you are now doubly missing a parent. The person who gave birth to you is now no longer physically present, while they never were emotionally present. When an emotionally distant or abusive parent dies there is no longer any hope of having a healthy relationship with her or him. All bets are off, all chances are over.

Some books say that you can create a healthy relationship with the person even after the person has died, but this honestly makes no sense. It takes two to have a conversation and work on a relationship. The only thing left to fix is yourself and your understanding of the relationship. Do you let this bad start stop you from going any further? Or do you learn from it and go on?

There are a lot of conflicting emotions when your parents die, and it is made even worse when the self-help books make it worse by making you feel like something is wrong. Worse, it is not only that something is wrong, but something is wrong with you in particular. It is like opening up an instruction manual on how to put together a piece of furniture and the box is missing the bag of nuts and bolts. You don’t have everything necessary to make it work. The instruction booklet assumes you do. The booklet plunges right in, assuming you have all the parts. You read along, trying to make it work, trying to learn how to heal this rift, this grief, all the meantime you didn’t start out on the same ground that it assumes you did. When you get to the end, the picture of the finished product looks nothing like your result.

It can’t. You are missing some important parts that hold things together.

I’m not sure how to tell you how to find those nuts and bolts. I’m just trying to honor where you are coming from, because it is where I am coming from. I think a lot of us had less than ideal relationships with our parents.

I think it is totally normal to be sad that your parents died because now you will never have them as the kind of parents you need. That relationship has ended. They weren’t there for you, and now they never will be.

I also think it is totally normal to be relieved that your parents have died if the household was abusive. I know that there is a sense of guilt for feeling this. I think that is because society assumes you should be sad, when really you can’t be sad. I think to be sad that you are free of an unhealthy relationship is insane.

I think it is healthy to feel however you feel you need to feel, without regard to what people think you should feel. It think it is very healthy to get these feelings out – don’t bottle them in, and don’t deny them. If you stuff them down they will come out in ugly ways later. Trust me on this.

There are a few ways I’ve learned to deal with these feelings. Pick a couple. Try them out. If it doesn’t work, try something else. This is by no means an all-encompassing list.

Talk to a therapist or a counselor or a faith leader or a compassionate friend. Go for a walk or a run. Punch a pillow. Cry, sing, wail. Jump up and down. Dance. Journal – write it out. It doesn’t matter if you are good writer or not – you don’t even have to use sentences. Create – use non-word activities to get it out. Sometimes words fail us. Draw, paint, garden, make jewelry – anything where you can get your feelings out.

Most importantly, have patience with yourself. This work of grief, especially grief concerning a broken relationship, is hard, and it takes a long time. Know that what you are going through is normal. You aren’t alone. It is hard work, and it is important work.

What the books don’t tell you is that this isn’t the end. Just because your biological parent wasn’t up to snuff doesn’t mean you can’t find new role models. You can have second third and fourth parents. You get to pick your parents this way.

You can have one friend teach you how to cook. Another can teach you how to sew. Another can teach you everything you want to know about fly fishing. You can take a class too, or read a book, or watch a video. You aren’t stuck with just one set of parents. There are hundreds of people who are able and happy to teach you whatever skills you need to know.

Mary holding Jesus.

Posted on September 15, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

We often see Mary holding Jesus. She is either holding him as an infant or holding him as he came off the cross.

It had to be hard to be Mary.

I cannot imagine her anguish holding Jesus after his crucifixion. So much injustice. So unfair. His life did not warrant death. In the image of the Pieta, all looks lost. His ministry seems over. All that work, all those followers, and now nothing. Jesus is dead, his disciples have scattered. Nobody wants to be associated with him because that would mean death for them too.

This is us. This is us, in the middle of the story, in the middle of the night. This is us, not knowing what is going to happen next. When all looks lost, when everything is dark, when nothing makes sense, we aren’t alone.

We know the end of that story. Jesus rise from the dead. Jesus rose and continues to live. He lives on, alive, continuing to heal and teach, through us, his Body, his Church. And because he rose, we know that he will work through this story too.

When we can’t see what is next, call on Jesus. When we don’t know where to go, call on Jesus. When we don’t know what to do, call on Jesus.

Perhaps that time when all seems lost is a time to wait. There were three days in the tomb. There were forty days in the desert. It can’t all be go go go.

Waiting can be holy time.

There is a lot of time between seed and flower. There is a lot of time between grape and wine. Jesus is there in those times too.

(Written 9-14-13, 11:45 a.m, about 16 hours into a 26 hour silent retreat. I’d wandered around before bed the night before and sat for a while before a statue of the Pieta.)

Intention – goals, Alice, and English roundabouts.

Posted on September 11, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

At the beginning of some yoga classes the teacher will invite you to set an intention. This is a prayer, or a hope, or a goal. It is a focus point. It is a way of aiming yourself in the right direction.

I offer you this insight from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don’t much care where…
The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.
Alice: …so long as I get somewhere.
The Cheshire Cat: Oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.

So you need to set an intention, otherwise you’ll end up just anywhere. You’ll wander off aimlessly and end up years later wondering how you got there. You got there because you drifted along with the stream.

Sometimes it isn’t planning to fail, but failing to plan that is the problem.

This is true mentally and physically. Where do you want to go? Do you have a business plan? Do you have a career plan? Do you have a spiritual plan? This isn’t about the “name it and claim it” trend – it is about being awake and intentional about life. I don’t believe in “wish-craft”. I do believe that everything worth having in life is made up of little tiny steps. You have to have a plan, and you have to work towards that.

Neil Gaiman in his “Make Good Art” book said that when he first started out he envisioned where he wanted to be as a mountain. He’d look at whatever job was offered him and measure it up as to whether it moved him closer to the mountain or further away. This seems like a good idea. Does this little thing get me closer to where I want to be?

Life is cumulative. A college degree is made up of many classes and many tests. It didn’t happen overnight. It took a lot of little steps, going towards a goal. Everything built on top of everything. If you took a class and read a book and attended a lecture on your own with no goal in mind, you might learn something but it wouldn’t add up to anything specific. You will have frittered away your time, aimlessly wandering. You’d end up nowhere, lost.

This reminds me of when I was on a trip in England with my aunt. She was driving and I was navigating. I’d give directions as to what leg of the roundabout to take and she’d sometimes pay attention. She’d take the third leg instead of the fourth and we’d be hurtling down, getting further and further away from where we wanted to be. English roundabouts aren’t like American interstates. If you get off on the wrong one you can’t turn around and right yourself anytime soon. You’ll be at least thirty minutes away down the wrong road before you get to another roundabout where you can reorient yourself. She could have stayed in the roundabout, going around again to aim at the correct leg, but she didn’t. This happened a lot.

After several days of this I relinquished my role as navigatrix. Why bother telling her where to go when she was going to ignore me anyway?

So, my point is to aim. Plan ahead. Have some idea of where you want to go, because either you’ll stay stuck where you are, or you’ll end up really far away from your goal. What do you want to be doing ten years from now? How are you going to get there? Sometimes it takes baby steps in that direction. Just keep aiming that way, keep walking.

And don’t get in a car with my aunt.