Clean Your Side of the Street

I woke up this morning thinking on this and knowing-- it's time. I've put this off for nearly an entire month now but my Higher Power is no longer interested in excuses, it's time for honesty. It is time to clean my side of the street. For the past few years I have developed the ritual of using the New Year as a time to do some inner housekeeping. It is my time to look back on the previous year and take an inventory of my contributions both good and bad to the disasters and successes of that year. I have learned it is especially important for me to find my part in the areas where I was hurt by others.

As readers of my blog know, my Higher Power is God, and I find lots of simple and valuable instruction in the Bible to help me with this process. Psalm 51, verses 1-3 say, "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me." For all other recovering Baptists, Methodists, or Catholics who feel an inner wall of defense rise at any Bible verse with the word SIN, allow me the space to translate into palatable terms. What this verse is saying to me: "God, I am willing to get honest and KNOW my mistakes. Here they are for you. It's been littering my side of the street and the job of cleaning it is just too much for me! I've been told you make this powerful cleaning solution that takes out any stain and that you've done some great work on other street corners, so would you mind stopping by today for a little cleaning session with me? Thanks!"

It is really that simple! Well, not really. The easy part is that God does the cleaning, the hard part is getting honest about each and every piece of junk lying out there on my sidewalk. This is my springboard for honesty and please do not be alarmed if this seems a bit much for the Honesty Beginners. I think of the instances when I was most hurt and angered by other people in the last year. Generally, I have already listed a lengthy and detailed inventory of every piece of garbage on THEIR side of the street. Now I take an honest look at my own part in that situation. How did I contribute? How might I have been particularly vulnerable to that type of situation happening to me? Did I make it worse? Was I quick to judge and slow to offer solution or personal change? Do I harbor resentment for what he/she did? Did I retaliate and make things worse? How did I enable that person to continue that kind of behavior toward me? How is my failing to take responsibiliy maintaining an unhealthy pattern? Ouch, ouch, and ouch.

There are several reasons why this arduous process is necessary. First of all, completing this makes me happy. Psalm 51 goes on to say, "wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice." Having a clean conscience feels so good. Secondly, cleaning my side of the street renews my energy to begin other important tasks, "Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me."

"THEN I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will turn back to you," explains Psalm 51:13. Translation: "after you get honest about yourself and ask God to clean you up, you will become a happy, peaceable person. You will become productive and willing to participate daily in honesty." When you live this way, other people in your life almost have no choice but to change with you. They are not put on the defensive by your assaults or criticisms, because you are keeping the focus on yourself. They see you happy and productive and begin to want that for themselves.

For anyone trying to figure out a way to bypass this process, let me save you some time, you just can't do it. Trust me, if anybody could have solved her own problems on her own with the right books, the right friends, and taking the class-- it would have been me. Your Higher Power alone is able to do for you what you cannot do for yourself and that is heal you of your own weaknesses. "You do not delight in sacrfice, or I would bring it: you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." Psalm 51:16,17

So, I have a little time set aside today to go through the junk on my street. I am prepared that it is probably even worse than it looks from up here in my ivory tower, but I am not overwhelmed. I have a Higher Power who has been just waiting for the day when I would ask for some help in cleaning this. I've been told He has some great plans for what we can do with my little street corner.

Photo found here: http://thanhdad.deviantart.com/art/There-are-the-roads-50660601

January 20, 2009

We love you
Sweet Beautiful Brown Man
Our President
with cheeks smooth and strong
as sliced maple
eyes kind as
the baby seal's first
loving glance at Mama,
we love you.
You are Ours
Our Pride and
Joy, Our American Son,
Beloved Child of God.
Bless you today, simple
fallible man,
nothing more than another pedestrian
on the street, nothing
less than a legacy received
in two open palms.

So, dance, dance,
dance tonight with your wife, receive
her arms around you, her words inside
you. Dance
for us until first morning light creeps
across Pennsylvania Avenue
till the last forks tinkle into
bus pans, till the last stars fade
softly one by one into infinite night.
Dance tonight
for us
Our President.

Eulogy for the Martyred Children - Martin Luther King, Jr. - 1963

Now I say to you in conclusion,
life is hard,
at times as hard as crucible steel.
It has its bleak and difficult moments.
Like the ever-flowing waters of the river,
life has its moments of drought and its moments of flood.
Like the ever-changing cycle of the seasons,
life has the soothing warmth of its summers
and the piercing chill of its winters.
But if one will hold on,
he will discover that God walks with him,
and that God is able to lift you from the fatigue of despair
to the buoyancy of hope
and transform dark and desolate valleys
into sunlit paths of inner peace.

Pray for Peace

by Ellen Bass

Pray to whoever you kneel down to:

Jesus nailed to his wooden or marble or plastic cross,

his suffering face bent to kiss you,

Buddha still under the Bo tree in scorching heat,

Adonai, Allah, raise your arms to Mary

that she may lay her palm on our brows,

to Shekinhah, Queen of Heaven and Earth,

to Inanna in her stripped descent.

Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, Record Keeper

of time before, time now, time ahead, pray. Bow down

to terriers and shepherds and siamese cats.

Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.

Pray to the bus driver who takes you to work,

pray on the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus

and for everyone riding buses all over the world.

If you haven't been on a bus in a long time,

climb the few steps, drop some silver, and pray.

Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM,

for your latté and croissant, offer your plea.

Make your eating and drinking a supplication.

Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,

each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.

Make the brushing of your hair

a prayer, every strand its own voice,

singing in the choir on your head.

As you wash your face, the water slipping

through your fingers, a prayer: Water,

softest thing on earth, gentleness

that wears away rock.

Making love, of course, is already a prayer.

Skin and open mouths worshipping that skin,

the fragile case we are poured into,

each caress a season of peace.

If you're hungry, pray. If you're tired.

Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day.

Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.

Pray to the angels and the ghost of your grandfather.

When you walk to your car, to the mailbox,

to the video store, let each step

be a prayer that we all keep our legs,

that we do not blow off anyone else's legs.

Or crush their skulls.

And if you are riding on a bicycle

or a skateboard, in a wheel chair, each revolution

of the wheels a prayer that as the earth revolves

we will do less harm, less harm, less harm.

And as you work, typing with a new manicure,

a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail

or delivering soda or drawing good blood

into rubber-capped vials, writing on a blackboard

with yellow chalk, twirling pizzas, pray for peace.

With each breath in, take in the faith of those

who have believed when belief seemed foolish,

who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.

Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,

feed the birds for peace, each shiny seed

that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.

Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.

Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk.

Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child

around your VISA card. Gnaw your crust

of prayer, scoop your prayer water from the gutter.

Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling

your prayer through the streets.

Happy New Day

The beginning of a new year always feels so fresh and clean. I'm glad that God understands we need that feeling every 24 hours. I commemorated the beginning of my new day this morning by the water in the 25 degree weather. Although I was freezing, it was a beautiful morning, crsip and clear. Happy New Day.

Hold Me Steady

http://chelseanemmers.deviantart.com/art/How-do-you-feel-about-floor-53975166

Amid the rotting carpet, the dust seeped into pores
of the floor where boys have passed out
after nights of drinking cheap beer, the floor where
a mother paced back and forth
carrying the firewood
her flannel gown twisting around her young calves
crying without restraint.
Fire pops in the woodstove, so
now lonely always smells like flame
to me, feels hot in my chest and the soles
of my feet.
I walked two miles after school in the rain
in the cold
wishing Mom could drive me home
my feet frozen solid when I made it through the door
called her on the phone
for what it’s worth.
The hot belly of the stove burned through
my wooly socks, lying there
along the body of a floor that has known prayers and
dancing, stretched
against the solid girth of what
will not move
this hard earth
a floor
that never shifts.

How to Love a Girl, Part 3

http://saiyagina.deviantart.com/art/After-the-Rain-88597953

So I suppose by this time some of you are wondering, "Ok, well, how DO you love a girl?" I'm actually going to try my best to answer that with all the specifics you will need.

First of all, I am going to assume that you are trying to love a girl who has a Daddy Hole, as I believe the majority of women do, whether they want to admit it or not. Let me say this to you plainly, and listen close, "YOU CANNOT EVER GIVE A GIRL WITH A DADDY HOLE ALL THE LOVE SHE NEEDS." You will give, give, and give until your giver is give out and she still will not be satisfied. The emptiness within her was never meant to be filled by you. A basic developmental need and milestone did not get met, and, at this point, can only be healed through her Higher Power. You can also forget trying to explain this to her, as it will not be received (unless she is already aware of her own emptiness and dependency on you).

If you are committed to loving her nonetheless, bravo to you. If you married her and only later realized she has a Daddy Hole, well, hang in there. Here is how I propose you love her. Just be patient, first and foremost. Do not take abuse from her, but also behave toward her from a stance of compassion-- understanding the pain of the wounded girl on the inside. Refuse to give in to her tantrums and childish demands. Yes, you will anger her, but you are teaching her to take responsibility for her own needs. If you continue to jump at her every demand, she maintains the dependency of a child and hinges her happiness on you and what you can do for her. Set limits with love. This means when you have to tell her "no," that you communicate it in a way that lets her know your no is a good for you both. Say what you mean, mean what you say, and don't say it mean.

You may do all these things and find that the woman you are trying to love has such relational defecits, she is incapable of true intimacy. You may begin to realize she is not aware of her own Daddy Hole nor is she interested in learning about all the baggage she brings to the relationship. This should be a red flag. Hang in there as long as you can or as long as you are willing, and do not feel guilty should the time come when you have to detach from her to save yourself-- this, too, is how to love a girl.