My Detox'd Advent & Christmas

I do not know about your Advent and Christmas seasons, but I detox'd mine!

Typically, you detox your diet.  Get rid of the gross, bad-for-you-but-tastes-yummy-stuff.  Get cleaned out.  Remove built up toxins that inhibit your overall health and digestion.

Trade one set of foods for a better set.  Healthier set with high protein or high fiber or lots of green (maybe even organic) vegetables and fruits.  Fresh start.  Renewed energy and vitality.  Clean system!  Yay! Go you!

However, this past Advent/Christmas detox was not a diet for my body, but a spiritual discipline for my soul.  My soul just so happens to be a wife, mom, friend, writer, coach, spiritual director, lover of '80's music...and a preacher-pastor-overachiever-do-it-all-better-than-the-guys-kind of leader.

Before you think I am a church hater- let me be clear ministry is wonderful, exciting, challenging and invigorating!  And also clergy are imperfect people in an impossible vocation.  Ministry is hard, but good.  There can be toxic things, situations or people... but there are leaps of faith, mountains of grace, and inspiring moments of transformation too!

So it was during the 6th of my voluntary leave of absence, otherwise known as the "great leap of faith because God kicked me in the skirt to step out of my comfort zone";  that the church season turned into Advent, then came Christmas.  As I write this we are currently in my favorite season of Epiphany.

After all three seasons, now, I finally got it.  I got detox'd.  And have paused long enough to consider what my body and spirit just accomplished.

Instead of letting go of potato chips I did not worry with the worship committee about the proper amount and state of Christmas Eve candles.  Was that a detox of details or control?  There was no scurry around all month to visit shut ins and take them Holy Communion.  Was that letting go for others to minister?

No extra Bible studies to add into my schedule.  Could that be an invitation for others to lead or be lead in new ways?  No end-of-the-year financial planning to wrap up succinctly.  Might that be a challenge for accountability to come from another leader?  No extra scurry to squeeze in one or four unexpected funerals in-between Cantatas and Children's Programs and mission donation drives.  That was just a letting go of walking in grief with so many folks while self-aware of my own... sometimes what clergy carry is too much.  Simplify.  Set down.  Surrender.

Interesting how much more enjoyable it was to address and mail Christmas cards when it was daylight outside and not late into the night.  Heck- I was able to bake and decorate cookies with my daughter!  What fun!

More amazingly, doing that activity did not feel like I swapped one set of guilt expectations.  Mom guilt is real.  Pastor guilt is real too.  Stinks sometimes to have both.  Guilt A- How will I help my congregation richly engage spiritually this season? Versus Guilt B- How will I make meaningful memories with my daughter before she goes off to college?  No inner battle of guilt... just frosting, fun, and saturated fats!  Can you say, "Yum"?

The most noticeable difference in my Advent/Christmas detox was how I felt on Christmas morning.  I went to bed early.  I woke up early.  It was magical because the heavy fatigued stupor that has weighted me physically and emotionally on the last 25 Christmas mornings was gone.

Energy and zest!  I was ready to play the games, and eat all the food, and call the relatives. 

Huh... isn't that just what a detox is supposed to do?  Boost us for - what's next?

12 Days

Traditionally and historically, the lyrics of the Twelve Days of Christmas carol were 'coded' to tell the story of God's work in the world through the birth of Jesus.

Well, after working through the 'peak season' of holiday on-line shopping via my little part time gig at an Amazon Fulfillment Center... I wrote my version of this little ditty.  Enjoy!

Hint- there is no hidden meaning... only a little fun about the uniqueness and quirkiness of my job which really speaks to how we buy anything and everything from online stores.

"Twelve Days of Peak"

On the twelfth day of peak
Michelle picked at Amazon for me:

12 cans of Pedigree dog food
11 Burt's Bees lip balms
10 pairs of Zombie hands
9 Frozen II toy dolls
8 quarts of 5W30 motor oil
7 reusable sandwich bags
6 Star Wars Lego sets
5 stainless steel straws
4 vegan ladies' hand bags
3 His and Hers Holiday oven mitts
2 pairs of hunting boots
and 1 Make American Great Again baseball hat

Tears, Tea and Tinsel

There are two truths about home.

1) There is no place like home.  (Thanks Dorothy.)

2) You cannot go back home again.  (Thanks Thomas Wolfe.)

As I sit at my writing desk within my newly built home for our first Advent and Christmas, these two truths irritate each other enough that my eyes have leaked tears for the past week.

Anyone else, get weepy at Christmas?

Or am I the only one who tears up when Bing Crosby croons, "I'll Be Home for Christmas"?  I cried while writing addresses on my Christmas cards this year.  I wept at the stoplight in our new (yet old) town.  Water filled my readers so that I could barely see the hymnal as we sang Advent carols while lighting the first lonely candle of Advent.

Truth is that I yearn for home.  My tired, hurting spirit thirsts for the familiar, comfortable, and homey safe space with all the people and faces I have known and loved.  And been loved in return.  Yet, I am aware that heaven has become crowded with more of my 'crew' than it was last year.  It was hard to write "deceased" in my address book as I moved through my Christmas card list.

Every Advent I fear that I am becoming more hypersensitive to suffering, pain, dislocation, injustice, perversion, evil, and deep sadness in people, families, relationships, and our world.  I weep through the news broadcast.  My sensitivity to the atrocities heightens my yearning for "home" almost to a state of panic.

Truth is I cannot go back home.  Our relocation to a small growing suburb west of Indianapolis is now the third time I have lived in this community.  I can tell you that I am home- but I have not come back home again- because this town and it's people are not the same (and also somewhat the same). Too much has shifted within me and this community (how many cornfields can grow into subdivisions?!) for everything to be exactly what it once was.

Again, it is in this unique season of waiting- preparing- hoping- longing that my spirit attunes to the sense that humans are spiritual creatures and therefore, we are not supposed to go "home again".  That simply is nostalgia but not our nature.  Instead we are designed for a bigger, broader and higher destination of 'home'.

As my garland tinsel twinkles on this unusual sunny winter morning and my tea simmers next to me, perhaps my tears speak more than any words can express.

My tears tell me that these two truths may irritate one another causing friction and angst.  But then, again these truths may also help you and I do the work together within our souls - to focus on who/where/what is our true eternal home...and our deep, deep longing to be there in all fullness.

"As the deer long for the water-brooks, so longs my soul for you, O God.

my soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God, 

when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?  

My tears have been my food day and night, while all day long they say to me, "where now is your God?"  I pour out my soul when I think on these things, 

how I went with the multitude and led them into the house of God.

With the voice of praise and thanksgiving, among those who keep holy-day.  

Why are you so full or heaviness, O my soul? and why are you so disquieted within me? Put your trust in God, for I will yet give thanks to him, who is the help of my countenance, and my God." Psalm 42:1-7

Yes, there is no other place quite like home.

Yes, you cannot return home again because you and I are meant for home.

The Writing Before Me

What a gift of affirmation for me, when someone asks, "So, what are you writing about now?"

That question was presented to me by dear friends last week which got me to thinking;  "What have I been writing about these last few weeks?"

Here's my list...

1) The outline for my non-fiction book along with three sample chapters has been started.  I am in the content/editing phase of those chapters. Then, I need to buckle down and fill in the chapter summaries!  I have a long way to go on this project, but I am excited about the direction, tone, and content of my writing plans.

2) Our Life Fuel Retreat Ministry launched and we've already received several bookings.  So, my dear co-leader, Rhonda, and I are busy writing, organizing, and preparing retreat curriculum and content!  Exciting things are happening with this ministry!!

3) My annual thanksgiving list will be written in the next week so stay tuned for that letter of gratitude.  And after that, the family Christmas letter will be a must on my To Do List.  Those letters bring me to the final area of my writing lately...

4) Correspondence: emails, texts, and notes; also have preoccupied my writing time.  Communication, communication, and more communication makes the wheels of the world go around and around!

And when I am not writing, I am in the Word.  In late summer I re-introduced the Daily Office to my prayer and mediation time.  Meditating on sacred writings feeds my spirit so that my writing flows.

What writing is before you?

Exhaustion Wars

Long days that turn into long nights which turn into long weeks is often the normative for pastoral ministry. 

Multiple phone calls, intense meetings, staff emergencies, building crisis-es, fundraising efforts as well as faith-raising challenges, mission and outreach endeavors, and not to mention the on-going care of persons- spiritually, emotionally, and physically as your congregation 'ages' into senior saints is the short list of a pastor's responsibilities. 

Pastor are not the only vocations who are worn out- emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually- by the huge adaptive challenges we face daily. 

Care-giving vocations which impact our communities at their core such as teachers, police officers, nurses, social workers, mental health professionals, fire fighters, and EMT's experience the 'squeeze' of the shifting times, attitudes, and weight of care-giving within our American culture. 

I wish I could remember what lecture I attended when I heard the speaker say, "It takes a person 48-72 hours to recover and re-stabilize from a strongly intense, emotional interaction."  Hmm.  48-72 hours of recovery time. 

So, when I was in a season of pastoral ministry in which I presided over 31 funerals in 36 months (and those thirty-one funerals did not include the deaths of my father, my best friend's husband, and the death of our beloved golden Labrador retriever); I remember trying to ascertain if there was even enough calendar days between such events to 'recover and re stabilize'. 

Simply put, the vintage photo of the exhausted woman above looks a lot more put together than I ever did recovering and moving on during that season of leadership.  LOL!

Compare that with the kind of exhaustion which is picture to the right.  Physical labor is tough on the body and the mind. 

Last week during a 4.5 hour shift I walked 11,000 steps!  Whew- again the woman on the right looks better than I did after lifting totes and moving merchandise all over a 1 million square foot warehouse. 

Yet, what I am re-learning during my season of laboring in the "Amazon"... is that my recovery from exhaustion is much swifter than it ever was when I labored in God's vineyard. 

The lesson in all this is not to avoid care-giving. People of our world need pastors, teachers, fire-fighters, social workers, mental health counselors, rabbis and imams more than ever!  The need is so very GREAT!  And many of us are well wired, trained, and equipped for this great work! 

The lesson for me is that there are different kinds of tired and so too there are different modes of recovery... perhaps if the care-givers of our world are laboring so heavily... they need more frequent or deeper seasons of respite.  Or naps.

Naps are good for any kind of tired.

Boards with Sticky Stories: The Myth of Storyboarding Undone

You have seen them.  Probably heard about them.  Fiction writing fanatics often swear by them.

They are story boards.

Yep.  And to the left is my very fist attempt at one.

You may have wondered what happened to all my writing.  Why hasn't she posted on Facebook?  What is her latest thing?  What's going on?

All the answers to your questions as well as my current non-fiction project are color coded and slapped (somewhat straight) onto this tri-fold of card board.  Post It sticky notes covered me last week as I attempted to de-myth or de-bunk all the funky hype about story boards.

So, here's my executive summary aka the scoop.

I LOVE story boards!

First, who does not enjoy fresh office supplies?!  Mmmm- smell that collated paper and highlighters fresh in the morning?!  Ahhh.

Secondly, instead of fourteen different sheets of notebook paper and three thousand paper napkin notes my book can been seen in one place!  WOW!  Look at that.  (Wish it could write itself, but that is not happening.)  And so easy to move things around... stick chapter here.  Nope, move that over there.

C, (who wants to be consistent with numbering anyway) with my book laid out in front of me- chapters, sections, themes, scripture references, etc. the 'holes' appear.  Fortunately and unfortunately, the gaps in my writing or the logic are frightfully apparent so there is no going back and 'hiding them'.  My story board work has unstuck the writing blocks because I know exactly what needs to be tackled next.  There you have it- a board of stickiness so that my 'story' the flow of my book makes sense and will help others.  Hooray!

If you need me over the next few weeks- find me near my big board or back at Wal Mart buying more office supplies!

What's the Deal with Rejection?!

I suppose rainy days and rejection notes should go together like Nutella and bananas or football games and fleece jackets.

As my gutters gush with falling water this afternoon, I admit that my inbox has gushed recently with lots of incoming messages.  The content is similar.  Often sounds like the same writer has sent the messages because the notes contain "no", "no thank you", "not right for us", "um, maybe you should focus more", and the more cavalier: "we've had too many of these kinds of submissions lately.  Message us next year".  Really?!?!  The Reagan's 1980's anti-drug Just Say NO Campaign is in full swing in my writing life!

I suppose I could get depressed.  I could stop writing.  I could just freeze up and hold everything back.

The problem is that almost twenty years ago I made a weird decision.  I decided that rejection was normal for creative artists to receive and so to 'normalize' the experience of rejection I would instead choose to collect rejection emails, texts, or letters as badges of courage.  Goofy, I know.  Rejection = badges of courage.

But there is something about the 'turn' and 'twist' of this decision which compells me to keep writing! And keep trying.  Like Dorie, who did help find Nemo, I just keep swimming...

A colleague says I have perseverance.  My high school counselor back in 1987 called me stubborn.  My husband agrees with both.

So, here I am writing again while it rains

Rejection- bring it on, baby.