You Get What You Give

I'm still experimenting with all the little toys you can play with in a blog...and not doing very well. But this one had to happen.

I can't seem to cut and paste here, but...TOO COOL...I could drag it in into the window!!!

I love the movie "Surf's Up!" It is all about believing in yourself...with help. The animated movie does the best job creating a surfing scene at sunset on the beach. I love the beach. It is my favorite place on earth. So take my favorite place and put this song with it (New Radicals "You Get What You Give") and I am in heaven.

I think about that song as I reflect on the retreat that I can tell you so very little about. The forces of nature seemed to be against us. We had an ice storm in Dallas. The roads were dangerous. Of the 27 that signed up for the retreat, 20 braved the elements and came. At our first gathering, it was already obvious to me that this would be the best retreat ever. These women really wanted to be there. They were hungry for God...and we had prepared a feast for them.

About every 15 minutes, all the plans we had made changed. If there was any illusion that we were in charge of the retreat, it was shattered moment to moment as nearly nothing went off as planned...as we planned, but everything went off as HE planned.

Having done a lot of retreat and lectures and lessons and studies over the last 15 years, I have to laugh because no matter how I prepare my materials, God always takes it somewhere else. And I have learned to love it. It is like my first union with God. I was not in charge, and it was...perfect joy. In fact, if something goes completely according to MY plan, I realize I must have done something wrong. I was too involved.

So the stress of all the planning meetings meant something different to me. I was surrounded by women working so hard. I did what I was told, sort of, but I knew God would take it where He wanted it to go. In the past couple of years, I really haven't much lived in the world. I just don't see it the way others do. We enter Kairos...and God takes us on a journey. Let me say, though, that we had some amazing planners and good people making split second decisions to keep the retreat moving forward. Happily, I was not in on those decisions.

I am detached. It has taken a long time to achieve that state of being. And it is not finished, nor is it ever, because new things come along every day, new love, new intimacy...and it is mine for the moment, but it never belongs to me. I don't expect anything in return. Actually, if my nose gets out of joint about something that happened or didn't happen, I am reminded...or I remind myself...what you give, you really give...if I expect to be treated kindly or with respect as a result, ah, well, then I didn't really give it away, did I?

Seems contrary to some social rules, but giving to get something, to me anyway, is the purest form of politics. It is negotiation. And it is not bad, but I hesitate to call it friendship. It is relationship, but not the kind where you can bang on the door in the middle of the might and say, "I need a hug."

Perhaps I am getting too complex here.

I am being pulled to write something hard here. Perhaps now is the time for the next level. In high school, after the rape and all the violence that happened prior to it, which I am not prepared to share now, I became a detached in a very unhealthy way. I slept around. A lot. It's in the Bible, you know, what rape does to women. It usually ends in death. If you are still breathing, it still ends in death. Only you walk around and you see people relating to each other only you are just an observer. You think, no one can see it, no one cares. So you laugh and smoke pot and drink...and read books. For me, I went off alone and yelled at God. When I was about seven years old, I dreamed that my mother put me on a swing over a fire. I wanted to get off the swing, I did not want to burn, but she told me to sit there and not move, while all the little girls in my Brownie troop stood by and watched. I was the bad one. I woke up in a cold sweat and wanted to cry out for help, but realized there was no one to help. I grew up a lot that night. And perhaps that was the might I made a pact with God that He would be my source of comfort from now on.

Trauma does that to people. Shock. I've seen it so often since then. I recognize it because I lived it. It is one of the reasons I am a very good Chaplain. It is one of the reasons people can trust me with their truths. I know. In some ways, similar to Jesus, I have shared in their sufferings and through them I can help to bring healing.

I put these very tender things here, and only partially, because I believe that they might help someone heal. I also believe in my heart that way too many people carry the same pain, but in different forms. I am so sick of people suffering from things that can be healed. I am tired of children being mistreated by parents who don't have a clue that they are doing something wrong. Like St Patrick, I wander into some dark places where people live and my eyes grow wide and I think, how can I help here? But He does it. He sees the whole thing, and while I tend to look down the road too far, He keeps me in the moment.

This very week, in particular, my just showing up was enough to bring a healing to a family. Just showing up. You can do that, can't you? Just show up and be opened.

From Mark 7:

He put his finger into the man’s ears
and, spitting, touched his tongue;
then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him,
“Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”)
And immediately the man’s ears were opened,
his speech impediment was removed,
and he spoke plainly.

I have left a lot of loose ends. Well, that's how I do ministry. No saint here. But like Augustine, you do the best at telling the truth of being human and then show the doorway into the Divine. You have to go through on your own, though. No one can do it for you.

The best way to heal the wounds is to risk love. Letting it in. Giving it away. It's a dance where you will look at your feet for a time, but eventually, you'll be dancing at looking into His Eyes and then up into the heavens...and everything that was wrong will be make right...and perfect love will belong to you and your life will make sense and you will see the joy that belongs uniquely to you alone.

If is doesn't make sense...well, your muse will arrive when you are ready...

Love, Cindy