My Soul has a Purpose

"I have a cause. We need those don't we? Otherwise the darkness and the cold gets in and everything starts to ache. My soul has a purpose, it is to love; if I do not fulfill my heart's vocation, I suffer." ~ St Thomas Aquinas

There are times when words jump off a page and either speak to or reflect unspoken, even unconscious, thoughts. There are times when people, either in person or through books, enter into my life at just the right bend in the road, and my whole being resonates with most, if not all of their words, journey, soul. They are teachers, sent to me, I believe, by God at the moment when I need to hear what they have to say.

Maybe it is in order to elicit change. Maybe it is to encourage me in a path I have taken. Maybe it is to offer me hope. I'm finding all of the above as I read Quantum Wellness: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Health and Happiness, by Kathy Freston.http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Wellness-Practical-Health-Happiness/dp/1602860777/ref=pd_sim_b_8

I saw Kathy on Oprah recently, talking about the Quantum Wellness 21 day cleanse. I've been seeking to cleanse my body of various irritants for over a year now (toxins, gluten, soy, eggs, dairy, diet drinks etc), as I search for those foods and habits that have produced inflammation in my body creating a "hot" bed (excuse the pun) for un-wellness, or dis-ease.

The journey toward wholeness has been longer than that, a lifetime, but it intensified over the past ten years. I've made changes in a effort to lessen stress levels and reduce that which produces physical and emotional pain (see earlier blogs) with a goal toward being all that I can be at this stage of my life. St Francis says holiness (wholeness) is becoming the best version of yourself. Quantum Wellness is one of those books I wish I had bought in paperback instead of on my Kindle, because it would be easier to re-read, flipping through to favorite pages. (I'll admit to dog-earing, underlining, post-it notes when I'm reading intently and I'm afraid this book would have a multitude of them, irritating my brother Bob to no end.)

It's not that the information is totally new to me. My habit has been when I'm interested in a subject, I immerse myself in reading matter until I'm saturated, so I'm not finding a lot of material that is unfamiliar to me. It's that Kathy melds physical and spiritual in a way that inspires me to continue in my quest for wholeness along several different fronts (which is what I've been doing, hence the resonating and hope).

For example, the current chapter, "Be the Change: Stepping up to the Life That is Calling You," begins with quotes by Gandhi, St Thomas Aquinas (see above), and Lao Tsu on being that change you'd like to see in the world. The Aquinas quote is the one that jumped off the page, affirming my present decision to stop teaching and be "at home" with mom (Alzheimer's), as I continue to explore the writer's life. Let me explain.

One of reasons (not THE reason) I moved back to Nebraska from Tennessee was to broaden my horizons and explore writing by going to school once the children reached that age, you know, don't need mom hovering. I love to learn. I love to read. Writing, sharing what I learn, is a natural fit. For reasons I won't elaborate on though, I felt I had to DO something with those diplomas I earned, i.e. earn a living with them, although, I have to laugh at the thought. Neither adjunct teaching nor chaplaincy offers a descent living wage. No one teaches for the money, nor do chaplains serve to get rich.

In exploring what to do, based on past experiences, I tried chaplaincy for a year. Half-way through my residency, I knew it was not a good fit and I wouldn't be working as a chaplain. Not that it wasted my time, I learned SO MUCH about myself in the course of the year. I taught for four years at the University level (as a GTA and as an adjunct), and I found that mostly, I felt out of my skin. Teaching at a University was not a good fit, not a bad one, just not it. Again, the time was not wasted. When we learn about ourselves, learn that something doesn't fit and are willing to change directions, it's all good. Both jobs increased my stress and pain levels, creating an out-of-my-element feeling at a time when pushing myself beyond my limits was not good for my body or my soul. There is a time for pushing, but I needed healing. That's what I learned. I still need healing, emotionally, physically, spiritually. Writing feeds my soul and aids the process.

Once I decided to stay home and seek to write, a weight lifted. I eased into being here for mom, despite the challenges. It all felt like a natural fit for me, even though it is far from easy and I still suffer from various habits that hinder me from writing as much as I would like.

Getting back to the chapter in Kathy's book, what is my cause? I desire a world where we can live together despite our differences. I desire a world that is loving, compassionate, forgiving, kind, gentle, merciful, not judgmental. I don't enjoy political and religious wrangling; a good argument leaves me exhausted, not stimulated so I don't want to engage in changing the world through arguments. I do believe in absolutes, but I am not the judge, so I would rather pray for mercy than condemn, seek to love rather than discriminate.

Being centered, at home, allows me the opportunity to seek for ways to share my thoughts and what I learn through writing, and I am grateful. Writing, sharing, caring for Mom, is giving me, on a personal, manageable, micro level, the opportunity to practice being the change I would like to see on a macro level in the world around me.

I'm not there yet.  I'm not whole, I wish I were, but I'm getting there, one change at a time.

The Winter of Life

2011 (C) Shelly Stotts Photography, used by permission

Loss seems to permeate my reflections during these winter months. As the ground lay frozen and frost and snow clings to the trees, I cling to this time I have with Mom, despite its frustrations, knowing that someday our time together will end, and I'll experience a finality to this loss we are inhabiting.

Obviously, Alzheimer's is associated with "loss" as slowly loss creeps in, but it's not just the inability to recognize people (although that may happen eventually, if mom lives long enough). I noticed that's a typical response from relatives who infrequently visit. They are surprised and pleased that she recognizes them,  as if that is the only loss of memory we might be experiencing as a family. Loss of memory incorporates so many facets of our lives.

For instance, Mom loses things, because she can't remember what she did with them, nor can she remember what she was doing at the time she misplaced them to retrace her steps. That takes memory and reasoning, both of which elude her in these winter months of life. She loses not only tangible items (like her underwear, socks, glasses, sweater, the television remote), but also life events, and yet I'm fascinated by shifts that occur from one minute to the next and how the mind seeks to find itself.

Sometimes mom laughs over a lost item and asks me to help her find it because, "I put it somewhere and can't find it now." Perfectly reasonable, we all lose things and can't find them, it's just her days are sometimes filled with trying to find one item and then another. Other times, a shift occurs and frustration sets in. She can't admit to losing an item, and thinks someone, meaning me, must of moved it, or on those days when paranoia sets in, someone came in and took items that she REMEMBERS putting in her drawer, or taking out of the dryer, etc. She probably does remember doing it, just not THAT day. It's a memory from sometime in the past. Time collapses and events get mixed up in memory. She becomes agitated at the thought I might be trying to make her seem crazy because I won't admit someone has taken them. The last time this happened, I just bought her some new socks and underwear rather then argue someone didn't take them. When she received them, she, of course, had forgotten that it had recently been a major issue for her.

Events can be lost. "I don't remember whole sections of time when I lived in California, but I remember vividly my life on 28th Street when I was a child, why is that?" Those cherished events in her life, when her father was alive, seem frozen in memory, and are repeated endlessly with only slight variations. Its comforting for her to recall the same stories over and over as proof, she remembers.

Curiously, I've noticed lately, other memories are new, just not of events in which she actually participated. Mom can remember events clear as day that never happened, to her. She thinks that they are events that she lived, but in fact, they are memories of stories told to her by others, that she now incorporates in her mind as hers.

As an illustration, yesterday, she remembered someone and was recalling an association. She told me she spent two years with a young man and got to know him before his death. "He grew into a fine young man, really special." This never happened to her, but somewhere, deep within her mind, she remembers the story of his life and now, she has incorporated it into her life story. So surprisingly, at least for mom, the loss of memory includes a found section.

And then too, amazingly enough, there are times when automatic responses kick in and her mind doesn't really grope for information. Having worked in the medical field for decades, when my brother was recently hospitalized, mom talked to him on the phone and asked all the pertinent questions and responded to his answers meaningfully. But, once the conversation ended and time passed (it doesn't take long), she had trouble remembering why he was in the hospital and asked repeatedly, what was wrong, what were they doing, and she accused me of not telling her everything. Trips to the hospital helped, while we were there, but then afterwards, it all disappeared except for the uneasiness and agitation of knowing something was wrong. It was difficult for her to process it all, but the memory of the emotions when learning of his hospitalization remained.

I just finished reading, The House on Beartown Road, by Elizabeth Cohen. In it she recounts a winter she spent caring for her father (an Alzheimer's victim) and her infant daughter. All our experiences as children and/or caregivers of Alzheimer's sufferers are unique, but hers was particularly poignant as she cared for loved ones at the beginning of life and at the end and made associations between the two. As I came to the end of her memoir, and read about her father's condition at the time of publication, it reminded me (such a good word...to re-mind) of what may be in store for mom, for loved ones, or for me, in the winter years, but who knows.

I read predictions about the likelihood of baby-boomers suffering some form of dementia if we live long enough and I'd be lying if I said it didn't concern me. Watching mom lose things, events, people, in a weird sort of way, it's encouraging to know that the mind still seeks to find itself, and if it can't, it incorporates the memories of others as its own in order to comfort itself in loss.

The Journey continues

Though I don't have regrets per se (see earlier blog), I do have to deal with pain, physical and emotional, and anger over certain past events, which may have a lot to do with the pain. Anger can hide in the body of a congenial person, one that generally holds their true emotions hidden from the world. By using a smile and laughter a troubled soul can present a very different picture then the one that is churning deep inside. Often, laughter is a defense mechanism and can even hide the anger from our conscious self.

2010 (C) Shelly Stotts Photography, used by permission

I was reminded of this the other day, listening to Marie Osmond as she talked about her son's suicide on Oprah. The picture her son presented to his family and to the world, one of a smiling, congenial, laughter filled soul, hid a troubled young man who tragically ended his life in despair. I don't know his pain and am not seeking to equate my anger with anything that might have gone on inside of Marie's son, just that often, the face we present to others can hide what is really happening within.

That anger can rear its head when triggered by a comment, actually any reminder no matter the source. Until mid-life hit, I probably wouldn't have recognized my anger as anger, but when life changes occurred, that anger all came boiling up from within in the form of depression and pain, with a certain amount of loneliness and despair. One by one, I've had to look at those events, those heartaches, that caused my anger, allow each to surface and then seek to forgive as I let them go. The most difficult anger to release is the anger over hurts my children have experienced because of the selfishness, or meanness of others. I'm still working on those.

Forgiving and letting go, I've found, is not just a one time event either. Hurts leave wounds and some wounds take a long time to heal. When healed there will be scars. Scars are protective barriers. Reminders can threaten to open old wounds as those scars leave us vulnerable and the anger, pain, and heartache can threaten to consume if not recognized and released. So it requires, to use a Buddhist phrase, being mindful.

2010 (C) Shelly Stotts Photography, used by permission

I can't rest on any past forgiveness either that I might have extended toward myself or another on this journey from the cradle to the grave. I must choose to forgive again, and again, whenever that anger is triggered. I must be mindful of that inner dialog that rises to the surface about past hurt, choose not to dwell on it, not to hold it in, or against another, and let it go, over and over and over. By allowing the soothing waters of forgiveness to continue to wash over the wound, it keeps it from becoming festered, keeps it cleansed. It's not easy and I can't do it alone, especially when the anger feels justified. I need grace to make it.

Maybe that's why when Jesus was asked how many times we should forgive, he said, seventy times seven. Perhaps it not only applies to that one that keeps making choices that hurt us and we need to extend forgiveness repeatedly, but to that which rises up from within when least expected from the past. Is he saying the need to forgive doesn't end, not until the end? I think so.

The Journey

2010 (C) Jennifer McClearen, used by permission

This life is a journey. It begins at conception and continues, if not interrupted, until natural death. As the years progress and more of life is behind instead of ahead, it is natural to look back on the journey. As I consider where I am at this moment in time, I also look at the choices made that helped me  arrive at "this place," wherever that might be, in life.

2010 (C) Shelly Stotts Photography, used by permission

I don't have regrets. There are choices that I look back on that pain me, because my choices caused others pain. There are times when I wish I had more information, could look into the future and see how I might have been a better help to another, and I live with the fact I made choices based on the knowledge I had at the time. There are times when I wish I were wiser, which really incorporates all the above, but I wasn't, so endlessly lamenting with regrets is non-productive.

In the end, when all is said and done, in order not to carry around the weight of past choices, even though I live with the consequences of the sum total of those choices, I must let it all go. I must accept myself, my limitations, in order to be free of regrets. It's why I love the movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons. It's about growing old, accepting who we are and letting go of the past, except for the LOVE we carry with us.

To celebrate the journey of LIFE, then, I must accept the weeds, the thorns, and the thistles.

As a Christian, I've confessed those choices that caused others pain, sought forgiveness, made restitution where able, but what carries me and keeps me from wallowing in the swamp of the past, is that I know God is a redeeming God. Nothing is un-redeemable. God can take any situation, any relationship, any past, with all of its choices, and weave it into something beautiful. Each and every choice, is a small thread in a larger tapestry called LIFE that in the end will cause all to bow at the magnificence of the LOVE that fashioned not only my life, but all LIFE.

Life as a dog

2010 (c) Shelly Stotts Photography, used by permission

Living with Mom (she has Alzheimer's), I can quickly, without warning, find myself in the dog house.

Last night, she accused me of "not liking her," and that if I wanted to get rid of her, she could go live in a nursing home.

At the time, I had NO IDEA what was going on in her mind that brought this up. It really doesn't matter. To try to untangle an Alzheimer's mind is just impossible. I find clues sometimes, but there is never any way to anticipate. Besides it would drive me crazy to try to circumvent all the possibilities. All I can do is assure her that I don't want her to leave and wait for whatever it is to pass.

That sounds simple, doesn't it. Well, its not. The minute I hear her say, "I have something to ask you?" Or "I'd just like to know....." my blood pressure begins to rise, and I wait clenching my teeth for that which is to come.

Mom doesn't realize how bizarre sometimes her thoughts are, because to her, they are real and she is right. I try not to argue, but when accused, it's hard not to want to talk her out of her perception by explaining how she has mis-interpreted things. Besides, it seems delusional to me, but to her, I'm the one that is delusional, naive, or forgetful. Who is right? Depends on your perception, doesn't it?

Another alternative is to just run and hide in the doghouse.

Oh well. Being in the doghouse is not such a bad place to be. Looking out on my little world from the confines of my little doggie bed, I find comfort in the fact that these episodes come and go and tomorrow, hopefully, I'll be able to cautiously sneak out from my "safe-place" and find laughter, singing, and joy. For now though, I think I'll just snuggle in.

Grace bids me fly and gives me wings

2010 (C) Shelly Stotts Photography, used by permission

It's inevitable. Everything in life changes. Nothing stays the same. Change is unsettling and sometimes it bears down on us with a vengeance. In the midst of changes, one more thing, seems too much.

Though grace is available to fly above our circumstances, viewing life from the perspective of eternity, it's seems easier, for me at least, during those times, to clam up, pull in, and remain earthbound. My vision of life narrows to include only that which lies beneath my feet.

A careless observer might think that faith was absent, lost somewhere under a weight of fear, loneliness, or those dreaded "what ifs" or equally debilitating, "if onlys." With the 20/20 vision of hindsight, it's been my experience, however, that those times are the richest in terms of eternity, because "...God has a thousand ways, each in his own way, of touching the soul." Benedict XVI

Often, in the darkness of the uncertainty of change, God is doing a hidden inner work. If we wait for it, expect it, giving God full access to our soul, without hiding beneath either "the poor mes," or the false bravado of denial, one day, we will be surprised to find ourselves standing, spreading our wings of grace, eager to fly.

"Do this and live," the law commands,
But gives me neither feet nor hands.
A better way his grace doth bring,
It bids me fly and gives me wings
Alleluia  (by John Fischer)

‎"True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read; and in so living as to make the world happier for our living in it."~ Pliny The Elder (23 AD - 79 AD)