What I Would Say to You This Saturday of Covid-19

(This post is for Kathryn Elise Rose Farrell McDonald O’Conaill – though the initial verse is for another. But after the verse, my words are only for one pair of hazel eyes.)

Comments are not needed, though a communication from the one this is for is prayed for every day.

“…but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries… Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as you were lying in bed…”
-The Bible, The Book of Daniel, Chapter 2

No matter what, I remain your mother. And a mother’s love is forever and ever, and only grows with time. Don’t ever forget that. No matter how we erred, love was the reason. That we didn’t know how to show it does not really matter, in the long run. Love never dies. There will never be another human being on this earth who will love you as much as your mom and dad. And don’t forget you have a brother, who wants to love you, if you’ll only let him.

You are beautiful, and I don’t wish for you ever to have been anyone but who you are. Know that, believe it, and remember it for always. Always. I have vastly changed since I tried, without enough wisdom, to raise you in my faith. And mostly it is due to finding you, your real you, and loving you more than myself still, falling on my face before God all through Lent one year ago in repentance, waiting to be forgiven, and being lifted up by Grace to go on, working on learning the things I had blocked from my so frightened, fundamentalist-raised mind. I see what I had missed in my fear. Too late, I know, but anytime is better than never at all. Know this, because it’s true. “Perfect Love casteth out fear.” In the words of the old song, “I’ve found it so; I’ve found it so.”

I pray for you to believe in the wide, vast, all-encompassing Love of the Great Creator Spirit, whom I will always call my Father God, but you may call by another name, even not a god-like name, something from another faith tradition, no faith, whatever, it doesn’t matter. I’ve tried life without faith, and it simply does not work. Anyone who says they have survived this life totally and completely alone is lying to you. It doesn’t matter what anyone else calls God, or what name you want to give the Life-sustainer, but He/She/It/They is there, keeping humanity in existence in spite of ourselves. I choose to worship Him as a Holy Father, because all God’s promises, that I took to be for me, have always proven true. God never leaves us nor forsakes us. God with us, Immanuel, is here. And God is Love. And Love knows no bounds, and the darkness has never overcome It.

The One I know as God is beyond all language anyhow, and also infinitessimally tiny, as tiny as a Cell, a Zygote, a Fetus, a Baby, as large as a Man on a cross for no crimes, a God up from the grave leading prisoners of lies, a Vision in the great, great cloud of witnesses…. and beyond. My prayer is that you will remember God, and know that you are enfolded in the center of the Being that we know as Love personified, and hold close the certain knowledge that that God is with you, will never leave you, sticks closer than breathing, is the breath of your life forever, will never ever let you fall, has kept you your whole life through and brought you even to this very point in time together with Them.

When you want to disbelieve, or your mind can’t grasp the right side (or the left side…?) of itself long enough to believe, or however you want to think of it – when you can’t believe, just know God is greater even than your disbelief, look at your life and how on earth you have come to survive this long and think what for? Maybe that will help. It has helped me to survive this far, split in pieces by my three other family members, striving to pull myself back together in some shape, hoping always beyond hope to live into healing for not myself, but you and your brother, and even your father.

But only God can say if that is the plan. I just know it’s the only plan worth living for, and so I live. Healing, forgiveness, and love are the only reasons I exist now.

You hold that in your hands, and I hold you in my heart for always, always. When I am gone, as perhaps may happen in this curren crisis, you can look here and see, and know beyond any shadow of a doubt that you are loved, held, forgiven if there be anything to forgive, prayed for even from heaven, where the God of all prepares a place for you as He has me and your brother, and even your dad. And one day we will be reunited with all our warts washed clean off with only the shining joy remaining.

Shalom to you now, shalom, my beloved one,
May God’s full mercies bless you, my dear one,
In all your living, and through your loving,
Christ be your Shalom, Christ be your Shalom.*

Until we meet again, here or in heaven, and all your life through, may God hold you in the palm of God’s hand.

Hide me in the shadow of your wings
Keep me as the apple of your eye
In the shadow of your wings I sing for joy
Who can harm me if you are for me?
Blessed be your name forever!

All around me the waves grew high
The sea was violent with the sound of many waters
The ocean, raging, came at me at midnight
Who will save me from these powerful foes?

The Lord is my rock and strong deliverer.

Hide me in the shadow of your wings
Keep me as the apple of your eye
In the shadow of your wings I sing for joy
Who can harm me if you are for me?
Blessed be your name forever,
And ever!

Amen!

(Psalmodish, 2011)

Psalmodish, Brown’s Ferry Park, Tualatin, OR

*(Song of Shalom, Mexico/Elise Eslinger, Alt.)

On My Face

This is just what I do, and I'm told I do it well. I write emotions. Sigh... Oh well. Though no one who can pay money really seems to want to pay money for writing emotions, it's what I do, so I'll do that.
Emotions aren't always appreciated by others, though. Self-focus is perceived by many as self-centeredness. This is tragic, at times, because it separates people and keeps them from understanding each other.

And why do I remain so self-focused in my writings? If I were really mature, as I well ought to be by this age, I'd be focusing on others in my writings, not on myself, right?
But no one can clearly see others if the log isn't first taken out of their own eye. And my self-focus has this purpose, only for a time, only to finally clear the huge, redwood-tree log out of my way, to clearly see all the people around me. See them for real, in truth, in compassionate acceptance for the people they truly are.

That's it. That's my purpose. That's my focus. For that reason.
So I share emotions, because they are the feedback of our souls, and I find I am not alone in this journey of self-understanding for the purpose of living strongly in the world with clear other-understanding.

Clear away the motes and the logs and the bricks and the walls I've put up between myself and those that I fear, because I don't understand them, because the Bible condemned them, because my parents reject them, because my own self is averse to their existence due to all the above. Clear it away! Have nothing between the me and the them, the me and the you.

Nothing, that is, except a cross, which beam connects with God, which arms connect me to you.
If that One came to be lifted up across the walls we raise between each other and a ladder to God on High, how can we turn our backs on Him, on His sacrifice, on His Way, the Way of the Cross of our own walls and motes and logs.

On my knees.

On my face.

On my face and on my knees before God, before you, I humbly offer my sacrifice: walls and logs and motes of tradition and rules and judgment and alienation and ostracizing and aversions.

And my apologies - such a weak word for what I feel, but what other is there? - for my blind part and my conscious part in your lifelong struggles.

Love is Lord of heaven and earth; how can I keep from singing it to you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRhujopTr9k&start_radio=1&list=RDBRhujopTr9k

I am debating taking this blog down.

I am not who I was when I began it, I am not even who I was when I changed it, nor even who I was last week, or even yesterday.

It is full of innocence and ignorance. Life is never simple. Never.

I will take the writings off, and save the images, and perhaps refer to them in the future. But they are not who I want to present to the world, ravings of someone who thought she knew something about life, about God, about love.

So I'm going to take them out of the world as far as I can, and save them only to remind myself how blind I've been.

I only know this: God is good. All the time.

Simply repentant - no, not "simply", not ever again, for nothing is simple, ever again.

Patty

https://www.jwpepper.com/sheet-music/media-player.jsp?&type=audio&productID=10607033

Faith in the Night

January 28, 2015 at 7:11am

You thought your family was the safest thing to put your trust in; the surest, the most solid foundation, the best bet. You poured all your love and sweat and tears into these two or three monsters, enjoying most of it - even the dirty bits, because you knew they would grow up and be gone one day. You knew they would become loving adults, eventually, giving back some at least of what you were draining yourself of to raise them in the most healthy way possible, given the circumstances. Family - it's what's touted all around this country now as the one thing that trumps all others, and what will keep you going when it's rough, and what will pull you up when you fall, and what it's all worth it for. Family.

Until they rise up and don't call you blessed.

No, they don't always bless their mother, or their father. Sometimes for no apparent reason they demand their share of the inheritance and ride off into the sunset, cursing your name.

Or just dissolve into a heap of brain sickness.

Or both.

So then you have to wonder, whence does my help come? If Family is not the solid thing I thought it was, what or who or Who is? 

Its all well and good to preach about trusting in the Solid Rock of our God, but when He is less solid than your family, and they vanish from under you, what then?

I put my entire faith and everything I am in my children, my husband, my home. I didn't even know I did it. It's just what we do here in America, even we who call ourselves Christians. While preaching and teaching and believing that we ourselves put our faith wholly in the One True God, follow His Son Jesus' teachings, and pray listening for the Spirit daily, we actually take our security and serenity from our families, careers, retirement packages, etc.

I know I did, without realizing it, until they weren't there anymore to bolster my feelings for me. Then bye-bye comfort, bye-bye any feeling of accomplishment, bye-bye that cozy feeling of being surrounded by people who understand you, bye-bye security. Nothing left to cling to. So sorry. But you'll have to put your faith where you mouth is from now on.

Remember that? Faith? Faith.... 

"Faith is the essence of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" - or so you'd been taught long ago, and you'd always said you believed it. But you never really knew what you were talking about, and neither do most other people you come in contact with in your safe, comfortable, middle-class life. You just don't. Oh, you can't be blamed, really, because you've had no reason to learn what faith really is about. You may have been saved at some point from your own guilt through faith in Christ's cleansing blood, or some other denominational preference from the Gospels. But you've never had the chance to really test and prove that faith.

Till now. Till you lie awake and bereft at 2:00am and wonder, "Whence does my help come?" You're the only one who can do this; the only one who can walk by the side of the loved one, pay the bills, unstop the drain, keep the wolf from the door, keep the children from the evils of the world they are not ready for yet.... And you are not enough.

This is where faith comes in. Real faith. The real deal faith. The kind of faith the folks in South America and Africa, and Russia, and Iraq, etc. are practicing every moment of every day, or so I've heard. Faith that we Americans only sing about but never really have to learn of first hand.

Where do they get this faith, those beleaguered folks far away? Where did our forefathers get theirs? We're told their world was much harder than ours here in the good ol' US of A in the 21st century. Is that where they got their solid faith? 

I asked for a chance to prove my loyalty to God, years ago when I was a rash, young thing. I was going to be true, I was. I was ready to do and dare, and be a Daniel. I was just itching for the chance to trust God to the death, like the Christians in the lion arenas. 

But I wasn't in 1st century Jerusalem or Greece or wherever those first Christians proved our faith. So I waited in vain for a chance to prove mine, not seeing the chances in front of my face, of course. I worked on blending in with the culture around me, because more than anything I craved inclusion, acceptance, and a happy circle of friends to which I truly belonged.

Only I didn't belong anywhere until I went to college and found my music family in the choir at Chapman. I wonder if this was how my daughter felt before and when she found Willowbrook.... I knew who I was then and evermore.... Until I had children. Then I REALLY knew who I was forevermore.... Until they started growing up. 

Then I had nothing.

"Faith is the essence of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

My faith apparently had become nonexistant, one of those things not seen and only hoped for. Three long years I toiled to remember who I was, Whose I was, and why I thought I was here. But my poor brain, creative as it is, cannot conjur the presence of God. He remains on His own terms hidden in the shadows and springing forth in the bright sun, lurking behind the clouds and buried in the ground with a loved one. He is not subject to conjuring, nor to anything else. But His own Love for us.

This is why we venerate the family; it mirrors God's love for us, for the Church. In the middle of the night, if I am not to die of a heart attack brought on by the stress of carrying my son and my daughter in my mind constantly, I must remember the faith I grew at the age of 10, 11, 12..... and through my high school years. I must recall the innocence of that trust, a very child-like thing, not seeking to reason or to find explanations, only accepting. 

Because to tell the truth, that's the only thing there is to do at 2:00am when you lie awake and bereft wondering who's going to replace the light bulb you can't reach, or decide where your brain sick son will live, or make the connection with your daughter that she'll finally understand....

"Remember," Luke Skywalker mouthed in the fighter jet, as the voice of Alec Guinness shut out the sounds of the world-altering battle around him.

Remember... "I AM with you always, even unto the end of the world."

Faith. That's all there is to it.

Simply in faith,
Patty

Message of the Wee Hours

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,
from whence cometh my help.
My help cometh from the Lord,
which made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved:
he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold, he that keepeth Israel
shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is thy keeper:
the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil:
he shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in
from this time forth, and even for evermore.
Psalm 121 (KJV)

Married with these words:

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.
Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.
Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;
There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.
With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.
Psalm 91 (KJV)

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night bright and chipper and ready for the day? Even after going to bed late, like at midnight? Well, I have! Many a time, indeed. Last night was probably due to the diet Pepsi I had in the afternoon. I keep forgetting I cannot drink pop drinks with caffeine in them and expect to sleep at night. Silly me!

I had duly fallen asleep around 10:30, after watching an old movie I'd never seen, Bonjour Tristesse, just as an old movie I've heard of all my life but probably never watched was starting, From Here to Eternity. I got up and went to bed around 11:00, putting the house to sleep as usual. I went to sleep with no problem.

However, at midnight I was awakened by a very loud, incessant BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP right in my ear! I'd forgotten I had inadvertently turned on an alarm I didn't know my new bedside clock had, linked to a button I must have pushed the night before while looking for an OFF switch for the radio I couldn't see in the dark. I finally found the way to turn off the horrible BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP in my ear, by holding down the off switch. Ok! What will they think of next?!

Somehow I went back to sleep soon after that.

But I was rudely jolted out of sleep at 2:30am by my cat jumping in the window right above me and rattling the "nice" vertical blinds. I've had so much turmoil over this coming ISP meeting, (which I called but which is being railroaded by the case manager and her supervisor), that OF COURSE I could not go back to sleep. I rolled over and my mind immediately went to work on the problem again. To no avail, AGAIN.

I tossed over and over for THREE HOURS, trying again and again with my dull intellect and scant information about The System and The Laws to solve the unsolvable. The cat continued her hijinks until I finally got up out of bed and put a stop to her swiping at the shower curtain, by shutting the bathroom door with her outside it.

Still no sleep.

I suddenly remembered that I am a Christian, and that my mother made darned sure my head would be chock full of Bible verses before she would ever let me out the door as a teenager and a young adult. Oh yes. I'm supposed to repeat Scripture when I can't sleep. And pray. Oh that's right.

But how many times have I remembered these verses, and how many times have I prayed these prayers? And none of them helped. Everything stays the same. My daughter hates me, my son is caught inside his own mind, and my husband has exiled me forever from my home and hearth. My son refuses to allow his father to be present for any reason to help me fight his battles. My debts are greater than I can ever pay, short of dissolving the small retirement which is all I have left of 30 years of marriage, and the debts mount daily in spite of my making payments each month due to the usury of the credit card companies and the government banks. And I cannot get a job, no matter how many ways I stand on my head or jump through blazing hoops. Nothing is ever solved by my repeating Bible verses and praying in the middle of the night.

However, it's all I have. So I decide to let the questions stop, decide to just let go, decide to call on the Force, otherwise known as God. I figure if He's really out there He's got to hear me calling Him to duty, right? I mean, that's what God wants, right? So there I lay, tossing and turning still, but now willing to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches, or at least to me. Right? Of course right!

Into my mind come the words, "The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand." Well, long have I known that one. I wondered why it mattered that I knew that one. These words got mixed up in my head with words from another great Psalm, and in the wee hours they floated in and out of my consciousness for awhile. And then I began thinking on what that phrase means that says, "the Lord is thy shade upon they right hand." I remembered a summer Bible study with Beth Moore videos and study book, a great gathering of sisters at Lake Grove Presbyterian some years back, in which we studied the Psalms of Ascent. This phrase was discussed, and it was explained that in battle a warrior's left side was shielded by his left arm, while his right was only protected by the sword in his right hand. When his right hand was lifted toward an enemy then, his right side was left undefended from other foes. Hence the importance of having a "right hand man", so to speak. And a "shade" is a protection, or it might be a shadow, or a doppelganger, I supposed.

The past weeks and months have been fraught with new worries about my son's future and totally unsolvable situations for which I have been the sole responsible person, and I have made mistakes and I am going to continue making them, feeling totally and utterly alone, even surrounded by loving church family and supported by my family members and friends. No one is able to be present, and even if they were they don't have the knowledge of The System and The Laws to really be helpful. A body just for moral support would simply make me look silly, I want to avoid that indeed. But I cannot stand in my human ignorance and think I can take on this System. I cannot sit at that table alone and protect my son from whatever they are bound and determined to make happen in his life. They have assembled laws and rules that shut a parent out entirely if they so choose, and they seem to be so choosing. They will take over this meeting, I know this. And I have no earthly power to stop them. If you know anything about me, you know this is the greatest evil in my life, not to be able to do anything about the wrongs being done my son, as was the other greatest evil, the wrongs done my daughter.

So I thought of God as my Right Hand Man in the struggle in which I am currently embroiled daily, until I fell asleep a bit after 5:30am. I had finally given up solving the puzzle alone, and let my Right Hand Man take over. In the morning I looked up these two Psalms, which I've copied above. I read them now with great peace which passes all understanding. And that is saying quite a mountain for me.

So since I am powerless, and God loves the powerless, these words I've copied above are for me. "Great peace have they which love Thy law, and nothing shall cause them to stumble," is another great Psalm that was given me one day at Moms In Touch, and it is so true. So very true. When I remember my Heavenly Doppelganger Shadow, protecting my vulnerable right side while I try to find the answers for my children, I no longer feel I am struggling alone, or struggling at all. Because He's the one doing the struggling, and for Him it's no fight at all. He's already won it.

Now that I am aware of my utter powerlessness, I can give up and let Him who knew no wrong take the wheel. Don't you love how I mix my metaphors. I do. I love that they are coming in one after the other now in poetic phrase after poetic phrase, to comfort, to bolster, and to accompany me on my way. I hope I remember them all when I get to the meeting on Tuesday alone. But, as you can see here, I'm not truly alone, am I?

I smile as I type that last paragraph.

Jesus, take the wheel,
Take it from my hands.
Cause I can't do this on my own.
I'm letting go.
So give me one more chance,
Save me from this road I'm on.
Oh Jesus, take the wheel. (Carrie Underwood)

Thank You for saving me from this road I've been on, always thinking I'm the only one who can help me, my son, my daughter, and my husband. And thank You for the message of the wee hours.

Amen