Trudging Toward Thanksgiving

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For me, one of life's greatest joys is waking up to an idea. Truly, deeply, fully waking up.  Especially when that idea is one I've been acquainted with my entire life, but its layers and depths and nuances I have not yet fully explored.   And you know what else I find absolutely delightful?  In the midst of that awakening, you suddenly  encounter the idea absolutelyeverywhere.  Books.  Magazines. Newspapers.  Radio.  Blogs.  From your best friend's lips. In your children's words.  I'm absolutely getting hit over the head with this.

The idea in question?

Eucharisteo.  Grace.  Thanksgiving.  Joy.

In the heart of a difficult season two autumns ago, my sweet friend Kara handed me a book.  She told me she thought that the time might be right to read it.

She said the content might be difficult at first, with everything that was currently swirling around us.  My 63 year old father, who had suffered from early onset dementia for nearly ten years, was dying from recently diagnosed cancer.  I was 17 weeks pregnant with a much desired fourth baby after a heartbreaking miscarriage of twins.  This baby's ultrasounds kept showing that there were some potentially scary abnormalities, which required regular testing and monitoring.   At a routine prenatal exam, I was diagnosed with an enlarged thyroid that needed to be biopsied as soon as possible.  I was teaching a full course load with one new prep at two different universities.  And my three boys each had their own specific struggle that needed my careful attention:  academic issues, emotional upset, developmental concerns.  As I navigated the needs at work and home and traveled frequently to be with my parents, I became robotic, using tunnel vision as a coping mechanism.  I was numb.  I was also exhausted.  Depressed.  And very, very overwhelmed.  On a rare quiet afternoon, I opened the first page of the book Kara thoughtfully gave me and read the opening vignette, which chronicles a raw, honest, lyrical description of the aftermath of a horrible accident that took the life of a child.  I very quickly shut that book with a loud clap.  

As it turned out, I was so not ready to read this book.

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One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, with its placid, stunning cover, sat on my nightstand for the next 18 months.  Staring at me.  I stared back and said not yet not yet not yet.  I was not ready to face whatever this book had to teach me.

I had a lot of healing to do.  Little did I know that if I had picked up this book sooner, my healing would have been hastened.

The book opens with Voskamp, in her unique, lyrical, literary style, exploring the idea of how one can remain faithful, hopeful, and joyful in the midst of immense grief and sorrow, or even in the midst of the monotony of everyday life.  As a Christ-follower, she struggled with how to reconcile God's enduring love and the joy that follows with the terrible circumstances that she had faced in the past (the accidental death of a toddler sister) and present (the deaths of two young nephews).  This led to doubt, grief, depression, and a struggle for her very faith.  Finally, a friend asked her the question that changed her life:

What if you wrote down a thousand things that you love?

Voskamp accepts this dare from her friend and starts scratching down a Gift List.  It is a list of what she calls the "everyday common" that fill her with gratitude.  Her list begins with these:

1. Morning shadows across the old floors
2. Jam piled high on the toast
3. Cry of blue jay from high in the spruce

She continues scrawling down her gifts as she encounters them, on an open notebook in her farmhouse kitchen, the backs of envelopes, and small notebooks she begins to carry.  And as she develops this practice, a habitual practice of gratitude, her life and her faith are transformed.

One Thousand Gifts is unlike anything I've ever read, due to Voskamp's unique voice.  It is beautiful and complicated, like reading poetry in prose form. Her style seems at times to be circuitous and rambling, but she deftly brings all disparate pieces into union at the conclusion of each essay.  Voskamp writes like a painter paints, with lines such as "Autumn comes quietly to wed the countryside.  The maples all down the lane blush and silently disrobe."  The essays take the reader on Voskamp's journey to understand Eucharisteo--grace, thanksgiving, joy-- through wrestling with Scripture, motherhood, anxiety and depression, the hectic pace of modern life, and the crippling injury of a child.  It left this reader breathless with the beauty of her words, her mind, her heart, and her faith.

As the wise Brené Brown says, "Gratitude is a practice."  It's not necessarily natural.  Complaining is more my speed, but I've started the hard work of eucharisteo:  grace begets thanksgiving which results in joy.  And as someone whose constant state these days is a barely suppressed, low-level irritation, I find myself softening into gratitude more and more.  This makes for a more peaceful momma, even in the rough moments, and ultimately, a happier home.

I think that practicing gratitude may be the great lesson of my life.   It is something to be learned, rehearsed, used.  And here is my new realization:  I once thought that gratitude is a disposition, like optimism or introversion.  It is not.  It is something that you cultivate.  I have learned that in order to live the life I feel called to live, I can and must cultivate gratitude.  This includes gratitude for the big things (my marriage) and small things (a hot cup of tea),  and for the "ugly beautiful" things (like the opportunity to mediate an argument between the boys or the quiet introspection that loneliness brings).  Eucharisteo is following me everywhere.  I can't crack a book, go to a lecture, watch a movie, or talk to a friend without gratitude being the overriding theme.  I guess it's true what they say:  when the student is ready, the master appears.

Thanksgiving, in every situation, and every circumstance, is an idea, a practice, a relationship that has been a long time coming for me, and will likely be a lifelong challenge.  But gratitude for gifts given, large and small, bring a change of perspective, a new worldview, and ultimately, JOY.  Choosing thanksgiving, like choosing to love, mends relationships, opens hearts, and for me, helps me to better know God.

I've started my gift list.  (Believe it or not, there's an app for that!) I've reached 129 gifts in three weeks time.  Make that 130.

I'm on my way to one thousand.  And beyond.

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Because picking up a pen isn't painful and ink can be cheap medicine.  And I just might live.

 -Ann Voskamp

Voskamp's work can be found here, including her project,  Joy Dare.

Entering the Arena

Daring Greatly

How's this for a conversation stopper: "I'm reading the most fascinating book about shame and vulnerability."

Head cocked to the side, eyes narrowed, skepticism emanates from her eyeballs.  "Hmm.  Really."

"Yeah.  It's by Brené Brown.  She's a shame and vulnerability researcher.  It is amazing.  Absolutely transformative."

"Huh.  That's, uh, interesting."

"More than interesting.  Mind-blowing.  Life-changing."

Silence.

"Huh."

Subject change.  

And so it goes.  This is the reaction that people have when I tell them that I am reading a fascinating book written by a shame and vulnerability researcher.  Brené Brown's book Daring Greatly:  How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead does just what it promises:  it transforms.  It also can seriously freak you out in the best possible way.

My friend Sandy and I read this together.  (We started to call her our new friend Brené.  Then our BFF Brené.  Then just NeNe for short, because, you know, we are now tight).

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Here is our adorable and brilliant new friend.

Thank goodness I had Sandy as my intrepid reading partner, because this is a humdinger of a book that needs some serious discussion and processing.  We both found that we had to read it slowly, and over time, in order to emotionally integrate all that we were learning and discovering.  And sometimes, it would hit so close to home that anxiety would creep in.  So we would put it aside. Think a bit.  Talk some.  Breathe.  And resume.

Brown, I mean NeNe, begins with this quote by Theodore Roosevelt:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,

because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause;

who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. . . "  (emphasis mine)

She argues that the notion of stepping into the arena is the essence of vulnerability, and that despite what society teaches us, vulnerability is not weakness.  Vulnerability is our most accurate measure of courage.  Being fully engaged, exposed, daring greatly, means taking emotional risks.  Some bigs ones.  Like Showing Up.  Being Seen.  And, to quote Brené, "getting your ass kicked on occasion." (Metaphorically speaking, of course.  But she's Texan, so maybe not.)

Do yourself a favor.  Before you read on, go see NeNe for yourself.

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Wow.  It's amazing that something so seemingly simple can be so transformative.

When it comes down to it, I think that Daring Greatly is a research-based, non-fiction, secular book about God's amazing grace.  It's about showing yourself grace and giving others grace.  Understanding brokenness (vulnerability) and admitting shame helps allow people to receive and accept grace for themselves, and enables them to show grace and empathy to others.  To me, this is true wholehearted living.  To me, this is also the promise of the Christian life.

The following are the truths I have gleaned from Daring Greatly. . . .

We live in a culture that is fueled by scarcity. . . the syndrome of "never enough."  Never enough time, money, sleep, status, beauty, power, influence, talent. . . take your pick.  This is a culture that allows shame to run rampant.

Shame is the swampland of the soul.  We all experience shame, but no one wants to discuss it.  Shame is the feeling that we are not _______ enough.  Fill in your own blank.  Your first instinct may be to say you don't experience shame, but I would recommend thinking hard about that.  You likely are not a sociopath, and sociopaths are the only people who truly don't experience shame.  So. . . admit it.  You experience shame.  Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?

Shame and guilt are not the same thing.   Shame is saying you are bad.  Guilt says that you did something bad.  Big difference.  We all have heaped both guilt and shame on others and ourselves.  Guilt can cause positive behavioral change.  Shame cannot.

While shame is positively correlated with addiction, aggression, suicide, anxiety, and depression, shame cannot exist in the presence of belonging and connection.  Empathy is the antidote to shame.

We create armor to protect us from shame and vulnerability.  My particular armor are perfectionism and what Jason calls "borrowing trouble".  NeNe calls this foreboding joy. I am way too proficient in foreboding joy.  I have a postdoctoral degree in foreboding joy.   Declaring a personal jihad on foreboding joy may be the struggle of my life.

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People who are have the most effective shame resilience, from a research perspective, are those who are living life with their whole hearts.  A wholehearted life.  Living a wholehearted life starts with the idea that we are worthy. . . worthy of connection, love, and belonging.  And the wholehearted allow themselves and others to be vulnerable. . . especially and most importantly their children.  

And finally. . . .Vulnerability is the birthplace of creativity, innovation, and change.  You say you don't "do" vulnerability?  Well, then,  no creativity.  No innovation.  No change.  No kidding.

In January, I found myself in a funk fueled by postpartum hormones, sleep deprivation, a return to work, and the demands of parenting.  I decided something needed to change.  I needed to change.  So I chose a word for the year.

Transformation.

And for me, transformation comes always comes through reading, writing, and prayer.  So I started writing about what I read, and this little blog was born.  But I showed no one.  I told my shame voices to simmer down and forced myself to be vulnerable and keep writing.  After a long while, showed it to my husband.  And then to Susan.  And then to Sandy.   And then I wrote a review of Carry On, Warrior, and sent it to the author.  And Glennon read it and responded.  Favorably, even!  And I got emboldened and showed my little Facebook world that I was writing.   Little did I know that I was building my own arena.  I find that this arena makes me feel vulnerable, but it also makes me feel creative, innovative, and alive.  I like it here.

 Show up and be seen.  Get yourself in the arena. . . I'll meet you there.

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