Twilight: confessional

I hate myself for watching you…  Yes, I have a confession to make, one that has taken me a few years to admit.  I watch the Twilight movies and I even read one of the books.  If you know me, you know I always make fun of them and act like I’m way too cool and too smart to enjoy them, like I only watch them because I hate them and I think they’re funny.  That’s what I want you to think, because they are terrible, terrible stories.

We all know the Twilight Saga is a poorly written, over-dramatic rip-off of gothic romance. First, there are the characters... Bella is insufferable, annoying, and unlikeable.  She is not “spunky” or “endearingly stubborn”; she is whiny and stupid.  Edward is just plain unbelievable.  First of all, he is supposed to be an incredibly attractive, irresistible predator that could overcome any foe, with no weakness at all.  I mean, he’s super-fast, super-strong and he can read minds.  Even Superman had his kryptonite.  What is this creature’s tragic flaw?  Only his undeniable love of Bella, a singularly unremarkable human being, who “smells good”.  I am gagging even as I write about it.

Then, there is the message…  The message to young girls (and women who should know better) that if a man treats you like he hates you, he might just really, really like you (except he wants to drink your blood, so he has to avoid you).  The idea that if you refuse to believe your boyfriend is bad, he will turn out to be good.  The idea that true love will make you want to kill yourself if you have to be separated from the object of your affection.  The idea that if a man hurts you, it’s OK because he probably didn’t really mean it, I mean, he really, really loves you and he can’t help it if he’s super strong and having sex with him gives you bruises and breaks the bed.  That is more than gag-worthy--it’s plain offensive to women.

So, yeah, I hate it.  Here’s the confession--I still WATCH it!  The first time was an accident.  There was nothing else on and I thought, “Oh, this will be funny. I wonder how long I can stand it.”  Within minutes, I was hooked.  I don’t know if it was the pretty actors, the melodramatic camera shots, the breathless inner monologue, I don’t know.  But, I was hooked.  I watched the first movie, the second, then I actually got a Netflix account just to get the newest one.  I even made my friend go with me to see the fourth one in a theatre.  She’s one of the few people to whom I could confess my dirty secret:  I was compelled to see the stupid movies.  Why, why, why?

I blame the fourteen-year-old girl inside of me.  The one with a secret crush on the captain of the football team, or the high-school musical star.  The ordinary girl who wants to believe she is special, so special that no regular boy can recognize it, but a superhuman, 200 year-old, romantic love-machine is the only one to see it.  The girl who sighs and thinks, “Oh Edward…”  I thought she was buried under a cynical, smart-ass woman, a woman who scoffs at lovey-dovey gestures, who values the reality of her regular-guy husband and laughs at romantic tragic-comedies.  I thought I outgrew her, but I now admit she is hiding inside of me, waiting for the next vampire love story.  She’s a lot like Bella.  I kind of hate her, too.

Revised Marriage Vows--for real life

When we get married, we vow to love, honor, cherish/obey, until death do us part.  If we’re creative, original types (not like myself and my husband), we write our own vows and talk about how much the other means to us.  Then, we get down to the real business of marriage.  How often do we think of those vows?  Sometimes, in moments of real crisis or real bliss, we might remember them.  How often do they impact our daily life?  

Quite often in my personal life, it’s not the big deal things that cause problems.  In moments of crisis, it is clear what is on the line.  If big deal things happen, infidelity, betrayal, big, big lies, you know what your choices are--to learn to forgive and work on the relationship, or to move on without the person.  You think of the vows.  And you make a decision.

Marriage is difficult.  Life is fraught with daily, annoyances and frustrations.  When you live by yourself and you lock yourself out of the house, the only person to blame is you.  When you live with another person, it is so tempting to blame the other for careless mistakes, for not being “nice enough”, for not being _______ (fill in the blank).  It is tempting to make a scapegoat out of a spouse.  We can be quite creative in this:  “If you hadn’t done the laundry last night, I wouldn’t have ruined the flash drive containing my important presentation that I left in my pants.”  It is the daily life of marriage and the little moments that lead up to the big crises.  It is the small, impatient comments, harbored resentment, and plain frustration with daily life that lead to attrition, to turning elsewhere for comfort, to wanting to escape your life.   

We can never know what life holds in store for us and we get married with the best of intentions.  In my life, it’s worked out very well, even with the challenging moments.  But, I think that if a marriage ceremony were about the real challenges of marriage, the vows would be quite a bit different.  After 12 years of marriage, I wonder about the vows my husband and I could write now.   Here is my idea:

• I vow to tell you what I need, not make you guess and then get angry when you get it wrong.
• I vow to understand if you can’t give me what I need, at that exact moment.  
• I vow not to expect you to fix all my problems, and not to try to fix all of yours.
• I vow to give you space when you need it.  It’s OK if we do not go on picture-perfect family outings every weekend.  It’s OK if you go off to golf and I go off to ride.  It’s OK if our “family time” is cuddling with the kids on the bed during a power outage.
• I vow to not keep score.  It might feel like I’m doing the lion’s share of the work, but that’s because I’m not paying attention when you’re aerating the lawn and fixing the kitchen sink (because I’m too busy doing the laundry and chasing the kids around).
• I vow not to hide, my money, my feelings, my dirty clothes (because they smell after a while).
• I vow to try not to place blame, even when you forget to close the freezer door, or leave the car ignition on, or forget to clean out a lunch box that results in a million fruit flies in the house.
• I vow that if I can’t help but to place blame, I will not hold grudges and I will approach accidental mistakes with humor.
• I vow to be patient, even when I want to bite your head off.
• I vow to listen, even when I’ve heard a similar story a million times before.  It might be boring, but you need to tell it.
• I vow to recognize the different ways you show your love, like building a new bathroom, or writing a blog, or waking up in the morning with the kids, or mowing the lawn.
• I vow to pay attention, to what you say, to what you do, to what you need.

For Glory--a dog story

Recently, we put down our wonderful, loving American Bulldog, Glory.  She was eleven and had cancer.  She'd made it a long time, with hip dysplasia, surgeries for torn ligaments, skin allergies and tumors.  We were lucky to have her as long as we did.  We miss her terribly.

So here it is--another sad dog story, another story about how much we love our dogs.  I guess those stories are so common because they are so true.  We all know what is wonderful about our dogs, how unconditionally they love us, how they comfort us no matter what, how loyal, how faithful.  It has been written on tear-soaked papers and keyboards about a million times.  So, indulge me as I make it a million and one.

My dad used to say that when he got out of the Air Force, he got “a horse, a dog and a pick-up truck” and he had one ever since.  I can't imagine my life without a dog in it.  We love our dogs and we all learn lessons from living with them.  By living with dogs and other pets, we live the circle of life.  We see them from the beginning to the very, bitter end.  It’s a wonderful, painful gift to watch the animal you’ve loved her entire life take her last breath.  We learn compassion, loyalty, patience, and unconditional love with our pets.  Pets are a commitment to a loving relationship.

One of the beauties of dogs is the universality of their loyal, loving companionship.  Dog stories are a common ground for strangers to share.  There are very few people I know who have not loved a dog in their lives.  Still, within the universal nature of the love of a dog, there are unique tendencies and unique lessons from each dog.  There are energetic dogs, couch-potato dogs, affectionate dogs, aloof dogs, naughty dogs, well-behaved dogs, there are dogs loved by all kinds of people.  Here are some of our memories from our Knucklehead, Glory.

To our Glory,

who was our knucklehead and who always knew the best, smelliest places to roll.  Who was our companion at horse shows, on walks and on many road trips.  Who snored like a saw all night long.  Who loved to lie in the sun until she panted and panted.  Who demanded politely to be petted--once you started, you couldn’t stop.  Who ate pears, apples, bananas, carrots and grain out of horse buckets.  Who loved to lie on the floor and be your pillow.  Who always hid in the corner when Max did something wrong, to make sure we didn’t blame her.  Who showed us the meaning of loyalty, faithfulness, and unconditional love.

We love you!

The Best I Can Do--reconcilation and forgiveness

Sin, repentance and confession. In this secular world, sin is not a popular word.  People often explain sin as "missing the mark", or making a mistake.  For much of my life, I squirmed away from the idea of sin because I didn't want to admit there was something wrong with me.   I did NOT want to hear about sin and repentance from some person in a fancy robe standing in front of me. I felt that if I lived a good life and treated people right, I wasn't a sinner.  Ironic then, that an experience of sin and grace helped lead me to the Episcopal Church.

In Praying Shapes Believing by Leonel J. Mitchell, the author says, “The goal of the confessor’s counsel and direction is not to remove the symptoms of sin but to root out the disease--the cancer--of sin itself from the soul by the power of the redeeming love of Christ.  Reconciliation is not a program for self-improvement but an opening of the soul to salvation and redemption through the Paschal Mystery.  This opening to Salvation might also be described as taking place through the Blood of the Cross, or by grace through faith. (202).

Note that Mitchell says church is “not a program for self-improvement”. I worked hard on  self-improvement.  I went to a church where we talked about self-improvement; we had seminars on minimizing our carbon footprint, acting out social justice, building a loving community, classes taught by psychologists on “how to be a mature person”.  I took it seriously.  I read, meditated, I exercised to relieve stress, I focused on a positive attitude, I took the Bodhisattva vow, and treated others as I wanted to be treated.  It all helped.  Except when it didn’t.

Except when I was petty, mean, impatient, deceitful, dishonest, impatient, snarky, depressed, anxious…  What the heck?  I must not have been very good at “self-improvement”, right?  I must not have been very good at becoming a better person.

Outwardly, you might say I was doing pretty well.  I worked with children with special needs, I tried to raise my kids responsibly, I took good care of animals, I gave to charity, I loved my husband, I treated people kindly, I voted, I volunteered, I cut my grass and waved at the neighbors.  I had life figured out, right?  Still, my efforts to be “a better person” fell short as often as they hit the mark.  How come I, a person who seemed to “have it together”, was still a mess?  In all the striving, I never realized the grace I longed for was given as a gift.  It didn’t mean I was going to be “a good person”, but it did mean that I was loved and forgiven, no matter what.

After several years of marriage, my husband and I had “the Big Fight”.  It was pretty much the same fight we’d been having for years, over the same issues.  The details aren’t important, but if you’re in a relationship, you probably know what “Big Fight” I mean.  It always ended with one of us (usually me) promising to do better, to be kinder, to work harder, and to clean the house more often.  After years of making promises and always falling short, I finally said, “What if I can’t?  What if this is the best I can do?  What if, for the rest of our lives together, this is how I am?  Do you still want me?”  His answer, (thank God), was “Yes.”  You know what’s funny, we have NEVER had that same fight again.  We have had other fights, about loading the dishwasher and eating all the ice cream, but never “the Big Fight” again.  What changed?

Well, I can honestly say I did think of him more often, I did open up with things I would have kept closed and I did clean the house just a little bit more often.  It wasn’t because I had promised to do it. (I had tried it and that didn’t work).  The change in our daily life came organically.  I finally could rest in the knowledge of our love.  Rather than thinking that I needed to clean the toilets to avoid a fight or avoid “getting in trouble”, I cleaned the toilets because they were dirty.  When judgment dissipated, love remained.  I knew our marriage wasn't going away, so I might as well get to work.

This moment of marital stress is, for me, an example of God’s grace.  After trying and trying to make myself worthy and failing myself and God again and again, I asked God the same question.  When I stopped “trying to be a better person”, when I admitted my ineptitude, my greed, my selfishness, my SIN, and asked, “Do you still want me?”, the answer from God was “Yes”.  

Confessing sin isn’t a prescription to be a better person, or to get my life together.  My life might be a complete mess, but I still have God’s love.  There is nothing I can do to earn it, nothing I can do to deserve it, nothing I can do to pay it back.  The idea of grace, the "opening of my soul to salvation and redemption" snuck up on me slowly, nagged me, romanced me into a relationship with God in Christ.  Surprisingly, while thinking of the love of Christ in my heart, I act a little more lovingly, a little more patiently, a little more generously, a little more honestly.  

I am not going to clean the toilets of my soul in order to earn forgiveness.  I might as well clean them, though, because they are dirty.  Since God in Christ is dwelling in my soul and in my life, I might as well clean up a little bit for him.

Serving when you are needing

Recently, I’ve heard and read lots of things about service and sacrifice within the church.  Blogs by various people and church newsletters discuss expectations.  The sermons for the last two weeks were about sacrifice.  The point is to not have a consumerist attitude towards church, to not go to church thinking, “What do I get out of it?” but instead thinking, “How can I serve?”

Church is funny, because it’s not just a service group.  If a person just wants to do some good in the community, there are lots of secular organizations:  animal shelters, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, United Way, Kiwanis, food pantries, etc.  Church is about serving its members and serving the community.  Although anyone who has volunteered will tell you how much they get back from it.  Still, they probably don’t complain that the leader of the Kiwanis club is a poor speaker and why don’t those people learn to sing, for God’s sake!  They don’t go to the United Way looking for spiritual guidance.  Church is supposed to overflow the cups of its parishioners with loving grace, so it spills over to everyone else.

When I found my first adult church, the Unitarian Universalist church, I was pretty broken and small.  I needed to rebuild myself.  So, of course, I needed healing, love and support.  I found it.  I also was challenged to serve but I didn’t rise to the challenge very well.  Maybe I wasn’t ready, maybe I was too shy, maybe it just wasn’t the right opportunity for my talents. I did get involved in the worship planning.  Some of my projects there led me in a surprising direction--to an Episcopal church.

Again, here I went, into to a new church.  I was a little stronger than I had been four years ago, a little calmer, a little wiser.  Still, I needed something.  I needed to hear the Good News, the universal, catholic, salvific words of Jesus.  I needed to see the love of God spoken in a Christian church.  I needed to see it acted out by Christians.  I came to church looking for something I needed.  Most people come to church looking for what they need.

I wonder how I would have felt in the earlier, more broken, days if I’d heard from the pulpit that I should look to serve.  I wonder how I would have felt if told that the church needed part of my already poor, empty spirit.  I wonder if I would have felt challenged or if I would have walked out with tears in my eyes.  The thing is, those broken days could very well come again.  Life is surprising and not hardly ever easy.  Some days, even now, I’m just plain worn out and I go to church for a moment’s rest.  Now you’re telling me to sacrifice?  WTH? (excuse the expression).  I am here to get some help, dude!

Except…  If most people come to church looking for something:  broken, hungry, sad, empty, then who is left to heal, feed, comfort and fill up their spirits?  Is it the ones who happen to be strong and happy that day?  Somehow I don’t think that’s the answer.  Do ministers say, “If you’ve got some extra time and you’re kinda bored, we’d love you to come to the soup kitchen?  Just throw whatever extra you’ve got into the collection plate--thanks!  If you’ve had a really great week, got a raise and your spouse and kids tell you they love you every day AND you have had a great night’s sleep, then please chair our next fundraiser!”?  No, I’m sorry, but out of the three churches I’ve attended for over 25 years, I NEVER heard any of those things said.  Churches are full of people who need something desperately and those are the exact same people who give the most to the community.

You know what’s funny, I’m pretty sure I heard sermons about sacrifice and service my entire life; and I’m sure I heard a few when I was broken and needy.  Maybe I just wasn’t ready; maybe the seeds of sacrifice fell on rocky soil at that moment.  Or maybe they were buried deep in the cold, frozen ground and waited for the thaw.

So, if a person comes to church in need, how do you change from looking for what you need to looking for what you can give?  For me, it took some time.  For me, the work and sacrifice of my fellow parishioners running fundraisers, serving food and teaching the children, that spirit started to spilled over into me.  For me, after discussions at adult christian formation and serving potatoes at a fish fry, I, too, saw a need I could help fill.

I guess that when you serve even when you’re tired, broken and sad, you will find what you need.  I know for sure I wasn’t always thrilled to head up my chosen project, Vacation Bible School. At times, I had no idea how I would get it done, with working full-time and having two little kids.  Yes, I’m a teacher and I’m “off” in the summer, which is why I stepped up for this project.  Still, it wasn’t like I had so much free time that I longed to make schedules and organize craft materials.  At times, I had a hard time focusing on church services because I was distracted by all the work I should be doing.  Through all the anxiety, everything came together and we had a wonderful week of fun, laughter and worship with a bunch of great kids.

That’s the funny thing about serving, it builds more service.  Although my current focus is family and work concerns, I miss having a project at church.  When the next fundraiser came up, I didn’t think, “Oh, I wish I could help but…”  I thought, “What can I do with the time, talent and money I have at my disposal?  There must be something.”  I had avoided comments about teaching Sunday School before.  I just didn’t need one more thing to teach in my life, not with 7th graders all day and toddlers all night.  But, after VBS, I sought out the Sunday School teachers to see how I could help.  I know I’ll be tired when it’s my turn to help with primary Sunday School, but I also know how much I will get out of it.  I am not volunteering to head up the biggest fundraiser or chair the most important committee, I don’t even quite know what I’ll be doing next.  I do know my attitude of “No, not me”, has changed into, “How could I help with that?”

So, how do you take people who are looking to fill a need and teach them to fill others’ needs?  I surely don’t know, except that it seems to be happening to me.  Churches all over the place are doing it and it must be happening through the strength of their members.  Healing must be happening over coffee hour sign-ups, soup kitchen rotations, silent auction donations and kitchen clean-up.  The needy are serving and meeting their own needs all the time.