Holy Saturday

It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. 
- Luke 23:55-56

I grew up in an Episcopal household with Catholic roots, and our home life was liturgical.  Things had a purpose, and a season, and a rhythm to them.  We decorated the house on December 5th in preparation for St. Nicholas Day.  A toy nativity was put in my hands and I was encouraged to tell, and re-tell, and re-re-tell the story of Jesus.  Easter meant tatalluches, an Italian-family cookie recipe, and meat pie, but it also meant we'd be at church for four days:  Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday.

Holy Saturday.  Not Easter Vigil, as we do in the Lutheran church, but Holy Saturday.  We would re-read the story of the Crucifixion, and we would remember.

One year, my mother and I cleaned the house on Holy Saturday.  And in my young mind, it was connected to the story.  The women went home and prepared spices and ointments -- because what else could be done?  The Messiah was dead.  They had to find something to do, a way to keep their hands occupied, in the face of the crushing heaviness of their hearts.  And so did we.  In the face of Good Friday, we cleaned, because the grief was too much to sit with.

I know now that the women rested, on Saturday, because it was the Sabbath.  But I did not know this, as a child, and to me the right and proper thing to do was clean.

Sometimes all that can be done is to tie back my hair and take up a towel, to fill my hands with something more than tears.  To wash and dust and scrub and clean, in the desperate and impossible hope that something new might tomorrow come to fill the well-swept house.

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body.
Luke 24:1-2

Lenten Reflections, part 3.

In Part 1, number 5, I wrote:

"I’ve learned I don’t feel the anxiety when I feel the presence of G-d or when I’m leading worship.  They’re just not compatible."

I felt this even when leading Easter Vigil worship on Saturday, when I was two pages into a four-page a cappella Gregorian-style Easter Proclamation.  I completely lost the tune and then stumbled over the words.

I felt a flutter of panic in my chest, took a breath, and started the line again.  I had no trouble from there on.  I should have panicked, but I just stepped right back into it and kept going.

What is it about worship that makes me feel safe?

Is it the long stretch of experience - since my first time preaching at fourteen, to music team leader at Teens Encounter Christ, to state championships in extemporaneous reading, to distributing communion bread at Homecoming worship my first year at Olaf, to co-leading the Progressive Christian Fellowship in the footsteps of wise and amazing women, to preaching a holy and uncommon welcome on the first day of my senior year, to leading devos in front of the Saint Olaf Choir, to now spending Sunday after Sunday trying to explain the stories of our faith to squirming children?

Is it the presence of loving faces around the sanctuary - parents who watch me work with and love up their kids every week, adults who've watched my leadership style change and grow, kids and youth who like me in spite of my dislike for destructive fun and my insistence on Bible study during Sunday School, friends who burst with pride and excitement to see me leading?

No question, both of these are key elements to raising my comfort level.

But I've been shopping for years - I'm no pro at it, but I've certainly got as many years experience trying on clothes as I have in public speaking and music leadership.  Yet clothes shopping is one of my primary panic attack triggers.

And as much as my worship spaces are filled with people whose love for me is evident - there are also faces of disdain or disinterest.  In most other social situations, those faces are the ones I focus on.

I can actually perceive the panic beginning - I've noticed my brain start to think "She looks bored," "He looks annoyed," "I did that wrong," and before I can even start my disable mechanisms, the circuit of repetitive thoughts shuts off.

So what makes worship different?  Why, no matter how many triggers are flipped, can I keep going with whatever I'm doing - and enjoy it - when in all other cases I'd be two seconds from a meltdown?

Lenten Reflections, part 2.

After forty-seven days spent worrying about how much I worry (this is slightly ironic and slightly true) I'm honestly feeling better.

The obsessive thoughts have been cut back.  I don't think I'm in a cycle as often as I used to be; I think I spend less time over-analyzing past events and over-preparing for future ones.
I still get very shaken by and obsessive over confrontation, so that's something I'll still be working on for the coming months.

I had an anxious moment shopping at Cub this week.  Kristi and I were trying to find a particular spice and not finding it, and some other shopper decided she should help us.  I did not want help.  I was kind of rude, to be honest.  Then I felt my skin flush and my temperature rise, and recognized the onset of a panic attack.  And I said:  "No.  I have shopping to do.  I will do the shopping."  And it took a few moments but I calmed down and didn't have a meltdown in the store, which seems like a silly thing to be proud of but I know it was a step forward and I'm proud of myself for that.

One thing I'd like to add to my work is morning yoga & strength training.  I think if I was better in tune with my body, I'd be more aware of it as a house for my soul and less as a burden to bear.  I've done morning yoga off and on, and I'd really like to be always "on."

I do recognize, though, that even in my best shape (high school, sophomore year, 140 lbs, able to run a 7-minute mile) I wasn't happy with how I looked.  Getting more in shape isn't going to fix my body image issues.  The issues persist, although they're to a lesser degree than they were before the Lenten project.  The key thing is not for me to become more beautiful, but to recognize the beauty already present in me and celebrate it as is.

One really helpful thing is how supportive everyone's been.  Kristi, of course, has been amazing.  Second to her, my school friends (particularly the "babe seminarians") have been the closest witnesses to this process, and they have been likewise amazing.  It's anxiety-inducing to talk about anxiety, but I haven't had a single experience this Lent where anyone was less than supportive, loving, and encouraging.  Everyone has been (and is) a huge blessing to me and I'm just deeply grateful for where I am right now and who I'm surrounded by.

Reflections at the end of Lent, part 1.

This Lenten discipline of trying to address my social anxiety has been hard.  I’ve had “unsuccessful” disciplines before, and I know that forgiveness, absolution, reconciliation with G-d and humanity is not dependent upon me perfectly performing my Lenten practices (if it is … we’re all screwed).  I acknowledged going into this that I might not beat it - that I might wake Easter morning with all the obsessive thoughts still churning through my brain.  And, at this point, I haven’t beat it.  But I have learned a lot - and grown a little, I believe - and that’s a huge start.

1.  I’ve learned just how much my social anxiety takes from me.

• It takes my ability to finish homework ahead of time.  If I have time to review my work before turning it in, I become sure that I’ve done it wrong and I will fail.  So I put off work till the last minute and stress out majorly over a period of a few hours instead of days.

• It took my ability to judge what I look like.  You know what I just realized this week?  A 36C bra is a normal size.  I am not disgustingly huge.  I might be overweight according to BMI standards for my height, but I’m not huge.  Yet the anxiety tells me that I’m shameful, disgusting, etc.  I’ve been living that message for more than a decade.  Even when I was in kick-ass shape, able to run a 7 min mile and fifteen pounds lighter than I am now, I thought I was disgusting and huge. 

• It puts up walls in my friendships.  Because I’m constantly worried about what people are thinking about me, I can’t be myself.  And because I’m constantly worried about being judged, I’m constantly judging others according to the extremely weird and totally irrational rules the anxious part of my brain has pretty much made up about dress and behavior.  

• It hurts my relationship with Kristi.  No one wants to have to constantly reassure her partner that she’s beautiful.  Kristi has to do that every day, and I know she’s tired of it, and I know I’m tired of needing to hear it.

2.  I’ve learned how much time goes into my social anxiety.  One of the hardest things when I was first learning to break the repetitive-obsessive thoughts was figuring out what to think about instead.  I would get up and get in the shower and before I was finished brushing my teeth I’d be fussing about something that had happened the day before.  There was just a lot of time going into this crap!

3.  I’ve learned that the sick girl is not my past - she’s my present too.  Going deeply into my experiences of anxiety meant dealing with the fact that I am, presently, anxious.  Until recently I’ve wanted to believe that the “sick girl” is in my past - that I’ve overcome my mental illness and it’s gone, forever.  There’s no doubt that I’m much, much healthier now than I was in high school, and I’m proud to own that, but it doesn’t mean that everything is perfectly fine.  I still have a lot of brain re-wiring to do, and that’s OK.  I have to be OK with not being OK.

4.  I’ve learned to reward myself for “ordinary” things.  I came home tonight and proudly told Kristi that I’d gone to the grocery store and used the regular checkout.  This is a big deal.  I don’t remember the last time I used the regular checkout.  I use self check-out because then I don’t have to talk to anyone.  If I use regular checkout, the cashier will judge me!  my purchases!  my jacket!  my credit card design!  So I was really proud of myself for doing somethingridiculously normal - and that’s OK.  I have to counter all the shame, the guilt, the embarrassment of my panic attacks with the small accomplishments of everyday social exchanges with cashiers and sales associates and the UPS guy and whoever else.

5.  I’ve learned I don’t feel the anxiety when I feel the presence of G-d or when I’m leading worship.  They’re just not compatible.  So that’s nice.

Later I’ll reflect on some places that I feel I’ve grown, some ways my brain has started to function more on the normal wavelengths than on the anxious ones.  But for now, bed, because one of the important things in all this is getting a good amount of sleep!

Today’s mantra.

(I used the full word for G-d, which I don’t do often because I am wary of ascribing things to G-d that are not G-d. But I am a child of God, and if I can say nothing else for certain, I can say that.

[ the Mississippi's mighty ]

but it starts in Minnesota
at a place that you could walk across with five steps down

I bus to school as often as I can.  When I do, I get a much more intimate picture of the Mississippi than I do as a driver on 94; I can see the crest of the falls at Saint Anthony Main from the 6, or the slowly-widening expanse of burbling water at Washington Ave from the 3.

Well, at least, I can now.

A month ago the river was completely iced over.  Beautiful and still.  Covered in drifts of snow, with dark-blue ice glaring through in spots, glinting in the winter sunlight.  Quiet.  Serene.

But any Minnesotan can tell you that underneath, the river is still churning, still rushing along.  It only looks serene from the surface.

This is how I feel.  A month ago, the surface was serene.  Only those intimately acquainted with the ice knew what kind of churning and groaning lay underneath. The coping mechanisms were well refined, keeping everyone unaware of how hard my brain was working just underneath the beautifully blown snow.

Then the spring sun hit it, its warmth a dream of healthy living and thinking.  Within a week, the river is not ice but churn, foam, wave, burble.


and I guess that's how you started
like a pinprick to my heart

It shocks me how quickly my brain has learned to identify the repetitive and obsessive thoughts that terrify me, and how delighted it is to remember to sing or to pray or to read and to watch as the cycle breaks down.

It shocked me to realize that my friends are much more like themselves, and much less like the judgmental terrors the sick part of my brain tried to make them out to be.

It shocks me how beautiful I feel.  Not perfect, by any means, but beautiful.

It shocked me how my coping mechanisms have dictated so many relationships - have kept me from fully engaging with the people I love.


but at this point you rush right through me and I start to drown

I am not yet where I want to be.  Much work still lies before me, and much pain and unwrapping of my past and present.  But I have a dream for the future -healthy thinking - and I can see the river of my heart beginning to open.

Today I smell like yeast.

Today I smell like yeast.

Today is the first Sunday of Lent, and as is tradition (meaning:  we did it last year), we make pretzels in Sunday School.  My job is to buy supplies, make the dough, make sure everyone's hands are washed, walk the younger kids through rolling dough, walk the other kids through folding and egg-painting, get the tray in the oven, make more dough, write names on parchment paper so everyone gets to eat their own pretzel when they're done baking, tell a little one to go wash her hands again because she had her thumb in her mouth, get warm water for the kids whose dough is too dry, get flour for the kids whose dough is too wet (yes, there's a relationship there), put another tray in the oven, check the first tray, drag one of the older girls off the piano because as previously established we don't play piano during Sunday School time, make more dough, walk the youngest ones through rolling it again, convince the older ones not to just make "pretzels" that are the first letter of their name, promise the middle ones that yes-they-will-get-to-eat-them, make one more batch of dough, roll dough for the youngest ones, wipe down one table, get more warm water for the drier dough, wipe down the same table again, remove all the pretzels that are the size of footballs and suggest that their creators make them smaller just like the three they made before this one, finally finish all the pretzels and send the kids off to their classrooms, wipe down the second table, listen to the boy who disappeared next door for twenty minutes and now wants to make his pretzel and is whining because I'm soo mean.

And although it makes me crazy, I like this job.

Not just the pretzel baking (although it's pretty great, with tasty results) but I love working with the kids. I don't ever know if anything I'm teaching is sinking in, and there are some days when they are so adept at pushing my buttons that I want to yell or scream or possibly quit, but eighty-six percent of the time, I love my job.

Working with kids is one of the few social interactions that doesn't trigger anxiety.  I'd guess because the kids are all smaller than me, and I'm in a position of power.

But I think it's also because I'm in a position of service.

I signed on because I love these kids.  Yes, they drive me nuts, and they exhaust me, but I love them.  And I believe we have something worthwhile to teach them, something good and true and life-changing.  I want to be there for that.  I don't do this because I want them to have fun; if that was so, we'd just go to the playground down the street or run around in the fellowship hall or whatever they wanted to do.  No, there is something bigger going on, and I want to be a part of that.

So I realize that when I'm in a position of service - when I show up because I know something important is happening, and I want to put my hands to work in its mission - I don't feel anxious.  Something bigger than my obsessions and repetitive thoughts is going on.

And I want to keep being a part of that.

Lent, day 1.

Have you ever played an out-of-tune piano?

It sounds weird.  You can’t make good music on it.  A song you know might still sound familiar, but “off”.  If it’s really out of tune, it will grate your ears; you will cover them, wince, try to leave the room if you can.

But what if, for fifteen years, all you’d had to play was an out-of-tune piano?

It would sound normal, eventually.  Especially if you’d learned to play on it.  You’d make your own rules, train your ear to expect the quarter-step differences that make a “tuned” ear weep.  You’d play your own music, make your own tunes, dance to your own melodies and sing your own harmonies.  

It sounds beautiful to you, because it’s all you know.  As long as you played by yourself, you’d be fine.

But if one day you met someone who had a tuned instrument?  Whose ear was properly trained?

You wouldn’t be able to play with them.  You’d have to tune your piano.  And once the piano was tuned, you’d have to tune your ear, as well.  Fifteen years of hearing notes and songs and concertos a certain way, and you realize that it’s “wrong.”

You can recognize that the way that everyone else is making music is more aesthetically pleasing.  You like it better, honestly.  That doesn’t change the fact that your mis-tuned ear is now an instinct, a nature you have to fight so that you can play with others.  You know that the songs you play are a quarter-step off from everyone else.  But these are the songs you’ve known for fifteen years; your horrific key of A-flat-melodic-minor-with-augmented-third-and-diminished-sixth is how you sing.

If you want to play with others - and you want to - you have to not only tune the piano, but entirely retrain your ear.

That’s the problem with my social anxiety.  I know that the piano of my brain is out of tune; I have an idea of how to tune it.  But how do I undo fifteen years of obsessive anxious thinking patterns?  How do I rewire my brain to sing in harmony with others?  And how do I learn to sing my own song, in a beautiful key - a song that others can join?

Surrender.

[Sara Groves, "Remember Surrender"]

remember surrender
remember the rest
remember that weight lifting off of your chest
and realizing that it's not up to you and it never was

I tossed around a lot of ideas for Lent (which isn't strange for a seminarian, I think...).  Should I take up Anne's practice of writing "love letters," a note of thanks and love to a friend or family member for every day of Lent?  Should I push myself to do my yoga every day, to eat healthier, to sleep better?  Should I try to finally cultivate a visual image of G-d that incorporates the divine feminine?

remember surrender
remember relief
remember how tears rolled down both of your cheeks
as the warmth of a heavenly Father came closing in

All of these are good.  The divine feminine one, in fact, made my list of "things to do before I start my own church."  But I know what weighs on my heart the most, what most stands between me and a good life and a good ministry.

I want to do that again
why can't I live there
and make my home
in sweet surrender
I want to do so much 
more than remember

Since the age of self-consciousness, I have been overly self-conscious.  I am continually plagued by thoughts of how I am perceived by others, of who likes me and who doesn't.

This is not healthy.  This is extraordinarily painful.  It suffocates me.

There have been days - many more in the past, but a few even recently - when I cannot fathom leaving the apartment because I dread the social interaction of even running into a neighbor in the hallway.

I often have panic attacks when shopping.  I sometimes change outfits three times in the morning.  I apologize constantly for anything I imagine someone else might perceive as a slight.

I live with a voice constantly at the edge of my brain, whispering, "No one likes you."

remember surrender
remember peace
remember how soundly you fell fast asleep
in the face of your troubles your future still shone like the morning sun

But I live - I am alive only by the grace of G-d, and only because of it.

I am alive.

But I will not live with that voice on my shoulder, with that condemnation in my ear.

remember surrender
remember that sound
of all of those voices inside dying down
but the One who speaks clearly of helping and healing you deep within

That voice pollutes me.  It strains my life with Kristi, it stunts my prayers, it impedes on my friendships, it stoppers my schoolwork.  It clamps my throat.  It breaks my heart.

I have fought it well, for years, and I cope reasonably well now - but I will not host a war inside me for the rest of my life.  The war is over.  The day of peace is come.

It is time to retrain my brain -
to teach it not to obsess -
and to liberate my heart
for the fullness of joy it can bear.

I want to do that again
why can't I live there
and make my home

For Lent, by the grace of G-d, by the saving hands of Christ, and by the power of the Spirit, 

I am giving up my anxiety.

in sweet surrender


I want to do so much 
more than remember