Writing, Parenting, and Working in the Mess: Authentic Spirituality and Social Justice

For awhile, despite small detours here and there, the framework of my life seemed clear, made sense; it was all about healing and helping others heal, about changing lives and, with them, taking at least small cracks in the larger systems that caused the suffering in those lives. It was about a depth of love (and, yes, sacrifice, too) that nourished me, energized me. I was raising this amazing child, watching her take one step back, two steps forward, over and over again. I had a rewarding job through which I was able to do the same kind of mentoring for my students. I had time to work on my writing; I was happy simply being at the page, sending things out when the mood struck me or when something seemed a good fit, keeping up this blog, sharing my work with people who most needed it. My relationships with family and friends were the strongest they had ever been, and those that weren't perfect no longer plagued me, because my life had such meaning, such purpose. I was happy--the ha...

Sometimes, I can't sleep because I am haunted, suddenly, inexplicably, by an old memory--something I should have done differently, someone I should have treated differently. I will lie in bed and relive every detail--the woman I turned away some twelve years ago who so desperately wanted more than the casual fling we were having; the student who dropped out, the one I hardly noticed in my classes--reserved and detached, not a problem, but also not interesting, so I didn't bother to try to connect; the decision to miss this baptism, that wedding, at times when I felt disconnected from my family; the moment I signed for my first credit card, and the endless debt I grappled with as a result for much of my life. It's strange how real these memories can be, frought with the same emotions I had at the time, as well as the emotionality that would have been there if I'd known then what I know now. In reality, I signed the papers for that first card in the student center of my c...

Today, S. let go of three distinct and important parts of her past all at once: she broke up with her boyfriend; she gave away ten bags of clothing, or 107 individual pieces (yes, we actually counted), all of which had been purchased and worn during and before her four years in foster care; and, she told me confidently and with certainty that she no longer wanted to move back to the state she is from. Anyone who read that first paragraph is now thinking, “Wow, they had an amazing, life-changing day,” but they’d be wrong—-well, sort of. The day started out in a less-than-stellar way. Church this morning was a nightmare. When S. came to live with me, I went back to the church I’d attended a year or so earlier, before I'd had a big falling-out with more than half the parishioners about whether the church ought to be open and affirming to GLBT people. (I wrote about this at length on this blog awhile back). It was a hard decision, but she had been attending an Evangelical church and b...

Today, on the last official day of summer, S. and I go to the beach. We are two of only about eight people there, and there is a good reason: it is windy. And when I say windy, I'm talking about a kind of wind that people who aren't from the prairie can't fathom. I lie on the beach, trying to finish a book of poetry, but the sand kicking up against my skin is seriously and strangely painful. I can feel it in my eardrums, in my mouth, against my side, little stinging daggers of pain. The waves are high, and when I try to float on my back, I swallow water, breathe water, squirm to get back up. The water, the wind, reminds me of Ikaria, and for a second I am homesick for that island where I have never lived, and then, I daydream briefly of taking S. there, something we've planned for next year, how it will go, what particular challenges might arise, what it will be like to show her another place, other people, that matter to me. Briefly, I feel grief for all of her places ...