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

It has been a strangely beautiful and poignant 20 or so days since I wrote the last entry. After S and I wept and talked on the couch that day, after J and I exchanged those e-mails about the NPR story she had sent me, something in me began to shift. I was suddenly stronger, no longer relying on J or S or anyone else to carry me, as I had been, I realized, for much of this semester, maybe even this year. I have been feeling stronger and more able to really enjoy each moment for what it is. Thanksgiving weekend was wonderful; S and I reconnected and spent a lot of time cuddling and talking. We got a gigantic Christmas tree that I couldn't really afford and a beautiful wreath for the front of our house and we spent all weekend decorating and admiring it. It tipped over multiple times, three of S's favorite ornaments broke, there were tears that dissipated into S saying, "But at least I have beautiful things now that are mine, even if sometimes they have to break." And t...

S has been out of control lately, beyond anything “usual,” even for her. She’s been consistently mean and violent and screaming. She created a fake ebay account and purchased $400 worth of items, and this has been a nightmare to fix. She is eating whatever she wants at lunch at school, mostly sugar, and refusing to eat the healthy lunches (or, for that matter, suppers) that I make; food has been an issue all along, but it’s really escalated recently. Worst of all, she is showing little remorse for her actions. Every little request turns into a fight. Every boundary is a challenge meant to be broken. Even if she agrees—yes, you’re right, I can’t handle the computer, please take away the keyboard and mouse—the next day she is screaming at me and her college buddy because I’ve taken away the keyboard and mouse. Living in my home has been exhausting. This past Tuesday, things reached a head when she blew up and cussed at a teacher. Up until that point, most of her aggressive behavior had b...

In her poem "Pussy Willow (An Apology)," Susan Mitchell writes of being late to see a friend because she becomes enthralled with pussy willows outside the florist shop on the way. "I had to take off/my gloves, and I would have/taken off my skin//(for why should I put/a barrier between/myself and anything?" she writes, "...because I cannot/keep my hands/off the world/and the world out of my breath." The poem is about how every choice we make to be present with one thing means, necessarily, that we are no longer present with something else. Each hour I'm at work and S is at home, my heart struggles--I want to be with her, but I also want to do my job well, to manage a program that makes a real difference in the community and in students' lives. I'm able, somehow, to keep that larger goal before me when I'm meeting with faculty, students, and community partners, to continue to feel the excitement of the potential results of those meetings (tho...

"In the deep fall/don't you imagine the leaves think how/comfortable it will be to touch the earth instead of the/nothingness of air and the endless/freshets of wind?" Mary Oliver writes in "Song for Autumn." What does it mean to live a good life, to have a good death? A mentor of mine died a good death recently, loved deeply by so many who visited regularly until the very end. I never went to see him, even though S asked many times that we do so. I had heard from a mutual friend that he'd said, "Let them come if they need to say goodbye," and I didn't. I didn't because the last time I saw him, he had hugged me tightly and told me how glad he was to have worked with me, and I had said the same. We both knew, of course, that he was dying, but in that moment, surrounded by the noise and laughter at a community meal, we didn't have to say it. Before then, S and I had presented him with a painting of his favorite local hang out at his retir...

The trees along our street would turn colors and there he would be, walking past my house, kicking up small clouds of red and yellow with his bare feet, smiling a little to himself. Or he would show up on my back porch and just sit there, not wanting to talk. He’d have his head back and be looking up at the sky, the sunlight reflecting off his dark glasses. Sometimes, he was genuinely happy. We met during orientation in fall 2005, when I cheerfully greeted all my new advisees and forced them to go around the room, saying their names and majors and other mundane facts about themselves—where they were from, what they liked to do for fun. Murdock refused to participate. He pulled his black fingernails through his long hair and looked at me through those signature dark glasses. When I asked his name, he refused to tell me. Eventually, I of course figured out, by process of elimination, who he was. Somehow, I got him to come to my office. By then, I thought I’d figured him out. I told him b...

It has been so long since I've written, I hardly know where to start. S is back to full days at school, and she's doing incredibly well. She is also doing a better job of getting chores around the house done. With the exception of a couple days last week, she has been calm and focused (well, for her), and has been, basically, happy. J, her college friend, is back from Germany, and two other college women are helping out now, working with her just a few hours a week. They will take over J's hours next semester, so I thought it was important to get them started now to ease the transition. We're in as much of a routine as we could possibly have given how much of my job involves evening and weekend work--and different hours each week. Strangely, after a summer of dreading coming back full-time, I am loving my job this year. Part of that is a first-year seminar course called community engagement: from volunteerism to social justice. I have really great, thoughtful, enthusias...

June was a slow month full of lots of down time (as well as productivity at work and with my writing). S was home alone a lot of the time--a first for her--but I was able to get home each day by around 1 p.m., so we were still getting quality time together. I was letting go a little, realizing how desperately she needed some unstructured time, and although she often didn't make the best decisions, she certainly wasn't making unsafe ones--and we were able to process and she to learn, at least to some extent, from the decisions she made that weren't the best. But July--wow, it was a whole different story. Suddenly mid-July was here, and we were preparing for S's dance camp. She would be attending a week-long arts camp, in the dance program. I talked with the teachers and camp director beforehand, and we made arrangements to ensure that she would have a safe, encouraging environment and that I would be able to support her by being nearby. We shared a room in the dorm, and ...

Ever since she came to me, S has been seeing a therapist two hours away. So, once a week, we drive to the therapist's office, I sit in the waiting room for an hour, and then, we drive back. Sometimes, if the appointment is early enough, we stop somewhere for food or shopping--but most of the time, we literally leave around 5 and drive back at 8 or so, putting us at home by 10, if we are lucky. I have mixed feelings about this therapist. I call her before each appointment to talk on her answering machine about how the week has gone; that way, if S is hesitant to bring something up, she has a little background. But it does not seem to me that the therapy itself is doing much good. In fact, our family therapy (with a therapist literally a block away from us) seems to be much more helpful. S goes back and forth about whether the therapist is helping her; sometimes, she says she is, and other times, she tells me she needs someone more qualified or smarter. Anyway, around the time when S...

I got a couple phone calls on Tuesday saying something was going on at the church I used to attend. To make a long story short, I attended a church in town (a Methodist and United Church of Christ church—in small towns, even seemingly completely different Protestant faiths tend to combine to make churches viable) for about five years, and during that time, the church began to grapple with whether to become an Open and Affirming/Reconciling congregation—publicly welcoming, in other words, to GLBT people. Ultimately, the process was so painful for me that I left, just before the church voted the idea down. I have since really missed going to church, and I miss some of the people. I even tried to go back after S came into my life, but she didn’t feel comfortable there—looking back, I now suspect that she sensed my discomfort. I knew the minister was retiring, and that the church would be calling an interim, UCC minister (I still get the bulletins—in fact, in her last bulletin message, the...

We are heartbroken. S's youngest brother has been with the same family since the kids were removed six years ago. About a year ago, the family decided not to adopt him, but said they would have him under guardianship for the rest of his childhood. He chose not to be put up for adoption, and by all accounts, he was doing well. S has not heard from him since before Christmas, and we didn't get any response when we sent him Christmas gifts. She's written him two or three times since--no response. The middle brother and his adoptive dad will be visiting this summer, and his dad inquired about having the youngest brother join us. We were told this probably wouldn't work, as he was going through a "hard time." Today, we learned that the family has given him up. We don't know any other details--where he's staying (foster home? residential treatment center?), or anything else, but we will be involved in talking about a strategy for finding him a permanent fami...

Getting Ready I have realized I need a retreat in early June—that this is a necessity I’ll need to work into my schedule, probably forever. So, almost exactly a year to the day after taking my life-changing retreat last year, I went away again. While I wanted to return to the apartment where I’d stayed last year in the middle of the woods, far from everyone and everything, I opted instead this time for a room at a nuns’ residence in the city, mainly because the college student who would have S was living nearby for the summer, and so, it made sense to show up in the city, surrender my car and my daughter to her, and retreat. (I will admit that my long and painful battle with poison ivy after last year’s retreat also played a role in my decision). In preparation, I read through what I’d written in my journal while on retreat a year ago. The demon I was battling then was anger—anger at all the people who had hurt S; anger at the school, their treatment of her and me, their inability to ...