The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.^[1]

Is This Contributing to My Misery?

Therapist Lisa says that I have an "overactive, over-developed sense of responsibility". I think that's a nice way to say I'm co-dependent. Or that I have no life of my own and I've chosen to make it this way - ouch ouch ouch.

I don't like hearing that a lot of the mess I'm in is my own doing. I'd much rather blame someone else - for instance, God. After all, isn't He the Supreme Ruler of the Universe? Do I not belong to Him? Therefore, it stands to reason that He can fix all this junk. . . am I right?

Unfortunately, when God created us as His image-bearers, He forgot to make us mindless, will-less, puppets. He gave us choice. Some old, long-dead theologian called it the terrible gift of free will. The thought is that God wants us to want Him. He doesn't want us to love Him because we have to.

But it's a double-edged sword. That rebellious, stubborn part of us that helps us survive this world, that strong spirit we pride ourselves in, is also the part that keeps us shaking our tiny little fists at the loving One who created us. And if you're me, blaming Him for all manner of consequences I've brought on myself and for not running my life the way I want it run. I also tend to blame Him for the nasty choices others have made that damage me. Basically, I want God to be my sugar daddy (do they still say that?), not my God. Not the One who knows best, sees all and will, eventually, put every yucky thing right.

Humm.

So, in line with me taking responsibility for my side of life, for the choices I can make and the things I can control, Lisa gave me this little thought to think before I make a move: will this contribute to my misery?

It fits right in with detaching from the outcome. If I make good choices - ones that won't contribute to my misery (don't you LOVE that word, misery?), and then detach from the outcome (let God be God - not me), theoretically, life will be easier, more joyful, and carefree.

Okay, that sounds too simplistic, doesn't it? But what if she's right? What if it works? What if God - Who I completely believe in - can be trusted?

Wow. . .what a concept. I have to ponder this awhile.

Love you guys - thanks for working through all this with me.

Acceptance

I think I've known for many years that one of the keys to a contented life is through acceptance. Back in my married years, I attended several Al-Anon and Nar-Anon meetings. One of the things that really stuck with me is the Serenity Prayer. You know:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

As a new Christian, I read an awesome book by Hannah Hurnard: Hinds Feet on High Places. This allegory drawn from the third chapter of Habakkuk follows the journey of Much Afraid as she travels with the Shepherd. At one point, in the desert, she meets a little flower which pushed through the dry, almost concrete-like earth to bloom, all by itself. The flower introduces itself as Acceptance with Joy. It was able to thrive despite its circumstances. Out of the entire book, that is the only part I remember. It struck me then, and obviously, is still with me.

But, on so many levels, acceptance just feels wrong. As an American (as you know, we are pioneers), as an "enlightened" woman, and even as a Christian, I can find rationale for fighting badness - for kicking against the goads as God accused Paul. Doesn't the Bible say not to be overcome by the darkness, but to overcome evil with good? How does that jibe with acceptance? Acceptance feels like giving up. It feels like surrender. Which, I guess, it is.

What I'm maybe starting to grasp - maybe - is that is a both/and thing. Yes, our Creator hard-wired us to rise up against injustice, that's part of being an image-bearer of Him. To hate wrong doers, to protest on behalf of the innocent. It's very scriptural, too. Just check out the Psalms.

However, ultimately, if we believe He is our Lord and that the earth is His and all the fullness thereof . . . then it only makes sense to do what we can, but leave the rest to Him. My problem is with the leaving the rest part.

I am seeing that I tend to push and push and push some more. I get a cause fixed in my mind, decide it's good (which they usually are), and then go full speed ahead. The trouble is, even if I started out doing a job for God, I stop asking Him for guidance, provision, and most importantly, I stop asking Him if this is what He has for me to do. Just because something is good and needful doesn't make it my job. Ouch.

Super-ouch because I've had to utterly fail in order to get the point a few times. I've lost homes, money, friends. . . I have a very thick skull, apparently.

Lisa the Therapist is working with me to fix this. She talks a lot about acceptance: accepting my past, accepting my present, accepting my future. It shapes out like this: I need to accept reality - how I feel about stuff, damage that I've done, damage that's been done to me. . . I'm learning to say, "I cannot change this. I will never have (fill in the blank)", or "I may never have (fill in the blank)." And further, as a Christian, that God may never fix this or change that. He may never give me the outcome I want and am convinced I need.

Can I be okay with that? If nothing ever changes, if I never see justice done here on earth, if I never get my deepest desires, will I still belong to Him and trust Him? Will I still believe? Will I believe that He is good?

Or will I turn my back on Him, pouting and sullen because He didn't do things my way?

If I am convinced that He is God, the Creator of universes, time, matter. . . how can I possibly be so sure that I know anything at all, let alone what's best for me and the rest of the world? There's a passage in Job that says it well:

Then Job replied to the LORD:
I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.
You asked, "Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?"
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.

You said "Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you and you shall answer me."
My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.

Job 42: 1-6 NIV

I'm hopeful that I will get better at accepting. 'Cause endlessly struggling and striving has tuckered me out. I need a vacation. Anyone available to babysit?

My Mom Logic

I've been a mom for twenty-two years. Crazy. In that time, I've raised, helped raise, and am still raising a bunch of kids.

You would think I'd have tons to say about Mom Logic, but I really don't. I don't find anything logical in being a mom. Let me explain.

Back many moons ago, when my two original children were very young - Kris was maybe three and Kelsey was around six months old - things were really rough. The Divorce was in the works, and my ex-husband had fled Seattle for Louisiana. We were living with my mom, which had its ups and downs, because mom and I have history, and she was pleased about The Divorce. I wasn't.

I had a full time job downtown in a stock brokerage - which required a lot of dressing up and looking nice - was dragging both kids to and from daycare (on the bus), and doing all the other basic mommy stuff like shopping, cooking, laundry, doctor appointments, diaper junk, baths, teaching my son, Kris how to ride a bike...you get the point.

So, most of the time, I was exhausted.

The only thing that kept me going was my new faith. I was a baby Christian. This belief came at me from out of the blue. The last thing I'd planned on was "finding Jesus". After all, I was an enlightened Seattleite. We don't do Christianity. That's something for primitives (to paraphrase Deepak Chopra).

In fact, I was horrified when I took this step of faith. Terrified of what people would say. Not sure what that was about, I didn't have too many "people".

But I digress. So, here I am, an almost complete wreck, parenting two beautiful kids by myself and feeling the walls closing in. I remember sitting at the kitchen table after a long day of work and mommying. Kris was probably outside, my mom wasn't home yet, and Kelsey was sitting on the kitchen floor wrapped up in some toy. She was a fat little baby, pudgy little cheeks, pouty little lips, and a round little head with hardly any hair. You know, the kind you strain at getting one of those Velcro bows on so people will know she's a girl? Like the pink clothes don't say enough?

I remember sitting there with my head propped up on my hand watching her play. She had her back to me, and all I could see was her little round self hunched over whatever it was she had. The place where her head and her upper back met looked like they were stuck together - like she had no neck, kind of like a little snowman baby or something. Only with arms and legs. And not so pale.

As I watched her, exhausted from the day, and anticipating years more of this, a massive rush of love completely overwhelmed me. It almost made me cry.

This perplexed me. I asked myself: how can I love her so much? I mean, what the heck? She was a pooping, crying, hungry, drooling, demanding blob of personhood, requiring constant supervision and gobs of money. I had given up my rights to my own life for this insistent, ungrateful little thing...what was up with this crazy wave of emotion?

And I swear, I heard God say to me, deep in my heart, "That's how I love you. You offer Me nothing at all, you deny Me, you break all My rules, you take and take, and rarely say thanks. But, I would die for you, Kathy".

And I got it. There is no logic to it. Love is totally illogical (nod to Mr. Spock). But it's written deep in our hearts. We long for it. We die without it. Good mommies pour it out constantly, daily, for years and years. And frequently, we don't get thanks. We don't get fame. We don't get fortune. We get sleepless nights, ER visits, late night phone calls, wet shoulders from crying babies, crying toddlers, crying teenagers, and crying young adults. We get barf, coffee, ketchup and other junk on our white shirts. Sometimes, we get our hearts broken.

And we love them. We love our babies.

I'm sorry, I can't find any logic in that. And I'm completely fine with it.


This post is my entry for the Mother of All Bloggers contest. If it is chosen, I will be begging for your votes. Just a heads up! Thanks, everyone.

Reality Bites

Back in the mid-'90s there was a movie called Reality Bites. I haven't actually seen it, but the title's always intrigued me. It's one of those little snippets that move through my mind like those little floaty things you see in your field of vision...you guys do know what I'm talking about, right? You know, they look like junk you'd find under a microscope...?

Sometimes the strangest stuff will pop into my head. Like almost every time I participate in a group prayer - especially if we're standing up and holding hands - I inevitably want to say, "Keep coming back, it will work if you work it!" While swinging our hands back and forth. That's from my brief stint in Al-Anon. Also from Al-Anon, "Don't be in the middle arranging all the outcomes" (like that's possible), from SmokeEnders, "You're a puff away from a pack a day". Pitiful, I know. Such is the flotsam and jetsam in my head. No wonder I'm in therapy.

Anyway, lately I've been thinking a lot about the Skin Horse. That wise old toy from the Velveteen Rabbit. I say wise, because I can't remember how many pastors I've heard quote him, so he must be pretty darned wise - right?

This is another thing I've never actually read front to back. But I like the premise. The actual full title is: The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real and it was written by Margery Williams back in 1922. Rabbit was a Christmas gift to a boy. The Boy loved him at first, for about two hours, and then Rabbit was quickly forgotten in the bedroom. I love how the author describes him as "shy" by nature, and says that most of the other toys put on airs and snubbed him - basically, this stuffed bunny had really low self-esteem. Only the Skin Horse would talk to him.

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

The Skin Horse Tells His Story

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

You can probably see why pastors like to quote this passage. I think we tend to want to listen to all the prosperity crap some preachers put out or the bad theology we make up ourselves; that we blame God for the mess in the world and in our lives (even the stuff we cause ourselves). In reality, Jesus spoke numerous times about having trouble in this world - He certainly did.

There's another scripture in the Old Testament that says that God has placed eternity in the hearts of men...maybe because that's in there (that longing for eternity), our hearts hurt over all the crap around us and in us. We know in our heart of hearts that it isn't supposed to be like this.

In the meantime, I guess the key is for us to remember that we are becoming Real. And, if we are honest with ourselves, the Realest people we know are the ones who've been through the most stuff and accepted it rather than blame, deny, and avoid it.

But, we all wish we could become it without these uncomfortable things happening.

I love you guys - thanks for listening.