The Best Year EVER!

Saturday night midnight, as the ball dropped in Times Square my personal Year of Jubilee concluded.  I felt a little sad but mostly just grateful.   It has been absolutely the best year of my life.  But before I get into why it was such a fabulous year I feel that I should in the interest of full disclosure go over some things that didn’t work out as well as I had hoped.

·         I didn’t keep up my blog.  I regret that but not doing anything because I “had to” for an entire year was delicious!

·         I fell off the Jubilee wagon.  From time to time I would slip back into the old expectations trap – I expect you to do, say or be a certain way…I feel pressured to do, say or be a certain way.  Nothing good came of those relapses.  They were sad, unhappy blots in an otherwise wonderful year.

·         I packed on 15 lbs!!  Yeah I know, wow!  That’s what my doctor said.  Now I think I know why God ordained a Jubilee every fifty years.  That’s basically once in a lifetime.   I guess if you live to be a 100 you definitely deserve a second Jubilee!

Now to the wonderful gifts that filled my life to overflowing during a personal Year of Jubilee:

1.       My spiritual life was flooded with joy, real palpable day to day joy.  The Jubilee refreshed my faith.  I experienced Jesus’ grace and glory in a beautiful unfolding over the course of this year.  His creation stunned me.  There were moments when I literally felt as if I was experiencing heaven.  I walked with God in moments.  Not always, not every minute but just below the surface there was that great pulsating beauty of his creation and creatures.  I went to church when I felt like it.  I visited other religions and experienced their gifts of worship with no regard to dogma.  The experience was beautiful and enlightening.  I found that as children of God we are both diverse and so much the same.  Sometimes it made me laugh.  God is so good!  No expectations of God, church or religion sounds like heresy but it was my epiphany.  Glory, glory, glory!

2.       My romantic relationship with my husband grew even more tender and loving.  Trading expectations for gratitude turns mundane chores into acts of kindness.  It may be a subtle distinction but the reward is so sweet – expect nothing of your partner and you will be lavished with daily acts of kindness. 

3.       Together my daughters and I built a new adult relationship based on no expectations.  As parents we have so many expectations of our children that run the gamut from a sublime desire for their eternal joy and happiness to a ridiculous preoccupation with their personal habits and choices.  This year my daughters opened their lives to me in new ways and called me out when I slipped back into old expectations.  Occasionally I had to stick to my boundaries too and refuse to accept their expectations.  It was sometimes rocky but never for very long.  Joy kept bubbling up. The great releasing of debt and divesting of debt is incredibly invigorating in a relationship.  My daughters have encouraged (I might say insisted) that I continue the Year of Jubilee indefinitely.

4.       A challenging work environment turned into a fabulously rewarding work environment.  Who would have guessed laying down expectations and refusing to accept expectations would work at work??  It not only worked it worked really, really well.  I love work, we all love work – especially when we are doing what we are called to do.  It gives our life meaning, purpose and satisfaction.  Nobody really wants to be without work.  It’s the grind we can do without.  I gave up on the grind this year.  It wasn’t working for me anyways.  It was frankly sucking the life blood out of me.  I put a little beaded dancing figurine from Africa on my desk to remind myself that work was just work; this was my year of celebration.  Why did it make such a difference?  There are probably psychologist that could explain it.  I’m not sure that I can.  Perhaps it was wasting less energy on what others were or weren’t doing and focusing on what I wanted to accomplish.  Maybe it was worrying less about what the boss would think and just focusing on making things happen.  I really don’t know but the most unexpected result of my Year of Jubilee is that I love my job!

So now that the Year of Jubilee is over what’s next?  Almost all my friends and family have encouraged me to continue my Jubilee indefinitely.  But a year is a year and I don’t plan on extending it.  One friend asked me if was going to default back to dysfunctional.  (Smart ass!) I agree that doesn’t sound like much fun. 

I view my personal Year of Jubilee as a much needed course correction.  Too much baggage collected over the course of 55 years that I needed to let go of.  I had been trying to live up to too many expectations that were no longer helpful (if they ever were) and clinging to too many childish expectations of others.   It was time to enjoy what was instead of focusing on what should be.  I don’t plan on visiting the lost and found in search of all that abandoned baggage any time soon.  Good riddance!

I do plan on focusing more on my health more this year.  (I bet you didn’t see that coming!)  The wonderful thing about God is his infinite perfection.  The God of Jubilee is the God of Fasting and Prayer.  The God of the Sabbath is the God of Tithing.  The God of Grace is the God of Justice.  After my Year of Jubilee I feel ready to happily engage in a course of spiritual discipline.  I’m not sure exactly what that will look like yet.  There are so many experiences in this life worth having. 

This has been the best year of my life.  In mid October I was driving in the Ozark Mountains returning from the mines that my company operates.  As I navigated the steep, winding country road I was contemplating an upcoming trip and mentally going through a list of silly things like parents do – were all our affairs in order, would our kids be OK if the unthinkable happened, were there any loose ends that should be tidied up before we left?  Suddenly the valley appeared in front of me bathed in the setting sun.  The autumn leaves blazed, the fields were rippling with golden grass, the sky was ablaze with glory.  It was so beautiful I could hardly take it all in.  I felt like I was driving through a slice of heaven.  I breathed thank you, thank you, thank you!  If this is all there is to life, just this, this here and now, no heaven, no afterlife it would be enough I told God.  And suddenly I realized that it was so.  It was sufficient!  His grace was sufficient.  My life was filled with joy.  He had taken my hand and opened my eyes.  I was walking with Him towards eternity.   I don’t expect my life to free of pain and misery and disappointment but I know where heaven is.  It is enough.

Love Garden

Sweet fragrances; scented petunias, lavender, and rosemary melt into the late afternoon heat as I trudge up and down the stairs with my watering can.  My garden grows is in a tiny walled courtyard.  Three tiers of brick and wrought iron stacked one on top of the other like a layer cake.  I share the old building with four other tenants.  She is a grand dame, past her prime, full of aging charm.  No spigot. 

The house resides on an old St. Louis street and stares down the alley to the apartment where Tennessee Williams lived as a boy; where he set “The Glass Menagerie.”  Like the short story, this neighborhood is full of promise, faded and broken.  Time is seldom kind. 

Before he left for the summer my love tilled the tiny garden plot against the south wall and planted red and white flowers, tomatoes and peppers.  Two large clay pots on brick posts are filled with red and yellow flowers and morning glory spilling over the sides.  The stairs are lined with herbs; basil, rosemary, parsley, cilantro and lavender.  Hanging baskets are strung on the walls and hang from the balcony. 

I trudge up and down the stairs with my watering can each evening.  It is a labor of love.    By the time the sun sets I sit damp and sweaty on my tiny balcony and breathe thank-you into the night air. We are apart but he has filled my garden with love and flowers.

After the Storms

Jubilee for a whole year is a harder than you might think.  Jubilee for a day a weekend or even a season would be manageable.  Five months into Jubilee bad things are bound to happen and they have.  My son and daughter-in-law lost their home in the tornadoes that ripped through the South at the end of April.  Everything in it smashed to smithereens and flung against the hill on the other side of the road.   After a quick trip down to Tennessee for hugs and tears it was back to work and one grueling deadline after another.  (A pox on bureaucratic regulators!) The apartment complex I have been living in is closing for renovation and forced us into an unscheduled move.  (Still mad about that!)  Most days I have felt that I could barely push one foot in front of the other let alone Jubilee.  St. Louis weather has obliged my dank dismal mood with one of the coolest, wettest May’s on record.  The Merry Month of May it was not! 

Someone asked me last week “what’s been the hardest part of your Jubilee,” and I thought to myself, “what Jubilee? This has been the month from Hell.” 

So at this point you’re probably wondering – is the Jubilee over?  In spite of all my grousing and bitter complaining I am forced to admit that I am so thankful, so very, very grateful!  The worse my son and his wife had to suffer was a loss of earthly possessions.  The generosity of friends, family and total strangers (as well as a good insurance policy) have made them whole again except for a few lost mementos.  And in the midst of a slow, slow economic recovery the aforementioned bureaucrats have insured my continued employment.  And as it turns out my sweet husband found us a new apartment with almost twice the square footage and a beautiful three tiered garden patio.

We have survived the storms.  So why am I complaining? 

A close friend of mine lost an adult son to a drug overdose after a long and painful struggle with mental illness and addiction.  In a conversation with him recently he reminisced about the too short relationship with a beautiful but conflicted child.  He remarked, “Life is bittersweet, but the sweet is so very sweet!”  Is it?  Is the sweet still sweet after unspeakable grief, disappointment and loss?  If the answer is yes it is the miracle of grace, amazing grace!

When I take a moment to set down my petty annoyances and frustrations my heart can’t help but sing with joy.  The sweet is so very sweet!

Sabbath Jubilee

I went to church today and it was not a Jubilee.  I am fond of the people at my church. I care about their lives and I believe they care about mine.  But we did not celebrate.

The Psalmist said, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.”  My heart longs to hear the Joy of the Sabbath, the Good News of Salvation, the Gospel preached from the pulpit.  I long for a fellowship of believers to rejoice in the awesome power of the Creator and share the everyday miracles that we are witness to.  I would like to be challenged to walk in Christ’s footsteps; to treat Jews and Samaritans, rich and poor, and the leprous untouchables with dignity and grace.  He rose with healing in his wings.  Teach me how to provide compassion and healing for those broken by sorrow and regret.  He died to give us freedom, certainly we must honor that in the way we talk about and treat those that choose to believe and live differently than we do.  I did not find any of that at church today.     I did not find God.  My heart remained empty.

The sermon today was on the law of God.  The preacher admonished the faithful to do better while reminding us that we are indeed better than the homosexuals, abortionists and Sabbath breakers out there; a swift kick in the butt followed by a little pat on the back.  It’s a tired formula.  It made me sad and a little angry.   

God’s law is perfect.  It is the Eden we have lost, the Heaven we hope for.  That’s the beauty and the joy of it.  It is not a mighty stick to beat our friends and neighbors with.  It is not a lofty platform to look down at the world from.  Our church is not the perfect expression of the law.  We are “wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.”  We are foolish to think we are somehow better.  “Behold I stand at the door and knock”, Jesus says in the next verse.  “I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me.”*  In spite of our sad and miserable state of affairs we are invited to a Sabbath banquet.   Why do we settle week after week for merely a Sabbath observance?

*Revelation 3:17 & 20

The Importance of Being Important

I had to travel out of town this week for business and met up with an old friend for lunch that I haven’t seen in a while.  It didn’t take me long to remember why I cherish his friendship.   Rob exudes joy, sheer joy, irrepressible childlike joy and a wicked sense of humor.  Rob is interested in everything and everybody.  But mostly he is interested in making sure you have a good time.  He suggested lunch at a famous restaurant overlooking the city and requested a table with a river view.  While we waited for our meal I asked him how many buildings he had clients in.  My friend is really good at what he does.  He’s captured most of the city skyline.  

After lunch he offered me a ride in his Porsche (I told you he was good at what he does) and we took a fast tour of the city as he pointed out several points of interest that he thought I might want to check out while I was in town.  We spent four hours together and it will probably be several years before we see each other again.  Rob said he cleared his schedule when he heard I would be in town, although I certainly didn’t expect him to.  Rob is generous that way. 

What does Rob do for a living?  He notifies people that they don’t have a job anymore.  I’ve had to accompany him on a few assignments and the thing about Rob that makes him so good at what he does is first of all his undivided attention but secondly and most importantly his rock solid conviction that his clients are going to be OK.  In the midst of falling apart he reminds them of who they are and treats them as successful professionals able to exert control over their own destiny.  If you lost your job would you rather have someone who sympathized with your misery or someone who treated you as if you had already succeeded in overcoming this particular bit of nastiness?  I know who I’d rather have.  So do his clients.  There are not too many Robs’ in the world.  I find that most people are like me, more focused on having a good time than giving somebody else a good time.  More concerned about setting the stage to make a good impression than setting the stage to make some else look important. 

In my personal Year of Jubilee I would like to take a page from Rob’s book and spend a little less time on being important and a little more time making others look and feel important.  It seems to be working for Rob!

Sustaining the Jubilee

So after twelve weeks of Jubilee I’m wondering is a whole year of Jubilee really possible?  Part of me feels like it’s time to pick up my Puritan mantle and return to work.  Like being on vacation and feeling it’s time to be getting back now.  I feel the pull.  The desire to pick up all the old expectations and set a few more is stronger than you might think.  I never realized how insistent the little voices in my head could be.  Work hard, eat right, exercise, make a list, don’t let the dust settle, organize stuff, create things, write things, do things, be a good girl, and ye shall be treated justly!

In the Bible it says a year of Jubilee not a season of Jubilee.  The Israelites never got around to taking one.  If they had would it have made a difference now?  Looking at the mega load of projected expectations being flung around in the Middle East I have to wonder.  Working hard without rest can build a wall of pride and hubris so high compassion, forgiveness and joy can’t possibly get in.  Why should it?  Jubilation seems to me to be the direct opposite of judgment.   Ali, ali auction; everyone in free is not part of doing the “right” thing.  Doing the right thing means getting what we deserve.  How wretched would that be? 

Releasing friends, family and perfect strangers from living up to my expectations has been an awesome experience.  Every relationship I have has improved.  Even some relationships that I had assumed were beyond repair have healed themselves.  I take that as a small miracle of grace! 

Refusing to accept the expectations of others still doesn’t feel natural.  I think we are programmed from such an early age to build our identity around the expectations placed on us that it is difficult to extract ourselves from the mix.  What do I expect of myself v. what do parents, spouse or friends expect me to be like.  It’s been an interesting journey and I’m still not there yet. 

I’m trying to placate the voices in my head by telling them that I will pick them up again at the end of the year.  And then I add very quietly so they won’t hear, “if I want to!”

Trolls

I got trolled last week.  Trolling is internet slang.  A Troll baits an online target to provoke an emotional outburst; the stronger the better.  Trolls keep score and record their “kills” for other Trolls to admire.   The more pain, shock or outrage the victim expresses the more points the Troll scores.  Trolls lurk around chat boards and social networking sites attempting to lure targets into conversations. In the past articles on internet trolling have discussed the phenomenon as a rather nasty bit of fun, sort of Puck at his worst, but recent suicides as the result of internet trolling have darkened the public’s opinion considerably.  It doesn’t seem quite so funny.

 The first time I was trolled was in Second Life, a virtual 3-D world created to host cyber space events such as job fairs and philosophy forums.  While navigating the entry island with my ‘generic female’ avatar trying not to bang into the walls or fall off a cliff (it’s harder than you might think)  a hunky male avatar suddenly jumped out from behind a building and bounced up and down on my avatar while the text bubble over his head scrolled, “Rape! Rape! Rape!”  I immediately shut the program down and stared at the blank screen for several seconds in shock.  I felt incredibly violated and yet nobody had touched me.  I was sitting safely in my own living room. 

Trolling is an internet term but the behavior has been around long before the internet made it so easy and so anonymous.  You’ve probably been trolled at work, at school or even church.  You suddenly find yourself under intense personal attack, the emotionally charged rhetoric far exceeding any actual offense you may or may not have committed.  Confusion and shock probably caught you off guard and kept you rooted to the spot allowing the Troll to complete their full dirty work.  I’m always left with feelings of shame and helplessness after a Troll attack fantasizing about all the things I didn’t think of saying until latter.  

Recently I overheard a particular nasty bit of trolling at a restaurant.  Two women were “witnessing” to a third woman trapped in a booth with them.  They took turns slamming her under the guise of spiritual concern.  It was really ugly.  The poor sinner woman wasn’t able to get a word in edgewise between the two church trolls delivering a tag team beat down.   I left before the finale so I don’t know how it ended.  I hope she finally recovered her self-respect and told them where they could stick their pious concerns but from the glazed look on her face it didn’t look to me like it was heading in that direction. 

In C.S. Lewis’ book, THE GREAT DIVORCE, the residents of hell are allowed to take a bus trip to heaven and stay on if they want to.  They never do.  After trying unsuccessfully to harass the residents of heaven with guilt trips, tirades and narcissistic demands which nobody responds to they decide to go back to hell.  The heavenly creatures offer the visitors kind attention for a moment or two but the fiends are not interested in provoking kindness.  They are only interested in generating guilt, shame, or self-loathing and since that doesn’t exist in heaven they go back to hell where it rains a never ending font of remorse. 

During my Year of Jubilee I realize that I can’t stop the Troll attacks.   I can offer them a few moments of kindness and then move on.