Letting go

Today I’m having an in-bed morning. As I woke up my head, upper back, throat and stomach were all aching, and I felt generally fatigued. Rob’s back was well-enough to handle the kids this morning so I stayed put. I got breakfast in bed awhile later and pulled out the book I’ve been reading, Lessons from San Quentin by Bill Dallas. Although not the story form biographical account I was hoping for when I picked it up, the book has had some interesting points that I have found resonating with me.

At some point as I read and reflected I felt tears slipping out. They weren’t tears of sadness or happiness. They were tears of release, of letting go.

November last year was a turning point for me. It was the month that Rob’s back went out worse than it ever happened before, the first time he began to walk with a cane. While functionality still comes and goes for him, it’s obvious to me that it’s at a lower level than ever. Trips to a specialist yielded no positive outcomes, and while we wait for his turn at hospital physiotherapy and hope for some improvement when treatment starts, there is no guarantee that he will ever get better. This all put an additional load on my shoulders – more childcare, more housework, more cooking, more yard work, in addition to being the only one of us who can work a full time job, as even on his best days, Rob has to remain on his back a significant portion of the day just to maintain whatever functionality he has. I haven’t handled this well. I struggle with resentment on a daily basis. Of course, I know he can’t help it, this is not his choice. But still, I resent it.

November last year was also the year that bullying began at my workplace. A near constant anxiety and panic attacks that leveled me went on for months. Eventually a third-party investigator ruled decisively in my favour, but that changed little of the dynamics, and when the bullies saw an opportunity to get rid of me while maintaining a appearance of ethics, they did, and I have now been out of work for two months. I think I handled that as well as I could. I maintained my ethics and my integrity. But it was costly, and I also find resentment creeping up on me frequently.

The book I’m reading speaks a lot about acceptance and letting go. I find this difficult. I find it difficult to accept, difficult to forgive, and difficult to trust that in all of this there is God, somehow.

But I also think that accepting, forgiving and trusting is the only way forward. Allowing one’s hopes, dreams and expectations to die is not only a grieving process, it is death itself, death of self. It is heart-wrenching and at times terrifying. Only through the promise of the resurrection do I find hope, that this death process is not without purpose, but has the promise of new life.

The kids return to school

Today we took our kids to school - all of them. Conor, our baby, entered Kindergarten. The girls returned to public school after a year of home schooling. Rob and I came back to the house and realized that we've never really been in the house without the kids. If they are out, at least one of us is out with them. We went out for breakfast and then to home depot, thinking all the time about how the kids are adjusting.

I don't feel much faith in the ability of this particular school to meet the children's needs. I was not impressed that they did not start the school year with time for children and their parents to meet with the teacher individually, a practice we had loved at our first school. And this morning was so disorganized in helping new students to find their way. Essentially, they did nothing to help them, they didn't even give us the names of the teachers. When we found someone to tell us who their teachers were and where to go, the person directed Ashlin to the wrong door and told Taryn two possible teachers, both of which were wrong. I had to delay helping Taryn find her class while helping Ashlin to find hers and she arrived after everyone was already sitting down. Ashlin's teacher at least said that she had put Ashlin with a very nice group of girls who could help her learn the ropes. Ashlin smiled about that. Taryn just looked unhappy about the whole thing.

The girls were not my biggest worry, however. Conor was. He has been dead set against school for months now. I know any change is hard for him, and I've been working at giving him a language for talking about ambivalence. Last night he told me he was just going to sit in a chair and not do anything. As we walked to school he was singing and asked me if I liked his singing. I said yes. He said he was singing a song called, I don't want to go to school. I noted that he said earlier he was excited and that he must have mixed feelings. He said the song wasn't about him, it was about another boy who didn't want to go to school.

"What happened with the boy?" I asked.

"He got used to it," Conor replied.

Conor didn't cling to us or cry, the big fear. I had scripted out goodbye routine for him a number of times and I like to think that helped. But I kept wondering if he would continue to commit to just sitting in a chair.

When I picked him up 2 1/2 hours later, he came running, threw his arms around me and said, "I had fun!" Phew! Yay! He went back and forth through the afternoon, saying he didn't like it and then he did. I think did won out in the end. Plus he got a home reading book with cars in it. Does the teacher ever know his number.

I still wondered about the girls.

At the new school parents have to wait outside the school for their children (that will be fun in January, I'm sure. Stupid school). So I went to the door that Ashlin went in. No Ashlin. I went to the door that Taryn went in. No Taryn. With Conor in tow I wander around inside and out until both of them eventually turn up along with helpful teachers. Sheesh this is confusing. No one's mad that I wasn't clairvoyant and the girls told me they made friends and like their teachers.

Double phew. Double yay. This might work out after all.

Advantages of unemployment

In the spirit of being positive about my current state, I thought I'd post the advantages of unemployment: 1. I am not dreading going into work tomorrow. 2. I can take my kids to and from school. 3. Lots of time to play CSI: Hard Evidence 4. Getting through all the books I want to read. 5. It's easy to exercise an hour a day. 6. Lots of time to see friends, do coffee. 7. Time to explore what I want to do for my next degree: MSc vs. MBA. I need a break. I might as well enjoy the one I have, even if it didn't come in the way I would have liked.

Being gray

I found my first gray hair at age 21. I promptly plucked it. I found occasional gray hairs throughout my 20s but they were far enough apart spatially and in frequency that I could keep plucking. In my 30s that became altogether impractical and the word “Clairol” became a regular part of my existence.

Now I’ve decided to do away with the whole dye routine. This brings us to the big question: Why?

It comes down to a few reasons. The first is that I hate dying my hair. It’s messy and stinky and has stained my bathroom cabinets and shower curtain at times. I would just rather not do it.

The second is what the dye is doing to my hair. Curly hair is at its best quite dry and tends towards frizz. Dying it has made it absolutely straw-like. I’d like to see if I could have half-ways healthy hair again – or as healthy as what is basically dead cells can be.

Third is I’m starting to see the beauty of gray and white hair. I’d look at some people who don’t dye and I’d say “dowdy”. But I never stopped to connect the fact that it wasn’t simply that they weren’t dying their hair, it was also that their whole appearance – hairstyle and clothes – was dated. They didn’t look like they were putting their best selves forward. I started to notice gray and white haired women that keep themselves up, and I realized that it had little to do with hair colour. My sister-in-law recently stopped dying and she looks amazingly awesome. Ditto a woman I met through work – no dye, and she looks professional, dignified, and actually quite young.

But graying is associated with aging as no matter when one starts to get gray hair, it increases in amount as we age. At forty I’m coming to terms with the fact that statistically speaking, my life is coming to its half-way mark. Ain’t no way of getting around that. I set my mind to embracing being forty. I look back at what I was like, and life was like, at twenty and thirty and I think there is no way I’d want to be there again. I appreciate the wisdom and perspective that comes with age and how it has opened me up to freedom and joy. I have become increasingly aware, however, of the cognitive dissonance within myself about aging. I want to reject society’s idolization of youth, but every time I purchase a box of dye I am literally buying into it.

Another reason is frank curiosity. I have been reading the book Going Gray by Anne Kreamer and she noted that before allowing her gray to come in, she didn’t actually know what she looked like. I don’t actually know what I look like. I’d like to.

When I first started to muse about going gray on Facebook my wonderful cousin-in-law encouraged me not to, saying that I will have lots of years to be grey. She’s got a point. But this also isn’t an irreversible decision. I can change my mind next week and buy my usual dark blonde. I can change my mind at eighty and colour my hair purple with green stripes. I’m free. And for the next while, I want to be free of dye.

Discourse for disillusioned, disconnected disciples

I've had a thought for awhile about the way I have been experiencing the church culture, and the common messages I've heard about many others. I've decided to put it out there and see what kind of response I get.

What I hear from many people is a general disillusionment and disconnection from the institutional church. Responses vary from gritting one's teeth and keeping going to trying a new place to stopping going all together (with or without a sense of guilt). But no response seems to satisfy.

People seem to understand that the form of church doesn't seem to be meshing with the function. But few of us have many ideas about how to approach the issue for ourselves.

My mind was really going on this yesterday, which could have been the Holy Spirit and could have been the sleeplessness from T3s. But I came up with the above phrase above: "Discourse for disillusioned, disconnected disciples". The idea is simple: start gathering people together who are in a similar place, in hopes that through the conversation, we can start to make sense of our situations and figure out how to address it.

What this is:

• a chance to talk about our experiences
• a chance to dialogue about our thoughts
• a chance to vision what the future can look like and get support for whatever we may feel God puts on individual's hearts

What this is not:

• this is not to start a local body/house church
• this is not a permanent fixture, but a meeting that could happen an indeterminent number of times, depending on how it is meeting a need.

So, I put it out there, and would like to hear back from people if it is something that interests you. This is an invitation that can be passed along to others.

Clothing matters

I've been reading "Real Sex" by Lauren Winner, which is primarily a reflection on the Christian virtue of chastity but viewed in a larger context. Two chapters have been of particular interest: "Lies our culture tells about sex" and "Lies the church tells about sex".

For the former, one of the lies Winner lists is "How you dress doesn't matter". Of this she writes, "[Modesty] bears discussign because we seem, as a society, to be losing the ability to discern why clothes matter , and what clothing is appropriate when."

She tells a story of when she went shopping for clothes for a friend's 5-year-old girl while her friend was recupreating from surgery. "All the affordable shops...specialize in revealing outfits and tight skirts. Wealthy daughters, whose parents can fford to shop at Hanna Andersson and Nordstrom, still get little girls clothes...But we apparently expect the ir less-well-off cousins to start dressing for sex early."

She addresses the belief that women, through their clothes, are singularly responsible for male sexual behaviour (the old, "She dressed like that she's asking for it) and rejects it, while pointing out that how we, as both women and men dress, do affect the opposite sex. In other words, she makes the true statement that we have influence, and should take that influence seriously, while not stretching that to mean that we are responsible. She points out that the marketplace bears the most responsibility, which I agree with. I have noticed in the last few years that it is becoming harder and harder to find clothes that don't put my breasts on display.

What I found most interesting was her take on casual fridays. "Maybe I'm a glutton for consistency, but it seems to me that if it is important for people to dress up four days of the week - because formal clothing truly shapes how we comport ourselves, how we understand our work and our duty - then it is important for us to dress up on Friday's too. Conversely, if employers find tha tpoeple ar ehappier, work better, and are more present wehn dresse din blue jeans, then we shoudl scothc he silly dres codes the other foudn days...Eiother we're folling ourselves on Fridays, or we're folling ourselves the other four days."

The part I found myself disagreeing with was when she talked about dressing up for church.Noting that dress has changed from formal to informal in the past few decades, she says, "Perhaps we've erred on the side of casual. I've notice dthat I worship differently when I'm wearing more formal, fancy clothes. I'm more inclined toward reverence." I don't necessarily disagree that clothes affect our attitudes in worship, but I don't think we've erred on the side of casual. Having spent a significant portion of my adult life in a church which rightly emphasized making sure we were a welcoming place for people who are poor, I can't imagine many of those people feeling comfortable coming into an atmosphere filled with formal clothes when such things are beyond their financial means. I think it distracts from worship, however, to see someone's thong sticking up from the back of her jeans when we stand up to sing a song.

In the summary: "There is, it seems to me, a certain power in modest dressing, an assertion that though my body is beautrful, I am more than a sex object desinged for your passing entertainment. But the power of dressing is also the power of narrative. For our clothes tell stories, and it would be naive and irresponsible to pretned otherwise."

Revolution

I've been reading a fascinating book, "Here Comes Everybody" by Clay Shirky (wouldn't Clay Shirky be a great name for a band?)

Here's a quote that really stuck with me:

"The hallmark of revolution is that the goals of the revolutionaries cannot be contained by the institutional structure of the existing society. As a result, either the revolutionaries are put down, or some of those institutions are altered, replaced or destroyed."

I think of a lot of different different things when I read this quote. First, I think of the emerging church. The emergin church has a lot of definitions, the way I see it is an examination of the form of church and whether or not it helps or hinders the function. I think the emerging church is a kind of revolution. Some are trying to put it down by talking and writing about it negatively. But the goal - a well-functioning church - is not being met by current church forms. Churches will change or die or become irrelevant, but there will be different forms and more of them in the coming decades.

I also think about child welfare. There is so much politics and pride in the practice of protecting children that the real purpose gets missed, and the children who die in care are just the tip of the iceberg of so many stories that never make it to the front pages or the web logs. Where there are revolutionaries - different voices - they are often easily put down. I was. Foster parents who object get their kids taken away, so they remain silenced about the issues for the sake of the children. It makes me wonder what needs to happen so that a true revolution can take place in child welfare so that institutions change.

I also think about unfettered capitalism and corporations and their results: the widening of the gap between rich and poor, the undermining of rights for the poor and the middle class, a ever increasing number of poor people, environmental degradation. I think part of what needs to happen for a revolution to take place is for people to have an understanding that the rich and powerful cannot be depended on to do the right thing for all of society and that there are other options. Then there needs to be enough coordination to affect governments for change. With the web we may now have the tools to do that.

Vindication

Today I heard the results of the investigation initiated because of my grievance about workplace bullying. While no one will actully call it bullying, it was determined that the treatment of me was "harsh" and "heavy-handed" and what i asked for, such as mediation and an end to the excessive micromanagement, has been granted.

I find it weird, however, that they wouldn't say that "harsh" and "heavy-handed" treatment is also seen as within the normal parameters of management.

Reminds me of some things I read at the Workplace Bullying Institute (http://www.workplacebullying.org/targets/problem/employer-resistance.html):

"Bullying is Legal
Most (80%) ...inapplicable. Remarkably, a hostile work environment is actionable (illegal) only in very few situations.

"Thus, ....

"America's individualistic society is very aggressive and competitive. These three traits block an empathic concern for the well-being of others, make bullying look tame when compared to other forms of physical violence, and justify inequality of status across ranks within organizations, dubbing the few as winners and the rest losers. Bullying is not only tolerated in business, it is often seen as necessary. Lawmakers are reluctant to pass laws that reign in unfettered workplace violence that causes psychological injury.

"Bullying Is Underreported
"Forty per cent (40%) of targets never tell their employers.

"Bullying is erroneously branded as "conflict" or a mere "difference in personality styles." Both are true, but bullying is also a form of violence. Simple labels minimize its impact on both people and the organization.

"Historically, complaints lead to retaliation (revengeful hurting) or reprisal (taking away of rights or status). Knowing this, targets are reluctant to use internal employer processes."

A problem that still remains for me is that our program is changing employers. This change means that I have to interview for my own job, and one of the people who has control over my getting hired is one of the people who bullied me. I've also been asked for a reference from my present supervisor, the other person who bulllied me. The fact that this is all a mojor conflict of interest does not seem to have occurred to the workplace that is taking on our program.

I know I don't know you, but I'm pretty sure you're inadequate

Have to have a bit of a rant here. The girls and I went to church this morning (Conor has decided it's boring and stayed home). Not all bad. It's mothers day and they gave out raffle tickets to the moms and I scored a gift certificate for a manicure and pedicure, which is one of my favourite pampering things. I felt responsive to the worship music, and some of the sermon connected with things I am going through in my life.

But there is one thing that is sticking in my craw. The pastor said that as much as the church community has done a lot of good things, he feels sad that we are not reaching our true potential, that some people still feel they're here to be served and not to serve. And he talked about things we could be doing to serve the church.

I thought, How do you know that people think they are here to be served? Has anyone told you that? He seemed to use attendance at church functions to rate whether or not he thought someone was truly serving.

Dennis Bakke had some interesting points to make in his book Joy at Work on how the church views people's use of their gifts and talents:

While churches generally do a good job helping people with religious
matters, they often overlook the secular roles we fulfill at God's behest. Some
jobs are wrongly considered more pleasing to God than others. The result is an
institutional church that misses the opportunity to adequately prepare the
majority of its members for the important roles they should play in the
world.

I wonder if the church I'm attending has the mindset in which the only ministry that is valued is what they themselves started and lead. I'm wondering if there are a lot of people who serve in ways that God has called them to, things like shovelling the driveway of an elderly neighbour, volunteering in their child's classroom, coaching soccer, taking a hurting friend out for coffee, but if those same people aren't seen in the official ministries of the church they are seen as just being there to be served, rather than being there to be encouraged so that they can continue to serve. This is not to say that the official ministries of the church - like food bank, leading children and youth classes, helping with parking - are not valuable. But I think in some churches, there needs to be a broader recognition of where ministry happens, and less judgement of people who don't fit the mold.

The power of not giving a rat's bahookie

I just finished reading The No Assholes Rule. Author Robert Sutton gives an overview on the concept in this video.

I think my favourite part of the book is when he talks about the importance of indifference. He says that's unusual as most business books talk about passion and excellence (he even includes two favourites of mine: Dennis Bakke who wrote Joy at Work and Jim Collins who wrote Good to Great). But in a situation in which you don't have the power to affect change, becoming indifferent is a key to surviving.

This is my task in the next while: to stop caring so much about the injustice at work and remove myself emotionally form the situation. My natural inclination is to be very passionate about issues of justice. As I have limited power, I need to be careful of my emotional investment.