It's All About that Face...

 

 

 

Recently, our townhome complex was re-sided. It was a big controversy because a number of the neighbors did not like the design change from the original look of vertical siding to horizontal siding. One man went as far as saying, “Everyone has horizontal siding and it looks awful. I chose to live here because the vertical look was pleasingly different. Now you are telling me my property has to look crappy?!”

The evils of horizontal siding were hotly debated. I was stuck on the notion that my neighbor might go to the trouble of selling his home of 15 years worked to his taste and perfection, because he did not like the façade.  Would he really make a choice based on outside appearances rather than what was lived on the inside.  The word siding got me thinking……

 We all spend a lot of time on appearances. Many of us change our facades with regularity – different clothes (underwear hopefully at least) daily and certainly with the seasons, we redecorate homes or offices, we get our hair cut or let it grow long, even might change the color. The changing fronts can be helpful, especially if it promotes a feeling of confidence or well-being for an individual. Such veneers we put on can help us in life.

 “She was the quintessential twenty-first-century woman: She could build a high-rise in a Chanel suit and Jimmy Choos, give lessons in multitasking, and freeze the heart of the coldest competitor with a single unblinking gaze over the rim of her ebony-framed reading glasses. But that persona was like a bodysuit that she pulled on at eight in the morning and peeled out of at five in the afternoon.”  ― Donna Ball, A Year on Ladybug Farm

Sometimes such fronts imprison us. My mother used to warn me if I was not careful, my frown would freeze on my face. While permanent facial features do seem to be hallmarks of the Botox used by various celebrities, my grimace, thankfully, never locked up my face.  I have seen a negative attitude take over a person and become their way of life inside and out.  

 Most often, however, we hide our true selves and put on deceptive fronts to keep from facing our own vulnerabilities.  Rather than showing weakness or struggle, we allow pretense and disguise to become a way of life.  Our society has long preached things like “pull your own weight” and “rugged individualism.”  We have glorified wearing the camouflage “fake it, ‘til ya make it.” 

 No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.  Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Being able to be our true selves can be a nerve wracking business. Masks we wear to hide who we really are, and what we are feeling or thinking, cannot be sustainable or healthy. Such veneers seem less helpful, even detrimental, to our wellbeing and relationships when the pretense disables real connections to self and others.  

“There are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely - or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands.” Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere’s Fan

 

Do we have the guts to let go of who we think we should be to become who we really are? Sometimes the space between being vulnerable and portraying tough side is as wide as the Grand Canyon. We need courage to make the leap.  Practicing living without such a façade – a fake or deceptive front - can happen when we practice loving ourselves.  When we own who we are with all our strength and all our flaws and are okay with us, we love ourselves.  With vulnerability, you experience true connection—true love for yourself—and you begin to attract people to you who are inspired by your openness. To be vulnerable is to be deeply seen. It’s to love with your whole heart and to put yourself out there. To feel vulnerable is to be alive—to exist as your most authentic self.  Many are afraid of such vulnerability because there is the possibility of being hurt or let down.

 “It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.”  Elissabeth Kubler Ross

While it’s not easy to be vulnerable, you’d be surprised how beautiful and fulfilling such a thing is.  Loving all of you can help you to connect with anyone. In my own life, I despised thinking of myself and my abilities as less than perfect. I hated being wrong. It was a struggle to think people might realize I couldn’t do something. I would blame others rather than accept responsibility for the things in my life that did not work. I feared that if people knew the real me, I would be laughed at, shown disapproval or left behind. I pushed myself hard in all things, and was my own biggest critic.

 A friend’s father helped me realize my folly. He gave me a toothbrush that read “I’m PERFECT” gently mocking my perfectionist armor. Reminding me that as a child of God, I did not have to be perfect, that my weaknesses were made strong, made perfect in Christ Jesus through my baptism. Being human, with all my imperfections, was empowering and enriching. Letting go of my expectations and “rules” of life allowed me to love and be loved and relate to others more deeply. Putting to death the idea that I could be perfect if I tried hard enough, allowed me to worry less about what others thought of how I acted or looked and focused on doing and being well within myself.  Focusing on appreciation of myself and others allowed disappointment to dissipate. Concentrating on what I wanted to create in life allowed a sense of present passion to thrive and my creativity to increase.

 

Striving for excellence is different than perfectionism. Perfectionists adopt along the path of life the dangerous belief system that they are what they achieve.  Striving for excellence asks “How can I improve?”  while perfectionism asks “What will they think?” Attempting to be perfect creates the notion that if we do things perfectly or make it look perfect, we can avoid pain, judgment or shame. Perfectionism is a billion pound mask that we think protects us, when all it does is keep us from being really seen or known.

Are facades everything to you? Or are you able to allow the flaws and wrinkles be badges of life and living? Consider putting on the new front of the real you… and live!

 

Fruit in a World of Doubt

"So today I ate a mango like a savage. I bet if anyone saw me they would have thought there was a zombie in disguise living across the street"  - from the web

 “The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.”  (Galatians 5: 22-23).

In a few weeks, I’ll return to serve in parish ministry. There are amazing wondrous things about parish ministry and serving God’s people.  It is sweet and ripe with compassion and love. It often flourishes with people sharing tender care for each other, and seeking service first. Genuine generosity blossoms from many hearts with unmatched fragrant grace.

And occasionally there is that pit. People are people and ministry can be tough and hard-hearted. Ministers pray for their people to be tender-hearted, but sometimes the pastor herself has a heart of stone. Human frailty deceives wearing the skin of beauty. It is peeled back to reveal a less than appealing core. No fruit bearing there.

“Don’t be [hardhearted] as your ancestors were. Clasp God’s outstretched hand. Come to his Temple of holy worship, consecrated for all time. Serve God, your God.” 2 Chronicles 30:8

Let Us Talents and Tongues Employ V3

                           Jesus calls us in, sends us out             

                         bearing fruit in a world of doubt,                      

                           gives us love to tell, bread to share:                

                        God (Immanuel) ev'rywhere!         

                                                                  Jesus lives again, earth can breathe again

                                                                  pass the word around; loaves abound.

                                                                  Jesus lives again, earth can breathe again

                                                                  pass the Word around; loaves abound!

                  

   One of the most perfect fruit is a mango. Over 1000 varieties worldwide, it is a sensuous and tempting fruit, with a dizzying fruity, piney perfume . And a taste that is a temptation hard to resist.  It has even been pondered, that given its semi-tropical location, the Garden of Eden’s tempting fruit was really a mango.

 

Incidentally, in Eastern religions, the mango is a symbol of love. The mango leaves and blossoms are used in the worship of Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, arts (music of love), creativity, eloquence and power. The symbol of the mango is in many eastern arts – a paisley shape. Mangos are mostly self-perpetuating. Only 15% are male and the rest both.

 

For our wedding shower, my husband and I got a mango slicer. One of the best inventions since blogs. I love the sweet fruity taste and the piney smell of a ripe mango. They are amazing and heavenly. Prior to this great gift, I would drool over mango from afar. They were too tough to figure out how to slice on my own to remove that huge stone pit, and too costly to buy the sliced up ones with any regularity from the store.

 

 Now it is regularly Mango Mondays at our house, and other days to boot. On those days, I actually sing a little song as I am preparing the mango for our enjoyment. First, I use the fantastic slicer to remove the big pit, then I lovingly cultivate the fruit.  (Oh, actually something to thank George Bush for -  The nuclear deal Bush signed with India allowed for the US to import mangoes and develop a love for them that showed imports triple in ten years! Mangos were imported more scarcely prior.)

 

The dark side of this fruit. Incredibly, mangos are related to poison ivy and you can get a rash from their skin and sap resin. The mango pits{Endocarp – a gross word in itself] are large, and sometimes the fruit does not yield that much.

Contemplating mangos, that is how I sometimes feel.  A hopeful depiction of beauty and goodness with this large pit of anger and madness inside. The love and compassion one needs for God’s service gives way to reveal a hardhearted core. Maybe there is only a zombie in disguise.

The hardness I fear  that can be in my heart feels like it leaves little room for the extraordinary love and kindness required in ministry.  God, send me a mango-type slicer to prune away the hardness in my heart so as to get to the tender, juicy loving-kindness of servant mango magic ministry.

One way can be learned by starting to see the magic in everything. Sometimes it seems to be hiding but it is always there. The more we can see the magic in one thing, a tiny flower, a mango, someone we love, then the more we are able to see the magic in everything and in everyone. Where does the mango stop and the sky begin? 

 Joshua Kadison, musician and author of “17 Ways To Eat A Mango: A Discovered Journal of Life on an Island of Miracles”, Hyperion, 1999

Thank you God for answered prayer and helping me to see more magic and the Spirit of a Mango Ministry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lessons from Dance lessons

[A reader submitted Word for this week’s reflection- DANCE]

“To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking” ― Agnes De Mille

At our 2010 wedding, only a few lessons.

My husband and I are taking dance lessons. He gave them to me as a gift, and we have kept it up as an opportunity to learn something new together. Talk about challenge.  It is an awesome challenge as we learn to Rumba, Foxtrot, Swing and Hustle.

First, I did not know my body could move some of the ways these dances require. Second, it is really about partnership. We joke about me letting my husband lead. He does, and I let him. He hopes it will rub off through the rest of our life. Three, both of us need to remember not to spend time beating oneself up, just stay flexible and in the fun.

“Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire” ― Robert Frost (Yes, the poet Robert Frost)

Working together we keep each other going, learning and growing. (I wish I could say that it has shrunk us too, but that is not the case yet.) And still earl-ish in our life together, it helps build our bodily connection and chemistry (in public).

Besides a great date night connection and immense fun, dancing is teaching us about each other for our marriage. Ballroom dance is an art form of the twosome. We learn a true give and take. It is about building trust, teamwork and chemistry.  And it has a lot of fun twists and turns too.

                “Dance is the hidden language of the soul.”  Martha Graham

Another lesson I have taken from dance is that it is much like faith – a commitment to trust, giving and receiving, leading and following. You must be present and breathe. And you do feel alive. The Robert Frost quote aside, I do not fathom why dance has such a bad stigma in the world of faith. (Think “Footloose”)  In the Bible King David dances.  Nature dances and claps its hands in the Psalms. When filled with the Spirit, how can we keep from singing, or dancing?!

“You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing.
    You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with

joy,
My soul must sing and not be silent, O God, and I will praise you forever!” Psalm 30:11-12 (NIV)

 We don’t look down on dancing in our church, but we do overlook it. Although occasionally you can catch my pastor moving to the music, sometimes off beat. Dancing is an outward expression of our inward experience. People filled with faith exude joy and thankfulness. These are people magnify the Spirit of life! We dance because we are loved. We work in trust and partnership because we are forgiven. We flow together with graceful movements. My prayer is that the Church never stifles this sense of God’s Spirit and Song. I pray we are swayed by the Spirit and continue the sacred celebration .

“You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive.”  ― Merce Cunningham

 “Dancing is what you do when you arrive at where God wants you to be.”  Leonard Sweet

(Len is one of my favorite theologians. His statement here feels so true for my life today.)

KEEP DANCING!  Don't stop, even if the music does. Let the joy inside take over.

Blooming where you are Planted

bloom•ing (ˈblu mɪŋ)

adj. 1. flowering; blossoming.  2. glowing, as with vigor.  3. prospering.  4. Chiefly Brit. (used as an intensifier.)

Last week it still looked and felt like winter. Suddenly this week, it is obvious spring has arrived. Most everything has blossomed and bloomed. Dull browns have turned to bright greens. Shoots have pushed their way out of the ground. Tree’s leaves have budded out. Bugs have started to appear. Robins and rabbits hop around the yard. Some flowers have opened. And all our neighbors exist again!

  
While things seemed dead and dormant for a while, life finds its way and circles back to growing and blooming.

 

One tree however was still dormant looking despite life finding its way all over the place.

This tree is a later bloomer.  Mom always said I was a LATE BLOOMER. It always irritated me as a child, but especially as a teenager. I was smart, socially aware and I knew I was destined for good things.  I just didn’t always do or appreciate the same things or in the same ways that my peers did – screaming after the latest Hollywood hottie (I liked various real boys), giggling and gossiping, planning my princess wedding (didn’t envision it happening), being a fashion plate (we didn’t have the money for the latest fashion) or running all over town with friends to do all of the above (I wanted to go to college and loved to hole up with a book.)

[S]He who leans on, trusts in, and is confident in riches shall fall, but the righteous shall flourish like a green bough. Proverbs 11: 28 Amplified Bible

Sometimes life isn’t what we are told, or what we expect. Definitely, not what television depicts. Are we learning? Developing? Taking in what we need for the next stage? We are blooming. Is our shaping and growing happening in ways we do not see or others may not see? Do not be afraid. Or do not let other voices shape you into something you are not.

Just because my blossoms weren’t coming in someone else’s time frame does not mean I was not blooming. I had buds and was blooming where I was. Sometimes I was lonely, but it was deeply satisfying to see ideas come to fruition, plans get organized into reality, and projects develop in my time.  And I did recently get married to a most amazing man that I would never have met if I was all those other things.  Better “late” than never. But if never happened, I like who I have grown to be.

Growing in grace they shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be full of spiritual vitality and grow lush in trust, love, and contentment. Psalm 92: 14

 

 

As long as you live, keep learning how to live.  Latin Proverb

Recently, I realized it is worse to be a Non-bloomer. A non-bloomer chooses not to grow or change. A non-bloomer chooses not to live. Most people get stuck from time to time, but when a person gets rooted in place and shows no signs of life, this is sad for all involved. People choose non-blooming through fear or confusion.  What life throws our way can make us want to hunker down, pull in the roots and the tender shoots that get wounded so easily.

But plant those roots. For me it is in my faith through prayer, the company of God’s people and trust in God that I can reach upward in rain or shine to blossom and bloom wherever I am at the time. Every moment is a lesson and fertilizer for growth. Put your face to the sun and grow to your best.

...there shall be no end to our central joy when once we ascend to the stratosphere

 of our richer abilities.  Helen Keller

 

We all must bloom where and when we are planted. Live with vigor and grace even in less than idea situations. Bloom where you are planted.

 

WORD OF NOTE: Next week will involve a submitted word and my reflections on a challenge you give me. Feel free to submit a word for next time or in the future.