Thanks. A Lot.

Yes, folks, it's time for my annual Thanksgiving blog post.  Try to contain your excitement, because this isn't going to be my usual Christian cheerleader message.

Don't get me wrong...in watching the sunrise this morning, and in contemplating what to say in this post, I remain convicted in my faith.  I believe there is a benevolent Creator of the universe that I call the one true God who loves every hair on my head, who created the oceans and my breakfast.  I believe the mystery of salvation through Jesus - I don't pretend to understand it, but empirical evidence and my own spiritual experience supports it enough for me.

I love him, and he loves me.  I know that to be true.  I know that a converted Jew from Tarsus who once hated Christians said that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, that I'm to be patient in affliction and that all things work for the good of those who love him. 

I know that Jesus' brother James said that I'm to consider it pure joy when I suffer trials because the testing of my faith produces perseverance, and that I'm to let perseverance finish its work in me so that I can be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Well, I'm not joyful or patient these days.  I'm sorry to be a buzz kill, but I'm just not.  And I can't muster up the energy to fake it - believe me, I've tried.

Here we are on the morning of Thanksgiving Eve, and all I can think about is being angry.  I know, I know, I have so much to be grateful for, and I'm an ungrateful wretch for dismissing the hundreds of daily blessings and focusing primarily on the handful of trials.  If I was really a "good Christian", I would quit my bellyaching and stop feeling so angry and pitiful.

In re-reading recent Babble and Caring Bridge posts, I see myself wrestling with this notion of "good" vs. "bad" behavior.  Everything is so black and white!  If I'll just be thankful, and do my daily study and meditation, then I will get rewarded for being a good Christian.  But if I give God the finger, do my own thing and ignore what He's got to say, then I'm an idiot who deserves every second of the pain I'm feeling.  And it's been my experience that even when I am faithful in study and prayer, the shit hits the fan anyway.

How much, Lord, and how long?  When I look around, it seems like I've gotten more pain than my fair share in the last 50 years. Yeah, yeah, I know the part about not judging my insides by other people's outsides, and everybody's got their own drama to survive, and of course I know that there are millions of people in the world who don't have what I have - materially, spiritually or otherwise.

And yet I am watching my husband s-l-o-w-l-y deteriorate right before my eyes, every minute of every day.  A heart attack, a couple of toe amputations, now kidney failure and it appears that blindness is not far down the road - all from diabetes.  Giant scary bruises where he's punctured six times a week for dialysis.  Teenage children in emotional pain that they don't understand and I can't relieve.  A church that is struggling desperately to recover from a tragic schism, and a job that I am terrified of losing.  A cluttered house that I don't feel like cleaning because I'm tired and depressed, a bad chest cold as I write this, an unwelcome return of thirty pounds and a half-constructed Christmas tree that I don't feel like finishing because the memories tied to each ornament hurt my heart.

I know I should be thankful, and most of the time, I am - for my husband and children, the church, the job, the house, my body, the food and the Christmas tree ornaments.  For a half-century's worth of a good and deeply-lived life.

I know I should be thankful.  I know that.  The part that makes me angry is that most of it isn't the way I scripted it, and while I'm intellectually aware that I am not actually the author of my life, I am still mad about it.

This should be the part where I see the error of my thinking today and promise myself to "do better" about gratitude because that's what a strong, healthy believer would do.  Sorry.  Not happening, at least not today.  If there's one thing I've learned about myself, it's that I will actively and intentionally choose misery and self-pity until I'm bored with it.

The whole damn country is going to stuff itself silly tomorrow in "thankfulness" for bountiful blessings.  I am going to stuff myself silly because that's what I do when I hurt - gratitude has nothing to do with it. 

Waffling about actually hitting "submit" on this one, because it's full of vomit instead of joyful sunshine... but it's real and honest about where I am this Thanksgiving.  Sue me.

Little Sister

Today is my baby sister's forty-xxth birthday.  Last Sunday was my 51st birthday, so while neither of us qualify for spring chicken designation, I'm still the only one who's an AARP candidate.

How do I describe us?  To say we came from a dysfunctional family is a generous understatement -yet, to say that everyone loved each other anyway also falls short.  It takes a special kind of person to love a train wreck, but it's easier when you're related.

I thought about cataloguing our mutual tragedy - lord knows there's plenty of material - but instead I've decided to celebrate some major accomplishments that defy all odds.

 

1.  We are decent people.  True, we are still vaguely snarky and condescending to those with lazy hygiene, phony personage and/or government jobs, mostly because we've had all three.  Yet we still give and love generously and care for others and make sure that people who need stuff can have our stuff whenever possible.

 

2.  We are survivors.  While our aforementioned upbringing would make Tennessee Williams need smelling salts, the reality is that a good bit of destruction in the last 25 years is both tragic and self-wrought.  Blaming your parents has a fixed shelf-life.  Arguably, we came into adulthood with some effed-up coping skills, but regardless, one must rise above at some point and tend the roses instead of smelling the manure.  And here we are.

 

3.  We have faith.  Although Hal Lindsey's "The Late Great Planet Earth" was a favorite bedtime story when we were youngsters, and our maternal lineage espoused Southern Baptist AM radio (can I get an "amen-AH!"), we ended up loving God with our own individual faiths.  Growing up with fervent believers will plant something in your gut that is both frightening and hopeful, and if you're lucky, it eventually turns out to be made of nothing but pure love that goes beyond words.

 

4.  We are good moms.  It's a hard thing to say, but as messed up as she was, our mom was a decent mother.  Yes, we ate Captain Crunch for dinner, and we pinched her toes after she passed out on Thorazine because it would make her say some really funny shit, and we shivered in fear of the Infernal Revenue Service because they were coming to put her in Leavenworth any day.  And yet - she loved us more than breathing.  True, we learned a lot about being a crummy parent too, but mostly we learned that a loving mother can help you survive freakish and desperate circumstances, even if you cause them yourself or if she is one of them.

 

5.  We love each other.  This one is hard too.  In years past, we have gone months without speaking, and there are seasons of angry words that break my heart even now.  Nobody can hurt you like your sister, and yet nobody's affection has the same worth.  We are bound together by memories and DNA, and I consider every call and card and email and hug something grace-filled and sacred.  I know of other people with siblings who loathe each other because they can't resist picking each other's scabs - my sister and I have learned which ones we can help heal and which ones we need to leave alone because nothing good will come from rubbing salt in them.

In short - I love my sister and it both surprises and delights me that we have made it into middle age with affection and sanity reasonably intact.  And I wish her a lovely, joy-filled birthday - and I celebrate the fact that she is my sister.