To Eric For His Birthday

My beautiful man gets sad at times, mad at himself

and tired of being human. I do too.  And sometimes I

think its hard to see it all at the same time...all that we

need to see...all the

ins and outs of us that must change and the

tinges of sin of us that makes us not quite who

we are supposed to be.

So love is really an amazing, thrilling thing that

doesn't get stained by the unredeemed parts of us,

that works hard to get at the important, deep stuff of our

lives and won't let the beloved lay in the mire and mirror rank

reeking things that rot and replay pain.

Fully looking at fear, naming it, will make a man out of you, for

there is no man that doesn't feel it. Something without a name

is allowed to lurk in dark places and leer at the one who 

won't look it in the eye…that’s what courage is, looking a thing in the eye.

So smile, my beautiful man, and know that I feel honored to

lay in your life and sleep deeply next to you at night.

Smile because you are not alone, my light joins yours to

clean out your dark places and plant beauty and strength and

joy there. Claim your strength, name it and find peace there. 

“When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky” Buddha

Lately I have been thinking a lot about what author Ruth Haley Barton calls “sacred rhythms”. My life in general has been very reactionary, swinging from one wind gust to the next without really paying attention to where I was going. I think I thought I was always supposed to be waiting for God's will.  I was taught in church that you can't let your plans get in the way of God's voice. I was also taught that if I liked my own plans too much that something bad might happen to me or someone I loved so that God could get my attention. 

One time in college a girl very directly and accusingly asked me when I was ever going to stick to something and see it though. This comment has haunted me over the years. In essence, she was calling me unreliable and irresponsible. Maybe I was. Then again, maybe I was figuring out my own sense of rhythm. Life is full of stops and starts and do-overs. This has to be OK to some extent because it is unavoidable. Perfect constancy belongs only to God.

So maybe I was in the process of learning what was an appropriate beginning or ending. Perhaps I was trying to do things I was didn’t actually enjoy doing, or have the skill set for.  It is difficult to differentiate between quitting and sensing it is time to move on. Knowing when to come and when to leave might be the beginning of wisdom.

I think there is lot of comfort in these sacred rhythms: The four seasons.  Life and death. Even youth, middle age, and great age each have their unique gifts. Our modern culture (of which I am a fan in many respects) fights these rhythms with electricity, needles, face creams and health food fads. I am not really against any of these things. But I am learning that there needs to be some measure of acceptance to sacred rhythms in order to have peace. To surrender to what we cannot control and to change. If we pay attention we might even enjoy what comes with each turn and twist God or life or the universe offers us.When nursing a babe for two years does its damage and crow’s feet appear, when I quit a job to start a new one, begin a creative venture or end it-maybe there is a purpose. To sleep then wake, to live then die, to be cold then hot, anxious then at peace- I think it may all have meaning and there is nothing wrong with living in the moment and not seeking to change what “is”. If we can see the big picture, it may be that we are exactly where we are supposed to be.

As a mom I am always looking ahead. I also am a little manic about creating constancy in my children’s lives. I want them to be responsible and reliable. It is good to be resourceful and  raise well adjusted kids. But maybe there is a point where planning is just anxiety and training to my children to be pleasing to society is a projection of my own insecurity. How lucky are people who know exactly who they are and what they are supposed to be doing. Is there anyone out there who does? Other than Oprah, I mean. My kids will have their paths as I have mine. 

I have been reading Buddhist authors and poets lately. I am a Christian but cannot help being deeply moved by Buddhists’ connection to nature and their own sense of personal rhythm. I find a sense of this also in the church calendar. I don’t live in a place where ending something is respected but Jesus knew when to preach and when to rest. When to heal or when sickness was part of a person’s path. He knew the scope of humanity’s suffering but could still sleep. I don’t think His peace came from disconnection or apathy. Any man who can get so pissed off at merchants in the temple or sweat blood when stressed is probably pretty engaged. I think his lack of anxiety came from his deep connection to God and knowing His place in the grand scheme of things. It’s kind of a paradox, but I am starting to believe that when you know yourself and your purpose it is a lot easier to role with life and mark time by its milestones. Change isn’t so scary so it is easier to be at peace.
    

As a mom who loves her family and tries to serve Jesus by changing diapers, sleep deprivation and not being a bitch to my husband when he doesn’t pick up his towels in the bathroom, it might behoove me to think beyond weaning and potty training. Those things are really important and part of my sacred rhythms. But they are temporary. This life's rhythms are melodies that need some percussion.  I would like my base line to be God. At the moment, they are more likely the fall’s new TV schedule, but I am working on it.  

Almost Middle-Aged Lady Rant

Dear Teen-aged Girls:

I am going to sound like your mother, and no one is more appalled by this than me. I hate being the grown-up. Here I go... Your jean shorts that are cut like bikini bottoms- the ones that show how your nether- regions move when you walk- they make you look slutty. I am just telling you because I think you should know. Maybe no one told you. They are not flattering. Daisy Dukes don't actually look good in real life. And even if they did, even if you actually look like Daisy Duke in Daisy Dukes, some mystery is good. For real. Your nether- regions are none of my business, and I am tired of seeing them at the mall and in parks and in Walgreens. Save some stuff for intimate moments, and leave the rest of us in blessed ignorance about your bodies. Maybe I sound stuffy. Maybe I am old. Then again, maybe no one is teaching you how to be a lady. So I am taking it upon myself. Put some clothes on, please.

(no wine)

I think that maybe I am not alone.

I think I have a dear friend's prayers

and that everything I used to know about God

came from other's experiences.

Not my own. And life was traveled in footprints that didn't quite fit.

So this Jesus, I don't know him personally. I know him
quite well impersonally. But that doesn't help in the middle of the night.

Or when life disappoints or when love fails. When bodies fail.

When entropy wins.

So. Let's start over Jesus. I will be me and you will be you.

Hello. Its nice to meet you.

Ode To Anxiety

Stretched too thin

  Skin and bone are leather

    Gift wrapping stone

       A smile too tight a pulled

          Rubber band ready to fight

             With words bitter and strong

                Like coffee brewing since the

                   Day before yesterday. The

                       Rungs on the ladder of my

                           Spine are broken from the

                              Pressure of this giant

                                 Climbing up to my brain

                                    Making it ache making a

                                        Stain on my feelings I

                                          Just can’t bleach out.

The Pearl

The furies follow me hungry
for my hope and You
Seem to thinks it funny that
I’ve invested my fortune
In a treasure that
Just won’t be found.

I’ve searched within and without
For that pearl of great price
Willing to pay with my soul.
Really, if You wanted me to find it
You might have buried it shallow and shining
So my blindish eyes would have a chance
At the peace You proclaim passes all understanding.

Well I understand plenty
And I have had enough of the secrets
Within your book, the words will not open
For me is there a magic phrase
An unknown prayer to utter that will let
Me into Your cave of riches?

Yes. I know I hail You with heresy
And expect You to bestow hope
To revive my fainting faith. What I understand
To You is nonsense. If I must be a fool make
Me a fool for Your extravagant love
Let me know it so brutally that it
Crushes all doubt, all despondency, all despair.

My name is Jennifer Gray and I am a Co-dependant.

Your breeze blows warm when it wants to.
Cold when you’re consciously cruel.

Your leaves are waving in that wind, I am swaying in
Their rhythm. When I close my eyes I can feel you breathe
See your passion seethe
While I fall asleep and dream you want your night to be over.

My words fall fresh while I shed your tears
Feel for you the hot flush of released despair.

You claim you’re an addiction, a bad habit to break.
So if I breathe you in and regret it, only my life is at stake?

When did love become a drug? A bliss from which to recover?
It seems yours is the only heart worth your time to discover.

Do you think my eyes are bound when you look
At me the way that you do (that look reflects the eyes of many saviors)…all I know is that I want to see you through…

Sometimes light is more painful that darkness
Truth more deceptive than lies.
Beauty can put nails in your heart, create longings
No mask can disguise.

Close your eyes quickly now sing softly of your sorrow
Sift through seasons of darkness and discover
Sounds of joy that stand in bold relief
Against the back-drop of your grief and be at peace…
Sleep deep… dawn will come if you let her.

G. MacDonald's Beech Tree

Love is the song I sing to send you
you to sleep, sink your head in my lap
and dream of me. Put away
your smoking guns and rest from the best of reason.
Slip into mystery while I
whisper words of righteousness in rhymes
that will make your old-soul feel young and
sublime with beauty.
I am wide awake and will guard your mind from evil
with Orion's sword and September's moon
as a shield. Let weariness slide in and
leave you pale, breathing evenly, pain evanescent.
Linger there long, living in a faerie-tale with me.

"Only the shallow know themselves.” Oscar Wilde

So it seems God is never done unraveling. Which is exasperating. Think about how easy it is to get things messed up in knots. I tried crocheting once. Totally stressful. Not peaceful at all. I could never get my yarn to be where I wanted it to be. Most of my necklaces are unusable because I need to sit down and make a project of untangling them.

Unraveling knots is a complete pain. It’s tedious, eye straining and frustrating. Sometimes its just not worth the effort.

Having and caring for children reveals things about oneself that are unfathomable before they come into the world. I am not talking about mere selfishness. Yes, of course one realizes that one is selfish after having kids. Clearly having little people depend on you for every basic need will reveal impatience and self-absorption. I am talking about deep deep deep characteristics that are knotted and complicated and when loosed feel akin to an earthquake. And stupid. Yes! Stupid. I want to just wave it all away as thirty-something middle- class angst but I consider myself a spiritual(ish) person and my spirituality keeps hitting this stupid wall of stupid knots. So I have to at least validate them by calling them real.

For example. I have always thought myself as a laid-back person; accommodating and easy to please. Ha! It turns out that actually I have control issues bordering on neurotic. Before I had kids I could indulge myself in them to a degree that resembled religious rituals. Personal hygiene, food, legal substances, and relationships all had rules and regulations. If I did not obey these rules self-flagellation would begin. Shame would colour my days until I made things right.

I know! Sounds OCD. I honestly just thought that it was how life is lived. But here's the thing. I love my children more than myself. So I don't have time for these rituals. I don't have the brain space or the energy to invest in them anymore. But I don't know how to live without them either. It’s scary to live without them because they are my source of worth and accomplishment. I don't know how to organize my day without all these rules and regulations that only include me, not the two little people waiting for their breakfast and their hair to be brushed.

So I have this vacuum now. In the place of these rituals I have a sense of chaos and need. I can't think straight. I am insecure & unregulated. Like I am perpetually in a high school cafeteria searching for a place to sit. And I am naked. It is particularly obvious to me that I am not adjusting well after I spend time with a group of women friends. It used to be a necessity for me to play a particular role with people. My image and appearance and persona were practiced and intentional. What's funny is that three years ago I would have insisted that I was completely authentic and unguarded. Without the carefully cultivated image I feel spastic and eccentric.

How do I reorganize and redefine thirty-six years of structure? I don't want my babes dealing with my neurosis. That would be sad.

So I can only assume that this unraveling is God's work. I think I must see it as a blessing. If He can show me a healthier way of living and being there will be less of a risk that my babes will inherit my dysfunctional legacies- directly or indirectly.

I have a feeling life will be lighter and clearer if I am open to this untangling. Maybe I will feel less anxiety. Maybe I will sleep better. Watch less TV. Have deeper faith. Care more about others than how I am perceived. There's every reason to hope.

"...Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me." -John Donne












.

grace on my tongue

Anxious bored and brittle
Lips cracked with darkling doubts
Ushered through with the dusty
Air of an ancient tomb.

Jesus wept, I remembered
So my thoughts crackled with
Hope pushing through my craven
Brain and cloven hoof.

If he can cry grace is real
And I will feel His tears dampen
My tongue so I can cry out
“Light conquers darkness after all!”

Maybe all that’s bright in me will
Fight and walk through the shadows
To disperse their clinging fears and
Shine like the morning star.

O God my head!
Your anvil slamming my temple
Has got to stop. The throbbing doesn’t
Help me to see what’s sin and what’s not.

Do you hear the twilight in my sighs?
The setting sun is eroding my faith
With colours too bright for purity.

Must evil be beautiful
Or
My beauty be sin?
Is
White, stark, the only shade to sing?
It will make me raving mad for the rainbow you once promised.

All colours make black, yes Lord, black as sin
But I’d rather my eyes grow dim
Than see all hues in me turn into the
Dark inks that I write the prayers with
That I put into my private wailing wall.

Have You read them yet?

Or am I on your back burner boiling over my voice
Evaporating with the steam that disappears
On its way on up to You?

I must be still. Let you choose my pain and illustrate my story with colours more brilliant than a sunset.

Girl Talk

I am not fluent in “girl”. I never have been. By “girl” I mean- All verbal and nonverbal cues, secret codes and unwritten rules the fair sex uses to create allegiances and relate to each other. I blame three parties for this handicap. First, I blame my father, whom I love. When I was young his hero was Spock from Star Trek. He is also painfully Germanic. I thought that if I made myself as logical and stoic as possible I would impress him. The problem is I am pretty emotional; so all the held back exuberance & hyperbole mostly came out as anger. Which is very German. At least in Northeastern WI.

Then I blame the church, for as I entered Bible College my old convictions that stoics know best merged with the fact that if a woman showed anything resembling emotion she was rendered illogical and therefore useless to all professions except those involving organs, kitchens and children. I always found this to be very offensive to children, but I guess logic and critical thinking should be reserved to those who are ready for it- thirteen year-olds. Finally, I blame my height. In the 80’s being 6’0 wasn’t as awesome as it is now (neither was being red headed- that wasn’t cool ‘til the 90s thank you very much Julia Roberts). There were no “Tall” sizes at GAP. Wait. I wasn’t cool enough for GAP. I mean that there were no “Tall” sizes at Shopko. So I tried to hide my scary weird developing body in over-sized clothing (ankles bared & red hair frizzy) and a lot of intellectual and religious talk.

Now some of you may have noticed that I have indirectly associated femininity with illogic and being emotional. Yes, I have been quite a critic of my gender. In my feminism I tried to adopt such stereotypical masculine characteristics that I became, in short, a sexist. It was a way to express that I didn’t give a damn how awkward I was. Contradiction- In secret, I was pouring over Victoria magazine and Anne of Green Gables.

I think also maybe I wasn’t born with the right "girl" hard-wiring. I never knew how to give the silent treatment. I did not have enough imagination to come up with rumors vicious enough to ostracize another girl until she transferred to another school. I certainly had no idea how to flirt. I thought boys had cooties (except for MacGyver) until my sophomore year in college. I secretly loved fashion but was too insecure to do anything about it until I was an adult. And I never developed that certain look one girl can give another just condescending and disgusted enough to send the silent message that no, you are not cutting it, and you never will, so don’t even try.

Now boys (cooties aside), boys were different. They were straight up. You could talk about Star Wars for ages. Play with cars and make snow forts. Later, I could discuss theology and philosophy with them (well, with the ones who were not scared of the six foot red-head who liked Lewis & Kierkegaard). They are also really great at just being quiet. I found my refuge, as a girl, with being “one of the guys”.

Lest I sound bitter…I know now that I created a stereotype as a defense mechanism. I did not feel that I measured up and quit. It did me harm. I missed out on a lot of rites of passage. I was lonely. I also found myself in a lot of complicated situations with guys as the lines between childhood and adulthood blurred.

I was fortunate in college to meet a few girls who saw in me something to pursue. It is interesting that girls (women) long to be pursued not just by their fathers, boyfriends and husbands, but their friends as well. We all want to know we are of value- that we are worth seeking out. Those women changed my life. I found courage in their friendship. I let out my love for fashion and art. I started to cry at movies. We had sleepovers and pigged out on ice cream. One of these girls got drunk with me after a bad breakup. We had a funeral for my sad, ruined relationship- memorializing it in a swath of wine and rum and Over the Rhine. I woke up between the coffee table and couch while Karin crooned "Suitcase" for the umpteenth time. Crawling to the bathroom I knew I was over him. I learned how to laugh a healthy laughter, and to be OK making a fool of myself.

College friends scatter all over the planet and starting over is hard amidst careers, marriage, children and everyday responsibilities. I was talking with a friend recently and we concluded that making friends in one’s thirties is equivalent to dating in one’s twenties. These are thoughts that have run through my head after coffee with a potential kindred spirit -Did I talk too much? Did she like my dress? Will she call me again? Did I seem too eager? Did I ask her enough questions? Was I too much- or was I not enough…

Perhaps I am neurotically insecure, but I suspect there are a lot of women like me who desire a community of women to go through life with. Independence and autonomy feel more like an illusion. Marriage and children, or the lack of marriage and children have changed the game. Many of us don’t have moms & aunties teaching us about breastfeeding and parenting and laundry and crafting and canning. Those things are remnants of something sacred that seems to be fading. What I once shunned, I now embrace. When I see pretty tea towels, a vintage apron, old copper pots, geraniums in a window box or an antique sewing machine I think of a time when maybe women did not feel quite so alone. When they didn’t have to do it all, all by themselves, to be considered strong. When being soft, emotionally and physically, was considered attractive.

I am not romanticizing the past. Thank God for the vote and equal pay. But I am a little pissed at the modern feminists. And Victoria’s Secret. I guess I blame them too for my illiteracy in “girl”. I think maybe they have made women very lonely in their equality and have portrayed an image that is impossible to live up to.

Maybe there is a certain dialect in “girl” I do understand. When my friends bring me dinner when I am eight months pregnant with my second child. When one of them throws me a surprise party. When a dear friend calls me late at night and honors me with her troubles.

That is a language I can understand.

The wee small hours

It is three o’clock in the morning. I hate being awake in the middle of the night. These deep hours don’t always feel to me to quite belong to God. It feels as if the darkness is allowed to encroach upon one a little more than usual.

It didn’t always used to be this way. When I was younger I remember waking up and feeling cozy. I had a sense of who I was, what I was about, that all was as it should be or would at least work out. I would thank God for my bed, dig a little deeper into the covers and fall back to sleep.

Now when I wake up I screw up my eyes and try really hard not to think. My thoughts feel like a cloud of fear hovering just above my head. For a few seconds I think, “Just go back to sleep, everything is all right- you are safe, your family is safe.” But if I do not the battle begins with images of horrible things that have happened or are currently happening. School children attacked with meat cleavers in China, terrorist attacks, serial murder cases, kidnappings, sexual exploitations of young children, earthquakes, animal cruelty.

Then the “what ifs” make their attack. What if my children are kidnapped? What if my son has to go to war? What if my daughter’s heart is broken beyond repair? How can I protect them when I feel so weak? What if I get sick? What if I die? What if Eric dies? What if my children die?

If I allow the “what ifs” to take over, like I did tonight, I might as well get up. Only the routine of everyday things like dishes in the sink, the dog going outside and the hum of home electronics can make these demons retreat.

When I was younger I was fearless. I lived in dangerous neighborhoods, offered rides to strangers. I walked the streets at night- and slept well. Was I truly brave, or merely stupid? One does after all; feel invincible in one’s 20s.

It seems to me that maybe real bravery is knowing exactly what truly awful things the world is capable of throwing at you and going forth anyway. Choosing to believe that you are not alone, no matter how alone you feel.

I know that God is in the middle of all this somewhere. I don’t doubt that. But I truly don’t know where. At 3 AM I can’t feel Him, and praying doesn’t stop the bombardment of fear that pummels me into a pathetic mess. I have been looking for Him in the middle of the night for a long time. And I wonder how real my faith is if I can believe during the day and be so lost at night.

Something that wearies me about Christianity is all the “someday” stuff. Jesus will come back someday. All will be made right. Someday.

I don’t know. I guess I am not brave. I want life to be safe, to feel safe. Now. I want my children to have magical childhoods. I want anything that threatens them to be cast into hell. Now. I want assurance that all is well. Right now.

Is that so wrong? Maybe I just need more sleep.

I have been reading Graham Greene's The End of the Affair for the third time. I am enjoying looking back over my old college notes and highlights. What I was moved by at the ripe old age of 21 is so different from what I notice about the novel now. All I could see then was the consequences of adultery and the stunning self-sacrifice Sarah displayed after her dramatic conversion. She prays,

Dear God, I've tried to love and I have made such a hash of it. If I could love you, I'd know how to love...I believe the legend, I believe you were born. I believe you died for us. I believe you are God. Teach me to love. I don't mind my pain. It's [her husband's and ex-lover's] pain I can't stand. Let my pain go on and on, but stop theirs. Dear God, if you could only come down from the cross for a little while and let me get up there instead. If I could suffer like you, I could heal like you.

This quote reminds me a lot of John Donne's sonnet XIV.

Batter my heart, three-person'd God: for you
As yet but knock; breathe, shine and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like a usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

It has been a long time since I have been able to pray like this; with such passion and abandon. Getting older means experiencing life at its best and worst, and the worst of it leaves scars. For many 21 year-olds pain is dramatic and overwhelming, but that is because it is new. The blood is let for the first time and it leaves the wounded wide-eyed and wondering. But suffering in one's 30's is different. The wounds have multiplied, gone deeper, left scars. If not careful, the wounded can develop a habit of flinching and shutting eyes tight. Hardheartedness and a quiet distrust can become the bandages.

So what I am saying is that this time I am relating a lot to Bendrix. It is so easy to excuse his cynicism & bitterness- his cruelty. I wonder what his childhood must have been like... He doesn't know how to love... He is lost in his own hellish imagination and can't find his way out.

I have wondered sometimes whether eternity might not after all exist
as the endless prolongation of the moment of death...

I feel so sorry for him! And feel akin to him, and I realize that in feeling sorry for him I am feeling sorry for myself!
Sort of pathetic, really.
The thing is, at 21 I had no idea what love really was or what it would demand. Marriage vows and children take self-sacrifice to a whole new level and I am often overwhelmed. So the kind of prayers that Sarah and John Dunne prayed make me afraid. I am afraid that I cannot handle that kind of love, that I will cease to exist.

But these fears are lies of course. It is in self-sacrificial love that one is reborn. The End of the Affair begins with this quote by Leon Bloy,

Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters
suffering in order that they may have existence.

God give me courage.

The glory of God?

I don't know what I am doing most of the time. This has always been true. I am not really great at anything obvious. This is not self-degradation, it's just honest. I watch the Olympics and Miss America pageants wondering where these people find all their energy. I watch the moms I meet in my community make their own organic baby food, sew cloth diapers with love in every stitch and parent as if a six figure salary depended on it. I am lucky if my laundry is done and most of the time my floor needs to be swept. Too often I just want to watch TV.

It's cool. Good for those athletes and aspiring princesses and CEO moms. It's just not my thing. I stopped working a year ago to take care of my first child. In the following hours and minutes that spawned boredom and a lifetime of self-doubt I have been asking myself this question, "what exactly is my thing?" I am not lazy. I like all the normal things to people tend to like... music, reading, art, camping, fashion, my family. So what? What makes life worth getting out of bed for? I am a Christian, and other Christians say I should read about purpose filled lives and jazz that is blue and velvet elvises. Good stuff. They tell me I should "live for the glory of God". But I really don't know what the hell that means.

In "Franny and Zooey", JD Salinger confronts a quarter life-crisis head on. In order to inspire his sister (Franny) to come back to the land of the living, her brother (Zooey) says the following...

...I'll tell you a terrible secret-Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady...There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that g-damn secret yet? And don't you know-listen to me, now-don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?...Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself , buddy.

When I first read this passage in Franny and Zooey in my early 20's I thought I had found the secret to an inspired life. Well I have learned a lot through the years about idealism, but I find that in my mid-thirties it still has a powerful affect on me. It is not a new concept to find the "divine spark" in humanity-but Salinger seems to put a spin on it. He seems to imply that your life is your art, and that Christ is always there- in a friend, a homeless man, a rude neighbor- watching whether or not you are squandering your joy and creativity.

St. Irenaeus says that"the glory of God is man fully alive." Jesus says that He came to give life abundantly. Well, I think that's my thing. To live my life with art, abundance, love- to be fully alive. Honestly, that is as far as I have gotten. I am hoping to figure how to live with "art" amidst a naughty Weimaraner, the imperfect church, a gorgeous baby girl and another on the way.

I know it won't be easy. It is so much easier to be depressed and detached. It really is. I am beginning to think that being depressed (chemical and hormonal deficiencies aside) is lazy. At least, it is for me. It's not making the effort to be engaged, not forgiving life for not living up to my expectations. How self-absorbed is that? So, I'll get out of bed every morning for the Fat Lady- and see how it goes.