Hope for the New Year

I've been thinking all week about what entering this new year will mean for me. And, when I consider whether or not to make a resolution I am sobered by a keen awareness of my intrinsic propensity to fall short, my geminaic inclination to change direction in midstream, and my internal struggle of heroic proportion-- learning to hope without expecting to be disappointed (translation: I'm a fallen, impulsive pessimist). Not a great combination for resolution making (or resolution keeping at least), so this year--no resolutions!

But I do face this year with much more anticipation than in the past. I face this year awakened, however slightly, to desire. I've realized that the greatest loss I've suffered from much of the trauma and heartache of my life was my heart. I killed it long ago with all of its longing for something more because to long, to desire was too costly, too painful, too vulnerable.

Have you ever found out that something you really wanted to happen wasn't going to happen after all and responded with, "that's ok, I didn't really want it all that much anyway"? To me, that's the death of desire, the killing of one's heart, the easy road. It says that not wanting, desiring, or longing feels better than disappointment, so I choose not to desire. I know this choice all too well. I've made it over and over again and it had made me tough, flippant, callous, insensitive, abrasive, cynical and bitter. It left me hopeless without me even knowing it.

But what's life without the hope of something more? What if today or last year is really all we get? Well, beam me up Scotty! Get me out of here. If this is all we've got then we are, like Paul says, of all men most miserable. I long for something more, waaaay before heaven. And, I believe there is more. I believe that there is more life than I've known so far--more joy, more peace, more love, more amazing friendship, more community, more grace to give and to receive, more knowing and being known. I want more. I hope for more.

I realize too that hoping for more sets me up to be disappointed. It makes me vulnerable, it exposes my heart, my emptiness. But if I don't hope for more, I don't invite it. I close myself off to the possibility of receiving more because I've filled the emptiness with bitterness and hardness. I choose to be empty and broken without trying to clean that up myself, because only then can I be filled and healed, only then can I experience life as I believe God intends.

The most amazing moments I experienced this year all emerged from brokeness. I've suffered tremendous loss recently and become aware of a lifetime of tremendous loss. In working through that I met a pretty amazing person, me. Experiencing life, hoping for more begins with me learning who I am, who I'm created to be and honoring that. I'm created to offer all of me to the world, the brokeness and the glory. Only then can I live.

I've felt most alive this year when:

• I answered honestly when asked, "how are you doing?"
• Friends held me and wiped my snot as I cried through the darkest moments.
• I told the truth about BIG slip-ups (like, one year set back slip-ups) and was met with grace, love, laughter and alternatives ;-) !
• Standing in a beautiful city with beautiful mountains and lakes with beautiful people who just let me be.
• Friends offered me a key to their apartment (which I still haven't gotten, btw).
• Invited to spend the night with special family members because I was missed.
• Dancing for 6 hours straight and dreading not being able to walk the next day.
• Planning the party of a life time in May (ummm, maybe November?)
• I shared my story, unabridged, with a few amazing friends who have held it and loved me well.
• I've seen that my story gets easier and easier to tell.

I've been loved well this year, y'all. And it's been amazing. And in the year to come I dare to long for more.

Happy New Year!

Desire More!

Fighting's Not Half Bad

Have you ever fought well? I have, very recently. And, today I find myself reflecting upon what makes a great fight.

Over the last two weeks I found myself in pretty significant conflict (twice) with one of my closest friends. For those who know me, that might not be too surprising except that I had never really fought with this person before and we've been friends for years. I was feeling put upon and taken advantage of and was really angry about it...and my words and actions didn't exactly hide it all that well (surprise!). In fact, I acted like a jerk instead of saying what I was feeling to the person who needed to hear it, my friend.

In the days leading up to a real conversation about what was going on, I found myself in the middle of a tug-of-war between two formidable foes: the way I've always done conflict and fighting well. On one hand (guess which?) I had rehearsed in my head the validity of my anger and innumerated again and again wrongs that were mounted against me. On the same hand I wanted to just make nice and forget it all ever happened. And then there was the other hand. On this other hand, while I longed to be heard and understood, I also longed to feel the weight of what I brought to this conflict. I knew on some level that this moment was not just about me, nor should it be. This other hand, the stranger hand, invited me to a territory that is only beginning to be familiar-- a place where neither "I" nor "you" prevail, but "us", the friendship. A place where we leave knowing and caring for each other better because we've both shown up and been valued.

I wondered if I could do it. Could I enter into the conflict without wanting to be declared the winner? Could I fight for the friendship instead of fighting to win?

I entered. I fought. And this is what I learned:

1. Caring for the other does not mean giving up yourself.
2. Forfeiting self is failing to care for the other.
3. We can both be right and both be wrong at the absolute same time.
4. What hurts me matters and to love me is to hear me.
5. What hurts you matters and to love you is to hear you.
6. To defend what I did to hurt you is cowardess.
7. To err is human.
8. To love is divine.
9. True friendship is divine.

So, today I'm giving friendship and conflict a second thought. Maybe, just maybe confict is not something to be avoided at all costs. Hmmm. I know I can't imagine what it would have cost me to avoid this one. But, fighting well is not easy. I found that it required me to look my own sinfulness square in the eye and call it what it is. But the tougher task was to face my desire and to risk by exposing it. In this conflict there was something that really ticked me off, but there was also a desire to know, "will there still be an us when I fail you?"

Vulnerability, the strangest component of fighting well.

Fight well!

This Christmas...

I laughed. A lot. For the first time in two years, I enjoyed the day. That's worth celebrating! Did somebody say "martini"?

The Family Box

Family can be one of the tiniest boxes of all. History is part and parcel with belonging to a family and it is the breeding ground for that which I am struggling so hard against, conformity.

The holidays is probably the worst time of year for feeling the family want to squeeeeeeeze you into the box that represents what "has always been". While I believe family members have the best of intentions when trying to plan for holiday meetings, preserve tradition, yahdah yahdah yahdah...I think there's more to it. I sense that beneath the surface of trying to make things the way they "used to be" or keep things the way they've "always been" lurks a longing for something far less attainable, and as such, far more freightening to consider: that which never was.

Nostalgia is a rascal. When I think about the family holiday box, nostalgia rears it's little head in disguise, as usual. He charms us with memories of the last time, or the first time, or the times in between. But the memories have been airbrushed and that's why it's so deceptive. We can remember the time when... and laugh, or smile, or sigh. But, when we're remembering that, do we remember what was happening on the other side of the room, or in the basement or near the eggnog? Do we remember feeling excluded or ridiculed or singled out? Do we remember the comment that ruined dinner for half the room while the other half died laughing? Were we even aware that someone else may have experienced that moment very differently than we did?

I think that the things I most desperately want to be the way they "used to be" really were not all that great if I'm honest with myself and allow myself to remember the whole picture. But, my longing is real and it's for something real, yet I am reluctant to admit that I'm longing for something I've never had to begin with. I wonder if family holiday boxes are longings in disguise by those of us who are afraid to say, we've never had...and boy, it sure would be nice.

I long for family gatherings where everyone feels loved and valued and cared for. I long for family to be a place of authentic community. And, if I'm honest, I know that that has never been. And further, I know that it may never be. At least not on the scale that attempts to bring the whole gang on board. So I ask myself, how then shall I live? I've tried to live by attempting to arrange the pieces and the people to fit into my own box, my fantasy box. I've tried to run interference and play one side against the middle and do the world's greatest juggling act. But I'm not finding life in that.

I found life this Christmas in the one on one's. I was most alive when I shared me with someone else, take me or leave me. I found life as I invited another to know me and love me just where I am and received love and authenticity in return.

I don't know about yours, but mine is not one great big happy family and I don't think it will ever be. But within my great big family I've experienced great big moments of feeling alive and free to just be and isn't that better than the box?

Lexi

Little Boxes

Have you ever experienced sharing a thought that may go a little against the grain, only to be verbally sledghammered back into the tiny close-minded box that makes the pounder feel secure again? I mean, have you been made to feel like there is something critically wrong with you to dare to THINK that maybe the way things have always been or maybe the way the "box" views things isn't the only perspective?

I've had these encounters far too often here lately. And, it doesn't seem like there any areas that are exempt: family, work, church (ahhhh, church), politics, personal finance, food choices, movie reviews, parenting, childbirth, fashion, hair, the holidays, dating, marriage, re-marriage, divorce, fidelity, friendship...cell phones, for crying out loud! I've decided that I'm sick of the little boxes!

Now, make no mistake about it, I realize that to embark upon this journey of re-thinking so many things, I must be the first to hang up my sledgehammer. And it's here that I'll hang it. Keeping this blog is an intentional choice to examine all the little boxes I've tried to shove others into as I work out my responses to those I feel continue to brandish their choice weapons of intolerance, conformity, and quite often ignorance. I'm expecting that I'll have to do a lot of apologizing. I'm hoping to learn objectivity and love and the grace of letting the other be.

I welcome you to respond, encourage, debate and challenge me along the way.

Peace and courage!