I read some more of Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis by Lauren Winner and the two chapters/reflections that touched me were the ones on anxiety.
In one, she talks about checking obsessively to make sure her driver’s license is there when she’s on the road to the airport as well as worrying about if she’s turned off the stove and envisions her house burning down. I don’t have those particular two fears but I obsess about whether I locked the car door frequently and I’ve been known to worry about things happening in the future. She talks about her friend suggesting that she give up anxiety for Lent. Her friend’s wife asked if she was going to have a major panic attack come Easter if she does this.
In another, she talks about her friend suggesting that she give up anxiety for Lent. She finds a prayer in the Book of Common Prayer that helps her out with this and another friend tells her about distancing herself from an emotion for 15 minutes. All are good and she also talks about her experience with medication. She spoke of her experiences coming off of the medication (which are eerily familiar to my experiences with them trying to get me off of Effexor XR when I was pregnant).
This book (again) has been an interesting read for me just because I’ve been through a lot of the things she discusses. Even though I haven’t divorced Jon and my parents are still alive, I’ve dealt with crushing anxiety in my life and I can understand her reactions, even if they haven’t been mine. The physical toll of my anxiety are the weakening of my (already crappy) immune system and migraines. In her case, it was tingling in her joints. I’ve had severe panic attacks but none all that publicly.
I will be interested to see what the rest of the book has in store for me.
And no, giving up anxiety for Lent is not on the agenda.
Wow! Lots for me to choose from this week in the news, so I guess I’ll get started.
— 1 —
Mea culpa. I owe a number of you an apology for posting the link to the White House blog and saying that there were religious exemptions if you had mentioned the HHS situation on your Quick Takes. Thank you to Lisa at All Things Gale for emailing me and explaining the intricacies of the situation politely and civilly. Thank you also to Katie of NFP and Me for giving me the link to the roundtable on ABC that includes this discussion.
— 2 —
Regarding the Susan G. Komen debacle, it is THEIR choice as to whom they choose to grant funding. Yeah, it was spineless of them to have caved to public pressure but it would also be dishonest if they did not fulfill the grant money that had already been promised for this year. Next year, however, is different and they can sever ties at that point. The damage has already been done — their donations will drop because of this. This should also be a sign to Planned Parenthood that they need to acquire some mammography machines and get some licenses to use them so they can actually claim truthfully to promote breast health rather than making referrals out to other providers.
— 3 —
On Monday night, I found a great article on being a super successful introvert. I’m one of the last people to like anything sanctioned by Oprah but this article is excellent. I’ve actually put some of these things into practice in past situations and they really do work. And seriously… I’m proud to be part of a class of people that includes Abraham Lincoln and Eleanor Roosevelt.
— 4 —
The petition to rescind the HHS mandate hit 25,000 signatures on Tuesday. It’s not surprising given that even *I* signed it because I think that the terms of the mandate needed to be adjusted to allow for issues of conscience for *ALL* religious groups, not just the Catholic Church. (I signed it on February 1st if anyone wanted to know). 25,000 is the threshold to go to the HHS peeps and the president so I hope this all gets resolved soon. It doesn’t go into effect for another year but it isn’t good to have more tension in a country that is already polarized enough and has been for a very long time (since 2000 at least).
— 5 —
I’ve been having to sleep in the living room because of the cough from the MUTANT DEATH COLD. I can’t be flat or I start coughing up a lung, making it really hard to get sleep. I’m on the last few days of my antibiotics which were supposed to treat any infection if it was present (as bronchitis = hospital for me) and the only difference is that I’m maybe getting some stuff up now. I don’t know if I just have a really inflamed area in my throat or what but this is getting frustrating. *makes a mental note to get more cough drops*
— 6 —
Dude… marshmallow gun. President Obama and Joey, an 8th grader from Arizona, shot a marshmallow across the State Dining Room of the White House using the air cannon that Joey built for his science project at the White House Science Fair.
I don’t care how you feel about Obama — I think shooting *anything* out of an air cannon needs to be viewed… repetitively.
— 7 —
This article on helicopter parents in the workplace from NPR is scary. I honestly can’t imagine my parents calling the seminary or the clinic or UPS Supply Chain Solutions (my brokerage in Montana) to make them be nice to me or make them pay me more. For one thing, it’s highly unprofessional and it also shows that the candidate cannot function independently if their parents are still fighting their battles for them. My mom has told me who happened to be hiring when I was looking for a job one summer and I’ve asked her advice with regard to work situations (she’s calm and diplomatic which is what I aim to project); but that’s the limit. The only reason she met my boss in Montana is that she was at the baby shower that the UPS Supply Chain Solutions people threw me when Daniel came home from the hospital. Helicopter parents in general just stymy me. I mean, I’m uber-involved in Daniel’s life and advocate for him but he’s also only two years old and autistic. I’ve told friends of mine to shoot me if I ever show up to a parent-teacher conference and complain that the teacher doesn’t see Daniel’s innate specialness.
— Bonus —
In California news, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Prop 8. This is kind of a useless ruling because it was going to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, regardless of in whose favor the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. (The 9th Circuit Court gets overturned by the Supreme Court 54% of the time which another reason why this ruling is useless.) I probably should have an opinion on this… and I don’t. I have too many friends on both sides of the issue who are going to be wounded when it is decided one way or the other that I’ve just decided to keep my mouth shut. I will say, however, that this is not a good thing for those who were in favor of Prop 8 (which means that they are against same-sex marriage) because the Supreme Court deciding the law is unconstitutional means that the door is WIDE open for DOMA to be repealed and other states to pass laws allowing same-sex marriages.
For more Quick Takes, visit Hallie Lord at BettyBeguiles.Com who is graciously hosting this meme while Jen pushes toward the end of her manuscript.
Outside my window… cloudy and chilly (at least to me). We might get some showers which would be great because we need the rain but not so great because it might cancel PT tomorrow.
I am thinking… that there has to be a middle ground between keeping one’s mouth shut so as not to offend anyone and this which is rage-filled yelling.
I am thankful… for my massage last Friday.
In the kitchen… Jon cooked up a ton of stuff for himself for the Super Bowl yesterday.
I am wearing… my preeclampsia survivor shirt and capri sweats.
I am creating… this entry. 🙂
I am going… to Bible study tonight. It’s Men’s Night Out so I’ll be taking Daniel with me. The ladies love him so it should be OK.
I am wondering… when my stomach will calm down. Evil antibiotics! (I can hear my mom’s voice telling me to start eating some yogurt to build my intestinal flora back up.)
I am reading…Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis by Lauren Winner. It’s a bit of a tough read because I can identify with many of the things she says even if I’m not in the same circumstances.
I am hoping… we do end up having PT tomorrow — it’s been two weeks since Daniel’s last session.
Around the house… next question!
I am pondering… my Quick Takes for this week.
A favorite quote for today… “An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.” — C.S. Lewis
One of my favorite things… my new laptop. 🙂
A few plans for the rest of the week: PT tomorrow, speech on Wednesday, OT on Thursday, and nothing on Friday.
A peek into my day… Someone likes his bottom shelves of our bookcases.
Now that I’ve finished Inheritance by Christopher Paolini, I’m reading Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis by Lauren Winner. In it, she posits a series of reflections on life when you’re in that spot where God is absent and prayer is just impossible. At the time she wrote the book, her mother had died three weeks before she married her (now former) husband and after five years of marriage, she reaches the point at which she can’t continue it because she’s miserable and is making her husband miserable.
It’s an *interesting* read as all of her books; but it’s being really emotionally painful for me to read because I can see myself in her. I read the same fiction she does (which is almost all based in North Carolina) and I’m in a perpetual “middle” in terms of faith. It’s not to say that my faith is gone but instead to say that I’m at a point right now where I frequently see and feel silence from God when I pray.
The hardest reflection to read thus far has been “healing prayer” in which she describes going up after receiving communion for healing prayer. She talks about how she would love to be able to do it one day but at that moment, she can only kneel at the rail and cry with the priest’s warm hands holding hers. I was reading it yesterday while I was eating lunch and I had to choke back tears while eating my teryaki chicken and take some deep breaths to calm myself. Why the tears? It was because I have the same memory.
In 2007, we had a mentally unbalanced parishioner stalking me and I finally wrote her a letter telling her to leave me alone or I would take out a restraining order against her. She whined to anyone who would listen about how I threatened to sue her and OMG-THE-HEART-PROBLEMS-THIS-WAS-CAUSING-HER!!!!! (Did I mention that she was also a pathological liar?) Of course, people believed her instead of me. The sheep hit the fan during Holy Week 2008 (because if anything is going to go wrong in a clergy family, it will be during Holy Week) and after being chewed out confronted by a few parishioners, I decided that it would be better if I took a Sunday off from being a pastor’s wife and being a Lutheran. I needed to go down to Great Falls for some errands so I went to go and bond with my aunt and uncle who lived down there and attended the Episcopal church in town the next morning.
For those new to my blog, I came to faith in the Episcopal church and it’s where I go (or at least wish I could go) when I’m really having problems with my faith or in my life. The liturgy was wonderful that Sunday and after the Eucharist, people were invited to come up for healing prayer. I went up for it and was moved to tears as I knelt at the communion rail and Father Tim clasped his hands around mine to pray for me. I don’t know why but it moves me to tears when people lay hands and pray for me. It might be that I’m allowing myself to be vulnerable, it might be the Spirit within me interceding because I have to words, or it could just be that I understand the power of what is going on.
I went back to Incarnation several times after on Sunday mornings and then to the noon Eucharists on Wednesdays after Daniel was born because it was the only way I would be able to attend church due to his care schedule in the NICU. Father Tim came to see me in the hospital in Great Falls and I feel horrible because I have no memory of it. (I was on some seriously heavy medications at the time to arrest the preeclampsia so it’s not surprising.) Reading what Lauren had to say brought back the memory of the incredible need I had for someone to pray for me during those times when I just could not pray for myself.
It’s been almost two years since we moved from Montana to California and almost three years since I’ve attended Incarnation. I am in such a different place today than I was back then and looking back, I can see the horrific depression I pushed through during that time. My life is so different today: a parish that loves my family, people who support Jon, and my parents nearby. Still, I am comforted by the thought that there are Episcopal parishes out there with people who will hold my hands as I kneel at the altar needing prayers for healing.
Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson had the following to say as part of a collection of opinions entitled “If I Were President…” that appeared in the New York Times. I saw his response on Twitter yesterday and thought it needed to be shared as it identifies the problem we as a country have with politics.
The question, ??If I were President I??d???? implies that if you swap out one leader, put in another, then all will be well with America??as though our leaders are the cause of all ailments.
That must be why we??ve created a tradition of rampant attacks on our politicians. Are they too conservative for you? Too liberal? Too religious? Too atheist? Too gay? Too anti-gay? Too rich? Too dumb? Too smart? Too ethnic? Too philanderous? Curious behavior, given that we elect 88% of Congress every two years.
A second tradition-in-progress is the expectation that everyone else in our culturally pluralistic land should hold exactly your own outlook, on all issues.
When you??re scientifically literate, the world looks different to you. It??s a particular way of questioning what you see and hear. When empowered by this state of mind, objective realities matter. These are the truths of the world that exist outside of whatever your belief system tells you.
One objective reality is that our government doesn??t work, not because we have dysfunctional politicians, but because we have dysfunctional voters. As a scientist and educator, my goal, then, is not to become President and lead a dysfunctional electorate, but to enlighten the electorate so they might choose the right leaders in the first place.
This evening, I saw on my Facebook page that President Obama and HHS Secretary Sebelius had announced religious exemptions to the HHS mandate for insurance companies to cover birth control. There had been a petition on the White House website (which was a pain to login to and sign) asking for the mandate to be rescinded and there were lawsuits from Belmont Abbey and Colorado Christian College. In response to those, the administration threw religious organizations a bone and announced the exemptions.
Apparently, this isn’t enough for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. They’ve issued a statement nitpicking the announcement from the White House. I found this out after one of the people on Quick Takes (who is remaining nameless because I’d rather pull my fingernails out than give her or her minions blog traffic) left the following snippy comment on my blog:
I don’t know why you’ve been going around to Catholic blogs and posting false information, but the religious exemption in the HHS mandate is worthless.
Um yeah… way to be civil, princess. It’s the kind of thing (coupled with the fact that you’ve proven yourself incapable of actually having a civil discussion on your blog) that gets you I.P. banned. *sigh* I’ve really missed playing with my *.htaccess file lately.
For the record, the exemptions to the mandate are not worthless — they’re on par with the religious exemptions provided for military service and social security. Quakers are conscientious objectors and yet they still pay taxes that support the U.S. military. Some Anabaptist groups consider Social Security to be akin to gambling (no, I am not making this up) and they can opt out of contributing to it even though their taxes are paying other peoples’ Social Security.
I’m sorry but the Roman Catholic Church is not that special. If we are to provide healthcare to everyone (which they should really be in favor of doing considering their history of charity), Catholics are going to have to bite the bullet on this one and pay. As it stands as of today, churches do not have to pay their insurers to cover contraception. For example, I’m a pastor’s wife and my denomination has the right not to pay our insurer to cover my birth control pills. (Oh yeah… gonna get hate mail for that one.) I know that it doesn’t exempt Catholic hospitals but it would exempt Catholic colleges if all their staff members are Catholic. For Evangelical schools, it works because all staff and professors have to sign a faith statement.
And for the love of all things holy, would people please stop acting like this is a Catholic pogrom? Nobody is being jailed, beaten, executed, or thrown to the lions over this issue. If you want to talk about persecution, talk to Christians in places like China, Iran, Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt, and Malaysia. You guys aren’t losing your 501(c)3 funding for telling your members not to vote a certain way by denying them the Eucharist (which is a violation of that particular I.R.S. statute). You get to keep the seal of Confession — every other clergy person has to report it if someone tells us that they’ve harmed themselves or others. In other words, you have a lot of religious freedoms that others don’t get to have. Going off about how this is a Catholic persecution gives the impression that y’all are whiny and will not play ball unless things are exactly YOUR way. I can tell you straight up that it does not leave a good taste in peoples’ mouths.
Oh yeah, comments are disabled on this post and any comments placed on other posts referencing this one will be deleted. This is one of those things that is my opinion and is not negotiable.
