My brother's eyes ...

I'm on a journey ... it is a journey I've spent an inordinate amount of time making while I was insisting that I was "fine" when I wasn't fine at all ... in truth I have been disconnected from myself more and more as I traveled farther along the path ... 

This past week has become a radical turning point for me ... the time has come to find my balance and reconnect with myself ...

Today I was reading Eckhart Tolle and found the following quotation:
 "... people with strong pain-bodies often reach a point where they feel their life is becoming unbearable, where they can't take any more pain, any more drama. One person expressed this by saying plainly and simply that she was "fed up with being unhappy." ... they know that neither their unhappy story nor the emotion they feel is who they are ..."

These words caused me to say "Oh shit ... that's me ..."

I'm unhappy 
I'm tired 
I feel totally disconnected with myself. 
I look around and wonder how things have become so cluttered and out of control and I don't feel like I'm being authentic in the life I'm leading ... I've grown angry and resentful, and a lot of ugly emotion is bubbling just beneath the surface ... 

To be blunt and honest, I DON'T LIKE THE PERSON I'VE BECOME. 

I know inside there lurks a happy, enthusiastic, passionate, inquisitive and fun loving person who has been lost and hidden away for too long ... I know that since the deaths of Mom, Mr Baumbach, Scott, Indigo, Anfinn and Uni, I've lost my connectedness to THAT me ... In the wake of Mom and Scott's deaths I tried to be strong and to be there for my kids. I tried to pick up the pieces and carry on. I tried to heal and resume my life ... 

I FAILED 
I failed on an epic scale!!! 

I broke and I instead of healing I buried the hurt.
The hurt turned to resentment
The resentment grew into alienation 
And the alienation fed a deep anger that coloured everything and left me feeling worthless and unworthy ... 

I pushed EVERYONE including my children away ... 

... and with each push the anger grew ...  

This past week I've come to realize many things. Foremost is the need for me to heal myself and to let go of the unhappiness that has weighted me down ... I need to reclaim me and my life and shake off the STUFF physical and otherwise that is dragging me down ... but my greatest realization comes from the moment when the hearse pulled away from the funeral home carrying mom's body that cold January day in 2011 ... 

As it drove away, I remember turning and looking at my big brother ... he was always the BIG, STRONG, TOUGH one ... he was the one who despite our long history of scraps and fights, could be depended upon to be there to help me through whatever life might throw my way ... he was in EVERY WAY my BIG brother ... but in the wake of mom's death I watched him struggle ... 

That day standing in the parking lot in Tavistock, I turned and I saw in his eyes a depth of pain and sadness that tore my heart out ... he looked so sad, so vulnerable and so lonely ... For the first time in decades I hugged him ... and he hugged me and I felt his body shudder with tears for the first time in almost a week ... 

With ALL of our busy-ness and activity after Mom died, I watched Scott move through many emotions - emotions I shared - but I hadn't witnessed him cry ... 

Until that moment ... wrapped in my arms I felt him weep ... not for long ... for a moment ... but he wept ... 

The look of sadness and pain that I saw in his eyes stuck with me since ... in the short days we had before I found myself burying him too, I prayed that he could find freedom from that pain and sadness ... 

On a brutally cold night in February, I know he did ... as his earthly journey ended, he claimed freedom and peace from the suffering of his mind, body and spirit that had dogged his path for years ... 

But on Monday night, I looked into the mirror and I saw Scott staring back at me ... not a ghostly apparition but rather I saw in my own eyes the SAME pain and sadness that I had witnessed in my brother's eyes ... I saw Scott looking back at me, because like the little six year old boy who struggled to make sense of a world turned upside down by the death of his beloved Daddy, I was struggling to make sense of a world that had been turned upside down over and over and over ... 

On Monday night ... I looked into the mirror and didn't see even the slightest spark of joy and I knew in that moment something was wrong ... something was wrong and it was time to stop pretending "I'm fine ..." 

I'm NOT fine ... like my brother, I carry deep hurts and deeper sorrows ... like Scott I yearn for peace ... but on Monday I made a choice to stop the direction of my journey, and to find my way back to a place of balance, a place of wholeness, a place of true joy ... the joy I have long said motivates me, but that I have lost my connectedness with ... 

I looked into my brother's eyes, and committed to healing myself and living whole ... Scotty ALWAYS smiled ... looking back it was his coping mechanism .. looking forward it will be my goal to smile more, and to allow the joy that lies within to overwhelm and dominant my being ... 

In my healing I will choose to let go of the unhappiness and instead choose joy ... the true joy I've celebrated frequently, but struggled to experience myself ... this week, I looked into my brother's eyes and out of love for him. for my children, for my friends and most of all for ME, I have chosen to reclaim the spark of joy and fan it back into a raging inferno ... 

The journey has begun - one breath at a time ... one conscious, mindful breath ... 

TO LIFE !!! 
TO JOY!!!!

Transformation ...

Alienation means you don't feel at ease in any situation, any place, 

or with any person, not even with yourself. 

You are always trying to get "home" but never feel at home. 

- Eckhart Tolle 

Damn ... that's me ... 

Now to find my way home ... it starts with reclaiming the present moment, and finding balance within my self ... 

I need to begin to care for myself 

I need to learn to like myself 

I need to learn to love myself

I need to find balance in my life and it begins with taking the first small steps ... 

I need to do this for me to find my way home ... 

 

The still small voice whispers ... it is perhaps time to listen ...

Today I stepped back into familiar and for me, comfortable territory for the first time in a very very very long time ... I've long felt my calling in ministry has been to the prophetic side of the church.

My library shelves groan under the weight of prophetic writings, and I've often reflected here on issues of economics, poverty, hunger and social inequity ... my sojourn as the Homelessness Coordinator for the City of Brandon six years ago was simultaneously rewarding and frustrating ... but out of that time, I found a voice to bring concerns from the margins to the centre of the Church and the life of the community ...

I count many amazing and astounding people from agencies like Brandon's Samaritan House Ministries through to Winnipeg Harvest and now Flesherton's Food Banks as friends that I continue to cherish and keep in touch with ... but lately that prophetic voice fell to nothing more than a whisper ...

Other concerns had broken in and pushed it to the sidelines ... my focus has been so much on the issues facing my family in the last four years, the Coffee Shop, and countless other issues ... I still visited the prophetic territory, but I haven't preached from it ...

Over the days since Christmas, I have had too many conversations with people who openly asked me if I still felt my calling was in the day to day life of serving a pastoral charge ... I couldn't honestly answer the question with a yes or a no ...

Then, I have found myself immersed in articles, studies and books focused on the issues of poverty, income inequity, food security, homelessness, precarious employment and the multitude of issues that face us as a society, and fuel the fear and distrust that marks far too much of our social interactions ... I searched for hopeful AND CURRENT voices in the Church beyond my usual culprits of Wallis, Brueggemann and the few that speak with prophetic resonance ... alas, the search has largely been in vain ...

This weekend as I sat down to write my reflection, I found the prophetic whisper growing in volume and intensity until, as I penned the words I spoke this morning, they spoke strongly, passionately and emphatically from the prophetic territory I had so long avoided ...

This morning, as I offered my sermon (posted over at: http://fleshertonunited.blogspot.ca/) it felt right and it felt good and it felt familiar ... I've avoided the prophetic for a number of reasons and as 2015 begins to unfold I feel called to go back to that territory and drink deeply from the wells that lie there ... It is time to reclaim my prophetic voice once and for all ... and perhaps with it, will come the voices of my puppet friends that Sharon United in Langley beat out of me in 2000 ... and perhaps the answer to my discernment will be revealed as well ...

I know I am called to ministry ... maybe redefining the role of the Church in public dialogue about social, political and economic issues is part of what I've been overlooking ... I'll leave the journey in the hands of the Spirit and see where she leads ...