The Story Midwife

One more thing...

Ooh, Ooh!  I forgot to include perhaps the most fundamental gift of feminism in my earlier post. Without this piece, the list is grossly incomplete. If you have not read that post you'll be stepping in mid-stream. So go read it first, then come back...

Okay. Now that you're caught up, we'll continue.

The greatest gift of feminism in my life is my understanding of a holy, loving, Mother God. I grew up with the image of a severe man-god who was out to get me. The church of my childhood included the reading of the Ten Commandments at the start of every Sunday morning church service. No kidding.

When the faith of my childhood began to crumble uncontrollably, I sought out new ways to image God. Actually, it felt more like the God of many faces began showing herself to me. I was both terrified and drawn with everything in me. I devoured books such as A God Who Looks Like Me, Praying with Julian of Norwich, In Whose Image?, and The Feminine Face of God.

Over time, I felt born anew. It was as if I had been simultaneously birthed from the heart of this Mothering God, and birthed from the heart of myself while being midwifed by this Mother God. And it's changed everything.

I think it is only because of this experience that I am able to claim and recognize any of the other five gifts of feminism in my life.

Procrastination, Beans, and the Gifts of Feminism

I love beans.  All beans.  Black beans, pintos, kidneys, garbanzos, black-eyed peas, navys, limas - you name it, I probably like it. When Richard and I first got together we tittered about how he introduced me to hot wings and I taught him about the wonder of beans. Today I am soaking and boiling beans to stock up and freeze in my new deep freeze!  (A wonderful birthday gift from my parents! Thanks mom and dad!) All four burners of my stove top are firing away. I've got pintos, kidney beans and black-eyed peas swimming away, and the tea kettle is humming a little tune as to keep my green tea ever warm. Steaminess is everywhere. The windows of the kitchen are dripping with condensation, lending a mysterious quality to the task at hand. Each time I arise to stir and check I wonder if these pots of beans are somehow talking to one another - ruminating about this transfiguration of sorts that asks for yielding to a consuming hotness so that a plump softness may arise. I can learn a lot from a bean.

I also just pulled a loaf of Bob's Red Mill Homemade Wonderful GF Bread Mix bread out of my bread machine. I hope it tastes okay; it smells bad. Nothing against Bob; in general, I really like his food. Especially this breakfast cereal.

In case you're wondering how I have the time to do all this when it's not a Sammy school day, I'm home alone this weekend. Such gift it has been.  Richard is away leading a worship and music conference and consultation at a church in Milwaukee. Sammy got to spend two days at the "farm" with Richard's parents. I have gotten to move about our home in solitude. A rarity, I tell you, that I am drinking in with everything in me.

I had hoped to spend a good deal of time working on a freelance writing project I was assigned a few days ago, the first looks of which are due tomorrow.  But alas, I am procrastinating. In an effort of avoidance I'm clicking through my blog roll and hanging out with some of my favorite voices from literally across the planet.  It's much more fun than work writing. Okay, I'm not just avoiding; I'm feeling a little dry and aimless with where to begin. Add to the procrastination bucket the fact that there are several topics/updates I want to blog about, and I feel even less interested in work writing. Perhaps blogging a bit will get the juices flowing.

First, look here. I visited this morning, and as the resistance to work-write strikes I'll visit again. Luscious, I say!

Second, I'm still rolling about in the time and prayers and words shared with my spiritual director last Thursday. In time, I will share more about that here. But not yet.

Third, look here and scroll to the October 16 entry. Kristin's tagged me in my first ever meme!  I get to consider five things feminism has done for me.  Let's go!

Not surprisingly, many of the gifts of feminism center around relationship: with myself, with my husband, with my son, with the world around me.

1. When I consider my relationship with myself, I immediately think of BODY. I think it's in part because of the feminist movement that I get to talk about my body out loud, in private and in public. Here on this blog, for instance, I can say out loud that I have orgasms. Fabulous orgasms. Rock-the-house and thunder-in-my-soul orgasms.  And quiet, gentle, ever-so-compassionate orgasms. And move-me-to-healing-tears orgasms. And playful, romping orgasms. (Hmmm, turns out the steaminess in my house is not just on my windows, but arising in my belly, too. When WILL my beloved be home?!) Because my husband was also raised with the gifts of feminism, my body is important to him. We talk about sex. He cares about my pleasure. He is genuinely interested in my moon cycles. Interested, people!  He LOVES the fact that I bleed in rhythm with the moon. This is obviously a gift of who Richard is as a person, I know; but I believe it is also because he was raised by gender-equality minded parents and we live in a time when even at his Christian liberal arts college he was required to read Our Bodies, Ourselves. Amazing, really. (In fact, it was Richard who gifted me with my first copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves.)

2. Another aspect of my relationship with my body is knowing that if I get pregnant and for whatever reason choose not to remain pregnant or am unable to carry the child to term, I may choose to terminate the pregnancy.  While I have never had an abortion and do not foresee that I will need to, knowing this option is available to me is a great gift. Knowing that my husband is also on the same page is an even greater gift.

3. Writing. Women writing is a damn fine boon of feminism. I remember when as a teenager I first encountered the writings of Julian of Norwich and thought it insane that she was among the first women writers to be published. It was the 14th century, for goodness sake! Women long before and since Julian have had worthy, brilliant, life-altering words within them. I am so grateful to live in an era where I can explore my own inner world of words and share them at will.

4. As a mama who values feminism, I get to be conscious and intentional in my parenting. It is by intended choice that Sammy has a female doctor and a female dentist. He knows that women are pastors and firefighters and mamas and motorcycle drivers. He knows that men are nurses, stay-at-home daddies, teachers, and really great cheesecake makers. I hope someday he gets to see a woman as president of the United States. When it came time to consider how we would both work and care for our newborn Sammy, I knew that I could stay home with him because I wanted to - not because it was my society's inherent expectation of me by way of my vagina and breasts. Thankfully, this view is shared by my husband.  Which leads me to...

5. My relationship with my husband.  For more on this one visit number 1, 2, and 4 above.

And there you have it. 

As for passing on the meme, I tag Christine, The Red Barn, Shannon, Bette, and LBP. (Maybe even LBP's divine daughters??!  Do I sense a project coming on?)

Turns out while I loved the whole process of this writing it didn't offer me the creative kick in the pants I was hoping for; I'd rather go read in the bathtub than get to work on that writing project.  And since I'm only home alone a few more hours, I will. I wish not to pass up another opportunity to make some steam.

Steamily yours,
SM

Week in Review: Layers - Strange and Wonderful

I've been traveling this week. Richard and I were the music and worship duo for a United Methodist conference in Ohio. Good farming folks out there in that neck of the woods. I'm a wee bit (read: outrageously) wild and colorful for most of them, but they haven't fired me yet. This was gathering number four of five over a two year time period.

The BEST part of the whole trip was meeting Bette!  Wahoo! We first encountered each other on Christine's blog last week Saturday, then met up in Lima, Ohio on Monday! One of the strangest and most wonderful ways I've met a new friend! Bette came to our concert, then she and I shared stories as we strolled through the cemetery by the church. Simply lovely. Bette's a woodcut artist (really, you MUST check out her Flickr site); she makes luscious art and often weaves it together with luscious words. I know that we'll see each other again. This makes me very happy.

Our week's travels aren't over yet. Tomorrow morning we head to the Twin Cities to help a church in the Twin Cities celebrate their new Healing and Wholeness Center. It's a kick-ass Presbyterian Church (Presbyterian Church of the Apostles in Burnsville, MN) that prides itself in being the Twin Cities' most liberal mainline church South of the Mississippi. We get to lead worship, facilitate some workshops in spiritual practice and music, and perform a concert. It will be a grand trip. Especially since my best friend Heather and her wonder-partner Jess will be joining us at the hotel. Hello pizza! Hello hot tub! Hello silly and deep and compassionate conversations. Yes, this will be very, very good.

Speaking of Heather, I have her permission to share this story of her life. Last week Heather learned that her former partner, G, has cancer. G is an exuberant, spunky, 33-year old woman. And she is dying. She's receiving palliative care to ease her pain and assist her in having some good, final days. Palliative in this case means brain surgery yesterday to insert a port through which chemotherapy may travel to bathe her brain in medicine -- for comfort. In the nearly two years since they ended their relationship, Heather and G had not been in touch, so receiving The News via email was stunning for Heather - and for those of us who know, love, and walked with Heather and G. These incredible women are coming together now to be in conversation, catch up on each others' lives, and say goodbye. 

I cannot imagine the layers upon layers that are intermingled for G -- and for Heather: life, death, question, wonder, hope, saddness, beauty, ache, Spirit, goodbye. Today as we spoke on the phone, I read this poem by Stanley Kunitz to Heather:

The Layers

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

It seems to me that this is the journey of Life. Every person on the planet gets to walk this journey.  And I think death, particularly the death of one close to us, or more, one's own death, crystallizes it in myriad ways. In ways the fullness of my heart can imagine, but cannot truly understand.

Dear Heather and Dear G,
Know that I am lighting candles and singing songs. Your songs. The songs of the universe. The songs of healing and release and deep rest.

You are ever in my heart.

Deep bows to you both,
Trishy

Seven Year Kiss

Happy Anniversary to us!

On the Water
A song by Anna Huckabee Tull
A Tribute of Unity and Love and Richard and Trish on the occasion of their wedding day, September 5, 1999

__________________________________________

We first spoke of
this love
out on the water:
Faces frightened,
and light from above
on our boat
On the Water.

We gave this love
the gift of words
And we watched them fly
on the lake
with the birds;

With your eyes in my eyes -
Wide as wonder! -
and they said:

Chorus
Who will hide?
And who will walk on the water?
See this and feel it; believe this real.
This is here now -- it's real now.

And here we are with this love
And it jumps and it dances and burns
and it's one of the things that I am.
Gold-faced and magic with you I stand.

Bobbing and holding like the wood of our boat
It takes all that we are but it's easy to know
As we trust in this truth:
I am more of who I am in the presence of you.

Chorus

Joined in one-ness, here we are.
Unified, opened-wide at the heart
And the water is miles wide as we start
To step on
We Step On.

_____________________________________________________________

To my Beloved Richard,

My, what a wild and wonderful seven years it has been! 

If we're counting from the day we first spoke of this love out loud to one another, it's been nine years and three days.  That morning in the sunrise mist on the Flambeau River in Northern Wisconsin, the old mother loon dancing and swimming a holy net around our canoe. I think she knew of the trembling in our hearts as we gave Voice to our wonderings. Perhaps she alone sensed the courage rippling out from our little boat.

Thank you, Beloved. Thank you for stepping out to meet me on the water.

Just two years and three days later I met you barefoot in the crisp, autumn meadow, my yellow silk dress clinging gently to blades of grass as I began my long and winding walking meditation to the altar where you waited and watched.  On that walk I mused that there were few things I'd been surer of: I knew the ritual our joining in heart and name was absolutely what I wanted, had waited for, and was called to. I showed up with all that I had within me to say YES.

It was such a glorious and beautiful day!

It's 2559 or so days later (as you know math has never been my strong suit). While the absolute certainty of that YES has waxed and waned and bobbed and floated through the waters of our days, my YES is still here in my heart.  Our life together has held many, many stories.  I am less naive, for sure.  While seven years together has brought a loss of innocence, it has also gifted me with the capacity for a greater YES.  I have more YES in me. For you. For me. For us.

So thank you for this circle around the sun. I believe it has been one of our more enjoyable years. Thank you for our love, our home, our family of three with little Sammy Boy. Thank you for the ways we have worked together, played together, questioned, wrestled, danced, kissed, and joined in body, mind, and spirit.

I love you so! And I look forward to the next seven circles around the sun with you. One thing I know: it will be an ever-unfolding adventure.

My eyes in your eyes, wide as wonder,
Your Trish

Friendships and Summer Days

We had out-of-town visitors this weekend. Jodi and Joel and their three aDORable children, Claire, Maya and Koen, graced us with their presence. We first met shortly after Richard and I moved to Minneapolis (while pregnant with Sammy) during a visit to an interfaith church that met at a Buddhist meditation center in South Minneapolis. Jodi and Joel had the token children in the congregation; I was growing a swimming child inside me. Seemed only natural that we'd hook up. We attended there only a short time, then moved on to a UCC church, but kept in touch with Jodi and Joel. In fact, Jodi and I officed in the same building before we found ourselves back in Iowa. (THAT's a story for another post...)

As I gussied myself up for our double date (grown-ups only -- Joel and Jodi's kids are of babysitting age so the kids all stayed home and ate pizza and watched movies), I thought about all the wonderful guests we've hosted this summer. It's a pretty impressive list. And I am so grateful! Then I got to thinking that I this has perhaps been the best summer of my adult life. Really, it's been that good. I attribute that to a good number of things. Not the least of these reasons is being connected with fabulous friends. So here's a great big bow and a juicy smoochy to you all. Thank you so much for the ways you bless my life.

This is also my first summer blogging. And it's been dandy. So thanks, too, to all (three or so) of you who read, comment, and email. It's such a treat.

I know you're dying to know how the stillness / movement commitments are going. In a word, SWELL!  I've meditated and moved every day since Wednesday. Today the two families went creek stomping at (where else?) Backbone State Park. I'm preparing to do a bit of yoga (to stretch out those creek stoming legs) and breathe quietly now.

Before I go, will you share how this summer has been for you? What's been your biggest lesson/insight/event? And who has journeyed with you?

Cheers!

Motorcycle Greetings and Community

I'm thinking a lot about Community tonight.  This morning on the way to a worship service at a Big Church in a nearby Big City I saw something brand new.

The hills of Iowa are as filled with motorcycles as they are with tractors in our fair weather months. I was driving behind two motorcycles, each with two riders. As a pack of 4 approaching motorcycles passed, I saw each person on each motorcycle stretch their arms out to a 45 degree angle, fingers pointing to toward the yellow center line on road.

A greeting.

Such a simple gesture, but I was flabbergasted. My heart leaped. Tears sprang to my eyes. For several moments I could only tip my head to the side in wonder at what I'd just witnessed. 

Here was a silent symbol of welcome. Of recognition. Of community. A super-secret, no-contact handshake. Likely, these riders have never run across each other before, likely never again. Yet the act of welcome and community is important. Who first thought up this sign of welcome? Does every cyclist on the planet know this welcome code?

I wanted to belong to this club.  I wanted IN.  I wanted to be seen and recognized and welcomed.

I followed along behind these lovely riders all the way into Big City. My heart traveled with them.  My prayers, too.

Later, as I sat in the very front pew of Big City Church with my very wiggly son I felt left out. Excluded. Not welcomed.  Tears filled my eyes here, too, but not for the same reasons.

I'm not sure exactly why this was my experience.  I am pondering it.  Lots of ideas are floating through my active and analytical mind.  But nothing is yet blog-worthy. I'll keep you posted.

Question of the day: What was your last visit to church like?