bridge of birds

This morning, I decided to wear my bird necklace to Meeting. The necklace has six strands of tiny abalone birds. My grandmother gave it to me over 25 years ago, and so it has special meaning for me.

Through a process I don't understand, the strands of the necklace become tangled around one another. Every so often, I have to untangle them as best I can. I hold the necklace by one clasp and gently work the strands smooth. The birds catch on one another, and the necklace is somewhat delicate, so I have to work slowly and carefully. Working one end free tangles the end by the other clasp, so I have to turn the necklace upside-down and repeat the process. Which tangles the first side again, although not so badly as it was originally. After several repeats, the necklace is almost tangle-free. I've never managed to work all of the tangles out, but it gets close.

So, necklace mostly untangled, I headed off to Meeting.

There are many knotty problems before me, both in Meeting and in my personal life.

I put these problems before God as I settled into worship and waited for guidance.

The image of a long strand of the necklace working free came to my mind. Each of the problems I faced, I suddenly saw, would benefit from the slow, gentle approach that I use to untangle the necklace. I would have to work the strands of these problems free slowly, one bit at a time. Likely there would be other snags in the process of working through the problems, and I might have to turn things upside-down a few times before I could work things out. Even then, the problems probably wouldn't be fully solved. There would still be a few small tangles in them.

Once solved, however, I'd have a bridge of birds to hang around my neck, a tangible link between the past and the future, a lovely thing worthy of the care it demands.

fitness witness: weight-lifting

I recently resolved to attend to this blog more faithfully.

 I thought perhaps I would record a few thoughts about worship each First Day. 

This last First Day, for example, a Friend read the advices and queries on Integrity. Several Friends spoke on Integrity, and I also felt moved to speak of this testimony that is the dearest and truest of all the Quaker testimonies to me. It flitted through my thoughts that I might blog about Integrity, that it is a good weighty subject to which I have devoted much thought.

But no.

What I feel called to write about is weight-lifting.

I have been doing strength training all of my adult life. The kind that I have found easiest to stick to and most beneficial is high intensity, super slow strength training. Work each muscle to exhaustion in a set of 8-12 repetitions, with care to do each repetition slowly and carefully.

I had my appendix out in February, and I have found getting back into shape to be slow going. Some of this is due to lingering effects of the surgery, but much of it is simple laziness and self-deception.

I went back to dance as soon as I could. I worked back in slowly (although probably not slowly enough). During this time, my knees ached abominably.

I wondered if perhaps I was past my ability to do this kind of dance. Maybe my knees had suddenly, over the course of my surgery, gotten old. Perhaps I should find an easier, less stressful type of exercise.

That was a possibility, but it seemed more likely that my muscles had gotten soft, that they were no longer doing the work that protected my knees while I danced.

I told the instructor about the type of pain I was having and asked if she knew of anything I could do to strengthen my muscles so I could dance without pain. She was able, without any apparent thought, to identify the weak muscles that were causing the problem and to suggest exercises that would help.

A few weeks later, my legs felt as good as they've ever felt.

I was slower getting back into the weight-lifting, however. I couldn't seem to remember to do it or find time for it, either.

At the end of June, I wrenched my shoulder. I rested it for a few weeks hoping it would get better. It didn't really get better, but it didn't get worse either.

I'd had shoulder pain before, but I hadn't had problems with my neck or shoulders for many years. Posture work that I'd done in tai chi, as well as my strength training, had kept that part of my body healthy.

After a while, a small still voice whispered “Maybe you're having this pain because you haven't been doing your weight routine. The antagonistic muscles have gotten weak, and the pain won't go away until you strengthen them again.”

My stubborn and lazy self argued. Maybe weight-lifting would make the pain worse. Besides, weight-lifting was too much trouble and took too much time. I should let the shoulder get better first and worry about weight-lifting, you know, like, later.

Finally, something clicked in me and I said, “Fine. I'll start weight-lifting again with absurdly light weights and I'll do all the opposing muscle groups.”

After a mere two sessions, I know it's working. I can feel the shoulder moving more easily and I can feel the weak areas getting stronger.

I could turn this into a message about listening to our guidance or about overcoming our own lazy, selfish, stubborn, misguided natures or about the need for balance in one's life or about how we need to strengthen our spiritual muscles in order to live lives that are healthy in the spirit.

But no.

What I feel called to write about is weight-lifting.

Our physical strength operates on a use-it-or-lose-it principle. When we exercise our muscles faithfully, we are strong. We can more easily do our ordinary activities, and we enjoy being active.

When we let our muscles atrophy, we become weak. Our muscles no longer do the work they were designed to do, and this puts strain on our joints. We fall prey to aches and pains, leading us to become less active, leading to more weakness and more pain.

Miriam Nelson, a researcher at Tufts University and the author of the Strong Women books, determined that our bone and muscle strength declines as we age, and also that we can completely reverse this process with regular strength training. Many of the ills that we attribute to age are nothing more than the ills of inactivity.

So, Friends, this is my public service announcement to you all. If you want to do the work you are called to do in the world, you need to take good care of your body. Aerobic exercise and a healthy diet are important, of course, but strength-training is an often-overlooked piece of the puzzle, especially for women.

the unbearable lightness of being

This last First Day, I was feeling like I was sliding into a deep blue funk. My griefs were at the front of my mind. I'd been fending them off by keeping busy, but I could feel them all gathering, ready to settle.

I'd been wondering whether I should just surrender, slide down into the grief and let it have its due. Or whether it was better to keep fending just a little longer.

I got to worship early and slid into my seat, but I didn't find it so easy to slide into worship. It seemed to me that I'd been treating worship lightly, just skimming the surface. I thirsted for something deeper, something more connected, something that would fill me and feed me and give me strength for what is to come.

I made some false starts, got distracted a few times, started over.

I have my own Lord's Prayer ritual that often works to sink me into worship. First comes gratitude for all that is of worth in my life (not just the things that I like, but also the challenges and griefs that teach me and take me deeper). Next comes my regrets for the mistakes I've made recently (Father, forgive me...). Then I set my troubles and burdens and worries before God.

After I've done those bits of spiritual housekeeping, I feel ready to open to worship. To open to whatever God has for me that day.

This last First Day, however, I was so snowed in that all I could do was to lay my griefs before God.

I'm sorry, I said, I have to start from here today. All I have to set before you is my burdens.

I heard a deep chuckle.

I will take your burdens, your light, insignificant burdens, if you will take on mine.

I thought that was absurd, but was curious to see what would happen if I accepted.

Okay, I said, I'll try.

Suddenly, I was swept up into a great lightness and airiness. It was as though God was a great hawk flying through the heavens and I was on his back, clinging to his feathers. It was wonderful and terrifying and very very funny.

A half an hour later, I wondered irreverently if I was some sort of parasite, if God might try to pry me loose from his feathers with a great hooked beak.

a spiritual pruning

My father's death threw me into a mid-life review of my life.

I'm happy with a lot of the choices that I've made, particularly the ones to do with family and children.

Any life, though, has areas of damage and failure. I have acknowledged those areas. I've felt the pain and regret associated with them, but I haven't known what to do about it. In many cases, these areas are things that I must simply accept. It's either too late to change them, or they're not the sorts of things that I have the ability to change.

Okay then: I'll have to accept them.

But it was by accepting them that I allowed the wounding to happen in the first place. And if I go on accepting them, I'll just end up with more of the same kind of wounding.

So what do I do then? If I can't change them and I can't accept them, what can I do?

I kept running into this same dead end. I looked for an exit, some way out of this dilemma, but I couldn't find one. I felt like a fly caught in amber, struggling vainly to escape but only sinking deeper into the sticky mass.

Friday night, I lay awake in prayer and tears, sinking deeper into the situation until I had no tears and no words left.

I slept at last, around dawn, and woke up with these words in my heart:

The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

– John Gilmore

There was a third option, and it had been right under my nose all the time.

My dad was a very smart guy. He started working as a programmer in 1961, and he was one of the most skilled problem solvers I've ever known. His problem-solving skills extended far beyond his work. Even while he was dying of brain cancer (and his short term memory was shot full of holes), he was able to focus on relevant facts, ignore red herrings, and optimize his remaining life from the ever-decreasing options available to him.

In other words, like the skilled network programmer he was, he identified the damaged areas of his brain and routed around them. He couldn't change the damage. He accepted the damage as fact and went to work busily figuring how he could work around the disabilities that the damage imposed.

Maybe it's possible to route around emotional damage as well.

In worship on Sunday, I was sitting with this new thought. As I sat, I had an image of myself focusing on this one stem with a flower that wouldn't bloom. The scene zoomed out, and I saw myself as a vibrant shrub with the potential to flower in many different ways. Yes, that one flower was blighted and refused to open, but the rest of my buds were healthy and ready to open, if I'd just transfer my energy from the blighted bloom to the rest of my life.

And, suddenly, it was as if I had been pruned of the dead wood and the failed buds. I felt clearer and lighter than I'd felt in a good long time. I felt like I could move on, instead of staying stuck in the amber of my failure.

And I looked around at the Meeting, and thought of the shrub of our corporate being, the paradox of its incredible health and vibrancy in contrast to its dead wood, failed buds, and spent flowers that had failed to fruit.

Okay then. We start from where we are, here and now, and work with the parts of us that are still alive and growing. If there are places that are damaged and can't be repaired, we route around the damage. New branches will grow to fill the open spots, and to take over the job left by the fallen branches.

There is life, there is hope, and it's time to stop being stuck in the past.