How Easy it is to Quit

As someone who has started many projects and not finished them, I feel uniquely qualified to talk about how easy it is to quit something.

I have three sourdoughs in the refrigerator downstairs that, if I don't feed them soon, will expire. I was supposed to feed them yesterday, but said "I don't want to go through the trouble." But if I say that day after day, the culture will die out. 

I have to push myself to keep the momentum.

This relates to my writing as well. If I don't write this blog every day, it will probably expire. If I don't work on polishing or writing or rewriting daily, I will probably abandon writing. 

The things that are easy to quit have no immediate rewards to keep me going. It's human nature to seek immediate reward, and it's human nature to conserve effort. Doing the things that are easy to quit, then, requires a longer view and an ability to find reward in the process rather than the result. 

So I write this blog daily, even though it's easy to quit. The rewards are nebulous (I average 40 readers a day right now, but hope for more) and I find value in the experience of writing itself. 

A Fresh Set of Eyes

I never appreciated the value of a fresh set of eyes until now.
I'm making some needed repairs on Prodigies right now after not looking at it for a while, and -- wow. I am finding ways to make good enough into great (I hope). 

It seems overwhelming at this point, but I know this latest edit is only making my work better. This is one of the reasons I am glad I haven't decided to self-publish -- because I'm impatient and I think my stuff is good coming out of the first draft (it's not; I just get excited about things) and I would publish before things were "right".

I love the process of learning my craft. I get so frustrated sometimes when I don't get an agent or publisher, but then I learn something new (like Save the Cat plotting) and improve my work.

I hope it's worth it. That's always the fear, that I'm spending too much time polishing something that may not get published. On the other hand, it's gratifying seeing something improve even more.

Musing on Mortality

In the pandemic, I'm thinking of my own mortality.

I'm 57 years old with a spate of minor health problems. I'm of the age where I start to fit into higher risk categories. Given my age, I'm closer to the thing that's going to kill me than I used to be. If it's not coronavirus, it will be something else.

I'm trying to come to terms with this. It doesn't help that 70s music reaches deep into my soul and connects with my childhood, and it's almost 50 years old, or that I actually find myself saying "I don't like today's music." (That's not totally true; I love ambient and electronica, Beirut, and modern singer-songwriter types.)

I'm going to die someday. I've honestly never looked at it that way before. I'm going to die sooner or later. Coronavirus, cancer, heart disease, old age. I'm hoping for the latter, because I have books to edit and write. I'm hoping my death isn't painful, that it's merciful, and that I've done what I've wanted to do before then. I hope I'm ready for it, or that it catches me so much by surprise I don't have time for regret.

I don't know if there's a heaven, honestly; most conceptions of heaven seem very -- well, exclusive, like Heaven is a country club where only certain Christians can enter. (This goes with the attitude of "love everyone, even if you're certain they're going to Hell). I have fantasies about the afterlife, that it's the extended family I never knew how to have when I was younger, and we're having a big banquet in harmony. I know this is a fantasy and that the only way I will live on is in people's memories of me, unless (as I sometimes hope) my consciousness mingles with the stardust.

I try not to dwell upon this too much -- after all, I have things to accomplish and depression won't get me anywhere. Still, musing on mortality is a sign of the times.

Hubris

I am re-editing Prodigies again, this time for character development of the secondary characters. This whole discovery process has been humbling. I am hoping that, when I tear everything down like this, that what's left of my work is worth publishing.

That's the thing -- I don't mind being wrong. I don't mind not doing things right -- who am I fooling? I hate making mistakes and I grovel to the universe every time I do it. But I'm seeing new things every time I do, and I'm fixing new things. (And I have other novels that need the same treatment, damn it). 

Maybe this note is my groveling to the universe. Dear Universe, I'm sorry I made you read my mediocre books. I'm sorry I thought I was a big thing when I was making big mistakes. I'm sorry I ever thought I didn't need dev editors and beta readers. I am making amends, and I hope they're good enough.

Now I need to go and write.

What if (COVID-19 version)

What if things will be okay?

What if we emotionally recover from our losses -- always remembering, but still living for the future?

What if we find out that money wasn't what we were looking for?

What if more of us grew gardens as a result of the shortages?

What if we noticed the air was cleaner after quarantine? What if we decided we wanted to keep it that way?

What if we came out of this enjoying our simple outings more?

What if we will bounce back after this -- in a new normal, perhaps, but nonetheless?

What if we find something good out of this -- if our lives get a bit smaller, a little more precious?

Experiencing Very Little

Not much to say today. I'm in quarantine as usual. I desperately need coffee as usual. Classical music is playing in the background as usual. I'm beginning not to be able to tell the days apart, except Richard is home all day on Saturday and Sunday. The cats are being bad as usual. The view outside my window is quiet as usual. 

 Although onism is the realization that one will not experience all there is to offer, it's doubly poignant now with all the ordinary things we're missing: funerals, weddings, high school graduations. Regular schedules. Daily rituals at the coffeehouse. Extended peer groups. 

It's okay to mourn or even resent the strictures put on us at the moment. But stay safe. There's so much we don't know about the virus yet, and what we know is sobering. We need these quarantines to control the number of sick who need extraordinary measures so that hospitals don't get overwhelmed. But have your feelings, and go on practicing safe existence with social isolation, wearing masks outdoors, and handwashing.

I will never be able to experience all things in this world. But I'm making a list of what I want to experience when this is over.

Workarounds

I'm late to writing today because we have intermittent Internet outages here. I'm keeping my fingers crossed because I have two video meetings today -- one with one of my colleagues about internships for the summer (which are pretty rocky right now) and one to congratulate some of my interns for a good semester. (This is part of their celebration with a local placement who treats their interns well). 

My home computer is malfunctioning again. Same problem as before (no cursor), except that I haven't been able to shame it into working again. It apparently has to do with a Windows update. Why is Windows Update killing my computer?

I have become frighteningly tied to my computer during this pandemic. I interact with students and faculty, grade assignments, look up things, surf occasionally for fun, make social contact, write/revise my novels, submit queries ... Right now the computer is the only contact I really have with the outside world. Because my files are on Dropbox, I can't even access them without my fiber connection when the fiber connection goes out.

I am going to have to find some workarounds. I have a wireless hot spot, but it needs some data added to it. We're going to do that before Richard leaves for work today. I can draft using paper and fountain pen, or even better -- I have a livescribe pen that does an pretty good job rendering my handwriting into digital (I bought it for $30 -- I highly advise buying gently used high-tech items on ebay or amazon). 

This moment reminds me that there are always workarounds, but sometimes they take effort and money and time to find. Glasses are a workaround for those of us without perfect vision. Insulin is a workaround for people with pancreatic dysfunctions. Cars are a workaround for people who can't walk 20 miles into work. I'm in a pretty good place for workarounds, although if my computer doesn't start working properly, there might be an expensive workaround in my future. But one I likely can afford.

We can't expect people with limited resources to make workarounds without help. This is why the response to quarantine has been so difficult for education. Some of our students don't have access to computers at home. Some live in large families in apartments and don't really have privacy. Some don't have Internet. So we try the best we can to facilitate their education. 

We need workarounds. Because plans aren't always perfect, because things (and people) break. Embrace the workaround.

Reflecting on six weeks of isolation

This is the view from my window"

Gloomy, isn't it. The window is right by my downstairs workstation, however, where I do most of my writing. Sometimes it's sunny. Sometimes I see people walking past and cars driving by.

This is my life under quarantine.

So are my experiments with sourdoughs. Today, a loaf of yeast water no-knead bread (Henrietta) sits on the stovetop, waiting for its time to bake. (Yeast water is different from sourdough in that you have what amounts to a weak wine working on the bread dough). 

So is my writing. I took a break from adding a stronger beginning to Prodigies yesterday; I should be able to finish that today and then go through the book to adapt things. 

So is coffee. Between my husband's roasts brewed in a vacuum pot and the Nespresso machine for mid-afternoon cups, I'm covered.

So are the fountain pens I'm collecting -- All under $25, mostly Japanese (Pilot Metropolitan, Platinum Plaisir) and German (Lamy Al-Star), and a really inexpensive Jinhao that looks like a Lamy made by Rubbermaid). This and ink is where my allowance has been going the past few months, as I like collecting practical things I can use.

So is my teaching online. And the Zoom faculty meetings. 

I don't have it too bad, despite the view out my window being very limited. My husband and I still have jobs that allow social isolation. We have money for groceries. We have four cats. We have each other. We're staying healthy.

This quarantine is so much harder for so many other people.

Unmotivated

I'm not feeling it today.

Some days, I don't feel like writing, and today is that day. I need to write that next chapter to Prodigies (the revision adds four chapters, maybe 5). I need to write this blog (I am writing it, but it's taking a lot of will to do it.) 

I'm tired (still). Maybe the coffee will help. 

A change of scenery would help, but I can't go anywhere!

The best remedy for procrastination in my opinion: Write for five minutes. If you want to quit after that, do so. But chances are you'll want to write more, once you're in it.

Except today. I don't think it's going to work today.

Maybe the coffee will help.

The Incomplete Dev Edit

Right now I'm adding for chapters to the beginning of Prodigies, in order to reveal the character better and capture more of the spirit of Save the Cat (in other words, placing the character in her before life, setting a theme, introducing a debate).

What frustrates me is that this book went through a dev editor, and I in good faith thought that I had done what I needed to in the book, only to be tipped off by a thoughtful agent who rejected me: "I loved the beautiful description you started with, but I lost interest in the characters." I had to figure out for myself, given what I recently learned about plotting from Save the Cat, what I needed to do. This is something I couldn't have figured out myself, given my familiarity with the characters, and something I needed the dev editor to pick out for me.

I'm ashamed that I sent this out to query with this kind of flaw in it. I have found similar flaws in other books of mine -- I start right into the action, and apparently this is bad. 

I wish someone had told me.

The End in the Time of Coronavirus

A glimpse out the window
at blasted apple blossoms
and snowfall blotting out
the first green of spring
and the doors barred
to keep contagion out —
the world could end
with an ellipse
at the end of a message
as
all
traffic
ceases.

The beginning of a novel

I got an agent rejection for Prodigies the other day (that's been out for a while; I guess it got backlogged) with a difference: The agent explained what she found wrong with the book.

She loved the setting and the beginning descriptions, but she couldn't get into the characters.

I looked at the novel and realized the reason she couldn't get into the characters was that I never gave her a chance to.

The beginning of a book, according to Save the Cat methodology, should accomplish a few things: The character in her original setting before the action begins. A theme to the book. The debate where she goes on her path -- but perhaps it's the wrong path.

My book starts with the action -- no chance of getting to understand Grace, no way to see Grace in her original setting, In other words, no way to identify with Grace. 

My beta reader didn't tell me about this, which is worrisome. On the other hand, I am learning enough about the structure of novels that I can fix this (I'm fixing this right now) and hopefully I will be able to incorporate this into new novels. 

A Sunday Morning in the Age of COVID

(There was to be a picture here, but for some reason I can't get my pictures to mail to me.)

Sunday mornings in my house: 

This much hasn't changed: Classical music in the background -- today it's an album of violin concertos. 

Coffee -- currently we're drinking a store-bought coffee; usually we drink beans that Richard roasts himself. 

Cats -- there are four, although one seldom comes upstairs. One of them, Girlie (the patched tabby with the attitude) is sitting next to me. She helps me get my work done.

Now, in the time of COVID: Breakfast is usually cereal, but in the quarantine I've discovered that I like playing with sourdough starter, and so sourdough bread as french toast is the featured meal of the day. I will make more sourdough bread later. I've named my starters: Marcy is a Polish whole wheat starter, Horatio is a home-captured wild yeast, and MarcyxHenrietta is an accidental batch that got spiked by the yeast water known as Henrietta.

My computer -- I work on my writing on Sundays. Normally, I would be on my way to the cafe to write for a while. Now I write in a corner of the living room, burgundy and gold. I hate to be far from the action, which is part of why I used to write at the coffee shop. I miss the coffee shop.

The view through the window -- all the snow from the freakish snowstorm has melted, and the sky is a blue-grey. I need to get out, even if it's just a trip in the car to the local park.

Today, for some reason, feels like Easter (which it is for the Orthodox faiths) and I have hope that we will rise from this pandemic a more thoughtful people.

Lost Rituals

It's Saturday, and most of the snow has melted. The apple blossoms, however, are not coming back, so there will be no apples this year. It's symbolic, I think, for all the rituals of American life which will be put on hold this year because of the coronavirus -- graduation ceremonies, weddings, birthday parties. Burials go on, but funerals do not. 

I worry about not having these rituals, especially the rituals of transition like college and high school graduations. Without these types of rituals, we feel rudderless, out of sorts. We need a recognition of what we've accomplished and where we're going.

At the college, our students won't go through graduation until fall, if we are even out of shelter-in-place by then. Our retiring faculty and staff will get no parties. 

I suspect that our changed situation will be temporary, but that temporary could be as long as a year and a half. A cohort of people will not have their rituals to cling to, will feel rudderless, bereft. And although it is a small pain compared to the real possibilities of losing a family member, I will still mourn it with you.

A poem for COVID-19 and ten inches of snow

I don't write poems as much as I used to, mostly because I've gotten to an impasse with poetry. I know from experience submitting poems that my poems don't quite have what it means to be great, and I don't seem to be able to figure out what they are missing. I also think they're too short compared to modern poetry. But here's a depressing poem for today:

A glimpse out the window
at blasted apple blossoms
and snowfall blotting out
the first green of spring
and the doors barred
to keep contagion out —
the world could end
with an ellipse
at the end of a message
as
all
traffic
ceases.

Collecting Kindness

Today, one of my favorite Internet Cats, Maya, is #collectingkindness. Toward this end, she is asking people (I love the imagery of this) for pictures, poems, essays, etc about what they consider kindness to be.

To me, kindness is giving without calculating a return, without regarding how the other compares to you relative to color, race, ability, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or religion. Just giving, whether that be a smile, a favor, a conversation, recognition, love. No strings attached.

April Snowstorm

We're under a winter storm warning. We're supposed to get 4-10 inches of snow today. In April.

The timing is all wrong. This should have happened on April 1st.

I don't know what to do but laugh, because the alternative is to scream. Isolation is starting to be a bit difficult for me, and a dump of snow when it's supposed to be Spring is just making matters worse. 

I have no choice, though, but to shelter in place during the pandemic. I have no choice but to accept that our spring is going to be bifurcated by ten inches of wet, cold fluff. I don't get a say in matters beyond my control, so I sit behind my computer and field work emails and work on improving my writing. 

But what to do with the mood -- with the tiredness, with the frustration, with the crabbiness? I'm not sure. Maybe I need to sleep more, but I get 8-9 hours of sleep a day. Maybe I need to sleep deeper. Maybe I need to get out -- oh, wait, we're on shelter-in-place and a major snowstorm is coming.

All I can do is keep  my sense of humor up and stay productive. And drink coffee, definitely drink coffee. 

Humor in the time of COVID-19

It's amazing how used I have gotten to social isolation during the pandemic. I think I'm a natural introvert, because the thing that bothers me the most is the boring scenery of my living room (my workplace). Sitting on my computer waiting for student questions while working on my work in progress (again) seems incredibly normal. It's been over a month, though, and I need some novelty in my life.

I'm contemplating some things that sound suspiciously like a mid-life crisis (although I think I went through that a few years ago when I briefly wanted to be a cougar). Here are a few thoughts:

1. Now is the time to dye my hair blue, right?
2. This room needs rearranging. This house needs rearranging.
3. I want to retire and become a cat.
4. I am incapable of doing a quarantine cut on my hair. Should I just give in and shave it off? (After I turn it blue)
5. Five more fountain pens. I need five more fountain pens.
6. I could teach my cats to type.
7. I need five more cats!

I will not do most of these. I just asked my husband whether I should die my hair blue or buzz it, and he scowled at me. Sigh. 

I have to find something constructive to get through this. Maybe I should write.

My Problem Child

My first novel has always been my problem child. I wrote Gaia's Hands based on a dream/fantasy I had of a May-December relationship, only the female was the older one.  Because I didn't want to write a romance novel (plus I couldn't see an audience for this one), I developed a quirky fantasy line involving the most high-powered   version of a green thumb you can imagine. There's always seemed to be something missing, or something awkward about it, and I've tried many ways (usually cutting things) to see if that helps. It didn't. There was still something lacking.

The other day, a book coach with a romance background looked at it, and she said there were two faults -- 1) not enough emotion; 2) It should actually be a romance. to be honest (and I apologize to the romance writers who read this) I have read a lot of romances I don't identify with, with tropes that annoy my feminist sensibilities: the heroine who doesn't think she's attractive but she's drop-dead gorgeous, the male who's the strong silent type. I don't want to write those tropes, and I'm afraid I'll be an unreadable romance writer if I write the truth about Josh and Jeanne -- she's twenty years older and a Rubenesque professor; he's built like a lightweight wrestler and the most macho thing he does is practice aikido (and has achieved the equivalent of first level black belt).  He writes poetry and stories; she designs permaculture gardens. He is intense and hungry; she's a bit preoccupied with his research. They both think what they want is impossible.

The trouble is, I have to believe in their romance to write it, and right now I'm like Jeanne, who thinks it's a biological impossibility that a twenty-year-old guy would fall in love with a 45-year-old woman. I know the other way around is possible sort of -- I have gotten crushes on 20-somethings with small builds. But, again, like Jeanne, I don't know how that could be reciprocated. If I want this book, I have to find a way to believe in that. 

A Time to Write

Me during the Pandemic

During the pandemic, I teach at home, and I have plenty of time when I have no emails to answer, to projects to grade, and no meetings to attend. And no distractions from the outside. 

So I write.

I just got done doing another edit of Whose Hearts are Mountains, which had suffered in the querying process. I mainly edited for plotting, using the Save the Cat protocol. I now have that out to my friend Ken (Hi, Ken!) who will be as brutal on it as any developmental editor. Then I'll tweak and go to my final 30 queries.

Now, I'm working on Gaia's Hands again, the problem child of my lifetime. I've decided, through consult with a writing coach and reading over Save the Cat Writes a Novel, that I've been going about it all wrong. First of all, the story is an unusual romance in addition to being a fantasy, which makes me grit my teeth a bit because it's never going to be marketable as a fantasy. Second, its timing is all off. What this basically means is that I am going to have to rewrite the whole thing. I know I could put it in a drawer and forget it, but it's foundational to another series. And now that I'm beginning to understand the story, it is compelling.

When I mean "unusual romance", I mean this: Josh Young has a thing for Dr. Jeanne Beaumont, even though he's twenty-five years too young and she's out of his league, what with that Ph.D. and that plant patent of hers. Jeanne Beaumont wishes she were younger and prettier, because she's become intrigued by the graceful Josh Young.

There's more to the story, because I have to juggle in the fantasy element. But you get the idea.

I like the fact that I've decided to try harder, even if I never get published. I think at this point that learning is more important than getting published. 

I still have my fingers crossed for publication. 

Lenten Meditation Day 46: Rejoice

Today is Easter, the day in which (in the Christian calendar Jesus Christ rose from the dead. This year, it's also Passover, when in the Jewish calendar the Jews triumphed over the Pharaoh who subjugated them. If we go back into myriad European pagan beliefs, Eostre is when the year is released from the captivity of winter.

And we rejoice. 

There seems to be a common theme here, that of being released from an adversity. I think that's important. So many good stories begin with overcoming barriers, and there's a reason. We don't want to think that we're going to be shackled forever, so we fight against the captors. In all three of these, divine assistance yielded the victory.

I personally think God works differently than in the stories. I don't think God sends plagues to our enemies or picks winners in football games. That is not to say that God doesn't intercede. I think God sustains us until we achieve our victory. I think God gives us the strength to persevere, comforts us in our difficult times, clears our minds so that we can find victory. 

But in the end we find victory -- not always the victory we wanted, but we find the victory anyhow. 

I leave you a poem by ee cummings that I think captures the essence of Easter:

“i thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any---lifted from the no

of all nothing---human merely being

doubt unimaginably You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)”

Day 45 Lenten Meditation: Anticipation

Sometimes when we anticipate, we wait for good things to happen. Sometimes it's a matter of what we've earned through hard work, what we will be gifted with through tradition, or what we've been promised. We know something good is coming, although we may not know exactly what. This kind of anticipation feels like an invitation to a sumptuous feast.

Sometimes when we anticipate, we prepare for bad things to happen. We make emergency plans and emergency funds, we make contingency plans. We buy life insurance and make wills. By anticipating, we can protect ourselves and our families.

Anticipation requires us to look into the future, for good or bad. 

Day 44 Lenten Reflection: Gratitude

I can't help but run this topic -- gratitude -- through a COVID-19 filter, seeing as the pandemic is fresh in my mind.

I am grateful for essential workers. My day proceeds to be relatively normal because of my ability to shop for food online. I would be protected in the hospital because health care workers are still working. The mail gets to me every day because postal workers are considered essential. 

I'm grateful there are not very many cases of COVID-19 here in Nodaway County, Missouri. We seem to take social distancing seriously, we are sheltering in place, and wearing masks when on necessary errands.

I am grateful my job allows me to work from home. I am the main breadwinner in my family, and a loss of my income would be tragic for us.

I am grateful I am an introvert. Other than occasional restlessness, I am pretty comfortable with my new routine. It gives me time to edit my novels.

I am grateful for the collective of ladies locally who are supplying as many citizens as they can with colorful cloth masks. 

And finally, I am grateful that neither my husband nor I have gotten the virus, because we are at the age where it could become risky. 

Sometimes, life goes bad and the only thing we have to be grateful for is being alive. I could be there at any moment; life can change in an instant. I will marshal my gratitude if that happens.

Happy Third Blogiversary!

This blog has seen many milestones in the past several weeks. The 1000th post, the 40,000th view, and now the third blogiversary.

I have been writing this blog for three years, almost daily. Some days I write short passages, some long, some funny, some dead serious. I have written about transcendence and depression, of pandemic and boredom, of my ups and downs of writing. But I have written daily.

I am not the most disciplined person, so the fact that I've been able to write almost daily for three years is a revelation to me. A commitment I didn't think I would be able to make.

I hope to write more in the future, at least till my fourth blogiversary, and maybe beyond...

Day 43 Lenten Meditation: Transcend

Transcendent experiences are relatively rare. And this is a good thing, given the emotional impacts of those experiences: We are shaken. We are dwarfed by awe. We question our notions of the world. 

The world around us doesn't seem quite the same, and we can't explain what happened to someone else because we can't find words that suffice.

We try to find words, those of us who are creatives, as the experience informs our work. But words are still too small to capture the perfect moment we were caught in.

Transcendence reminds us that we are more than our flesh and organs, more than our intellects, more than our daily existence. We carry in ourselves stardust and mysteries, our senses tuned to the unseen. 

Transcendence is our legacy as humans and our birthright. 

Day 42 Lenten Meditation: Resilience

The human race owes its survival to resilience.

We face the deaths of people around us. We face mental illnesses. We face betrayal by our loved ones. We face pandemics and war, and we get beaten down by these events.

Most of us, however, rise back up, and that's resilience.

Resilience is more common than we need, but it doesn't happen in isolation. Resilience is fostered by community, by people who care. Resilience needs other people.

It is unfair to ask someone to rise up if you're not willing to be there for them. The elderly are too often isolated from life-saving emotional support in this country. Children are left alone in abusive situations.  The mentally ill are shunned.

If we want to survive as a people, we need to be there for each other. It is our legacy as humans to foster resilience in each other. 

Day 41 Lenten Meditation: Bloom

"Bloom where you are planted". All fine and good, but currently I'm planted in my living room, wearing sweats, in day N (where N = I've lost count) of shelter in place during COVID-19. 

Yet I'm still finding ways to bloom. I still write this blog daily. I work on writing in-between my classes. I experiment with sourdough starter. I name my sourdough starters. I wear lipstick with my sweats. I have long literary discussions with my cat Girlie-Girl, who remains unimpressed.

It's easy for me to bloom, however. When I look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:

I'm relatively high on the pyramid. My most basic physiological needs are met (food, clothing, shelter); I am safe in my house; I have a loving relationship and feel I belong in my community; I derive esteem from being a professor and writer; and I have enough of these items to feel I can give back to the community (self-actualization). I have plenty of energy with which to bloom, in other words.

Expecting someone to "bloom" when they're hungry is cruel, as is expecting someone who doesn't feel safe to express themselves freely. Even I, when I'm in a state of depression or mania, don't bloom. Sometimes we just manage, and that's good enough.

We should strive to bloom. We should not make it an expectation, however, because so many people struggle in their lives. Do not judge them if they don't bloom.

39,999 Visits!

I couldn't resist. I probably should have waited until my blog officially had 40,000 visits to celebrate, but I figured I'd be asleep by then so we're going to celebrate at 39,999!

Day 40 Lenten Meditation: Cry

I don't cry often. I don't know whether it's because I'm a basically strong person, or because my bipolar medications keep me calm. But I feel the tears lurk, looking at the world's situation under COVID-19. 

Highly contagious with about a 2% death rate. That seems small -- 98% will survive it -- until you look at the number of people in the world. As of this morning, there have been 9100 deaths in the US, half in New York City. And there's no end in sight despite sheltering in place.

I'm feeling discouraged, and I normally have faith in our ability to surmount nearly everything. I feel tears come to my eyes as I read the news. I don't read the news much, because of this feeling of despair, the reality of the numbers which still conceal the human cost. 

I can't quite cry. If I could, I think the sadness would pass for a while, because crying is healing. Crying is like a good thunderstorm, giving us release from the sadness. A good loud cry is what I need right now. I'm not there yet.

Day 39 Lenten Meditation: Mercy

The first dictionary definition of mercy is "showing compassion or forgiveness toward someone we have the power to punish". This makes me wonder about the Mercy Hospital in the college town where I used to live, as punishment doesn't seem to be the purview of hospitals as far as I know. 

But that's okay, because the third definition, and the one most used today is "something performed out of a desire to relieve suffering; motivated by compassion."  I want to focus on the first definition, however, to make the point that mercy is not simple compassion or simple forgiveness.

People talk about a merciful God, and that makes sense if their notion of God is one who forgives all. But when they turn around and gloatingly remark about how the "sinners" (i.e. people not like them) will spend eternity in Hell, they have declared their God without mercy. 

If God is a merciful God, She must weigh the good in everyone as the bad falls away at the end of our days. If God is not a merciful God, I do not want anything to do with him. 

Day 38 Lenten Meditation: Awe

I looked at today's topic with frustration. How does one put words to awe without sounding pedantic? Yet we writers do this all the time:

• He stared at the great canyon, feeling humbled by its immenseness.
• They stood in the great, empty cathedral, surrounded by history that took their breath away.
• She considered the heavens and felt dwarfed by their glory.

Awe overcomes us at the presence of the unfathomable, the magnificent, the breathtaking. Awe reminds us that there is something greater than ourselves, greater than our personal sense of power. It reminds us of how small our place is in the universe. 

Day 37 Lenten Meditation: Forgiveness

I'm not going to accept the common wisdom of this concept, which says that you should readily and automatically forgive those who have wronged you. That advice is simplistic and does hot honor the situation of those who have been wronged.

Forgiving means to stop being angry for some harm or fault. For everyday mistakes and small infractions, forgiveness is merited because the need is to move on with life.

However, for victims of aggression, anger is a powerful emotion that can give power to the powerless. It can motivate toward justice for the wronged. Automatic forgiveness relinquishes power to the wrongdoer. Anger, and thus lack of forgiveness, becomes healing.

For the victim of great injustice, of abuse, of violence, they need only forgive when they feel their lives are held back by their anger, when they no longer see themselves as victims but as survivors. They should wait until the point where they feel they have personal power without the anger. Until then, they need anger's power.

I'm not sure anyone has the right to tell someone else when to forgive. Forgiveness is very personal, and our entreaties to "forgive and forget" often come out of our fear of anger and our desire to smooth over conflict. 

Forgiveness is powerful, but only if the forgiver finds that forgiveness lightens, rather than diminishes, the soul.

Day 36 Lenten Meditation: Acceptance

At the risk of sounding cliche, I don't think I can start this better than using the Serenity Prayer:

Lord, help me to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

In the time of pandemic, we have a lot we cannot change. We cannot change the fact that the virus is out there or how virulent it is. We can't change that we've been put under a shelter-in-place ordinance. We can't change the shortages in the stores.  All we can do is accept.

But we can change some things. We can plan our shopping to minimize our exposure to others. We can keep our hands clean and wear masks to keep from getting the contagion. We can take care of ourselves physically and mentally. We can spread love through social media. 

How do we know the difference? After all, there are people out there breaking social distancing rules, some of whom now have COVID-19 and are regretting their actions. Their bravado didn't change the contagion. Some people are raging at the situation, which is the opposite of acceptance. Knowing the difference requires self-examination and the question "How?" How can my actions change the situation? How can my influence create a new path? If there's nothing you can do, then it's time to accept.

Day 35 Lenten Meditation: Confession

I consider myself a mystic, but I don't know whether I believe in the God I've been been presented with.

I struggle. I think of all the expectations we put on God -- we pray for riches, for good health, for winning the football game. Then when we get our way, it's a miracle, but when we don't, it's God's will. It's almost as if we apologize for God when things go badly.

I can't imagine God as a being who goes through the minutiae of our lives -- "yes, here's your keys" and "no, your grandmother isn't going to survive this heart attack." Nor do I think God's taking notes on whether we're naughty or nice.

I can't believe in that God. If there is a God, I imagine a force bigger than all of us, a Gestalt which contains the souls of everyone or everything who has ever lived. When we die, we go back into this vast Gestalt, and are in communion with an existence so pure our spirits laugh and cry, and we are comforted by the Gestalt. I expect there to be spirits of every religion and no religion at all. 

I believe that God comforts and braces us, and gives us strength for another day. God doesn't save our grandmother; God gives us strength to get through. God doesn't launch my writing career; God helps me see where I need to improve.

So perhaps I believe in God, just not the God I grew up with. God pulls me out of the panic I'm feeling over the pandemic and presents me with my own strengths. God doesn't help me find the keys; God helps me remember where I put them.

I confess, though, that I don't know, any more than anyone else does. Even the Bible is full of allegory and conjecture and translations that obscured the holy and promoted the status quo. Not knowing, I do what humans do and make God into my own image.