This Joyful, Messy Life

HeSheTheyZheWhat?

One of the more pivotal shifts of culture I’ve witnessed in my lifetime is the more open discussion of the gender binary. I’m no historian, but at least in America in the last several decades, the societal opinion seemed pretty straightforward that people were either male or female with no other options. Many people today would still roll their eyes and snort at the suggestion that is there more than male or female when it comes to gender.

People decry that it isn’t natural for men to become women or women to become men (transgender folks would argue that they aren’t “becoming” anything other than what they’ve always been on the inside). That “God made male and female, and there is no in-between.” That logic really falls short though. There aren’t many, if any, true binaries in the natural world. Sure, we’ve got night and day, but also dawn and dusk. We’ve got water and land, but also shores, swamps and bayous. We’ve got black and white, and at least 50 shades of gray 😉

Not to mention that there are many examples in the natural world of hermaphoditic creatures, such as worms and slugs, some fish, and most plants. Clownfish and frogs can change their sex after birth. Butterflies, reptiles and cardinal birds can be half male/half female (scroll down in this article to see a picture – with the different coloration in male/female cardinals it’s quite obvious!) Clearly God (or science) created a lot of creatures with unique, changeable, non-binary genders.

Human understanding of science is always learning new things, and that is true when it comes to gender identity. I came across a book years ago called Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family by Amy Ellis Nutt. It was an eye-opening book for me. Not only did it closely follow this one specific family’s journey as one of their identical twin boys very clearly identified as female at an early age (she was insisting she was her brother’s sister as young as 2 years old!), but it dove into the science behind gender and how a person could be born feeling different than how they look. I found my own opinions changing with this new information.

I was most astonished to learn how many different biological reasons could cause a person to feel different on the inside than how their gender seemed on the outside. I had always been vaguely aware of hermaphrodites (a term that isn’t considered polite anymore) – people born with both ovaries and testicles. I never thought much about what happened there, but oftentimes the OB physician and/or the parents make a decision then and there about which parts to remove. And if they remove the ovaries but the baby grows up feeling female, then oops!

We now refer to people born this way as intersex, and there are many different variations of non-typical genitalia that happen at birth. Intersex variations are naturally occurring in humans and happen in about 1-2 in 100 births! That’s fairly common, about as common as people born with red hair. According to those numbers, in my town of Spokane, WA, population of 217,353, that means there are between 2,173 and 4,347 intersex people. Doctors must pick one gender to write on the birth certificate, but without waiting for the child to develop an identity or go through puberty, it isn’t much more than a guess. It may or may not match how they feel when they begin to articulate their gender identity.

Another condition that rarely happens is called a micropenis, about 1.5 in 10,000 male births. Some baby boys are born with a micropenis and possible other hormonal issues and have surgery to become baby girls. Many of these people are dissatisfied with their female gender as they age and identify as male. There is an actual scale, like on a ruler, that is used to measure the baby’s penis to see if it “counts” enough for the baby to stay a boy.

Getting away from the genitalia, there are hormonal changes that happen during development of fetuses in the womb. In fact, the current understanding is that the brain is the largest sex organ, moreso than a penis or ovaries/uterus. There’s an area of the brain called the BSTc that has a different number of neurons in male vs female brains. Transgender females (people who were born male but identify as women) had the amount of neurons consistent with a typical female brain. And the opposite is also true – transgender males (people born female but identifying as male) had the number of neurons typical with a male brain’s BSTc. There are similar size differences in the INAH section of the brain that will appear male in transgender males and female in transgender females.

Genes play a role as well. There’s a specific gene, ERβ, that is associated with transgender men. And of course some folks don’t feel entirely male or female, hence the term “non-binary” or gender fluid. The terminology has exploded as people have become more open with their gender expression. I found a great “cheat sheet” to explain the many different terms in the LGBTQIA2S+ spectrum.

The terminology and pronouns matter. I see people’s shackles rise when confronted with differing pronouns, or massive eye rolls at the “PC culture” that forces us to adjust our ways of communicating about each other, but these are people’s deep, bedrock identities we’re talking about. No one chooses how they’re born. I didn’t decide to be a cisgender (my gender identity matching my external appearance), heterosexual woman. I am who and what I am, period. Same for all these folks who are born with genetic, hormonal, or gonadal differences. And they shouldn’t be forced to fit into some box that doesn’t fit them because that’s more comfortable for everyone else.

If you are interested in learning more about the science, Harvard University has a great resource page here, or you can read this article from the National Institute of Health. There are several documentaries on Netflix now – Disclosure, TransFormer, A Secret Love, Pray Away and more. I follow @mx.deran, @janaemariekroc, @queersurgeon, and @thejeffreymarsh on Instagram to learn from different perspectives. Check them out and see what you think. As George Bernard Shaw says, “Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

Flourish

It has officially been one year since my business opened. This was never in the plan. In fact, I am on the record saying that I would never ever want to operate my own physical therapy clinic. I did not want the headache of dealing with insurance, marketing etc

And yet here I am! Forced into a corner after getting laid off at the onset of the pandemic and seeing no new jobs on anywhere on the horizon. What few jobs popped up were not in my field of outpatient orthopedics, and my resume never even got a call back. It truly seemed like my only option to keep my license active and to see patients was to go find them on my own.

I was quite terrified to do this, and yet felt like I got pulled along by an invisible thread. I didn’t hem and haw too much – once I decided that this was my only option, I jumped in head first. I wrote a previous blog post in here (Strength in Numbers) about all the help and assistance I received along the way to make this a reality. A shared space to rent, helpful mentors who had already gone down the paths I needed to travel and who helped light the way, friends and family who encouraged and advised me, and new contacts that helped spread the word. Flourish came together through the support of a large network of people.

And now, a year into it, after a very slow start and months where I only saw zero, one or two patients, I’ve now made more in one month than I did in all five months of operation in 2020! The marketing efforts and word of mouth have started to take root. My goals are modest – I’m only really working one day a week right now – but they are being met. I’m starting to fill up that one day each week, and hopefully will need to add a second full day by the fall. Working two days a week while staying home with my kids the other days has been a sweet spot in the work/life balance for me.

As I look back on the past year and feel the momentum picking up, I feel absolutely grateful. The circumstances aligned just so to make this even a possibility. Getting laid off and the extra unemployment assistance kept my family afloat through last year. Having a spouse who kept his job and brought in money was vital. The extra pandemic assistance came in very handy for us, as we were on a much tighter budget than usual without my typical income. Having a kind and selfless family member babysit the kids for my one day of work every week allowed me to work on the business and keep the meager income I received at first without having to spend it all on childcare.

I can certainly take some credit for my success. I chose to go slow with my spending and not get all the tools and toys I would have liked immediately. I just bought myself a laptop to keep at work instead of using my personal laptop and carting it back and forth each time (which also means I can now ride my bike to work again – yay!). I learned about SEO and modified my website to get those Google searches, opened and managed several social media accounts to get the word out. I reached out to lots of local health and wellness providers to network. I made fliers and passed out cards around town. And, most importantly, I made sure to be available and attentive to my clients, did the best job I know how with each one, and provided high quality care.

But despite my hard work, I don’t feel like I can take much credit. Flourish simply wouldn’t exist without the timing, circumstances, and assistance I’ve had along the way. If I were a single mom, or if my husband was also laid off or didn’t make enough money, or if we didn’t get those extra handouts last year, we would have been in complete panic, worried about keeping the lights on and food on the table. I’m in a privileged position that allowed Flourish the time it has needed to take root. I had the luxury of not absolutely needing to make a profit right away.

So for that, I am beyond grateful. I’m thankful to my husband and my family who have helped, thankful to the people that stepped up and helped me out along the way, thankful to my clients who have been spreading the word, thankful, thankful, thankful.

It is such a gift, an absolute blessing, to work for myself. To get to call the shots, to treat patients exactly as they need – nothing more, nothing less, to have time to spend with each client without rushing in a mad dash for productivity, to set my schedule and my dress code, to be allowed to think and act out of the box.

In situations like mine, where suffering led to what appears to be a better outcome, people like to say that it was meant to be. I don’t know that I totally agree with that sentiment. It would have been nice to never have gotten laid off. It would have been nice to not have been more worried about finances than ever before in the lifetime of my marriage.

And it’s true that I would not have done this any other way. I was planning on never opening my own business, planning to work for other companies for the duration of my career. I would be in a safer, in some ways less stressful, financially stronger position at my previous employers.

I think what happens simply happens, and we get to chose how to react. I was pretty traumatized getting laid off the first time. I could have let that take me down hard. I could have stayed on unemployment and hung out at home with my kids without the side hustle. I decided to do this thing, and it seems to be working out, although I’m very aware of the statistics of businesses that make it vs. fail, and the high percentage that don’t make it past the first year, or the first five years.

I don’t know what the future will bring. I hope Flourish will continue to live up to its name, and that I will be able to keep helping people in this new style. And I know that to say life is unpredictable is a huge understatement. Whatever happens in this random crapshoot we call life will happen, and I’ll get the chance to decide how to react yet again. And for now, I am so damn grateful.

Please

It’s summer in the Pacific Northwest, a beautiful time to get outside and enjoy all the region has to offer. My family loves to get out and take advantage of the local parks, pools, splash pads and hikes nearby, and we always make plans to go camping a couple times each summer.

This year, we only booked one camping trip because we didn’t know if the air quality would be good enough to go camping later in the summer. Our intuition proved correct as we even had to come home a day early from our mid-July camping trip due to an air quality level that was unsafe for small children to be out playing in, let alone living and sleeping outdoors in the camper. The smoke rolled in from nearby wildfires and made the air dangerous for my young kids to be outside.

We were supposed to have a reunion with dear friends the following weekend at a beautiful mountain town in the Cascades Mountains, and that entire weekend was forced to be canceled by yet another fire in that area. The fire caused Highway 20 – the North Cascades Highway – to be indefinitely closed while they battle the fire. There were fears that the fire was threatening our friend’s family ranch, and the air quality in the region has been at times at the highest, most unsafe, “hazardous” level.

Before all the smoke blew in, this summer had already broken records in my region for having the greatest number of days over 100*F in a row – which happened in June! I used to think of June as being late spring, with potential for rainy weather and cooler temps, but apparently June is full summer now.

We’ve been talking about climate change for quite a while now. Ever since Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth aired, it’s been a conversation. My governor – Jay Inslee – ran for President in 2016 on a platform dedicated to climate change, mostly to turn up the volume on the national conversation. We’ve been seeing the rise of “once-in-a-lifetime” storms getting more frequent, have seen massive flooding and freezing temperatures in places like Texas get so severe that they threatened the very power grid we all depend on daily. During the Texas power outage in February this year, over 1.3 million people were out of power with temperatures far colder than they normally experience. People died in their homes from carbon monoxide poisoning from trying to heat the house with a grill out of desperation.

I’ve been able to visit Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada, and got to drive up the Icefields Parkway to see the Athabasca Glacier. I was there in 2014, and it was a sobering drive up to the glacier even then. There were markers, similar to a mile marker, but with dates on them, showing how much the glacier has been receding in the last decades. You could visibly see how much larger the glacier used to be in 2000, 1990, 1970 and so on, and the amount lost was staggering.

Likewise, I’ve been able to visit Glacier National Park in Montana, and was fortunate enough to see some of the remaining glaciers before they melt away and vanish forever. The visitors centers there had photographic evidence of how much larger these glaciers were in decades past, and of how great an effect warming temperatures have had in the region.

A good friend of mine has a degree in meteorology, and recently mentioned to me – while we were complaining about the smoke and wildfires in our respective areas of the country – that at some time in the not-distant future, the entire cities of Phoenix, Las Vegas, Reno and others in the Southwestern US will be forced to evacuate. They will no longer be sustainable and able to provide enough water to keep the population going. We will see “climate refugees” moving en masse into other parts of the country, putting a crunch on those local infrastructures and communities.

And of course, there are some areas of the US more threatened by flooding and severe storms and hurricanes. The entire state of Florida is at sea level, and with the rising seas from melting glaciers and snowpack, will be quite literally under water soon. I’m not educated enough to speak to the dangers worldwide, but I know there are coastal regions worldwide that are severely threatened by the rising water levels. It seemed like the entire country of Australia was on fire last year, and I know of island communities and coral atolls that are being forced to consider evacuating the entire community as their way of life literally sinks beneath their feet.

I know how doom-and-gloom all this sounds, and I know the tendency to want to put our heads in the sand and pretend like it isn’t happening, especially if you don’t live in an area where your home is constantly threatened by wildfires, or you are not getting choked by smoke and feeling the effects of climate change on a regular basis. But this is reality and ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.

I get easily overwhelmed thinking about how big all this is. These are huge, global issues with huge, global causes, and what am I really supposed to do about it? And truthfully, I think the effects we have as individuals exist, but are very small.

We can switched all our lightbulbs to LED, and be mindful to keep the lights off when we can.
We can install solar panels on the roof, and indeed my local energy company has a large rebate option for that right now.
My family removed over 1/3 of the grass in our yard recently to save on watering (and spend less time mowing – win/win!).
We can try to run the dishwasher and washing machine less.
Used clothing is especially helpful, as we waste SO MUCH energy and resources on fast fashion and clothing that barely gets worn and then takes up so much space in our landfills (another issue that we don’t like to think about – but that garbage doesn’t just evaporate!).
If we can afford it, we can switch to an electric car, or ride our bikes to commute or take the bus.

All of these things to help, and stack up when more of us are doing them. But I really think that the biggest, more important thing we can do here is to vote in politicians who care about climate change and will make it a priority. Who will hold big companies accountable who are largely responsible for most of the issues we’re seeing. Money and power rule the world, so to save the world, we really need those with the money and the power to be a little less greedy and think about the whole picture and the greater good. And they won’t do that on their own and will need world governments to put the pressure on.

I would encourage everyone to do the research on their candidates for local and nation-wide elections (there are resources out there to help with that, such as the progressivevotersguide.com and local community action networks) and see who is talking about environmental issues. Our vote is a powerful way to tell those in charge that we care about the future of our planet, for our children and grandchildren.

I get tears in my eyes thinking about what the world might look like for my grandkids. Already, my kids are having to play inside during entire weeks of the summer and suffer through canceled plans, and we are very privileged and lucky to have that be our biggest issue at this point. I worry about our local water reservoir – they have to use so much more water to fight these fires, pulling it from lakes and rivers – and it won’t last forever. Every drop of water on this planet is the all the water we’ve ever had. We won’t get more. There isn’t new water raining down from outer space. What we have is all we get.

So please, even though it is scary and uncomfortable to think about, please think about the climate, do a little research, and use your money and your vote. Buy used, save and conserve where you can, and vote for people who are committed to fighting climate change. Just prior to writing this blog post, I sent out an email to my Mayor, city council president, city administrator, Governor, US Representative and US Senators to express my concerns. It took all of 5 minutes. I wrote one email, and copy and pasted it to each of them. People in power need to know we care for them to get active and involved.

I hate how dramatic this sounds – but please, do your part for your sake and for the sake of future generations. I want my kids to be able to take their kids camping and make all the same, wonderful memories I am trying to make for them. Please vote with the Earth in mind.

Proceed with Kindness

I have been fully vaccinated since February, so when the newest CDC guideline saying fully vaxxed folks don’t need to wear masks almost anywhere came out, I was gleeful! Finally! The time has come to return to a more normal life!

And I have been shocked at how uncomfortable and awkward I feel being mask-less out in public. Not while outdoors – I’ve always felt that the fresh-air, open spaces didn’t warrant a mask and rarely wore one outside. But going into grocery stores with no mask? Into coffee shops? Into the library?

I was surprised at my reaction, because I wasn’t uncomfortable from being afraid of getting covid now without the mask. I fully trust in the vaccine. I think the science behind the mRNA delivery system is out-of-this-world, and the data is so impressive at how good a job they are doing. So I feel confident in the vaccine and my protected level of health with that on board. I know that getting covid is still possible, but if I do get it, it would likely be a mild case.

I was surprised because I was uncomfortable at what people were thinking, seeing me walk around mask-less. I’m not someone who typically cares a whole lot about what others think of me, although I am human and I think we all care sometimes about certain things. But I have not done a great job at staying non-judgmental myself toward the covid-deniers, the “plandemic”-ers, the abrasively anti-maskers. I’ve felt the division deeply and personally. So now, I was worried that I would be seen as an anti-masker, rather than as a fully vaccinated person following the new guidelines and trusting in the science.

I’ve found myself announcing to the clerks and fellow library patrons – “don’t worry, I’m vaccinated!” Putting on an awkward face, saying how strange it is to be out in public sans mask, but we’ve got to start trusting the vaccine and getting back to normal, right??

In my personal life, I have been really working on giving grace to myself and others. Grace to myself to not be “the perfect mom” (whatever that is!), the perfect wife/friend/daughter/anything really. I’m always trying to improve, while recognizing that I am a human who makes mistakes and is still learning. And grace toward others – that one has been harder for me.

I know we’re living in an era of division. That’s nothing new – name calling, picking sides, and snap judgements have existed since probably the beginning of human society. Today it’s very loud and constantly visible with news and social media in our pockets 24/7. And we’re creating our own echo chambers, mainly reading, listening, and talking to people that mostly agree with us. It’s very easy to think that our views are correct and other opinions are incomprehensible. As the lyrics to a recently discovered band I just heard snarkily sing:

“i think my opinions are the right ones. if i didn’t think so, i’d get new ones. i think my ideas are the best ones, if i didn’t think so i’d get better ones”
Poke you in the Eyes by Humans on the Floor

I’m as guilty of it all as the next person. I’m aware of my echo chamber, and try to bust out of it in fits and starts, but listening to the “other side” mostly drives me bananas. I try to find neutral sources of news, to check the bias ratings and to stay in the middle. I listen to podcasts who make the effort to stay nuanced and not villainize any alternative opinions or beliefs. I try to understand why the other side might think the way they do and often can find some level of appreciation.

But I’m certain that much of my awkwardness around being mask-less in public is because I know what I thought about people I saw in public without masks as recently as a few weeks ago. And now I look like I’m one of them.

I say all this to encourage us all to proceed with grace and gentleness as we enter this new phase of the pandemic. We’re not going to know who is truly fully vaccinated and mask-less and who was mask-less all along, and we shouldn’t have to. For one thing, being vaccinated protects us really well, so being around an unvaxxed person isn’t much of a personal risk now. And while my instincts still want to say how self-centered it is to flaunt public health policy because you are not scared and to not think of yourself as part of a whole society with lots of fragile people in it, I don’t know what someone else thinks, believes, has seen and has gone through. It is on me to make the best choices for my life, as much as I can with limited information, and to let others alone.

We all learn different life lessons at different times, if ever. My views of being an integrated part of a large society – where my decisions effect others and therefore I have some level of responsibility toward my fellow human – are new to me within the last 15 years or so. I haven’t always believed and acted this way. And I’ve got more learning to do about judging others, thinking I’ve got everything figured out, and giving others enough freedom and grace to make their own decisions. I can admit that I can be self-righteous and proud and am working on toning that down. Someone on the other end of the political, religious, or social spectrum from me has their own values that they’ve learned and are really good at, and things that they need work on.

It’s true that you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. Being kind, being polite, being gracious – even when strongly disagreeing with someone’s stance, beliefs or opinions – will always do a better job of connecting, listening, learning, and ultimately finding potential common ground and mutual respect. And society could certainly use more of that. I’m going to keep working on it in my own life. Join me?

He Is Risen

I saw so many messages in my Instagram feed today with this message. Today is Easter Sunday, so it makes sense. The conversation I wish I could have with everyone who shared that is – “And?”

What does that mean for you? How does that effect how you live your life?

In Jesus time on earth, he repeatedly talked about the Kingdom of God. He used many stories and analogies to get people to understand what the Kingdom of God meant – that it was like a lost treasure, a contradictory place where the last are first and the first are last, where rich people find it nearly impossible to enter, where the poor and the humble are blessed and lifted up.

Being a Christian and celebrating that “He is Risen!” is so much more than punching your ticket to eternity. That is step one. I took that step when I was prepubescent. The point is – what am I doing with the rest of my life? How am I supposed to live here and now?

Jesus made it clear how we are meant to live our lives – in a way that brings the Kingdom of God down to earth. We puny little humans are tasked with being God’s hands and feet on earth – the actual presence of God at work in all our lives. It is up to us to make this world a better place. To spread love, joy, and peace to ALL.

One of Jesus’ well known stories was that of the Good Samaritan. In it, a man is beaten by the road side, robbed, and left for dead,. We don’t know by whom. A priest walked by, noticed the man, and did nothing. A Levite (an even more elite religious person) likeways ignored him. But then the good Samaritan man (part of a despised and discriminated against race that the Jews looked down on at the time) took heart and helped the man with his own money, care, and attention.

I think most of us are not the Samaritan. The Good Samaritan would stop to help the black man getting killed by the police at the side of the road, the homeless person on the corner begging for food. The Good Samaritan would be fighting to protect LGBTQ rights, taking in gay kids who got kicked out of their Christian home. The Good Samaritan would fight for women’s rights, and stopping anti-Asian violence, and assisting children at the border, and helping the poor immigrant fleeing violence and searching for a better life. The Good Samaritan would be comforting the suicidal girl who was born looking like a boy, distraught because no one believes her when she says who she is, distraught for having the Image of God within her stamped out by others.

Our faith is meant to have arms and legs. As the Bible says, “faith without works is dead.” Now I don’t take that to be a legalistic order dictating a certain number of prayers, donations, or good deeds in order to achieve salvation. Because, “it is by grace you have been saved through faith…it is the gift of God.” Gifts are free and undeserved; they are given because the giver loves the receiver.

So it’s not that we need to do certain good deeds to earn a pleasant eternity; again – being saved is the first teeny tiny baby step in the life of a person of faith. What are you doing with it? Why does it matter that Jesus conquered death? Receiving that amazing free gift is meant to spur us to action.

And our current, every day world is still very bent and broken, a far cry from the Kingdom of God. Every human being is created in the image of God. The black person, whose life is still held back by systemic racism and a long history of oppression. The factory worker making cheap clothes for us to buy while getting treated like dirt. The desperate father, afraid because his profession is dying and he has no where to turn, no safety net to catch him, while living in the “greatest country on earth.” The immigrant who is afraid for their life and their children’s future and is seeking stability. The gay kid who was simply born loving people of the same gender.

Are we loving them? Are we protecting the Image of God in them? Are we fighting for equality and fairness, fighting against discrimination and hatred? Or the more insidious acceptance of the status quo? Are we fighting against the urge to say it’s too broken, and it’s always been this way, and it’s too much to change? Are we willing to pay a bigger share to ensure everyone gets what they need? Are we willing to sacrifice and stay humble and have faith that there is enough for all of us?

As Jesus said, ” whoever believes in me will do…even greater things than these.” Jesus reached out to the culturally oppressed and discriminated. He mingled with the low lifes, the rejects, the illegal aliens and sex workers, the corrupt politicians and ethnic minorities. He treated women with far more respect and honor than was customary for his time. He healed the untouchable sick.

We will do ever greater things. We ended legalized slavery. We ended counting our fellow countrymen as 3/5^ths a person. We ended unsafe working conditions and child labor (in the US at least). We will end workplace discrimination. We will end systemic racism and the many lingering, hidden ways it persists – the prison labor force, unequal school funding that cuts kids off from a remotely equal chance in life, the food deserts and healthcare disparities. We will end misogeny and transphobia. We will end the rule of the power-hungry, vain, and proud. We will save the planet from massive loss of life due to climate change.

Because in the Kingdom of God, the last will be first, righteousness (morally correct behavior) reigns, the merciful, peaceful and pure in heart will be blessed. Not the richest, the politically powerful, the elite class, the superPACs and Fortune 500 CEOs. Not the vainly privileged, unwilling to look down on the lowly humans they’ve used and stepped on to get to the top. Not the naively privileged, ignorant to how their way of life is only possible because of the suffering of others.

This is a big task we’ve been given. Punching your ticket to Heaven is only the beginning. But take heart. It’s not up to each and every one of us to tackle all these massive issues. We all have our passions, the issues that get under our skin and keep us awake at night. Maybe it’s hurting kids, or LGTBQ rights, prison reform, compassionate immigration, environmental causes, anti-racism, sex trafficking, political corruption, voting rights, women’s rights, the mentally ill, homelessness – there are many things to care about. Many things that God cares about. And God is counting on us to be the hands and feet of the Kingdom.

Remember what Jesus said in the story of the sheep and the goats:

“Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

Are you the Good Samaritan? Or the pious priest, walking right on by, without caring about your fellow human – no matter how different they look, or how sinful you believe them to be – laying there beaten and left for dead? How are you using your one and precious life?

If Only

I keep thinking about the attack on the Capital from January 6th. I keep thinking about the fact that people – Congresspeople, their family members, members of the Press, building staff – were afraid for their lives, and have had to immediately go back to work at the place where it happened. What additional echoes do they hear as their feet walk across the tiled floors on their way to work now? Whose faces do they expect to bump into while rounding a corner?

How do we expect these people to continue governing our Nation as if nothing happened?

The current top-level movers and shapers of our government suffered through a terrifying, traumatic event. They may have watched as police officers were beaten with flag poles and clubs. They may have seen the noose on the lawn and known that it was intended to be used. They saw the bloodstains from the five people who were killed that day, and heard about the two more police officers who later died by suicide, traumatized by the day’s events.

We are not a society that is good at handling trauma. Collective mourning and grief are not part of our vocabulary. If we mourn – and feel our hard feelings – we do so in private, maybe with a therapist, maybe with our closest loved ones. Like any collection of humans, America is not faultless. We’ve done harm in the world, both on our own soil – enslaving and horrifically abusing West African people, attempted genocide and enslavement of Native peoples, the Trail of Tears, the Trail of Death, Native boarding schools, Jim Crow segregation, and Japanese internment camps to name a few – and overseas. And we seem to think that pushing things under the rug, pretending they’re only in the past (as if the past doesn’t affect the present), and never confronting, apologizing, owning and making amends is an acceptable or healthy way to live.

This cultural attitude bleeds into our personal lives. Awareness of mental health among veterans has improved, but they are still 1.5 times as likely to die by suicide vs the general population. I know my own grandpa, who fought in the Korean war, never ever talked about that experience. I’ve treated elderly patients who had fought in the Vietnam war, and they would admit to me in hushed tones that they saw and did things that they’ve never told another person. We seem to believe that burying emotions and trauma actually gets rid of them, when in reality they seep into every cell of our being and leak out in unhealthy ways that inflict harm on ourselves and our relationships.

My grandma was a difficult woman. Easily offended, she would punish the offender with the silent treatment or passive aggressive nastiness and hold a grudge. She was very present in my childhood, and loved my brother and I, but we always had the feeling of walking on thin ice with her. Visits to her home were always filled with a mild sense of dread. I learned, as I entered adulthood myself, that she had a traumatic childhood. Her mother died young, and her father did not feel capable of raising my grandma and her sister himself as a single father. He sent them to live with a loving aunt & uncle, whom my mother adored as her own grandparents. My grandma’s father later went on to remarry and became a stepfather. And as I learned this, I could see them – the ripples. The life-altering effect of being given up by her father, who later chose to be a father again to new children, different children. My grandma seemed to be always on the lookout for the next betrayal, always doubting the love of those who loved her, always trying to head hurt off at the pass.

If only she had gotten therapy! That wasn’t yet common in her era, so she continued living with unhealthy emotions and relationship patterns throughout her long life. I can only imagine her personality if she had been able to work through her pain, work through the hurt and abandonment issues, and come to find her inherent sense of worth and belonging. What a different life that could have been.

If only America would get therapy! If only we would turn our full gaze on the past as it truly was, shortcomings and all. If only we would acknowledge the pain and suffering done in the name of Manifest Destiny, in the thirst for power and greed. An entire economy built on the backs of unwilling humans. An entire continent stolen from those already here. Did you know that the Native tribes had roadways that crisscrossed the entire continent? Many of our major highways today follow those old footpaths. They had established, thriving communities. Did you know that the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, Confederacy is the oldest living participatory democracy on earth, founded in 1142? These weren’t simple “savages” that we nearly eradicated from the land (over 560 recognized tribes are still alive and present). They had governments, societies, trading partnerships, and a beautiful religious tradition. Imagine if Western Europeans had arrived with curiosity, with an ounce of humility, and had learned from these people. What a different history that could have been.

So I hope our leaders in government are getting therapy and taking care of their mental health. Trauma effects our brain, our higher levels of thinking, our physical health. I know people joke about governmental red tape and the mess it can make of things, but they are trying to keep a culturally, geographically diverse country of 331 million people running smoothly. I can barely keep my homogenous household of 4 running smoothly half the time, so I don’t envy their job. I hope, having lived through that terror, they might be more motivated to do real work to stop the terror of school shootings. That they might be more motivated to stop talking about bipartisanship and to start living that out, to stop the growing, hate-filled divide between Americans.

I hope they, and we, take the chance to ask how we could have gotten to this point. To look at the past, at the roots of this great society, our “great, unfinished symphony,” and to examine them closely. To hold up what needs to be brought to the light, to acknowledge what needs to be said out loud. To process the trauma done by us and to us so we can all heal and move forward together, healthy and strong. If only.

Man up

I was listening to a discussion on the Keystone XL Pipeline recently, and the pros and cons were being analyzed. The perspective of the Native tribes in the areas effected by the pipeline was brought up, and I learned that one of the negative effects of construction of these pipelines is the increase in disappearances, murders, and rapes against local Native women. These horrific acts go up in frequency due to the “man camps,” or work camps set up for the men hired to construct the pipeline.

As I heard this, I felt an internal tornado of mixed emotions. A part of me was not surprised at all. Women have historically been taken advantage of, treated as property, and used by men for their selfish purposes since the dawn of time. Women of color are victims of violence and injustice even more than white women like myself. Justice has rarely prevailed in the protection of women. We’ve all heard the statistics. That tide is finally changing a bit, with great strides being made by movements like #metoo.

That part of me wanted to start railing against men. Why are men such pigs? Why can’t they see women as an equal part of humanity deserving of dignity and respect? Why are people of color, and these Native women specifically, not better protected from suffering the violence and harm coming from predominantly white men?

And that’s when the tornado started swirling, as I thought about the specific white men in my life. I flashed back to that time in college, while studying abroad in Australia, when I was drugged at a bar. My friends from uni and I traveled en masse to this certain bar every Thursday night, and it felt like a home away from home. I’m not a heavy drinker, to the point that I was teased for my work-arounds to avoid drinking too much during drinking games (“Sarah sips”), so when I suddenly started throwing up at our table one night, my friends’ red flags started flying. They noticed that I seemed too out of it for how much I’d had to drink, and that my eyes were fully dilated. When they all realized that I’d been drugged, they flew into a rage. My male friends wanted to find and murder whoever had attempted to use what they assumed was a date rape drug on me. I was gently led home, shielded by this whipped up wolfpack, and my girlfriends kicked all the enraged guys out of my dorm room so they could help me into my PJs. One of my guy friends remembered that I wear contacts and, as my consciousness had started to return, I saw his fingers coming at my eyeballs to take them out for me.

For what could have been a terribly traumatic, horrible night, it ended up being a weirdly beautiful experience that let me feel how much my friends loved me. I felt so protected and cared for, and was touched at how upset all my friends were on my behalf. I assume it was a man who drugged me, and who had dishonorable intentions. And yet my male friends, in particular, made me feel very respected and honored that night.

And I started thinking about my husband, who is a better husband than I even knew to look for. He is so intentional and purposeful in overcoming bad prototypes, working hard to help more around the home and with our kids than has been traditionally typical. He is a fierce defender of human rights and proud feminist. He is working on his built-in blind spots and is constantly trying to improve.

And I thought of my father, who I doubt would consider himself a feminist, and yet who always encouraged me to dream big and reach for anything I thought possible. Who trusted me and my judgement and never acted like I was his property as I began dating. While friends of mine from church had their dads purposely stage their shotguns in the living room when they got picked up for prom, my Dad was so chill and relaxed around one of my boyfriends that my boyfriend thought it was a bad sign that he wasn’t getting grilled. My dad showed me that he trusted my brain, my character, and my judgement and didn’t consider me vulnerable, weak or gullible because of my gender.

I think the problems around violence against women, and women of color in particular, run deep. My country was built on the premise that we could own women’s bodies if they were black, and rape and murder them if they were Native. It’s woven into the very first fabric of my nation. White women faired better, but were still not considered fully human in the writing of the Constitution. They couldn’t vote and rarely had an avenue to own property. Grown ass women were completely dependent on their husbands and then sons in the event of widowhood, due to the coverture and dower systems set in place.

I can understand how men came to act so entitled, to think that their desires and whims trumped everyone else’s, and to feel justified in taking what they want, even at the expense of a fellow human being and their rights. Sadly, the Christian Bible has been misused in this way as well, to uphold the false message that women are inferior to men. There are great analyses of the patriarchal messages of the Bible, such as Jesus Feminist by Sarah Bessey, that break down how misguided such interpretations are. Society has been patriarchal for much of human history, and that lens colored the authors of the Bible. It’s clear from the Creation story in the beginning of the Bible that God intended male and female, both created in God’s image, to be equal parts of the image of God on earth.

So while I can understand how we got here, and why so many men act the way they do, I also hold no mercy for those unevolved men who chose to use their privilege at the expense of others. Because I’ve seen what a quality man looks like. I’ve seen men so self-assured in their inherent worth and value that they don’t need to prove it by lording it over anyone “beneath” them. I’ve known men who don’t allow the narrow definitions of what a “real man” is to restrict their emotions or behavior. I’ve met men who understand that all of humanity hold the same amount of inherent dignity and worth as they do. I know men who recognize the terrible, ugly patterns in societies across the globe that have gotten us to where we are today and who want to work that change that. (check out the New Zealand based, She’s Not Your Rehab group – amazing!)

Society is crawling forward, inch by agonizing inch, into a better reality for us all. The Kingdom of God professed so much in the Bible by Jesus, in which the powerful are made humble, the poor are made rich, and the lowly are lifted up, is being clawed and scratched down to Earth. And it’s been a fight. The rich and powerful (read: predominantly white men) aren’t going to be quick to give up their privilege and power. Why would they? But as more of us glimpse what an equitable, supportive, inclusive and open world looks like, we can’t but help to fight to make that a reality. So fight on, man up, evolve, and make the world a better place for us all.

Open to Chaos

Recently, I read that some Native cultures celebrate the Spring Equinox the way white Americans celebrate New Year’s, with resolutions and goals and new beginnings. It makes much more sense to me. Let January be the worst month of the year as it is, dark and cold with winter nowhere close to ending. Not exactly the most inspiring time to drop weight, get fit, or tackle big projects. More like the time to cuddle up, snuggle in, and hibernate. Spring feels like such a natural time to start afresh, with the air getting soft again, the grass greening up, and the flowers and trees coming into bloom. We can all begin to grow again, after slumbering under the snow.

All that to say that I’m not doing New Year’s resolutions. However, I do like the optics of a fresh calendar – a clean, new year to mark up. It feels like a good time to look back, assess what has happened and what I’ve learned, and to gain clarity going forward.

I usually pick one word to focus on for each year, and for 2020 my word had been “content.” I was going into 2020 having been laid off for the first time in my life, having breathlessly landed at a new job with less pay, no more paid time off, and zero benefits. Between the loss of money and PTO, and still having two small children at home besides, I knew I was in for a quiet, homebody sort of year. We weren’t planning any big trips, and were bracing to tighten our belts.

And then covid hit! My mission to stay content got a fresh challenge. I found myself totally jobless and shut off from all my usual options for keeping the kids entertained. We managed fine all spring, summer and fall by staying outdoors as much as possible, playing in the backyard, at parks, and on a couple camping trips. I got together with friends for walks and bonfires to maintain my mental health and social life, and I got to practice savoring the small, daily joys.

For all the challenge that this year has brought, I have felt oddly content. I feel this like it’s a blanket someone else wrapped around me. It is an other-worldly feeling, not one of my own volition or control. God, the Universe, the Creator – someone/thing has blessed me with contentedness.

Being laid off again, and trying to start my own business without any initial, raving success, has given me a lot of time to think. I signed up for the doctorate level PT program as a high school senior, and have not deviated from that career path in the last 17 years. Suddenly, without an option to continue my career as usual for the time being, I find myself thinking outside this box for the first time. I am wide open to whatever the future may hold.

I feel like I am standing in the middle of an expansive prairie, deer paths shooting off in every direction. Maybe I lean into stay-at-home-motherhood more, getting involved in the kids’ schools and volunteering again, which I’ve missed. (And yes, I humbly recognize the high level of privilege I have to even consider that option, since I am married and my husband is currently making enough money to support us all.) Maybe I find another job, maybe I take a sharp left and try out a new field altogether. I want my business to take off, but it may not. Fortunately, I don’t feel that all my precious eggs are in that vulnerable basket. I have a naïve, unfounded confidence that something will work out or come up (the delusional bliss of an enneagram 7).

I feel very open in a spiritual sense too. This year has been extremely spiritually challenging for me. Watching all the ugliness in politics, the blatant hypocrisy of the Religious Right and evangelical church, and especially the racism that boiled over the surface this year, put me in a dark place. I’ve questioned God before, but I’ve never really questioned if there even is a God, until this year. If we suddenly got undeniable proof of whatever happens in the afterlife, or if an afterlife even exists or not, I don’t think I’d be shocked regardless. And that makes me feel open and excited, not foundationless or lost. I feel curious, creative, inspired, and content.

This year has been a global shit show in so many ways, yet there was also tons of beauty and love. I feel hopeful (on the days that I do – the dark days still sneak up on me, when I seriously wonder how we shitty humans will ever do anything right). I feel excited and motivated. I’m only in my mid-30s, too young for a mid-life anything, but this feels like the opposite of a mid-life crisis. I’m having a mid-life renaissance, a mid-life jubilee. Re-examing it all, finding a light (Love is my light), and holding each idea up to that light, twirling them around with open hands and observing with curious eyes. Not trying to prove or force any point. Discarding the useless, ugly, false, petty, boring and scripted. Embracing the awkward, brave and kind (thank you, Brene!). Embracing my individuality lived collectively, a small but important piece of the whole big picture. Embracing the whole human family, the common spark that unites every being, every good idea, every Truth.

Embracing the beautiful, the creative, the Real.

Embracing Love – demanding, relentless, all-inclusive, complete, far-reaching, difficult and rewarding Love.

Living open to chaos, determined to make something exquisite from it.

Weary

The sky has been gray, gray, gray this past week in the PNW, and I always forget how much that affects me. I have been feeling glum, anxious, restless, and undone. I feel this mounting pressure of Christmas on the way, and knowing how different it will be this year makes me feel even more pressure to make it special for my kids. But my heart’s not in it. I can’t get myself to plan ahead, so all the activities that require reservations – the free carriage rides downtown, skating on the ice ribbon, etc – keep slipping out of my grasp.

I am usually optimistic, laid back and happy, so it’s unusual for me to feel weighed down. And yet I know that this is a perfectly normal way to feel right now, at the end of a long and difficult year, when COVID numbers only continue to get worse (practically all 50 states are in the Red (highest) risk zone right now according to NPR). I feel mounting annoyance at folks who don’t seem to be taking COVID seriously. That’s part jealousy since they’re gathering with friends and family when I’m not, and part judgement that they are part of the problem of why COVID is spiking and keeping me at home. I feel low-level rage at conspiracy theorists spewing lies and misinformation out there, wondering on one hand how people can be so gullible and on the other where my blind spots and naivety are.

I feel deep sadness for the 317,000 people in the US who have died from COVID, sadness for their families who will be trying to “celebrate the holidays” while the virus that killed their family member is still raging out of control. I feel lonely for my family who I’ve had to cancel trips to see and miss so much. I feel isolated from my local friends, as it seems like all of my closest friends are frontline workers who are extra risky to be around (and heroic badass women for doing their jobs in this time!).

I feel a weird sense of guilt for still being unemployed, working at becoming gainfully self-employed, and yet not having to stress about finances thanks to my husband’s job and some unexpected windfalls from inheritances and family generosity. I feel pressure to do more to be helping my community besides donating money to Meals on Wheels, the Union Gospel Mission, The Black Future Co-op Fund, the Loveland Foundation, the Minnesota Freedom Fund, Khan kids academy, Catholic Charities, Washington Community Action Network, and Legacy Collective (I list all these places not to toot my own horn but to share some amazing groups that are doing good work and could always use more financial support). I’m trying to shop local way more often, and eat out to support our local restaurants, but those are fun things for me and don’t feel that sacrificial. Which I guess is unnecessary – I have a weird hang-up from my churchy childhood that giving and serving have to be trying, difficult and/or demanding to “count.”

I was joking with a friend a while back in April, when the lock down still felt exotic and like an interesting project, that I’ve been training for this for the last 4 years. Since having my daughter, I’ve run the household around a tight nap/bedtime schedule, so unless I have a babysitter or my husband is home, I’m at home way more than in my childless days. That’s been hard, but I do it because I read sciencey parenting books, and am convinced on the huge importance for sleep and a predictable routine to raise healthy kids. So I’ve already practiced being content in this homebody phase of my life.

I do think that is serving me well, for both the practice of being content in an unsatisfying or challenging moment, and the realization that everything is temporary. That has been my parenting mantra: Every phase is temporary. Every barrier, restriction, worry and preoccupation belongs to a certain timeframe in my kids’ life and will be addressed or grown out of eventually. And that rings true for this gloomy weather and for this COVID pandemic. The sun will shine again; the pandemic will end.

But that certainly isn’t making the day-to-day struggle any easier. Life is just hard right now. Life will always be hard in varying ways and to different degrees, so we’re just getting more practice at being human I guess. Today I was able to get on the elliptical during the kids’ naptime, which always helps. I got cozy afterward with a cup of tea while writing this. Writing these blog posts always help to clarify and calm my mind. I’ve signed up for Yoga with Adriene’s 30 day yoga challenge starting in January, with the theme of “Breath.” I’ve been avoiding yoga for a while recently, since I feel too jittery to be holding so still, and I can’t listen to a podcast while following along like I do while doing cardio. My hamster brain has needed to be spinning on several wheels at once lately, which isn’t super healthy or sustainable. So I think it’s time to try to calm down and focus on my breath again.

So I guess the moral of the story is that life is hard, it’s ok to feel down about it, and it’s important to process those feelings, and to have strategies to get energized and content again. Getting stuck in the gloom and doom doesn’t serve anyone well, and pretending that everything is ok all the time is a delusion that will crack open at some point. I think we all get a lot more
“passes” right now to have off days, but I hope that each of us can find a way to move our bodies, to process our emotions, to reach out and connect with our community, and to practice being content, grateful, and mindful about this one precious life we know can go all too quickly. 317,000 Americans, and 1.7 million humans around the globe, have lost their turn at living a joy-filled life, so I don’t want to spend too much time being unhappy in my own little life.

Grace and peace to all of us trying to do this thing called life well.

Fate vs Manifestation

I just finished the phenomenal The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd. It tells the story of Ana, a Middle Eastern woman from 2,000 years ago with a voice, a vision, and a powerful drive inside her to live her own life and story. There are many pieces of the book that are going to sit and resonate with me for a while, but this particular exchange between Ana and her aunt really struck me:

“‘Your vision means what you want it to mean. It will mean what you make it to mean.’ I stared at her, baffled, perturbed. ‘Why would God send me a vision if it has no meaning other than what I give to it?’ ‘What if the point of his sending it is to make you search yourself for the answer?'”
Sue Monk Kidd, The Book of Longings

Inner knowing, inner wisdom, manifesting. The whole concept of positive thinking, in my opinion, is equal parts woo-woo and legitimate. While I certainly think it sounds privileged and naïve to think that we can simply “think ourselves” into success, comfort, and happiness, I do believe that there is power to our intention.

Imagine really wanting a certain job or promotion, thinking yourself the perfect fit and highly qualified. You want the job so much you can taste it. Likely you will stride into that interview with a straight back, clear eyes, and with the utmost confidence and excitement. That energy comes through to the interviewer and you get the job. Or say there’s a new person who you feel drawn to and really want to befriend. You may fire up the charm and be extra witty when first talking to them to help solidify a connection.

And on the flip side, feeling insecure, unsure or lackadaisical about a job or relationship will also translate in your attitude, voice, posture and demeaner and will decrease the likelihood of success.

In my professional world, in the case of pain, often times people hurt simply because they expect to hurt. There’s a story of a construction worker who jumped down onto a plank and had a nail go right through his boot. Screaming in agony, he was taken to the ER and sedated. The doctors were shocked that, after removing his boot, the nail had not even scratched his skin. It went cleanly between his toes. He felt real, physical pain because he expected to feel pain, thinking a nail had gone through his foot, when in fact he was completely uninjured.

The woo-woo part that I think is dangerous in this line of thinking is the idea that all it takes is belief to make a dream come true. Positive thinking or good intentions doesn’t highlight the need for hard work, effort and commitment. That’s why I love the quote above – “What if the point of his sending it is to make you search yourself for the answer?”

Having a dream, a goal, a desire can light a fire in a person. It can overtake their thoughts, direct their actions, and influence their choices. And with an optimistic outlook, a sense of confidence, a firm belief in the success of the outcome, the chances of success seem bound to improve. There is some real science and data to back up the benefits of optimism, both in health and in financial/career success. Being optimistic about one’s future can predict success, and in the case of failure, helps us bounce back and redirect more quickly.

I don’t think there are any guarantees about anything in life. Unforeseen situations are bound to arise. But if you belief strongly enough, you can be flexible and adaptable, get creative and inventive and keep trying to work things to your advantage. The dream might shift, the goals may morph and the direction may change to go with the curveballs. And you learn that you set the definition for success yourself. “Success” is whatever you decide it to be. You are not bound by the current world’s definition of success. Your dream, your fulfilling, abundant, full life is unique to you.

So search yourself, dig deep for what drives you, set your sites on a goal, and be optimistic about achieving it! All while knowing that no matter how things work out, you can learn to be satisfied with your life as it is when you are living true to your self.