Category / Essay, Personal

by bcmiller2014

Dr. Chris

I won’t be seeing my friend, Dr. Chris, today.  Business just got too slow and the rent too high, so he had to close his doors.  For three years I’ve seen him at least three times a week, for several hours at a time.  Technically he’s a chiropractor, but for me he’s been so much more than that.  When I first arrived in his office, referred by a friend and desperate, I could barely get myself onto one of his tables so he could work on me.  I’d had a bulging disc that I’d been working on with a physical therapist, but I thought I could heal even more if I had chiropractic help as well.  I went to someone with a good reputation.  I was interviewed by one person and treated by another.  My theory is that communication went awry because with one aggressive move, that chiropractor turned my bulging disc into a herniated one.  Once the jelly is out of the doughnut, there’s no putting it back.  I could barely walk.  Keith would take me from home to school so I could teach, and then cart me back so I could get horizontal on our firm sofa.  If I moved suddenly it would feel like someone was stabbing me in the leg with a knife.  I went, in under a second, from being able-bodied to being permanently disabled.

I wasn’t very trusting after that.  Western medicine offered me the choice of cortisone injections into my spine until the cortisone would begin to degrade my spinal tissue, or permanent medication that had a list of horrific side-effects.  I tried the cortisone twice but it hurt like hell, had minimal productive effect, and caused my heart to race for days.  I tried acupuncture.  I think it helped a bit.  I tried sound wave therapy.  I don’t know if that helped or not.  My last traditional treatment option was to fuse my discs together, and my physical therapist did not recommend it.  He said that over time the fact that two discs were in an unnatural position would affect the discs above and below causing an eventual cascading failure.  Finally a trusted friend recommended Dr. Chris.

Chris Abrahamson is a tall, fatherly Swede, and the most gentle man I have ever met.  His prices were ridiculously reasonable and I immediately felt safe with him in spite of myself, so I decided to give it a shot.  The first time on the table, I could barely tell he was doing anything.  He was touching my spine but not with a lot of pressure.  I would have thought he was a fraud except that when I got up I felt a little better.  That was the continuing trend.  I’d go.  He’d be gentle.  I wouldn’t know why but I’d feel better.  Continuing treatment is necessary for maintenance and there’s never going to be yoga, running or any high impact activity in my future, but I can get around pretty darned well these days.  He is everything a chiropractor or any kind of doctor should be.  But here’s the thing, he’s more than that.

Chris is a genuine healer.  His calming presence is soothing to everyone who has come into his office.  I’ve watched it happen.  People are full of anxiety and stress, and when they leave they are relaxed and smiling.  Personally, I have an anxiety disorder.  I can have my heart racing when I’m thinking about flowers.  Part of the reason I went to see him so often was because when I went, it calmed me, even on really hard days.  I also have a hard time expressing how I feel, and so I carry a lot of my feelings in my physical body.  It’s weird, I know, but it’s true.  There were times when no one else was there and he would lay his big open palm on my shoulder or stomach and I would start to bawl my eyes out.  It didn’t bother him.  He’d just sit on a stool at the head of my table, his hand on my shoulder, saying oh so quietly, “It’s okay.  It’s okay.”  He’d hand me Kleenex and then when I sat up he’d sit next to me and I’d finish crying on his shoulder.  He always had a twinkle in his eye and when I was depressed he could always make me laugh.

Once Keith was out of town and I was at home and accidentally grabbed the handle of a skillet that had just come out of a 450 degree oven.  I could hear my fingers sizzle.  I was in so much pain and had no idea what to do because ice made my pain go through the roof, and all I could remember were old wives tales about burns.  With my remaining functional hand I texted him at 9:00 p.m. on a Saturday, and he texted right back, “No ice!  Use a bowl of cool water!”  I did so and texted a couple more questions.   Then I tried to leave him alone.  Pretty soon I got an incoming text.  He was checking on me to make sure I  was okay.

When I needed emergency surgery he came and visited me in the hospital even though he hates hospitals.  He held my hand and got teary-eyed because it was right after surgery and I was a mess.  He really, truly cared about me.  It was so appropriate and so extraordinary to have a doctor as a father figure caring for my emotions as well as my body.  Maybe because it was another chiropractor who hurt me, after a while he only charged what I had on my HSA.  The way he treated me changed the way I view God because it changed the way I view men and fathers.  And I know I’m not the only one who has been utterly blessed to know this man and be helped by him.

Monetarily some may look at his life and think it small.  They would be wrong.  I have never met anyone who gave so much to so many, expecting so little in return.  This is, in my opinion, the definition of a powerful, meaningful, important life.  Without him and his generosity there would be so much more suffering in the world.

His life has become an example of true success to me.  Even if I don’t make a lot of money I want people at the end of my life to say that I made every bit of difference that I could, loving people and the creatures of the world to the best of my ability.  I may not be a healer in the traditional sense, but I can be a lover of all through my research, my art, my words, and my actions.  I will sometimes fail, but I will keep recommitting to love because those with the most beautiful lives I’ve seen, like Dr. Chris, have done the same.  Hopefully we’ll go out once in a while for tea because man, I’m going to miss that guy.

by bcmiller2014

17 Days

17 DAYS

A good number of years ago now my mother was closing in on her 28th hour of labor after having waited an extra three weeks for me to arrive, and exemplifying to women everywhere the reasons for contraception.  By all accounts it was a miserable experience, followed by another six months dealing with a colicky baby.  I don’t know why they were surprised when I did not have children.  I know, of course, that women say it’s worth it and I fully acknowledge the wonder of new life.  However, enough time has passed that I think it’s safe to say my own life is no longer new.  At this point I’ve earned a graduate degree, had a couple major organs removed, gotten the requisite glasses for old people, and obtained a major back injury.  I have sleeping problems, waking problems, mental health issues, marital issues, and a potential bunion.  This part of getting older is not fun, and I think it’s the discomfort that drives most people to either go into denial or reach a phase or two of reflection, pondering the meaning of it all.

This spring my husband has actually named something for me that has resurrected from my childhood.  Because of the earlier mentioned back injury I’m no longer able to run.  This has led to a necessary reconciliation to the idea of walking as exercise.  Imagine me sighing.  I just did.  It never counted as exercise before.  It was for other people who didn’t have the desire to push through the pain, sweat in the rain and grit their teeth so that their brains would stop spinning and they could be purely physical.  That’s what running was for me.  It’s taken me a good couple of years to accept the slow path.  My brain keeps pumping away at thoughts.  That is, it spins its usual frenetic cycles until I see something beautiful.  Flowers have begun to stop me in my tracks.  I pull out my trusty iPhone, decide not to care about appearances, crouch in whatever position is necessary and capture the riveting bloom to some degree of satisfaction.  Sometimes I concede and realize I cannot do it justice, and sometimes I am doggone proud of my unskilled photography.  It is always a life-giving moment.

Keith caught me at it because he was going to pick me up from my usual walk route from our condo one day.  He has me on the creepy Find-a-Friend app without which we’d never be able to find each other.  He watched me leave the condo and within two blocks he saw the little blue dot that was me hovering for several minutes at a corner, unmoving.  He decided to go around the block a few times to give me a little more walking time.  I soon proceeded down some stairs, around a corner, down another block, and then stopped again, hovering like a hummingbird sipping nectar.  He caught up with me at our favorite neighborhood garden.  He smiled and said, “It’s just like when you were in kindergarten.”

Oh my God!  I hadn’t put that together!  I was late 17 times for the first half of kindergarten even though it was only three blocks from my house.  It was the only thing besides daydreaming that ever merited a note to my parents.  I wasn’t late because I didn’t want to go to school.  I was late because I was enraptured by everything along my path.  I didn’t want to study like a scientist, either. I wanted to discover and love.  I longed for the fuzzy caterpillars to crawl down my index finger and wave their searching antennae in the open air.  I wanted to study the pattern in the veins of the leaves.  I wanted to gently prod the pill bugs so they’d roll up in their delightful balls and I wanted to marvel at the colors and patterns of the flowers.  All I remember about kindergarten itself is an empty hall full of coats, scarves and snow boots.  Those 17 days though, I remember really well.

It’s been a while.  Now I’m teaching interior design, and since hearing William McDonough speak at a conference I have become compelled to research issues around environmental care.  I’ve incorporated it into every class from space planning to materials for interior use, to design history and now a course that I am proud to say expands my reach to the fashion program.  I have a wider audience with my textiles class, and I love it.  I want to spread news of how things are being created and manufactured in the world, what we’re using and where it ends up at the end of its life.  I am a fountain of horrifying information regarding the chemicals that we use with utter disregard for human health.  It makes me really fun at parties.  But there’s a link here, and I haven’t shifted from delight to what might be considered politics just to make my readers miserable.  It really goes back to those 17 days.  My whole life goes back to those 17 days.

In those 17 days, for which I was roundly punished, I developed a profound love affair with the natural world.  My heart filled with so much love that now, decades later, I walk down the sidewalk to my university office and quietly whisper “I love you” to the frenetic squirrels, wispy ferns and majestic trees.  I love nature so much it hurts, and I mean that in a physical way.  When I learn of the latest environmental catastrophe my chest aches and there is nothing that will soothe it.  Does this mean I don’t care about humans?  Of course not!  How in the world are humans supposed to live healthy lives without abundant access to clean water, soil and air?  The concepts of care for nature and care for humans are inextricably intertwined.  My students will tell you, at least by their senior years, that I’m ridiculously soft-hearted.  I have to tell them at the front end of each quarter that just because I’m nice, it doesn’t mean I have low academic standards.  I’m nice and I write extremely difficult exams out of love, because I want them to be prepared for the world.

Basically though, I’m a mush-ball of affection, and this world is hard on people like me.  The hardest part of getting older for me (besides those missing organs) is the increasing knowledge of how much we humans are causing suffering on multiple levels everywhere I look.  Knowledge is a hard thing for a soft heart to bear, which actually means I am one tough mother.  It takes guts to stay soft and know what I know.

So here’s my resolve as I move forward.  I’m embracing the love of my inner kindergartener.  I’m determining to stay soft while I keep daring to learn more.  That’s the impetus behind my application for doctoral programs this spring.  I am willing to bear the pain if it means I have a better platform for speaking a little bit louder, having more credentials so I can publish and maybe even reach the people who mistakenly believe that caring for the environment means leaving humanity behind.  If I have to bear this pain, I am going to make it mean something.  I need to be part of creating change in our manufacturing systems so that kindergarteners everywhere have the ability to walk out their front doors and experience the wonder of an unspoiled world.  If you’re Christian, nature points to God.  If you’re not, nature points to health.  Caring for it is a win-win for everyone, everywhere and I haven’t even gotten to the related issues around slavery and social justice.  It’s depressing to talk about the startling suicide rates among cotton farmers in India on my birthday.

On this day I’m committing to love and clinging like mad to wonder.  Those flowers that I photograph will keep me alive, along with hugs from friends.  I will soak in the sound of the rain in the trees and continue saying “I love you” as I walk around campus, sometimes to people and sometimes to the chattering squirrels.  There are plenty of people out there, muttering anger and hate.  If muttering love makes me eccentric, so much the better.  I already have the purple hair.

by bcmiller2014

Nervous Breakdown

The term “nervous breakdown” has different connotations to different people. When I had one, I didn’t even recognize it as such, it was so different than what I thought one would look like. There wasn’t any screaming or wailing or illicit drug use. I didn’t become suicidal, and didn’t want to die until several months after the initial event. I know that every person’s experience is different but the only story I can tell is mine, so I thought I might clarify what a nervous breakdown is like, from my own singular perspective. 

It started with a bad decision. I was told by my parents that instead of pursuing a different plan of action in getting my grandmother moved from Illinois to Oklahoma, they were putting it off until I could spend two weeks alone with my physically disabled mother, caring for her while my husband helped Dad with the actual move.  My response, 2000 miles away, was to curl into a ball and start wailing because the burden of it felt absolutely overwhelming. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t overwhelmed by giving physical care. I was undone by something totally different and difficult to quantify.  I couldn’t even define it for myself, so it felt outside my rights to refuse to do as they wished. I love my parents. I’ve always wanted to make them happy (which statement may give some clue to the source of my issues).  It may also help to know that I am the only child of two people whose siblings had both died young, so we’ve always been a small, tightly knit clan. 

I should’ve been more honest from the beginning. Instead I was obedient as usual.  I arrived a day early so I could spend a bit of time with a friend, brought running clothes so I could exercise, and even borrowed some baby bunnies for some fuzzy comfort. I felt like I had put as many coping devices in place as possible. 

The strangest thing is that while I was there, nothing very eventful happened. My mother is a generally kind and submissive person, and our only issues were quiet ones. She didn’t like that I went running because it meant time away from her, although she never did anything significant to prevent it. There were some moments during which I was disappointed not to be able to share myself with her, my struggles and deep thoughts, because her own manner of coping requires a certain level of superficiality. In the end, I think what weighed on me most was the knowledge that I literally meant everything to her. I was her one true human connection in the world, her source of security and joy. My father was never emotionally available to her when I was young, and I became a sort of emotional stand-in for him. There are more dynamics but I have no desire to put my parents’ failings onstage. I merely mention them as context for my reactions. They are well-intentioned people who had painful childhoods, did the best they could, but because they’d never faced their own demons were unempowered to prevent the creation of an emotionally abusive household. 

Every day I was there I could feel the burden of my parents’ happiness and security growing heavier, but I put on my game face and fought through to what I thought was the end.  I was taught to honor my parents. I’d learned not to make waves with them in order to survive, and those childhood patterns are incredibly difficult to break.  I didn’t have a therapist at that time to call and ask for advice. Perhaps if I’d been able to come home when I expected there would’ve been less fallout. Then again, perhaps not.  I probably would’ve been left alone at home while Keith worked, and as things worked out, I had more support than I ever could’ve anticipated. 

During the last couple days of our stay, during which Keith had originally planned to visit his family and a client in a neighboring city while I stayed with my own parents, things went awry.  My grandmother fell, and although she ended up being fine, it shook everyone up and delayed getting her apartment put together.  In the end I realized that I would have to stay for an extra week, even while I knew I couldn’t.  I felt the mask of my strength melting away and there was no outlet for my pent up emotions. In desperation I called my dear childhood friend and asked if I could stay with her for the extra week, and it was a matter of my salvation that she accepted me with open arms. She moved one of her girls into her own room and made up a bed while Keith and I pretended to say goodbye to my parents at the airport. Then Keith dropped me off at her house and went to take care of business. 

The friend with whom I stayed lives on a lovely little farm. They’d been her baby bunnies I’d borrowed, but she also cared for a plethora of rescued cats, several dogs, chickens, ducks and pigs. She’d also been through her own hard times, becoming a widow before the age of 40. The last time I’d stayed there I’d gone to be with her following her husband’s death. This time the tables were turned. 

Providentially, her adopted brother from California happened to be visiting at the same time. He has the heart of a healer, is a trained masseuse and is well-informed on natural health remedies. Perhaps more than anything, he has a soothing presence that was comforting and stabilizing. 

I don’t actually remember what happened at first when I got there. We probably talked, and then her brother (we’ll call him David) gave me a massage. I curled up on the bed afterward and laid there in the dark, but not for long. I was surprised to discover that I didn’t really want to be alone. I didn’t want to have to talk, but I wanted to have people around me. That was one of the miracles of the situation. No one there expected anything from me or was weirded out by the fact that I spent hours at a time curled up silently here or there, sometimes at someone’s feet. They’d go to the feed store and take me with them, or go with me for a walk, but I basically was allowed to simply exist. All of my energy had been spent, and I was entirely empty.  There were many hugs and shoulder rubs, and the oldest daughter kept bringing me baby bunnies to comfort me. 

One day David asked me if I was ready to give back to my parents the keys to their lives. I said “yes” and he walked me through an utterly spiritual visualization exercise in which I did so. I won’t give the details here, but I will tell you that it was profound, and one of the reasons I was able to continue breathing. 

“What?” You may ask. “No hysteria?  That doesn’t qualify as a nervous breakdown.”  Oh, my friend, it most certainly did. My body stopped digesting properly. I was constipated for five days and so I stopped eating. I didn’t really want food anyway. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was having a conversation in the kitchen with David one night and remember taking a deep breath and then…nothing. Fortunately he caught me because there were sharp corners everywhere. I just remember hearing a disembodied voice that sounded vaguely familiar, urgently calling for my friend. She’d already gone to bed but came back out, and I could hear them talking about me.
“She just wilted,” he said.
They tried to figure out what to do, and managed to get me to the bed. David asked me questions, and my answers were slurred. I could use my whole mouth but there simply wasn’t enough energy to form clear consonants. He took my pulse in both wrists; they put my feet up. I gradually came back around to thinking clearly, and we finally decided I should just go to bed. David won eternal citizenship in my heart by sleeping on a mattress on the floor next to me because I was scared. I woke up the next morning, shivering. It was July in Oklahoma and I was freezing cold. They immediately set to work making me food that wouldn’t clog up my works any further. I’ve got to say, that was the best oatmeal I’ve ever eaten in my life. The long and the short of it is that they cared for me. They nursed me, and didn’t freak out that I was in bad shape. I’ve rarely experienced that kind of unconditional acceptance and love. It was this compassion and affection that kept me from sliding further into the abyss, and I am fully aware of how fortunate I am. 

Months later the head of my department saw me at a meeting and said to herself, “Oh, dear!  We need to get her some support!”  I still had little life in my face, my steps, my shaking fingertips. 

So, what did having a breakdown feel like?  I don’t know about others’ experiences, but for me it felt like a complete absence of resources, as though the well from which I daily draw all my abilities and connections with the world, were utterly depleted. Forget creativity!  I had just barely enough energy to move air in and out of my lungs. The only energy I did have was frenetic and anxious, robbing me of sleep even when I was completely exhausted. 

It’s been a long road back. Some things that were lost haven’t yet returned. I lost some degree of manual dexterity. I lost the motivation to cook, and now I go by the grocery store on the way home and buy salads or salmon and roasted vegetables. I’m still not high on energy and I had to start taking anti-anxiety meds. But here’s something it might be helpful to know. I didn’t become stupid or oblivious to the effect I was having on others. I didn’t drool into a cup or become a completely different person than I was before. My essential “self ness” remained the same, but muted as though I were reaching out from a long distance. As I mentioned, I often wanted to be around safe, mellow people who wouldn’t make a big deal of how pale my life was. 

I guess I’m sharing this mostly because I don’t think a lot of people have felt comfortable being vulnerable about anything remotely related to mental illness. There’s still a stigma attached to it, and it’s not that I’m astoundingly courageous. I just want to be part of bringing more transparency to topics like this one. I know no other way to make progress against prejudice and fear. If you know someone who’s going through a hard time emotionally, whether due to loss or hardship or mental illness, try to imagine yourself in their shoes. I know that’s trite, but it still holds true. If you were 40 years old, had been raised as an only child in an emotionally abusive environment, had never learned any tools for drawing healthy boundaries, and felt completely responsible for your ailing parents’ security and happiness, how would you respond?  My situation was further complicated by my parents’ strict religious teachings, and the fact that not a single other person on earth ever witnessed the darker side of my family experience. My parents were well mannered and highly respected. 

I’ve wished sometimes that I were more rebellious. If I’d stood up earlier and defied them, maybe my life would’ve been easier. None of that matters, though. What matters is where I go from here. How do I take back my life?  How do I move forward, caring for these people who will almost certainly maintain the same behavior, and change my responses to them?  How do I allow this experience to make me a better person, with more empathy, more voice, more permission to be human?  These are the questions I face today. What about you?

by bcmiller2014

New Path

I’ve decided to take a new approach in my spiritual journey. I’m going to try believing what I actually believe instead of second guessing myself until I’m dizzy. I’m going to be willing to plant my feet to some degree, acknowledging that I don’t have a corner on all truth and maintaining an openness to conversation but refusing to be patronized. I’m going to attempt to give myself the same grace I give others, knowing I’m doing the best I can to be loving, kind and honest. If God has a problem with my beliefs he is surely big enough to get my attention and help me navigate in a new direction.  

I think I’ve simply reached the point of realizing that doing the same thing (that is, attempting to figure out a perfect theology with the goal of pleasing God enough that he will deign to become present to me) is far too close to insanity for my liking. I don’t even believe in that approach in my conscious mind. The problem is my subconscious programming that I must “get it right” or God won’t show up. Is he inscrutable?  Yes. I cannot understand him, but I do believe he is good in spite of all my railing, flailing and other expressions of frustration and desperation.  

I must say, it takes a very long time to overcome some of the embedded messages from childhood. It seems ludicrous, really, but I can hear my therapist’s voice in my head, reminding me not to judge. Healing takes time. Part of healing for me involves moving in a different direction. I know I have opinions with which others will disagree, and while I don’t savor the thought of being rejected, which does sometimes happen as a result of disagreement, I actually think it’s natural and healthy for people to have differing views. 

So self, listen up. Try to be kind to yourself. Do your best to just throw your perceptions in the air and trust God to catch them. In the meantime, it’s okay to put your feet on the ground in a solid pair of shoes and just stand there. Just be. Wait. Listen. Stay. When the voices come that tell you you’re going to hell for your flawed theology, turn around and tell them to talk to God about it, because those voices aren’t God. At least, they’re not the God you believe in, so stop and recognize that. Breathe. Accept comfort. Avoid comparing your journey to others’. Love. Try even loving yourself even though it feels stupid. That might be kind of important, but you have time to work on it. 

by bcmiller2014

Flail

For the last month I’ve been engaging in the various phases of a collosal flail. I didn’t even know before that there were stages to flailing, but it was initiated by grief and there are stages to that, so maybe that’s why. 

When my beloved seagulls were displaced so casually from the roof across from ours, it triggered me in emotional ways I still don’t fully comprehend. I do know that watching their annual cycles had become a major way by which I measured the progression of my life. Their schedule was dependable in a chaotic world. I’d also come to think of them as a connection between God and myself. Their welfare had been previously threatened and I’d cursed and prayed helplessly from my window. Time and again they were spared and I began to think that perhaps God actually cared about things that I care about. 

When they were ousted my entire confidence in that single, seemingly tangible connection was lost. I know it sounds silly.  I guess it is, really, but it was my experience, just the same. I became uncertain of anything I’d been certain of, which wasn’t very much in the first place. I’d already been questioning many of my prior beliefs and reforming my thoughts on life and reality. 

I was reminded this week, however, that I’m still certain of a handful of things that hold great significance to me. I’m still certain of the central importance of love, mercy, justice, and humility. I’ve also been reminded of the presence in my life of a couple relationships through which I’ve been given comfort and wisdom in quite fatherly ways. They are healthy relationships with caring men who actually want me to talk with them.  I choose to believe that this is God reaching out to me in a healing way. 

I think I’ve often measured my own relationship with God by comparing it with what I’ve seen of God’s interactions with other people. Their communication has seemed so intimate that at times I’ve been jealous, feeling shut out once again from having an emotional bond with any kind of father. I’ve prayed, begged, repented, waited, gotten prayer, tried not to try so hard, and continued to worship God even though he’s seemed far away and inaccessible. I’ve chosen to believe even against my own sense of judgment and good sense, because despite myself I cannot escape the desire for connection with him. 

A few comforting thoughts have slowly risen to the top this week as I’ve continued to flail. I already mentioned some helpful relationships. Every time I lie down on the chiropractor’s table I feel the gift of comfort and am reminded to open my heart and receive it. When I am able to talk through my quandaries with my therapist I’m reminded that I’m not alone in my journey to figure out how to live. When I teach I’m reminded that there is no one perfect way to think. There is no perfect perspective of God because the best of us see through the filters of our own knowledge and experience. Each of us is allowed and even expected to have our own thoughts or we’d not have been made with free will. I’ve even considered that the mixture of love and grief with which I view the world in its brokenness may be something I have in common with God, which would mean that he and I really may care about some of the same things. If he is kind in the all-encompassing, galaxy-rocking way that I hope he is, then he cares about every single creature with more clarity and insight than I will ever have. 

I’m still a big jumbled mess when it comes to my thoughts about the Bible and how much God is really involved in our daily lives. At least, however, I haven’t been left alone to both figure it out and let it go. A certain amount of mystery is to be expected and even embraced in life, and at times my need to understand has undermined my emotional health by rejecting this reality. 

Eventually we’ll move to another condo and I won’t have to look at the empty roof across the street, and maybe in the meantime I’ll have learned just a bit more how to embrace uncertainty, love, and my own unique experience with an invisible God who may well choose to speak to me in ways that are different than those he uses with other people. I’d love to think that along with the painful, protracted wrestling that is life can come the reward of becoming more fully oneself, connected, free, and fully loved. 

by bcmiller2014

Belief

I find I’m coming to be an avant garde kind of Christian who may quite possibly be considered no Christian at all by people I do and don’t know. I persist, however, in believing in Jesus, so I myself am unable to fully separate myself from the term “Christian” even though I find some supposedly Christian views to be in direct opposition to the person I believe Jesus to be. 

I believe in God and I believe he is good. He made the universe out of an overabundance of love. I believe he made us and when he said we should have “dominion” over the natural world he meant we should serve it and care for it, or else the leadership style of Jesus means nothing. I believe Jesus is the son of God and provides a bridge between ourselves and father God, but I also believe that anyone who is truly seeking for God in love and truth will be able to spend eternity with him, no matter their faith background. No one can serve darkness with a pure heart, so I believe there are people serving the triune God who may not even know they’re doing so. Hell is only a place where people can go if they choose not to be with God. He will not force himself on anyone, so the only people who go to hell are the people who decide to do so. 

I adamantly refuse to believe that God allows suffering so our characters will improve. He does sometimes end up improving our characters when we’re in the midst of suffering, but that’s because he specializes in making good come from bad things. It’s not because he planned for disaster to happen for our spiritual “benefit”. Birth defects are not the equivalent of an ethics and moral compass lesson. They’re tragedies, as are the rest of the diseases, wars, social injustices and the rampant destruction of the natural world. 

I don’t know why he sometimes answers prayer and sometimes doesn’t. He’s a deity. I suppose it’s his prerogative. I do have to admit, however, that his seemingly unpredictable nature leaves me feeling insecure, even while I admit that in the balance between my knowledge and God’s, he will certainly win.  This is why I still think he is good. My understanding  is practically inconsequential when determining the character of someone who happens to be infinite. As such, he did create a stunningly gorgeous and bizarre stage on which our little human dramas play out, and for this I am grateful. I do believe we mucked up his original intentions for the place, although he must’ve known we’d do it. He made us anyway, which means he’s a hell of a lot more sure of his plans than I am. 

And by the way, I don’t see how the fact that something is divinely inspired (in this case, the Bible) means that it’s perfect. Artists and poets and musicians are divinely inspired all the time, and it doesn’t mean there aren’t any errors in the work. In addition, we have over a dozen versions of the Bible and each of them focuses on different things. We’d need to know Hebrew to have even a shot at a correct-type interpretation. The stories recorded were placed in a particular time and culture. How do we manage to take these stories and mold them into messages that promote discrimination, homophobia, mysogeny, and other acts that are not initiated by love, when Jesus was himself the embodiment of love?  He never became infuriated by anyone but the religious leaders of the day. I believe that if we’re really going to follow God, pride, self-importance, greed and cruelty must be abandoned. Pride is a big one, which I believe the church as a whole has tripped over for millennia. We can become so certain of our own views and correctness that we forget the main point of the whole story I think the Bible is ultimately trying to tell. Jesus himself gave us the most important rules to follow, which are to love God and each other. And what does God require but justice, mercy and humility (rough translation)?  These are my cornerstones.  

I freely admit to being scared of God, which emotion I’m supposedly supposed to both feel and not feel, having both the fear of God and having been perfected by love which casts out fear. God is love, but fearing him is the beginning of wisdom. I know there are different translations of fear in this context which makes me refer back to my earlier statement about needing to study the Bible in Hebrew.  Figuring out who God is feels like trying to package the Milky Way so it will fit in my kitchen cupboard. He’s enormous and mysterious and loving and inscrutable and odd. If you don’t think he’s odd, take a look at those fish that live in the dark and are made of teeth, except for one glowing lure right in the front. Weird. So I guess the fact that I can’t figure him out is actually quite reasonable. 

I must admit, I like the idea of knowing him as a person, which some have interpreted to be possible. I also have to admit I feel very much like the main character in that old animated film called “Antz”.  The main character is talking to his therapist and saying something like, “I just feel so desperate to do something important with my life but I can’t escape the feeling that I’m insignificant.”

“This is wonderful!” the therapist replies. “You’ve made a breakthrough!”

“I have?” replied the ant. 

“Yes! The therapist continues, throwing open the window curtains to reveal the outside world.  “You ARE insignificant!” he says. 

Perhaps someday God will respond to this desire of mine to know him in what appears to me now to be a ludicrously personal way. If so, he will have affirmed his weirdness and a crazy streak of affection for minuscule things. I, however, cannot make this happen. No amount of studying supposed facts about his character is going to substitute for him stepping into my life in a perceptible way and saying something like, “Hey. What’s up?  What’s going on in your heart and mind?  Why don’t we go get some fair trade, organic tea in a compostable mug at a family-owned shop (because I don’t support child labor or slavery or racial inequity or wanton destruction of people or natural environments)?  I think I’d like that. 

by bcmiller2014

Scrambled Eggs

Okay, I know what everyone else has figured out already. Getting upset about the seagulls wasn’t just about the seagulls. The problem is that I don’t understand what it really is about. I’m pretty darned tuned into the universe so I suppose part of it could be about hearing the earth groan all the time. It could be about all the devastation humans wreak on each other and the planet. It could be about watching my mother suffer all her life, or watching my dad give up all his dreams, or being their “all we’ve got in the world.” It could have something to do with being married to my dear husband for over 18 years and still dealing with a multitude of issues around physical intimacy. Perhaps it’s about being rejected and/or misunderstood by my in-laws, having little family of my own and feeling sort of alone. Adopted family is great, but it’s never quite the same, is it? It could be related to my desire to create, always thwarted by my need to earn a stable income and teach others how to be more creative. I’m writing a terribly depressing paper about the unseen human costs of cheap production of goods, demanded by people who expect rock bottom prices so they can take mission trips to help the poor, when the truth is, the demand for low prices is creating most of the poor, supporting slavery and child labor, and decimating the environment the most for persons of color and few economic resources. Is it about all that? I almost cried when someone let me pet their dog today. I cried at a commercial on T.V. I’m walking with a limp.

It’s not as though any of the above is new information. I think that’s why I’m confused. I’ve understood and accepted all of this and more. So why now has my body decided to grieve?

Maybe the seagulls were the last straw-the latest instance in which love has failed and suffering has won the day. It was in my face, a blatant violation of one of the factors that has allowed me to continue thinking that living on earth is something I can accomplish without being completely destroyed. My seagulls were stability. They were hope. I counted on the ritual of their lives as one of the anchors in my universe. And yes, I know seagulls don’t live as long as us and are susceptible to tragedy like everyone else. I worried about it, but to see their home destroyed so carelessly, thrown in the trash as though everything beautiful and precious to me were worthless shit to be taken away in just a matter of time. That surprised me.

We are promised nothing while we’re here. God says he’ll be with us, but I don’t understand him. Some of my friends think he’s attempting to perfect us by allowing a series of afflictions, and it’s all for our own good. Some people say he’s in control of everything, and everything happens for a purpose. To this I say, “bullshit.” I think shit just happens. I’m not interested in a God who allows birth defects so we’ll gain character. There’s got to be something I’m missing, but if God actually wants relationship with me he’s going to have to do more than meet me halfway. He’s God, after all, and I have the stature of a flea when it comes to the size of the universe. So I guess I’ll just wait here and send this invitation out into the spiritual dimension. God, I need you to show up. You owe me nothing. I’m sort of banking on the “God is love” theme being true, even though I have no idea how that actually works. Without something outside of and greater than myself to give meaning to this brief, astounding and devastating life, I’ve got nothing. I never believed in that whole idea that children give a person a sort of immortality, and I don’t even have kids. Maybe the point is in loving each other, but we’ve proven we all suck at that. I do have a lot to be grateful for. I didn’t haul my water from a dirty river today. I’m not living in a war zone. I can move around and do stuff. I need more. If you’re the one who decided I’d be a deep thinker then it’s your own damn fault. If all we have is this breath then I need you to show me what that breath is for. I’m asking for your help when I know I deserve nothing. I’m asking anyway. What the hell. It never hurts to ask, right?

by bcmiller2014

Something Lost

I’ve lost something but I don’t know what it is. I’m crying, all a mess, hands over my face and alternately grabbing for Kleenex. I saw a video about Orca whales. That started it, but I haven’t had any Orca-related trauma recently. I watched a video by a young man who researched the Bible for the context of six references to homosexuality. I cried then, too. I am asexual to a great degree, so I suppose I fit on the spectrum, but not anywhere that I catch flack for it. I’m married. No one really knew until I wrote this. I lost my seagulls last weekend, or at least, my assurance of their safety. That one hurt, as I’ve watched them hatch fledglings for years and given all of them names. But today was plain. I walked to a field trip, took the bus, taught a class, and received some books for a research project. Yet here I am, blubbering away, alone on the sofa. 

If anyone knows what it is that I’ve lost, I’m open to suggestion. I think it has something to do with safety, and something to do with love. That’s as much as I’ve got. 

I’m supposed to be researching for an upcoming presentation on the unseen costs of cheap production. Am I simply in tune with all there is to grieve in the world?  Am I afraid we are losing the Orcas like we lost my seagull nest, tossed in the garbage for convenience?  Am I sad at the long years I wasted, convinced that God held some special sort of antipathy toward gays?  And how then did he feel about me, off the purple end and having no children, either?  Why does this continue to shame me when I know in my heart it was the right thing to (not) do?

I do not know. I’ll keep the Kleenex handy, give up my books and have popcorn for dinner. Whatever I’ve lost, it’s taken my research drive with it. 

by bcmiller2014

Painful Love

They scraped away the seagull nest on the building across from mine. I was going into the kitchen when I noticed him, the maintenance man up on the part of the roof that no one had ever been on before. He stared at the green mound and then kicked it with the toe of his boot. 

I’m not unaware of the difficulties associated with seagulls. I’m also not unaware of the difficulties associated with humans. We’re the ones who removed the trees, toxified the water sources and put plastic into the mainstream animal diet. Compared to that, I think a few issues with seagull feces are relatively minor. 

The pair of seagulls who’ve nested on that site have been there for at least eight years. We’ve watched them take turns, never leaving the eggs alone. They’ve warded off eagles and annoyed a few humans who wanted to smoke on the roof. One of the most hateful grabbed a two-by-four and tried to strike the protective seagull down. Of course, I was yelling and gesticulating wildly in my unit across the street, wishing for a zip line over there so I could give that man a piece of my mind. 

Every year we name the babies. One year I was especially worried that something bad would happen to the sole fledgling and I named her Fly, in hope that it would be a prophecy of sorts. Usually baby seagulls take time to figure out the whole flying business. The babies hop-hop-hop and flap their wings. Then they graduate to short trips around the roof before taking off after one of the parents, toward the Puget Sound. Fly skipped all the steps and went successfully and directly to full and comfortable flight. She looked around as if to say, “Yeah. I was born for this.”  

Some years there have been three babies, and then I focus extra prayer on the underdog. One is always dominant, then there’s the head honcho’s buddy, and then there’s the free spirit. S/he’s typically a little more submissive. I worry about that one the most. But every year since we moved here, we’ve never lost a baby. I know it’s the same pair of parents, too, because the papa has a gimpy foot. 

Seagulls are loyal, protective, and downright beautiful. I love them. I actually love most all of the animals. I can’t help it. I love the plants, too. I’ve been known to hug a tree. 

Someone once said to me that if she loved all the animals as much as she loved the humans, she wouldn’t know what would happen to her. In the context of the conversation I think she was assuming that I, therefore, must not love humans very much. For the record, I do love humans. The fact that I’m infinitely grieved by the ways in which we selfishly despoil environments across the globe in our constant battle for economic supremacy notwithstanding, I love humans as individuals. I have many friends. I love my students, coworkers, and even my dear and difficult family. I guess then, that I am evidence of what happens to a person who can’t help but love with abandon. 

I can hear the groaning of the earth, feel it shift in discomfort under my feet. When I hold a baby rabbit, which is one of my favorite things in the world to do, I am at once delighted by the sweet and vibrant life in my hands. I treasure the ears, the twitching nose, and the big thumper feet. Simultaneously I am deeply saddened because I know that this tiny life is fragile. Everything eats rabbits. They aren’t known to be hardy. It is guaranteed that this one precious life will suffer pain and cry out in fear. There is no way of guaranteeing otherwise. It’s the way of earth, as it is, and I do not believe it is as God intended. It’s a product of human intervention, and God’s way of compensating. Every time I see a freshly developed construction site, with its felled trees and uprooted daisies, I grieve. 

Now, the point of this is not to say, “Poor me. How unfortunately perceptive I am.”  The point is that there is a price to love. The truth is, every time we love anyone or anything we are opening ourselves to loss and pain. Those of us more inherently in tune with the natural world are perhaps most aware of this, because loss is so frequent. Nevertheless, it’s true for all. Some losses are more painful than others. My little white cat keeps nuzzling my hand while I write. Assuming she dies before I do, I will be wrecked. 

That’s how I feel about my seagulls. If they rebuild the nest and maintenance decides to destroy it again and kill the babies I will be absolutely beside myself. I’ll probably have to take off of work. I think we may have to say goodbye to them and move, just to protect my sanity. 

So yeah, I love just about everything and I deal with depression and anxiety. There are other reasons for this, of course, but my big love (for which I can’t claim credit, having been born this way) plays a part. Here’s the thing, though. I wouldn’t change it if I could. I can’t bear the thought of not appreciating all that is wonderful in the world, including you, even if it means I have to pay in the end. 

I’m hoping I got this from God. I’m hoping he feels like this, too, and that somehow he’s going to make everything right. I’m banking on it, because if Love is the source of the universe, s/he’s not going to bear suffering forever. Someday she’s going to say “enough,” and all the rabbits and the seagulls will be fearless. And selfishly, the ever-ache in my heart will be gone. Until then I will groan with the world and keep learning to love more selflessly, because it’s the only reason to live.