Let me out of my life

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being yourself, change, dreams coming true, express feelings, fear, Goodworks, higher power, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, Quaker Meeting, security, teacher, trust, words, writing

Yesterday, Sunday, I wrote this.

I have no desire to run into myself today, in fact, I am actively trying to run away, hide, be somewhere where I won’t know what’s on my mind. Others drink, I hide. So at the Quaker Meeting, (and really I didn’t even want to be here because I know that just like when I was a kid, alone in Arden, there is nowhere to go to get away from myself), I sit on the back bench in the corner, eyes wide open hoping to stay present and aware of today, and not fall backwards into memories of what once was. Typically, like most everyone else my eyes are closed, but not today.

Working on my memoir, rewriting it, re-reading it, reliving all the old stories, and tough ones too, is tricky. Reading in detail scenes of me as a young adult afraid my father would stalk and kill me, or remembering finding people for the first time I felt I could trust, and remembering the isolation of a whole childhood, immersing myself in all that so I can tell it to you clearly and accurately, so you can feel the story, too, is dangerous. It’s hard not to relive a little of it and forget that it is all history and no longer really my life. Oh, I wish I could say I don’t suffer from any of that anymore but I do. I do all the time, just not so acutely.

So I am sitting in a back corner of the Meeting House now as I scratch this out on a shred of paper, trying to put myself back together after another early morning session of working on my manuscript. It’s okay, I tell myself, things are different now. I am able to relate, able to feel, able to be, so much better. Yesterday at Goodworks, where we make houses safer, dryer and warmer, I eagerly volunteered to go under a deck in the mud on my belly, with Ed my new friend, to jack it up and put in a new 4×4 support at a joist to lift the sagging boards. I loved it. Thank you, God, I loved doing that. I loved it because of getting dirty, and accomplishing a task with a team, of helping, of it raining and me getting to be among the elements, of comraderie and discipline and patience, and hardly any of that was for the homeowner whose home we were improving.

Earlier this week I told the ten-minute version of my life story to a gentleman I am trying to help through my church, who otherwise would have no way of knowing who I am. I tried to explain why I am so passionate about the things I chose to do. How I feel alone and want to connect. Oh, he felt my passion to help he said, the first time we met weeks earlier, but now he understands it better. I opened my 1983 personal bookkeeping records and walked him through my finances for that year. All I did is read each line, $65 for gas this month, $385 for rent, etc. to show how to make a budget using actual people’s real numbers. Then we moved on to 1990 where I had assets beyond my engagement and wedding rings, and the record was typed and not handwritten. By 1996, it was computer generated and I had Certificates of Deposit. I spent twenty minutes discussing everything I know about how CD’s work before our time was up. The gentleman wondered if we could do this again, and next time maybe discuss money market accounts. I have no special financial training but it seems my past isolation has led me to keep careful records, always aware I am on my own with no one out there to catch me if I fall. But I love life in the moments that I am sharing what I know.

I do these kinds of things to feel like I am part of the human race. To be one of the people who helps and not a lonely person at home disconnected and confused even though that is the default world I sometimes live in when I read my own book too much. Because that is how it used to be.

At the Meeting House I would crawl into the corner behind me and exit my life if I thought I could, because working on my book is hard. But I am determined to finish this year and get it off to publishers and be done with this phase of telling my story. I’ve got my eyes open at Meeting today because I just don’t want to look back.

Today at the Quaker Meeting

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being yourself, express feelings, friendship, inspire, joy, mother, parents, Quaker Meeting

I occasionally say something at the Quaker Meeting when I go, but rarely. Today I felt like standing up and offering my thoughts.

I was very emotional when I said these words and I had to stop a few times to compose myself and to steady my voice because what I said felt hard to admit. It’s nothing new, I say this stuff all the time, but in the setting of the meeting house where there is great respect for sharing honest thoughts from the heart I felt a reverence for the truth in my words, and I cared about the fact that everyone hears that when you speak.

I want to tell you what’s on my mind this morning so I hope you’ll bear with me while I try to tell it. I was one of the people who came in late to Meeting this morning, so I just want to say thank you to everyone for being here, but especially to those who came in late because I appreciate that you decided to come at all. I got up this morning and felt strongly compelled to be here today and I think that is because of a phone call I got last night. It was my mother’s dear friend, a lifelong friend really, who wants to stay in touch with me even though my parents are long gone. She appreciates our family and staying in touch with me helps her keep a connection with my parents whom she loved. I don’t have family anymore because my mother died six years ago and my father four, and my sisters and brothers are gone because our parents fostered a distrust amongst us so we are all on our own now. My mom was an orphan so a whole side of the family is missing, and my dad had two sisters, but one is gone and the other ran away. I really don’t have much family at this point, besides my husband’s family (who are wonderful). So it matters to me a lot that Shay, my mother’s friends called last night. It reminded me of the strength of the bonds that are formed in our spiritual communities since she is a friend made through the church that I attended growing up. I went to my other church this morning as well, the Presbyterian church, where we’ve had a big ugly fight and half the congregation left to make their own church elsewhere. Things are much better now. When I went there, and in coming here, I look around and see the faces of people I have known and who have known me for many years. Since I don’t have the extended family it matters to me that there are people from my past still with me. I look to my spiritual communities for this kind of connection. So I appreciate all the people that are here today because you are the witness to what I want to say, and because you bothered to be here for me. I wrote a book about my life, about the path I’ve been on so far, which is my way of telling people what is on my mind. That’s what I’m doing this morning as well, just saying what’s on my mind.

The message that followed mine was about what it means to be silent in meeting and how we support one another through the simple act of our presence, and another was about offering hugs as a means of support. Lots of people gave me hugs after meeting for worship today.

Running away from my past

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being yourself, change, control, dreams coming true, express feelings, fear, goals, higher power, inspire, joy, Quaker Meeting, security, sit in silence, trust

I reached adulthood pretty confused and sad and emotionally unprepared to be there. All of this leads me to feel it would be nice if we offered clarity to our children as they grow, and not uncertainty and fears. This is what drives me to go out and speak to the mothers and fathers of children, to alert them to the powerful role they play in their children’s lives. In case they didn’t realize. Because not everyone does.

A few weeks ago I sat at the Quaker Meeting on the back bench. I went there knowing I had a lot on my mind, and when you sit in silence you frequently run into yourself with nowhere to go. That’s what happened. I couldn’t stop the ideas in my head that had me running, dashing really, away from my family of origin and all the ideas that have held me back in life. Even though it is scary I saw myself, finally, accepting the outstretched hands of people who want to help me, and who are happy to have me be me. It’s not easy to do this. It’s taken forever for me to think I can turn my back on people and ideas that aren’t good for me, because forever that is where I have placed my trust, and trust in the future as I see it.

It was a long silence for me and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

My embarrassing Presbyterian showdown

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being yourself, change, control, differences, express feelings, fear, forgiveness, higher power, inspire, Presbyterian Church, Quaker Meeting, shun, words

It feels as if I will be saying goodbye to my dear old friend, my church, today. Literally my religion is going somewhere else. While I have been spending the greater number of Sundays attending the Quaker Meeting in town, my still frequently-important-to-me but former Presbyterian church in town, is having a crisis. Today we vote on whether we should break from our roots and become aligned with the evangelists sect or not. If the vote is to become more evangelical, then many people, myself included, will move on. Our local society of friends, the Presbyterians of years collected, will disband in part because we disagree on how to best praise God, and who is allowed to do what in our midst.

Now across the street at the Quaker Meeting this would never happen. Quakers allow change, we are tolerant of differences, and we expect us all to share critical similarities simply because we are all humans engaged in the struggle of life the best we can. Our dissimilarities are appreciated for how they bring new awareness to one another, and ironically, the Quakers no longer shun those who are different.

So, I will step into the Presbyterian showdown this morning and cast my vote that we not disband because we disagree, but my expectations are low that any of this matters. To praise God, to love life, we have to accept what God has given us, and that is people who are different but fundamentally quite the same.