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Holy Ghost Girl

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2tLGUVFAOKk/TryCpK3CTmI/AAAAAAAAAy4/fh54aMHn_Co/s400/holy%2Bghost%2Bgirl.jpgI just finished this fascinating memoir of a childhood spent on the road with a revival ministry.  I appreciate the non-judgmental tone of the author. The detailed descriptions of the services that she sat through night after night provided a glimpse of this slice of American history.

I was reminded that things are seldom black and white.  On one hand Johnson witnesses miracles and exorcisms.  On the other hand bigotry and adultery by the evangelist.

I would have been tempted to comment on this inconsistency.  And I will!  I was reminded that appearances are deceiving.  There is a lot in this book that reminds me of Charismatics I have encountered.  The difference for me has been that as an adult I can walk away.  The author of this book didn’t have that option.

I would recommend this book for book clubs. I would have enjoyed discussing some of the themes in it with a group.  I would love to hear from anyone who has read it.  We can discuss it here.

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Committed

I have just finished reading the book Committed, A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame.  I didn’t read her blockbuster so I wasn’t really familiar with her writing style.  I completed enjoyed the book.  Gilbert, does a great job of giving the background on marriage and shows how it has changed throughout history.

With a daughter getting married this year, the whole topic of marriage is on my mind.  I’ve been married for 27 years and so I feel like I have some understanding of what is involved.  I do know though that every marriage is a private and personal world that is co-created by two unique individuals.  No religion or political party can ultimately control what happens in that relationship.

I like how Gilbert makes peace with her own views on marriage.  I found this book well worth reading. It was especially eye opening for me around ‘Christian’ marriage.  As Gilbert writes, ” One the authorities have failed at eliminating marriage, and once they have failed at controlling marriage, they give up and embrace the matrimonial tradition completely. …But then comes a more curious stage: Like clockwork, going so far as to pretend that they invented marriage in the first place.  This is what conservative Christian leadership has been doing in the Western world for several centuries now – acting as though they personally created  the whole tradition of marriage when in fact their religion began with a serious attack on marriage and family values (p.263).’

Wow – I recommend you read the book to find out the context for that quote.

Another quote from the book that I liked:

Of all the actions of a man’s life, his marriage does least concern other people, yet of all the actions of our life, ’tis the most meddled with by other people. – John Selden, 1689

I don’t think I’ll give this book to my daughter yet – a lot of what Gilbert writes about needs to be viewed with perspective.  Love is blind and maybe when it comes to marriage that can be a good thing.  We all need to find our own way in this mysterious union between two people that we seem driven to desire.

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Stop Arguing about Truth

I just came across one of those paragraphs in a book that I read, reread and then had to blog about!

Several years ago, organizational theorist Karl Weick called attention to enactment in organizations – how we participate in the creation of organizational realities.  “The environment that the organization worries about is put there by the organization,” he observed, adding that if we acknowledge the role we play in this creation, it changes the things we talk and argue about.  If we create the environment, how can we argue about it’s objective features, or about what’s true or false? Instead, Weick encouraged us to focus our concerns on issues of effectiveness, on questions of what happened, and what actions might have served us better. We could stop arguing about truth and get on with figuring what works best.  (quoted in Leadership and The New Science by Margaret Wheatley, p.37).

I feel like this has been my experience this past year.  Lots of anger and hurt feelings over decisions that everyone participated in creating that led to a pretty negative outcome.  It might be time to stop arguing about truth and take a look inside.  We’ve been asking the wrong questions.

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Everything Is A Mess

I’m doing some serious business planning these days.  I’ve quit a job I’ve been doing for a couple of years.  I’m rebuilding my business and I’m excited about what’s coming.  I’m also feeling discombobulated.  Well, maybe not quite discombobulated but certainly ‘out of sorts’.  I really just like using that word if possible.

One thing I have learned in my journey so far is:  Change is always messiest in the middle.

My husband is painting a room in our home right now.  It is a perfect example for me of the mess of change.  The planning for his home office/guest bedroom wasn’t messy at all.  We talked about what we would do and then he went and picked the paint colour.  Then I went back to the store with him and picked out the right paint colour. OK – that could have been a little messy but after being married this long he knows when to let me have my way.

Yesterday, the room was dismantled, the walls washed, trim taped and some sanding done.  You know how that goes.  Everything small enough to be carried out of the room is now redistributed in other rooms in our house and today the painting starts.  The plan is to have everything back in place by the end of the week.

For now, things are messy.  

It is a metaphor for my life right now.  I’m in the middle of the mess.  I’ve got an idea of what the end product will look like but it has involved tearing apart a lot of things.  The difficult thing about life change is that it usually goes on for quite a bit longer than a week.

I read quote recently, “To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.  Henri Bergson, French Philosopher.

I have no idea when all the parts will be put back in place.  In the mean time I just have to keep working at it.  Keep preparing the room and taking the time to make sure I don’t rush the change but take the time needed to really ask all the questions to make sure that I don’t miss anything important as I move forward.  I don’t want to paint myself into a corner or paint around the furniture.

If things feel messy in your life right now that’s OK.  You are probably in the middle of something.  Trust the process.

 

 

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The Real Me

This summer I returned to school When I was doing the residency for my MA this summer, one of the faculty asked me the question, “What would it take for the real you to show up?“  I was taken aback by this question. The context was a discussion we were having about my realization that my personal values didn’t line up with the corporate values of a client. As time went on I was feeling more and more tension with this client and wanted to make a decision.

Her question has stuck with me.  I find myself asking it over and over again.  In recent years I have spent a lot of time showing up for other people, showing up how I think other people want me to show up and avoiding showing up as me altogether. Some where along the way I got the idea that to say what I want and to focus on who I am was selfish.  I’ve made some big decisions since my residency. I am bringing closure to some areas of my life.  I realize some relationships are not allowing me to flourish.  I need to find a way for the real me to show up.  Is that selfish?  I don’t know.  Is it honest?  Yes.

This year has been about change and transition.  I’ve been blessed with an opportunity to step out of a sub-culture that was suffocating me.  I’ve been able to have a TOOT (time out of time) to really think about who I am and where I am going and how to walk with integrity.  It’s really easy to get caught up in doing things just because you don’t want to let other people down or for them to think less of you.  If I am only showing a part of myself then thinking less of me might be threatening.  If I show up authentically and you think less of me – well, that’s OK.  At least you made the decision on something that was true.

“Above all, do not appear to others what you are not.” – Robert E. Lee