Angry. Really?

Friday night I played a mindless game on my phone long past bedtime. Finally setting it aside, I cleaned my teeth and prepared for sleep. Since I try to avoid such traps, I wondered about having succumbing to the game's lure. “I’m angry,” came a quick answer. Really? Letting the possibility roll around in my mind, I realized that, yes, I was angry. But why?

I guess I was bothered about feeling fatigued on returning from my camping trip to see daughter Kay in Door County. It had hardly been strenuous. Gentle walks each day, plenty of sleep, a modest amount of social interaction. Why was I so tired? Instead of getting the tent and other camping gear cleaned up and arranged on the shelf in the garage, I lounged around, listening to my body. I put away a few things between extended breaks and told myself that this would do for now. Yet I felt frustrated. (One.)

While vacationing, I recycled unopened most of what arrived in my Gmail Inbox. Now back at the house, I read a perfectly fine email, a query that got me thinking about tasks I’d been avoiding either doing or thinking about. None of it is bad, just uncomfortable with a fair amount of uncertainty. Not sure how to proceed, I’ve lacked motivation and have delayed taking action. Maybe it’s time to proceed even without clarity. Sigh. (Two.)

A pervasive swirl of feelings regarding my solitary state shelters (usually) below my awareness. Most of the time, I enjoy my life and find solitude of my own choosing satisfying. But after a point, aloneness becomes excessive. (After the isolation of the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, many of you are probably nodding in understanding.) We Homo sapiens thrive in the society of others. To be deprived of companionship can be torturous. But for me, family is far away. And I’m cautious of overwhelming a friend. 

With the returning energy of healing, I returned to substitute teaching last winter. Getting into the classroom once or twice a week and working with the youngsters there was wonderful! While I barely spoke with adults, subbing fed my need for connection. Sadly, frustratingly (there’s that word again) I noticed by spring how easily my autistic mind can become overloaded. Similarly to how someone with chronic fatigue will need to ration their physical activity, I need to ration my social activity. Even one engagement beyond my regular weekly activities and connections can put me over the edge. Again, sigh. (Three.)

There’s more, of course – mass graves in Ukraine, melting ice sheets, pets treated poorly – but this was enough for me to concede to being angry. As I lay there in the dark, I recalled a journaling exercise I’d once used. I wrote “I’m angry…” then for three minutes wrote of things that angered me, shocked at how easily I filled the page. The words just kept coming. But I was cozy in bed now so, no, not this time. Thankfully, by acknowledging my frustrations I was able to set them aside and sleep.

What bothered me about Friday’s experience was that I didn’t know I was angry. It seems I still don’t have a healthy relationship with the emotion. In my early years, I learned to pretend that anger wasn’t present. Later, a slow-simmering anger punctuated by occasional blowups pervaded my marriage. After leaving that relationship anger seemed to vanish. But while I couldn't recognize it, Kay could and I learned to trust her awareness. Now, alone, I often miss the signs.

Friday the anger snuck in unobserved. If it had spilled the tea and generally made a mess of everything, that would have been unpleasant but I’d have known. And knowing, I could have worked through my frustrations rather than employing a trick to distract myself from them. (As we all know, that works only for as long as the distraction lasts.)

Reading Richard Rohr’s devotion for Sunday reminded me to keep practicing letting go of those things I cannot change. Frustration about chronic conditions or loneliness is understandable but it does nothing for my peace of mind. Such things are a part of my life as much as shared stories and laughter with my daughter or a sense of wonder on wandering through a forested campground after dark. 

Life as a Pilgrim

Yesterday was my sabbath, the day I practice doing as much nothing as I possibly can, so as to rest in God’s presentness and to “test the premise that I am worth more than what I can produce—that even if I spent one whole day being good for nothing I would still be precious in God’s sight.”[1]

I say practice both because it’s a discipline – an exercise one does regularly, like wrestling, singing or meditation – for the purpose of growing in “skill” (hence the lower-case “s”), and because I’m not especially good at either doing nothing or making time for doing it.

One thing I did was to work on my “Life Abundant” list (more on this another time). Then, I turned to the next page in the black and white composition book and started a Bucket List. I'd made one of these a few years ago, and I thought it might be interesting to make another and compare the two. Yet after writing four goals, I couldn’t think of another. I wondered what that means about me.

On sabbath days, I’m often at loose-ends, so at this point, I pulled out a book that’s been on my shelf about five years. I bought it on a particularly blustery day when Kay and I were camping near Bayfield. We'd gone to the Apostle Islands Booksellers where I bought a pair of books. I liked the cover art for The Art of Pilgrimage, and its topic intrigued me but, until yesterday, I’d never made it past the Introduction. 

I’m sabbathing (and at loose-ends), and I’m preparing for a trip that self-identifies as a pilgrimage (more on that one another day, too) and this book is on the reading list. It seemed like a thing to do.

Skip ahead about an hour. The Introduction is behind me. Among other things, I’ve read that pilgrimage is “a transformative journey to a sacred center.”[2] I've begun to learn things about the nature of travel, about the search for the sacred all around us, and about myself.

I now see that my flight to Navajoland after graduating from college was at least somewhat a pilgrimage. Backpacking the high country of Yosemite was also pilgrimage, thought I recognized neither by this name at the time. Also pilgrimage was standing in awe and trembling in front of a pair of Gutenberg bibles in Mainz, and in that stairwell in Florence gazing at that other Pieta (The Deposition).

When you're someone who is eagerly curious, you will seldom, if ever, be bored. Yesterday, the topic was pilgrimage. What will it be tomorrow?

–––– 

[1] From Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, edited to 1st-person
[2] Phil Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker's Guide to Making Travel Sacred.

a slightly leaky tent

We’re back from one last camping trip before Kay begins her first semester at Lawrence University next month. We had a fine time, even with repeated evening rains and days cool enough that the mosquitoes weren’t out.

One afternoon as it grew dark, we took our food and games into the tent. Through the next few hours as the rain alternated between hard and harder, we played gin rummy, ate, laughed and talked. But Kay would regularly look at the screening above her sleeping bag to see if water had started leaking in.

You see, I'd used our new tent during a conference event in June. I'd been thankful it assembled easily, but then forgot about it, using it only as a place to sleep and prepare for the day. Until I took it down. Then I saw a small hole on the fly and a streaking snag with a couple pinholes in it.

For all you non-tenters, the fly is the cloth piece that attaches over the tent to protect it and us – hopefully – from the weather. Looking around on the ground – and finding a 6-inch pine cone – I realized that pitching the tent under this white pine wasn’t my best idea.

I hadn’t made the effort to order patching since then. So this rain was a test. The results were good – not perfect, but good. The washcloth placed under the hole got only a bit damp despite hours of rain. I still need to buy patching material, but at least we didn’t get soaked.

Do you practice not taking it personally when someone offers harsh critique or criticism, or speaks thoughtlessly? I’ve been trying to let it go “like water off a duck’s back” the last few years. Whatever we do, though we can get better at it, sometime the words – like water in a leaky tent – still get through.

Do you have a plan for when that happens? Sometimes a few slow breaths right then works for me. But even when a person thinks she’s let it go, the sting can linger, adding to the pack of cares we all carry around. Some things that can help include:

• Laughter. Especially with a youngster, but with anyone really. Watching a funny movie can help; my favorite is The Gold Rush.
• Meditation. In spite of all the directions on how to do it, there’s no one right way. Sit tall. Put yourself into a calm place. Breathe evenly, focusing on the in and out. Even a few breaths can help.
• Prayer. Sometimes I do a Review kind of prayer. I ask God to join me as I go back over the day. I seek forgiveness for things I shouldn’t have said. I ask help in understanding, or even letting go without understanding, what someone else did or said. As I pray, I just surrender the whole lot to God. I don’t use this prayer often, but I’ve noticed that I sleep easily after I’ve done it.

I’d love to hear what you practice to help let go of such things!

Blessings,