Judas Had To Betray Jesus

I'm reminded a lot lately of Morgan, 18 months, walking on the rounded rocks at Cottage Grove Lake.  Her little toes curling over the ends of the stones, warm on the bottoms of her feet.  I was adjusting the blanket and setting out food.  She just kept walking.  Ben hollered and laughed and cut through the water as fast as he could to get to her.  I turned to face the commotion and he was fishing her up and out of the water.  She just walked straight in and kept going.  Her tiny little feet slipping over the slimy rocks, arms stretched out wide.  "Can you believe that?  She was just smiling up at me!!  The water was two feet over her head!!"  We put her on the bank but there was no interrupting her mission.  She was curious.  She wanted to learn.  She was innocent.  We took turns fishing her out of the lake at just the right time.  

That is fearless.

"Lord, how do we do it?  How do we embrace and yet . . . . not squeeze too tightly?  Show me Your way.  Let that be my way."  This is the balance I am always trying to seek, while wrestling my own impulses and riding the waves in between, back and forth.  Slow down too long to sort it out and you find out how much of a hustler life really is.  It's easy to get carried away.

My friend Monica reminded me over the weekend about Lieutenant Dan's approach to facing the storms of life, from the movie Forest Gump.  Hoisting himself up and strapping himself to the mast of the boat in cathartic mania, hurling insults at God, " . . . Is that all you've got!!??!!!  Come on!! . . . "  Fists clenched in the middle of the hurricane.  Whew, I've been there.   Faced it straight on.  Even more poignant though is when Lt. Dan makes his peace with himself and God and accepts that life didn't turn out how he expected it to.  It just didn't.   He let go of all of the ideas he was attached to and the hurt he'd suffered that was real and yet no longer relevant.  You see his agony disappear, feel his resolve and acceptance that he is still alive and whole inside and THAT was what it was all about, after all.  It was enough.

I listened to a woman in Michael's the other day while she was on her cell phone trying to make plans for her grandchildren for the summer.  I had to listen.  I didn't want to, but she was really loud and she was camped out in front of the purple beads.  The only thing I had come into the store for was purple beads.  She talked about how she needed to prevent this and that from happening to her grandkidz because of what had happened to her when she was a kid at the neighbor's house.  How her parents never knew about those things.  She was afraid to tell them because her parents and their parents were friends.  That kind of situation.  My heart broke for her.  Our love and loyalties can get so convoluted, can't they.  And now, "I'm afraid of . . . . " this and that.  50 years later, still imprisoned by anther's mistakes. She had a lot of fears and then I'd hear her compensation strategy to make excuses for what happened to her and justify how she HAD to make sure nothing like that ever happened to her kidz or grandkidz.  Every compassionate, human instinct in me wanted to lay my hand on her shoulder and tell her she'd made it.  The damage was done. It's okay now.  You can come out.  You can live.  But I didn't want her to think I was judging her. If sorrow could repair the damage her neighbor had caused.  I wanted my sorrow to repair the damage someone had done to him to make him hurt people in such a way.  I wanted my sorrow to help her live.  Which isn't how it works at all, is it.  She coordinated events and who was going to call who because some people didn't comply with her strategies and she needed everyone to do certain things and handle particular situations a certain way in case the kidz got afraid.    Compensation plans constructed to be as tall as her fears.  We all have 'em.  Overnights would only happen when she said they could.  She knew better then the parents who could really be trusted.  Horseback riding was not even a possibility.  I had stayed too long.  I willed her peace with my whole being.   I'd found what I needed.

You'll hear people's fears if you listen.  Get a sense for them and know their stories.  If you're quiet and just be aware.   You'll recognize how lives get organized and how tragedies will define someone from then on if they cater to that event, no matter how underground their feelings are or how hidden they think their efforts and insecurities are.  You can see how we will fight change to hold onto our certainties of what was or what we need to be, what we want.  What if's are prevented at all costs.  How we will sacrifice all of our senses to maintain a certainty we think is safe.  Comfortable.  More comfortable then the possibilities of change.  Stay on the path of convenience.  Close our hearts and minds.  Try to force that on others around us to maintain that standard. 

Growing hurts.  It does.  But what are we so afraid of? 

I've struggled a lot with people's expectations of me in my life.  I have to imagine people have probably struggled with my expectations as well.  I've felt the pressure of other's anticipations and their disappointments when I respond predictably how I always respond to those pressures and controls, backing slowly and quietly away . . . until I can run.  When I get to feeling misunderstood and like I've done it all wrong again according to someone else's standards I fight a battle with myself that resolves into remembering that I am who I am and my struggles are nothing.  Nothing.  What keeps that battle short is remembering Jesus, praying in the garden.

Finding balance in relationships is a tricky business.  I have to remind myself it's not always about today.  It's not about me.  It's about the big picture.  And how ridiculous is my little picture anyways?  I mean, really?  What year is this anyways?  What universe are we living in?  Who's driving this bus?

When I close my eyes and think of Jesus wrestling with the vision of His reality before Him in the garden that night.  How He agonized with His hopes and the understanding of His purpose and yet He didn't cower for the sake of creating a certainty. The double negative helps me sometimes when I find myself saying, "He didn't NOT know.  He knew.  Jesus knew.  And he wasn't Not afraid.  He was afraid.  He did it anyway."   He didn't sell out for convenience.  He didn't take control.  His terror was real and yet His friends slept.  He didn't puke that drama onto them.  He accepted the betrayal and denial of His friends as human.  His expectations of them were that they were people.  They were not perfect.  And He loved them none the less.   None the less.  His devotion to them remained.   I know that is what trust is.  Not trusting that people and things will always work out how you want them to, but trusting that eventually they will be okay.  He didn't rally the troops and say, "Hey guyz, this is what we're going to do.  We're getting a boat and making a run for Bermuda.  Judas and Peter are out.  Judas is an asshole.  You should hate his guts.  Peter is a coward.  Punish him for me if I don't make it out of this thing alive."  That wasn't His way, was it.  So, what are we so afraid of?

The reality of life, the responsibility of raising children, the pressures of relationships wash over me and I'm constantly making my exasperated announcement, "There's just a lot of decisions to make here."  Followed by my, "I have no control." because I'm only one side of those decisions.  And sure, everyone has their advice and their opinions on your choices but I can't pretend to know what somebody else is trying to rise above unless I take an interest and I am not pretentious enough to pretend my excellent decision making skills have gotten me any further ahead of anybody else.  I can be a real asshole.  Guess what, so can you.  I think about the pain I've walked through and the tragedies I've managed to escape or have been protected from and that keeps me humble.  I assume everyone is broken or missing pieces.  I left some on a mountain, some in an operating room a few years ago and I've picked up a few extra along the way.  So, it's kind of Even Steven.

I close my eyes and think back on Morgan walking out into that lake, with her arms stretched wide.  Before she knew any better.  I question what "better" is.  Says Who?  I want to punch myself for ever inteferring or making her anything less than fearless, but accept it had to happen that way all the same.  I think about Lt. Dan tied to that mast and I remember the mercy of the moment that those storms in life bring.  How important it is to be open and vulnerable.  How it will scare the Hell out of you.  When you realize you can't match crazy, you just have to let it ride out.  Look how things can change.  How different we can become.  How life can touch you and people can surprise you when you let them.  Imagining Jesus, strapped to the cross.  The peace before He was lifted up. 

Judas had to betray Jesus.

Because You Always Need Your Mama

Samantha's hand is surprisingly smaller than I anticipated it would be.  How could I not know her hand was so small?  I knew it was delicate.  I was teasing her about her bony elbows the other day, but how did I not know her hand was so small???  I scooped up Camble's hand in my free hand to compare.  I think his might actually be a little bigger than Sam's, but she held on with such purpose.  I heard her soft, sweet voice whispering to my shattered heart. "It's okay Mama."

We build our families and, simultaneously, as Mother's, construct our fortresses.  It doesn't happen overnight.  It's the evolution of stretching the skirt to keep everything out to the undoing of the apron strings because everybody wants out.  The birthing and rebirthing.  The holding so tightly to the letting go, and all of the growing pains in between.  The fortress crumbles, because it needs to.  We see the potential, assess the risk, and recognize it isn't ours to own anymore.  We give over that which was never ours, that which we held and kept with rugged fury and tended with gentleness in kind.

My neighbor called me from her trip to Utah yesterday to wish me a wonderful and happy Mother's Day.  It was so sweet.  So sweet, and . . . . unexpected.  She's always so sweet.   I should be as sweet as her.  She remembered me and I hadn't remembered her.  "What?  What was that?  The cats???  Why would I . . . . "  Oh, Dear God!!!!!  I was supposed to be watching the cats?!!!  Feeding the fish!!??  Since when . . . . over a week ago!!!   They're probably dead!!  I forgot to bring them into the fortress!!

My family watched me absorb the information and they all took a step back while I bought my ticket and rode my ride.   They are constant spectators to this emotional roller coaster.  Instead of screaming in silence and walking to the garden, I walked myself through the process aloud.  I shut down the attempts to fix and criticize and rationalize.  I shunned the excuses.  I explained myself for me.  I swore.  I almost threw up.  We were in public and silently they all held a new appreciation for the composure I ask of myself.  Then, they lost security in that holding me down.  It could get wild.  Maybe letting out some line would mean I'd tire myself out quicker.  They decided to let me be my gypsy self. Finally, my pace matched my tone, when I found my Mother.   That voice.   It was the rain they hadn't expected on the clear sunny day but accepted would happen and then pass, bringing what was needed.  The sun was shining again.  Camble was on his third taco.

"Mistakes happen.  These things happen sweetheart."  That voice.  The one that reminds you to bury the harsh in a deep dark hole because it has no place in the getting on and along.  The one you wish and wish and wish that you're children will hear and tell themselves when they need it the very most.  That ancient voice.  The kindness.  The one that says it will all be okay.  Maybe not right now.  Maybe not today.  But have faith.  Do the hard things.  You are good at this. You'll rise above.  You will.  The one that reminds you we all get a little lost but we haven't lost it all.

I apologized and put my head down on the table. Morgan's arms came around mine and I envisioned from above we must closely resemble the yin and the yang to manage this comfortably.  I never intended to mean so much to anyone.   I didn't know growing was the surprised look you have when you suddenly realize their pants are too short or the seams are all coming unraveled.   Nobody tells you these things.   I never thought it would take such a tight grip.  Then, you hear Mother.  You become your own mother.  You look down and feel the soft, small hand in yours and you know to let go.

You always need your Mama.