Protest

I went to church this morning. I'm teaching a five-week class for adults at a church I used to attend regularly, and after the class I stayed for worship.

The message was all about tradition, and how it can get in the way of truth and the real love and beauty that life with Jesus brings. It's a mainline denominational church, so this was a fairly gutsy sermon to preach. I appreciated it.

Until I remembered...

This is the same church where I don't take communion, in protest of the long-standing, traditional policy that women are not allowed to serve communion there.

"Really?" I thought. "You're giving this sermon and *still* not making the change?" Maybe the change will come soon. Maybe this sermon was the pastor's way of nudging us closer to ending this ridiculous, unnecessary injustice. I've been through 16 years and three senior pastors at this church -- and every time I've brought up the inequality between the way the genders are treated, every one of those pastors has admitted that there is no biblical basis for this tradition. They would *love* to change it, themselves...but it would cause too much division in the church. The time just wasn't right.

Today, after some prayer and soul searching, I took another step. Well, a few dozen steps, really. At communion time, I walked to the front, past the men serving the bread and wine, and sat down in the middle of the front row. My intention was simply to be available to serve, waiting to be asked. When communion was over, I walked back to my seat.

One of the pastors came to me, kindly asking if I'd received communion and if not -- did I want to? I was happily surprised to have the chance to gently explain my behavior. He's a dear friend, and I wasn't angry. I just told him. He said, "Okay, thanks," and went back to his seat.

If my heart can stay in the right place -- not angry, not seeking attention, but gently refusing to let the problem stay hidden -- I believe I'll continue to make myself available to serve communion every week until I'm asked. Perhaps some other ladies will join me. A row of women in the front at each communion time, simply waiting to be allowed to serve, might be just what's needed to push this issue onto the church leaders' radar. They're good people -- they're probably just waiting for the right time.

The right time is now. There will never be a better time.

Quoting from _Women, Food and God_

"At some point, it becomes about the weight. When you can't live the rest of your life with ease, the weight itself needs to be addressed. Not so that you can become super-model thin. Not so that you can look like an image in your mind that has nothing to do with your body, your age, your life. You need to address the weight because without addressing it, you don't actually live. You schlep yourself from place to place, out of breath. Sitting is painful. Flying is torturous. Going to the movies is challenging. You become so burdened with the problems you've created that your life becomes small and your focus becomes narrow. Life becomes about your limitations. How ashamed you are of yourself. You close down your senses, you leave the world of sounds of color, of laughter in favor of a reality you've created yourself. If you keep using food as a drug, if your life becomes about your weight, you miss everything that is not related to your weight problem. You die without ever having lived."

This is the most amazing book I have ever read, with the most incredible insights into what it's really like to be an overeater, and why and how we get there. Thank you, Geneen Roth.

...Bitch.

That's What You Do

A tough girl in middle school wanted to fight me for the right to accompany my best friend (and wow...both their names escape me, now...) on the Magic Mountain field trip.

I thought Amy (I remembered!) would find this ridiculous and tell me that of course she would go with me. She didn't. Apparently she wanted to be fought over.

My father said to tell the tough girl that "ladies don't settle their arguments rolling around in the dirt." Good one, dad.

We met just inside the school gate, and a crowd gathered. For reasons that don't make sense to me now, we thought we should go outside the fence to fight -- like we'd get in trouble if we fought on school grounds. I just stood there. A crowd gathered. That's all I remember -- the crowd, some of them yelling stuff, and me staring at my shoes and waiting. I waited until the crowd finally left, and then Cindy (I remembered!) finally left, too.

Then I walked home. I thought I'd handled it pretty wisely, but I was devastated. Amy pulled up on her bike, and all she said was, "I thought you were my friend."

Amy and I stayed friends after that. We talked it through and stayed friends, because that's what you do. And that's what I've continued to do. I've only left one relationship and that was my first boyfriend, a really painful situation that I actually left the state to get away from.

The ex and I are Facebook friends, now. Because that's what you do.

Acting, Not Reacting

I just had a "moment" that could have ended very badly.

I'm at the neighborhood coffee shop. Worked late last night, got up late this morning, no time for breakfast. So I grab a coffee just before a stressful meeting with my boss. She leaves, I look around for a place to plug in my laptop and work. Can't find one. I flop into an arm chair and return my mom's call. She does all the mailing for the ministry I work for, and some of letters I sent her last night didn't print correctly. Too many letters to resend them all, and the only way to figure it out is to pay for a car share for a couple of hours, go over there and sort it out. I REALLY can't afford to pay for a car today.

Just as I tell Mom that I'll think about it and call her back, I realize I'm flopped in a very unflattering position, and two girls at the counter (who look like they just came from a yoga class) are giving me the "can-you-believe-how-big-that-woman-is" stank eye.

If you're addicted to anything, you know how I felt at that moment. The swirly, helpless, overwhelmed, grasping, quitting feeling you get just before you reach for whatever's familiar and apparently helped you find your balance at some point in the past, whether it works now or not. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about.

A thought was forming that started with the words, "Oh, I'll just..." I'll just...what? Get the car all day and deal with the cost later? Eat something sugary and get a buzz going? Skip swimming today to deal with the effed up work situation?

Then something different happened. I realized that this was the worst possible time to make a decision. Any decision. I didn't need to do *anything*, at this moment, but deal with this feeling. Then I could make decisions for the rest of the day, or even for the next five minutes.

So I sat up in the arm chair, closed my eyes, said a quick prayer and breathed. I realized that I was hungry and thirsty and needed to take care of myself before I took care of anything else. I pushed the table on which I had put my computer over to another chair (closer to the yoga girls, which took a little courage), and plugged in (using a bit *more* courage to ask the cooler-than-cool guy on the couch to thread the cord behind his legs. I walked to the counter and bought a tofu-scramble whole-wheat breakfast burrito and a banana. Then I went back to my little table and let the yoga girls watch me eat. That's right, yoga girls -- fat chicks eat.

Within ten minutes, I was able to think clearly. Checked email, texted my boss with a great idea I'd forgotten during our meeting, checked into the car share, called Mom back. It will only cost five dollars to extend my car share an hour and go over to her place after my workout this afternoon.

Writing this blog was the next priority -- sharing epiphanies is important, too. Done and done. Time to go swimming, and tonight I'll be at my desk working -- but maybe not so late.

Hello, Future Me!

An open email to myself,
five years in the future.

To make sure I get it, I'm also
sending it out at FutureMe.org.

______________________________

Dear Future Me:

I can see you today, when I close my eyes. You're driving a blue pickup truck on an open highway. All I can see is the part that shows through the window, but you have that long braid down your back -- the one I've been trying FOREVER to grow -- your shoulders are narrower, your face more defined and prettier, and there's a lot more room between you and the steering wheel than I have now.

You're on your way to the next city, to set up another After School Club, or maybe a Cottage School, for homeless kids. The first fledgling program, at Joshua Station, starts in a couple of weeks (my time) -- but by the time you read this there may be a dozen or more. When you get to the city, you'll make connections; you'll speak and write and meet and do whatever it takes to gather a community around the cause of education for homeless children. You'll work with those new friends to create something beautiful. Again. And again at the next place. And again and again.

Behind the truck you're towing a tiny house, with a bicycle on the porch. God only knows (and I look forward to finding out) what's inside the house: a guitar, a djembe, a spinning wheel? A telescope, maybe some canvases and paint? It's going to be fun to see what stays, what goes and what is added as I pursue and define the lovely, simple, mobile life I long for.

There will always be resistance, and it may never get easy, but from here your life looks so sweet. Here at the beginning of the story, there's mostly paralyzing fear. Fear of failure, fear of hard work, fear of being alone in the hard work and also failing alone. Fear of the thing I've never been, however beautiful it might claim to be. What if I heard God wrong? Fear that when I get to heaven he'll shake his head and say something like "What were you thinking?"

The smile on your face today says you fought through it. You're doing what you were born to do, and you know it. If it's possible that it works this way (and some of my friends who are WAY into physics think it might be), please pray for me. No one but you and God knows what it's going to take to get from here to there, but it's do-able, and it's worth it. This much even *I* know.

Some "inciting incidents" were put into motion recently, before I even knew what an "inciting incident" was. The Shrink-A-Thon is probably the most obvious, public one -- 400 of my family and friends are watching via Facebook as I lose this weight, and a bunch of them are actually pledging money per pound to benefit the After School Club at Joshua Station. Yikes. At the very least, it's keeping me from quitting on the good food and exercise. And having other people's money flowing toward the education program means that quitting on that isn't an option, either.

Future Lori, if you're still struggling, please don't give up. You do *not* want to end up back where I am now. If you're ever tempted to turn around, think about Griselda's face when she read her first whole sentence, or Marco's laughter when he realized he could actually *do* addition. Or you can think about any of the (hundreds?) of kids you've worked with in the time since I wrote this.

And, dear one, remember Dad's story. There were some great scenes...the children's home, the tutoring, the way he encouraged us to see our lives as blank slates on which anything could be written...but his last chapter was long and boring and all about sickness and death. And his death was long and boring and stupid and tragic. I can say that because I know he's okay now, and if he can see what I'm writing he agrees.

I'm standing at a crossroads, with a choice between your story and Dad's. I choose your story, Future Lori -- I choose Beautiful You.

The doctors all say that my diabetes is reversible, so you probably don't even have it. You're healthy and active and you get down on the floor with the kids. You say "yes" when friends invite you for hikes and on trips, you can go on the rides at amusement parks, and you explore the cities you visit on foot and on your bike. You have time and energy to sew the clothes you've always wanted to wear. You have space on your lap for the children you love.

And there's so much more to come -- eye has not seen.

I'm going to go and copy this off to you at FutureMe, but before I do I want to tell you two more things:

1) I'm sorry it's taken me so long to make the choices that will bring you into being.
2) You're welcome.

-- Lori, 2010

P.S. When we meet, let's write an email to Old Lady Us. You can probably see her a little more clearly than I can. All I can make out is a long, gray braid down her back, her bicycle, and her smile.

_____________________________

Last year Don Miller came through Denver, talking about his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. He pretty much gave away the store in his talk, inspiring us all to "live a better story," and it hit me hard. I really got it. I thought I probably wouldn't need to read the book.

Since then I've stayed stuck in the same depressing story, so last week I bought the book anyway, and I read it in one sitting. I haven't done that since I was nine years old and the book was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Here's a hint: if the table of contents makes you cry, you need to read the book. A Million Miles in A Thousand Years provides language to talk about what we all really want to do -- live a GREAT story -- and courage to get up and do it.

In September Don is hosting a conference called "Live A Better Story," and I'm not making the same mistake again -- if there's more to soak up, call me Spongebob. I'm especially interested in taking some focused time to come up with specific action steps.

This post is my entry in a contest to win a trip to Portland for the conference!

Here's a link to information on the conference: Living a Better Story Conference

And here's Don himself to tell you all about it:

Living a Better Story Seminar from All Things Converge Podcast on Vimeo.

Giving myself the life I dream of

Okay, so I've been writing a little about how it's nice allow myself to withhold myself from others...but now I'm faced with the weird syndrome where, if I'm not required to do anything else, I seem to just disappear. I can spend a whole day, or even a week or more, watching television I don't really enjoy, occasionally eating something, maybe dreaming a little about how I want my life to be -- and doing absolutely nothing else.

Today is one of those days. Yesterday I took a legitimate rest-up day. Slept late, watched a movie or two, called up a friend and went to a movie, came home and napped, and then watched some more TV. I had worked hard all week, and this is what I really needed.

Today is different, though. It's nearly 5:00 pm, and I've been in that "invisible" place. I guess on some level I believe there will be a sudden breakthrough -- an "ahah!" moment when I suddenly "get it" and jump up, full of vision and energy. Not gonna happen.

The only way out this is NOT to think about it. I have to act. Why does that make fear rise up? I don't know -- might be afraid that I'll o the wrong direction, or I'll get tired or halfway through something and unable to finish. I know there are some things from my past that I can trace the fear back to...but none of it matters.

Thinking is not the way out. There is never going to be a breakthrough from thinking. And I don't want to be alive only when other people need me to be. I want to act, to build something beautiful. I want my home and my appearance and my activities (not just my work) to be a beautiful expression of the person God created when he created me.

No more thinking. I know what to do. I've already had all the "ahah!" moments I need to have.

The rest of the day/evening, I'll be creating beauty in my home. It's pretty ugly right now, but definitely not the worst it's ever been. This will be fun.

Ready, get set...go.

Another piece?

Maybe it's not about withholding myself (or not ONLY about that)...because I'm also finding it a relief not to expect anything of others, either.

Maybe it's about finding my center within myself instead of in someone else (or lots of people, or people in general), or even somewhere in between.

I'm looking forward to giving myself away because I *choose* to...

Freedom to withhold

Something to think/write about at more length after I've thought about it a little more. As I'm spending time alone lately, and I've told everyone I'm going to be "in my cocoon" for awhile -- I wonder why it feels so right.

Part of it is the ability to focus on what I really want to do. But there's another piece -- the freedom to withhold myself. I need to learn how to say, "You can't have me, on any level, right now. I belong to me, and I'm just not available." I don't know why that feels so important, so central to getting healed up -- but it really does.

Hm.

Two lessons

1) Some foods, for me, are drugs -- not food at all. These things include Kentucky Fried Chicken, macaroni and cheese, and a lot of other "comfort" foods, especially those involving white sugar, white flour, dairy (cheese!) and greasy texture.. When I eat these foods, my body does not expect to be energized and satisfied with nutrition. My body expects, when I eat these foods, to be sedated, to be soothed into a "food coma." If I eat just a *little* of these foods, a strong craving kicks in until I *get* to the "food coma" stage. In other words, these foods do not feed and satisfy me -- they cause me to crave and feel DISsatisfied.

2) There has been some kind of payoff to keeping myself fat, and it's pretty complex. Today it seems to be trying to come into focus, so I've been thinking about it. My thoughts:

I have often felt that I could not put in the time and effort to take care of myself, that everyone and everything else comes first, and I put myself last. But -- why would I do that? There's certainly some kind of martyr thinking going on, here -- the very idea makes me sick, but I think it's true.

There's also some definite laziness going on. Often the "other stuff" that I do at the expense of taking care of myself is cerebral, computerized, something I can do from a seated position -- and taking care of myself involves getting up and moving around. It's not clear to me whether I became lazy before or after I got fat. Moving really is hard and painful now, but I'm sure it hasn't always been. It almost doesn't matter -- I'm lazy now, and the only way for things to get easier is to get up and do something.

Here's what's forcing me to make a change (and scaring the crap out of me): all the people who I've thought I had to "do for" are now really invested in me losing weight. Ask any of them, and they would say, "Go and get your exercise! Make good food for yourself! This stuff can wait!" This includes my bosses, my friends, the people I'm in ministry with, everyone at my church, my family...everyone! So -- NOW what's my excuse?

There isn't one. I have two choices: a) get my act together, or b) face the fact that the choice *not* to get it together is entirely *mine*. No more martyrdom. Just the lazyness and the fear. I own it -- I cannot put it off on anyone else.

On the other hand, this represents tremendous freedom! Hallelujah, no more martyrdom! I put it out there to everyone I know, and they not only made it clear that they want me to succeed -- they actually put money on the line!

No more confusion -- the path ahead is clear, and if I don't take that path, I own the fact that I chose to sit here on my ass.

Learning new tricks

Fell off the wagon today. Big ol' Domino's sandwich and wings for dinner. I was SO hungry -- and that seemed to help it digest quickly, which is good, but it made me realize that these things don't "just happen." I have a lot of new habits to build.

For one thing, evenings need to be relaxed and easy -- not work time, just take-care-of-me time. And the other thing -- I MUST be prepared. I cannot yet "wing" this stuff.

So -- after resting and digesting for an hour or so -- I pulled out the sewing machine and did some mending...on the desk I stayed up late to clean, last night, yeay! Put away the sewing machine as soon as I was done, pulled out the computer and planned my food, starting with lunch out with my friend Suman, tomorrow.

I could already feel the doubt and tension around breakfast and dinner -- would I *really* take time to chop up the apples for the oatmeal at breakfast and cut up the fruit for the smoothie at dinner? I could feel the failure around the edges of the day, trying to get in. I have to get breakfast and dinner right tomorrow, because even the salad I have planned for lunch is 853 calories!

New trick: cut up the apples, put them in the oatmeal pan and added water. Tomorrow morning I'll just have to take the pan out of the fridge, put it on the stove and add oatmeal. Got out the pear, mango and orange for the smoothie, cut them up and put them in a container in the fridge. Whirrr those babies with some water, snag the pecans out of the cupboard, and I'll have a good working dinner tomorrow night.

Tomorrow's new trick? Getting in the exercise! After lunch, Suman's going to drop me at the pool.

And I do have to get in a full six hours of work tomorrow, so I'll have to come home after swimming. I have plans to walk over to Taize worship at St. Paul's tomorrow -- we'll see if that's possible.

Making it easy for myself

Another thought -- a little brighter and easier:

The highest priority in my life, right now, is to lose this weight. And the thing that most deters me is when things start to feel hard. And it seems to be a defect of my character that things really easily begin to feel hard. It's the fear -- that's the ultimate enemy, and I've known it for years, really.

For the last few days, I've essentially told myself that I didn't have to do anything but stay under 2000 calories. Nothing else had to happen -- just that. Of course, I can't live that way forever, and that's why I'm feeling paralyzed tonight.

So -- the next priority is this: make things easy on myself. This is my fifth day of "sobriety" (defined as 2000 calories or less). If I want to have a sixth day, and I'm going to get anything else done, I have to fight off the fear. And until I can conquer the fear, I have to make it easy for myself -- so there's nothing to fear.

At this point I'm certain that no one is still reading, so this is just for me: what will it take to make tomorrow easy for myself?

1) Clean clothes.
2) Food planned and prepped.
3) Work week planned, and if I can get the work space organized that would be a bonus.

That means that cleaning the kitchen drops off the priority list, which takes some pressure off.

Also -- this week I need to add exercise. Making that easy tomorrow just means carrying my swim bag with me, and going to Washington Park because I'm used to going there, instead of going to Glenarm, even though it's closer.

Otay. I feel a little better. It will be interesting to read these blog posts later, when I'm a little less psycho.

Finding a new way through

I get paralyzed. Not physically...but almost. My brain locks up and moving in any direction becomes absolutely terrifying. I'm there right now, though it's not the worst case I've ever had.

It's all about fear. Fear that I'll fail. Fear that it will hurt. Fear that I won't get everything done that needs to be done, and tomorrow will find things more messed up than ever.

It results in a mess. My home is a mess -- too messy to fix good things for me to eat, and I don't know what I'll wear tomorrow because I have no clean clothes. My work space is a mess -- too messy to get work done as effectively as I'd like, and there's no way I can do the sewing and other crafty stuff I'd like to do. My time is a mess -- I would love to be at church right now, but instead I'm sitting where I've been sitting for the past four hours, still thinking about what the first move should be, when I could have had a bunch of stuff done by now. Someday it would be nice to spend Sunday NOT trying to make myself do essential stuff...maybe doing some of that fun, creative, crafty stuff and then going to church!

I know the answer. Do something. Anything. It *will* hurt. Everything hurts, at this weight. I *will* fail. I will drop things and find it difficult to pick them up . Some of those things might break, and I'll have to sweep them up. I will have to stop frequently because my back hurts. I will even get paralyzed again and have to fight through it again.

BUT -- tomorrow things will NOT be more messed up than ever. They will be better. At least a little better, *if* I do something.

Also: eating does not help. How have I continued to believe that lie for all these years? Every stinkin' time, I really think that it will be better if I eat a big, greasy bowl of popcorn (or a pint of ice cream, or whatever) -- because THAT will make me feel like rolling up my sleeves and getting to work.

IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY. SOMETIMES HAS, BUT ALMOST NEVER. All it does is buys me a little time not to think about it.

IT'S NOT THAT BAD. It's some dishes in the sink and a load of laundry. And a messy desk and some shelves that need cleaning up.

SOME OF IT WILL ACTUALLY BE FUN. I've been collecting boxes to organize these shelves. It will be fun to use them!

IT WILL OPEN THE DOOR TO MORE FUN AND ENJOYMENT OF LIFE, when it's done.

Whatever. Just do something. Okay, bye.