Sacred Tasks

Dear miss tick,

A follow-up to what we talked about….

This morning I woke and got ready for the day.  A thought drifted in about Sacred Tasks.   

It probably would do us all good to be reminded that life is a sacred task….all of it.

But in your particular case, an opportunity to do something over is an especially sacred task.  We all make mistakes that are deeply and  grievously painful.  The pain and shame can linger for years.  The regret is unrelenting.  

But eventually the Universe arranges a situation that gives us the chance to do things differently….a ‘do-over’.   We almost always wait long and painful years before it comes to us.   We have to rise to the challenge when it comes…and it usually sneaks up on us unawares.  That alone should tell us something…

We then are forced to lug out the big trunk into which we stuffed that painful, tangled, unsolvable set of experiences, open it up in the light of today, and examine the contents closely and from all angles.  Painstakingly we excavate and dissect the contents, suffering the mold and dust, the decomposition, at times like these, of our loveliest dreams and of our loveliest selves.  

Some unlovely things come to light as well. 

So we give everything a strong shake and a thorough airing and we formulate a plan made up of the things we wish we could have done better the first time.  A road map of sorts.  

We know from hard experience that the road is treacherous here...

in ways we were both unwilling to see the first time and too inexperienced to take seriously. 

In a sort of cosmic chess game, we see the complexity of our former experiences.  

It is, in hindsight, not the game of checkers that we imagined it to be.  

Small moves have now sprouted consequences of considerable reach.  

The game became deadly in the end and we experienced blood…our own and others.  

We lay wounded a long time… 

The Dream to which we were giving birth dies and, of course, a part of us dies with it.    

But in true resurrection style (which we professed to believe in, but didn’t really)

we find the Dream is not dead after all.    

It is made alive after several days in the crypt (and in hell).

So you begin to unwind what was bound up and you step out of the former existence and get on with what you really came here to do, but this time, with a mysterious new power that will never see death again.  

So…no more sleeping….your stone is being rolled away and you will soon prove that you are alive and very well after all.   They only thought they killed you…;-)

“Jesus trusted no man, for He knew all men…”     Meg  oh my gosh!

Later, Dearie

the velvet covered hammer

Good morning miss tick,

I hoped you’re not feeling too bruised in your hindquarters.  I responded rather bluntly, but also intuitively.    Hopefully you re-read the post and noticed that I wasn’t kicking your butt the whole time! 

How is everything going?   New thoughts…insights…dream pieces? 

I know there is a great, almost overwhelming desire to sleep when you’re going through these things. (I thought I had narcolepsy for several years).  

But it is a passivity that can do more harm than good.  

It is a also a subtle spiritual attack…the type no one tells us about.   

If you look around you, passivity is what keeps most women ‘in their place’ 

and men can almost always count on it.   

So can the enemy of your soul…

Check in when you get the chance!

Love,

The velvet covered hammer

Miss Tick writes:

Oh Deb, 

I really love you.  Thanks for the morning check in.  

My butt is sore... but more from the brisk walking & booty dancing 

that I did yesterday afternoon. :) 

I appreciate your intuitive push & the shortness of your response was right on.  

The other bits were not missed either. I soak these things in too!  

I appreciate the push to recognize that it is harder this time... 

and that if I do not get it done, it will come back again. 

Here I go...

Thank you for helping me stay awake, 

Your big butt tick friend, 

Meg

Waking up is hard to do...

Our Dear Miss Tick had been fairly flattened and disheartened in the exchange.  
But I sensed that she still had some fight in her. 
After all, heaven does not call on cowards or weaklings to do a thing.  
If she was ever to recover and express her vision, she would have to fix all those things in herself that allowed things to go so awry.
She had carried her sorrow so long that she was weary from it.  
In truth, all she really wanted to do was put it behind her, forget it, shut it out 
of her conscious mind. 
All she wanted to do was sleep and forget.

As she confides, "OH. My nervous system is still so hot-wired that it is unbelievably draining. 
I think I am going to need a nap today and it is only 11:24!! Maybe a bath too...


Dear Miss Tick
"Get a little steel in your spine, dearie.  Do-overs are hard work.  
This is what would have kept you out of trouble the first time around.  
So, in the interest of not having to repeat this lesson in a worse form, 
you must get it right now.
You will have to make all the effort and and experience all the discomfort 
you avoided the 1^st time around… but you will have earned your healing!
You should be using a punching bag and training, not napping!!!   
Awake!   Breathe !  Yell !    Get mad!   Feel everything you can!
Kick!   Scream,!   Dance your prayers!
No intellectualizing your way through…just get your energy back!!        

Quagmires, continued

By the time Miss Tick and I met, she was sorting out some painful bits of personal history.
I remember how her eyes welled up with stinging tears each time I asked how her charity was going.
That seemed to be the most pressing issue...
She had received a beautiful vision for helping women artisans through her book-binding charity called Bound for Freedom.  Not knowing how to properly proceed with a God-given idea,  lacking confidence and inner guidance,  she had shared her vision too freely and soon she was surrounded by a gaggle of helpers...each with their own ideas of how things should move forward.  In the current ego and business driven church culture 'bigger is better'.  So it wasn't long before they were drafting business plans, organizing, delegating and so on.  It was soon decided that their newly organized charity should go nation-wide and then global!  Exciting times, indeed!
Their vision became so grandiose that many more people were needed....
and before long they had a runaway train on their hands.

There was no birthing of the vision with the attendant waiting and feeling and natural development. It was just pumped up and hyped up and ready to take over the world.  
As one might imagine, it didn't take much time to over-inflate and then burst from tension.  

Meg soon lost all management of her inspired idea.  
She did not know how to hold her idea and birth it properly.  
She just knew that something was terribly wrong as the months passed.
There was feuding and competition and all manner of entanglements.
Personality conflicts that should  never have arisen in that setting marred everything.
Friendships were strained and sometimes seen for what they were as masks fell away.
Her vision of women helping women was soon distorted and turned into a profit making endeavor that would further prey upon women overseas for western profit.
What should have been a wonderful and womanly experience turned upside down 
when it was finally wrested from her by a Christian businessman who offered to rescue
all the fair maidens by assuming control of her venture for a pittance. 
Her dream ended as a recurring nightmare. 


It was so painful and confusing that she could not move past it.  So that is where we began...
Some things can be let alone or forgiven or walked away from, but that is not always the case,
much as we would like it to be.
On a deeper level, it is still raw and horrible, unforgivable, not healing as it should.
That is always the call for a fresh approach....a closer investigation of the facts. 
It is a call for correction and revision of our thinking.
There are so many instances of unhealed wounds..and more than enough pat answers
that aren't working.
When all that 'good' advice fails to clear up a problem, people blame themselves...
and they suffer fresh indignity and loss of self.
Perhaps a partner has been unfaithful, someone has used you and then walked away.
In Christian circles, these wounds cut so deep that some people never recover.  
It is a double whammy when you bring God or religion into the transgression.  
It creates confusion and inability to trust on a deep and vulnerable level.  
If God and his people can't be trusted who can one turn to?  
They have already been taught since childhood that 'the world' is a treacherous and dangerous place. God and the church are the only safe refuge.
So when these fail, one is understandably devastated and injured to the core.
So how does one heal from these injuries?  How does one untangle from a lifetime
of questionable teachings and practices?  
How does one recover from a church culture that is hurting more than helping? 


It is the good fortune of the soul that it continues to grow and to question.
The soul begins to discern as it moves toward maturity.  
It continues to seek the light and truth...its very nature is to grow....and to heal.
  
Miss Tick, even in her painful and confused state, evidenced the desire to learn and seek
and grow beyond the flawed and insufficient church culture.  
She needed a firmer foundation and better soil to grow in.  
She had morally and ethically outgrown her old set of clothes.  
It was time for her to dismantle what had passed for truth and ultimate authority
and to begin again from the ground up...this time, from the ground of her own being.

She would need to wake up from a few trances first..and she would have to learn to feel her own feelings, her own body, her own thoughts and the stirrings of her soul and spirit.  
There was much dismantling to do!   
But first, she would have to wake up...

Quagmires! oh my!

Our Dear Miss Tick was caught in several quagmires as we started our correspondence some years ago.
For the sake of clarity I will give a little background information.


Meg had attended a Christian college in the midwest.  Much attention was paid to furnishing the world with zealous do-gooders eager to change the world for Christ.  
Sadly, very little attention was paid to the development of the individual.  
What I found in dealing with many of those students was that they were so caught up in their Christian personas that they were woefully out of touch with who they really were. 
They were trying to compose a life based on the expectations and unquestioned culture of the faith community.
They built lovely edifices, using all the right ideas and lingo, but in practice, they were still filled with all the unlovely characteristics they were trying to escape.  
I watched from the sidelines as they started various small ministries, went on mission trips, and practiced leading congregations.  But they were so unfinished themselves.
It was partly ludicrous, but as time went on and I saw more of their struggles, 
I was increasingly concerned...at times, alarmed.
I was drawn into their world....
Underneath the near perfect facades,  I encountered eating disorders, extreme stress, 
acting out in many forms, much hiding and keeping of toxic secrets. 
At such young ages many of them were painfully crumbling on the inside.
So many of these lovely young people were struggling with a kind of now sick religion.
They typically vacillated between fervent and misguided religiosity and the extremes of piercings, dreadlocks, drug use, paganism and the problems that come with repressed and/or twisted sexuality.
They were, many of them, living double lives already and no one was helping.  
The very people who should have been helping were struggling themselves in many instances. 
In any case, it seemed better to them to keep the machinery going at any cost, cover up, patch together, maintain the facades. 
Keep the coffers filled.   Practice damage control....ruthlessly when necessary.    

Dear Deb

Dear Deb,

Reading back through my journals I was amazed at how irritated and angry I was that whole time.  Things sucked!  I tried really hard to hold it all together but was rather miserable up until the last day we were there.  

It wasn't only all of the things in the house either...my relationships of most every kind were rocky, even with friendships from far-away.

After the dream I remember that I woke up feeling invaded and used.

-Meg

Dear Miss Tick,


I think you are beginning to see more clearly now.  
It took a dream...this dream...to break through all your defenses and show you some things you would rather not see.  The intensity of your dream is significant. You were overwhelmed, surprised, things caught up with you unexpectedly.  You had to be painfully shocked into dealing with these issues!


This says two things to me....
You would rather put a nice face on things whenever possible...
You are not able or willing to deal with things directly...


So you wound up burying your feelings in your head, your journals and your gut, which I imagine is feeling pretty gnarly by now.


I am glad for you that you are a finally out of the situation, but I must remind you that you are not out of that classroom.  In fact, I am sure the Universe in its loving kindness is going to give you another chance to get it right.  
A do-over....we practice till we get it right!


The dream is your best guide to reality now.  I am sure you will not easily forget this one.