Don't play with dead birds; they leave scars

I recently came across some free writing I had done in preparation for a poem I have yet to finish. It was about a dead bird I had seen, laying on a busy sidewalk. Some of the phrases and images are good, but there isn't a cohesive thought behind the poem yet. Mostly because I'm not clear how I feel about the idea of God and the sparrow. You know the sparrow I'm talking about:

Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I've always had trouble with the idea that God is taking care of all of us, down to the smallest of us. Sparrows freeze to death, get hunted for sport by well-fed housecats, get hit by cars. Surely if each individual sparrow mattered, they wouldn't be prone to senseless deaths. Never mind the meaningless suffering of people around the world from poverty, hunger, war, etc. Why doesn't God care enough to stop suffering?

But the verses that it is based on, Matthew 10:29-31, don't say that the sparrow will come to no harm. It says that if the sparrow comes to harm, it is through the Father. Not only did God know about that dead bird on the sidewalk in front of Moody's Falafel Palace, he let it die. That seems even more callus than not knowing/caring about the fate of the sparrow.

The important lesson for me isn't around the symbolism of the dead bird. It's all about I value judgment I made a couple paragraphs back. I decided that the sparrow's death was senseless or meaningless. And I don't get to decide things like that. Just a few verses earlier in Matthew 10 we are told that "there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed" or "hid that shall not be known". We are reminded not to fear anyone other than the Lord. If something bad happens, God knows why.

If we are suffering and we can find no reason why He should let us suffer, we should not curse Him, nor doubt Him. He's got a plan. He's keeping an eye on us and it'll all make sense later. I can get so caught up in myself and my sense of what is fair that I forget that "the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men." (1 Corinthians 1:25).

I'm feeling pretty weak and foolish right now, so it's comforting to know that He's got His eye on me and that I don't need to understand anything else right now.

Love,
Elizabeth Bathurst

An update from Crazy Camp.

I wanted to drop a quick note to let folks know that I am doing a lot better. I had said this before, but my doctor, upon seeing me in the middle of a bad day, disagreed. Together we decided that spending a few days in the hospital would be a good idea. I ended up spending two weeks in the hospital, five days or so in a locked ward, and then a little over a week in a partial program.

I've started a new medication that is working wonders. I've learned how to make some of my coping skills more effective and I've gained some valuable insights into my illness. My improvement has been so incredible and life-changing that I still need some time to adjust.

I intend to be back to blogging soon, if only to keep Friend James properly supervised at first. Your continued prayers are appreciated as I readjust to life on the outside.

Love,
Elizabeth Bathurst

May thy heart sing

My favorite season is Autumn. There is something about a day when the air is clean and crisp with the bluest of skys that makes my heart sing.

Ironically, fall is the time of year that things are the hardest for my mental health. Its been about a year since I got the courage to begin treating my depression. I had always had a fear of going into public...but when I began crying and hyperventilating at a bank, I decided I coundn't continue like this anymore. What I found the hardest was learning that being happy is ok. That I really do deserve to go through life with all the negetivity in my head muted to a dull roar...I actually have the ability now to see that all that noise is just noise. I don't come from a background where therapy is an option...just pull yourself together and get through it, no one has it easy, quit your whining. Or better yet, never under any circumstances admit that your bad moods, which include sitting in a dark room drinking after work are a problem, much less depression--aren't midwesterners great!

My best friend from college has a history of clinical depression. Its been a really hard year for her. Things have gotten worse of late. I asked her if she wanted me there, she said no. I had urged her a few months ago to talk with her social support network in the city she lives in. I have met them, they are good people. It took time but she has let them in and they are standing with her in her time of need. I have been talking to her two or three times a day for the last week, but its not the same as being physically with her. I am so grateful that she is surrounded in a loving community. Really that is all a person can hope for in a lot of ways.

I know she hears the strain in my voice when she talks to me. Its one part worry and one part trying to decern what is appropriate to say. She has always been the one I go to when I am unwell...but I can't burden her right now. It is important that she get to a good place and learn ways to maintain it. She has just discovered the fact (that through proper medications) life can be wonderful, that it is possible for people like us to live in ways other people do. It is a joyful revelation and one of the most terrifying I have ever experienced. And everyday is not perfect, but the weight of it all is so much lighter. I can now navigate through life easier. I pray that what she is experiencing right now will continue, that finally she can actualize her potential without being weighted down with depression.

Social reject and general pariah

I have recently gotten lured into the weird "quaker cyber-culture" of blogging...what I mean is I have been spending more time looking at the cyber community Quakers are creating. I like some of what is out there like A Place to Stand (granted he's family with Ms. Bathurst, who is like a sister to me). Some make me think, some remind me why I have a hard time with corprate worship these days, and some speak to my condition...but really I would prefer to be under the radar. I know that my ramblings are reaching someone if they so choose and perhaps it provides entertainment or ministers to their condition...but really it is a way of keeping connected to my own spiritual needs in my time in the desert.

Really why did I decide to start this blog with "Ms. Bathurst." Well...for reasons stated in some of the earliest entries. I really feel that many young adult friends are wandering and not connecting back to Quakers. I am one of those. I want to be apart of meeting and the spiritual community offered, but I never feel like I am what meetings want in a young friend. They want someone to be the poster child for the next generation of Quakers, someone who will join committees and have lengthy discussions about their spiritual resume and who will make a meeting proud to send to events like the World Gathering of Young Friends that took place not to long ago; young adult friends whose enthusiasm, piousness, devotion, and blandness (I am sorry simplicity is what I meant) will make our fraidy-cat brand of contemporary Quakerism proud...keep up the status-quo, don't rock the boat.

Ooops, I am slipping into anger. I have been struggling with the idea that this blog is a form of ministry since we began. I like the idea of getting my ideas out, instead of rolling around in my head. But I can't promise to always be speaking in the proper Quaker manner, something like being PC only its more like QC. Its why I liked the article that was picked up nationally from the Philadelphia Inquirer...those Friends speak my mind. I have a lot of respect for the AFSC and Philadelphia Yearly meeting has its place, but that is not the center of the Quaker world.

I don't want anyone telling me how to blog. Or have a Quaker Blogging Faith and Practice. The more we create a "quaker cyber-culture" the more it will resemble the current status-quo of Quakerism and the less visionary it will be. I don't want to express myself differently. I have been thinking on and off for months on the fact that this is a form of ministry. I am better at writing with the spirit than speaking from it in meeting. But I won't necessarily express my understanding of the spirit the way others see as appropriate for a quaker. In fact I like functioning in ignorance from the other quaker blogs. Mostly because I don't have time to find them and then read them. I am actually trying to conduct translational research that will aid people rather than resting on my laurels, which happened at least 30 years ago or more. And if anyone thinks I am being too acidy for a young upstart...I have the Quaker pedigree to back myself and the knowledge of OUR history to keep saying these things though you won't see me attending every committee known to quaker and functioning soley in the insular world of quaker-dom.

The reality of race part II (miscegation is awesome!)

I have recently encountered several people with the mind-set that you shouldn't date people from other cultures (too many cultural differences). It's odd how anthropology has become pop-cultured and now people talk using its terminology...but its used to hide behind things instead of for seeking a greater understanding of the world...though considering that it came out of a white-colonialist-academic setting I guess that isn't surprising. However, through my interaction with people in the fields of Anthropology and Sociology the vast majority tend to view dating someone from a different culture with more openness ie that while there may be cultural differences it is not all that different from all the other more "typical issues" involved in dating anyone (even those with a background similar to your own). My only concern with dating someone from another culture is when there is a language difference. Communication or lack of it is a bigger issue than culture or race. I mean I often can't communicate effectively with my own family.

This is not to downplay the role nationality or race will impact a relationship, I have recently started dating someone from another country. We are having some issues in the early stages of our dating. Rather than bore you with those details, I will say that the funny thing is that despite people saying its cultural differences...his behavior is pretty much like any other guy I ever thought I could end up in a relationship with. Which in fact may say more about me...back to the point. I have grown up in an untraditional household, granted from the outside it would seem typical: white middle class, two parents and whatever else is supposed to indicate "normal american." However, I grew up in the rural mid-west, part of my life was spent without indoor plumbing and living "off the grid" ie solar power (though there was a brief time with kerosene lamps), we had the use of a wood stove for our primary heat source for a number of years, and I even lived in a cabin with only a loft, no bedrooms. This list is an incomplete g;impse of why I am not really "typical" especially by american standards.

I don't really get men (or boys cause there is a lot of grey area about when a boy becomes a man, he may be 30 and still a child of sorts) and I am definately not an east coaster by nature. I embody too many of the deeply instilled mid-western qualities to really ever become fully adjusted to the east coast whether I am living in the south or the north. By this logic I have been dealing with "cultural differences" for 9 years. So taking the step and dating an African isn't so far-fetched. I mean New Yorkers, New Englanders, and North Carolinans are all pretty foriegn to me. The issues in my new relationship aren't so much "cultural differences" unless the cultural differences we are talking about are men vs women.

I guess what bothers me so much is that the people who have told me not date someone from another culture are hiding behind cultural differeces, when it is racism. Cultural differences was not mentioned when I was briefly infatuated with a European last year. It's attitudes like this that really pisses me off. I guess what is interesting about this situation is that it is a dear F/friend I like a lot and care about saying what is essentially racist BS. But she has no idea that its racist or that it is a good example of Northern racism having never been challenged to think about race before. I have been spoiled with all of my friends being pretty much aligned with my personal views on such topics.

Of course what we are talking about here is also addressed in "Jungle Fever" and I think that the movie tells us that it can never work (inter-racial dating) not because of so-called "cultural differences" but society's prejudices and the history of racial tensions especially in America. I watched it again recently and was a little pissy with Spike Lee for making it seem like we need to not date across racial lines...whatever those are. I think more people need to date interracially. The more it happens the less people freak out about it. Miscegenation is awesome! That is why the movie made me so sad. I felt like it made things seem hopeless.

And if things are hopeless what does that say about America? Where does that put those who are bi-racial or multi-racial? Are we always going to be afraid of the "other?" Once in this country we labeled the Irish as black on the census...there is a tale in my family that when my grandparents got married the Irish sat on one side of the church and the Germans sat on the other. There are no photos from the wedding. Of course in contemporary America no one thinks twice about Irish heritage or finds it shameful. Thus, the sociologist in me says, "See race is just a social construct!" So first a generation marries different ethinic groups, but within the same religion. Then their kids marry folks from different religions and the next generation is even more likely to marry (I am using that term to illustrate the historical precendent and evolution of social mores--so substitute partnership or whatever if you prefer) who they choose for love whether that is someone of the same sex or of a different race.

So here is to the cultural differences of men and women. And I understand that this is not going to be the first instance of racist attitudes that will try to influnce my current relationship but if we avoid examining such things we can never get to the root cause and work to change things. Whether such negative attitudes are being expressed by whites, African-Americans, Africans, Latinos, or Koreans they are still at their foundation prejudicial and ultimately racist. We all carry the means for racism within us, what matters is if we take time to examine and deconstruct it for positive change or if we let it continue to inform our thoughts and actions no matter how subtley.

Query #9

The Faith and Practice of NCYM-C (which is available online here) includes lists of queries for monthly meetings, ministry and oversight, and individuals. The reading of the monthly meetings' query answers is a very important part of our sessions and so too is the answering of individual queries a significant gauge of my own spiritual life. The queries allow for regular introspection into every facet of our spiritual lives as individuals and as groups. The formality of the monthly structure does not allow allow me to disregard the questions that are uncomfortable.

The following is the 9th Query for Individuals and my answer:

#9 How have I contributed to the spiritual growth of the Society of Friends? What have I done as a member of my meeting for worship and meeting for business to carry out my responsibilities as a member of the Society of Friends?

I have to admit, I haven't been to a business meeting in ages. I keep in contact with my home meeting, something that would be far more difficult if the clerk of my meeting wasn't also one of my parents. I'm able to give input into meeting decisions via long-distance calls and feel that my involvement in the meeting is appropriate for the distance involved.
I do feel that I use my NCYM-C membership as an excuse to be under-involved with the giant liberal meeting that I attend. When the spirit moves me I attend worship and give ministry, but I have avoided getting involved in the life of the meeting I attend. I tried attending the biweekly Bible study, but found that my more traditional interpretations of Scripture weren't always welcome. It is a major flaw of mine to back down from conflict. I feel so uncomfortable in the big NEYM meeting I attend that I didn't turn in the letter of sojourn that was written for me. In order to remedy my lack of contribution to the big yucky meeting, I am seriously considering teaching first day school at the meeting this trimester. The set curriculum for this trimester is Quaker History, an area which ought to be relatively similar throughout the branches of Quakerism and not cause me any conflicts. I'm not committing to teaching the class until I've seen the curriculum and I'm certain that I am clear to teach it.
I do feel that I am contributing to the spiritual health of the Society of Friends by blogging here. It has given me a new medium to discuss spirituality and faith with people that I might never have spoken with in person about such issues.

While I have been using the personal queries as part of my own spiritual practice for some time now, I'm going to try to publish my answers here on occasion. I imagine that I will occasionally feel the need to keep my answers private. I may, for those months, post the query without an answer.

Love,
Elizabeth Bathurst

An explanation of sorts

As my father (who has started blogging recently over at A Place to Stand) pointed out to me recently, I haven't posted anything since the end of July. The reason for this is simple. My mental health has declined and blogging isn't as high a priority as feeding myself, changing the litterbox or getting to my doctor's appointments. Blogging requires thought and thinking too much can be dangerous for me when I'm in this dark a place.

I will share this story with you all, however. This past weekend, I found myself crouched over the hospital bed of a dear friend while we waited for the psych consult to arrive. At one point, she was frantic and deeply concerned that God didn't love her because she had done bad things. In order to comfort her, I told her that I also often feel that I am a horrible person who has done unforgivable things. But I also know that God has forgiven me and that God loves me, because He has told me so. I believe that if He can forgive and love me, then that love and forgiveness must be accessible to everyone, because I am so not special.

I don't know how much she retained of that conversation, as her memories of our night in the ER are incomplete and scattered. I do know that in the moment, I was able to comfort her because she physically relaxed a little. It's moments like that, when I can draw on my long and ugly history of living with mental illness, that I can make some sense of why He would let me suffer the way that I do.

I ask for your prayers for myself and for my friend, but especially for all of the people who are helping to care for us.

Love,
Elizabeth Bathurst

P.S. I am starting to feel better and hope to be back to blogging soon.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.

I attended Rob's experiment in semi-programmed worship yesterday evening. As we waited for everyone to gather, some of us discussed how we had spent our morning. Few of us had attended meeting for worship. When I mentioned I had gone to brunch with my heathen friends, everyone laughed.

During the service, Rob read the 4th query from Britain Yearly Meeting:

The Religious Society of Friends is rooted in Christianity and has always found inspiration in the life and teachings of Jesus. How do you interpret your faith in the light of this heritage? How does Jesus speak to you today? Are you following Jesus' example of love in action? Are you learning from his life the reality and cost of obedience to God? How does this relationship with God challenge and inspire you?

I cannot calculate the cost of my obedience to God. I cannot fathom what I might have gained or lost by following my own desires above His. I know that the greatest treasure I possess is the intimate knowledge of His Redemptive Grace, which I discovered through utter submission to His will.

One of the ways in which He guides me occasionally is through the selection of my friends. Amongst my dearest friends are the prostitutes and the tax-collectors (Matthew 21:32). Those of us who live in the dirt are most in need of Love. When I console and council my dearest and their friends as one who has struggled and does struggle with the depravity of the human spirit, I am doing His work.

While I value the friendships I have with Quakers and relative ease with which I can discuss spirituality, the majority of my friends and acquaintances are religious and many appear on the surface to have very minimal spiritual lives. It's not my intention to bring anyone to Christ. It is my intention to be obedient to Christ and to feed His lambs and care for His sheep (John 21:15-16), for we are all children of God, whether we are aware of it or not. If we insulate ourselves with like-minded folks who look like we do, we are not living in the world. There is much work to be done inside the Society of Friends, but far more to be done outside of it. We are called to be a part of the Kingdom of Heaven and all are welcome.

I will continue to minister from the ugliness of my own life to the sick, the troubled and the weary regardless of their genetic make-up, belief structure, and station in life because despair is a universal condition. Knowing that one is not alone in the dark can be more comforting than being told of a light.

This is how I am called to express Love in action. This is the cross Christ has asked me to bear.

Love,
Elizabeth Bathurst

Give and take

Giving ministry is hard work. Sometimes as I center into worship, I hear that still small voice I know so well. I tend to get anywhere from a word to a couple of sentences that repeat over and over. Sometimes it starts well before meeting as I prepare for worship. When I get the rumblings of ministry, I contemplate what the phrase means. I explore it in as many directions as I have time before something happens.

If I'm meant to share my message, I feel a quiver of fear and the power of the Lord. If the message is for me, I never get that quivering certainty that I have to stand. I'm often overly grateful for the handshake that means I don't have to speak. I hate giving ministry.

When I speak the Holy Spirit moves through me. I retreat to a quieter, smaller space and give my body over to the Lord. I'm only aware of speaking the phrase I was given, and anything I say to preface it. I rarely remember much what I say after the fact.

I hate speaking in front of people in general, but speaking deep spiritual and emotional truths is far worse. I don't want these strangers to have access to the deepest parts of me. I'd rather keep it secret, keep it safe. It is a distinctly dissociative event, which can be traumatic.

If I stand up and give the message the moment I feel shaky, the experience is just draining. If I postpone it until He lifts me off the bench, it's awful. It can take me several hours to fully reinhabit my body. When I resist giving a message, I get physically ill.

Several times over the past few weeks, I've had people bring up the idea that being a part of a meeting of any size is a give-and-take relationship. You can't just go to meeting to get what you need, you have to give back. Even when the meeting isn't meeting your needs and it feels like you have nothing left to give.

Love,

Elizabeth Bathurst

The reality of race

I read in the paper this morning that crime is rising in DC with the heat-wave with 14 homicides in 2 weeks. I wondered how Baltimore's crime wave was doing, as 8 homicides in a week is not too unusual. Things have seemed quiet despite the heat.

I was coming back from working on a report at an all-night dinner. Sometimes I just need a new venue to get work done. I was sober, but tired. I always worry about hitting someone. Despite being one of those annoying pedestrians myself, who always walks out into streets with oncoming traffic, I still as a motorist get nervous. I was driving along a road that is a major thorough-fare in town and there were several groups of young men along the road. I was more worried that I might hit them...untill I saw one making to through something at my car. I though maybe it will be an egg, I can wash that off. But it was a rock or a brick. It hit my car. Thankfully, it didn't hit the window. But there is a nice dent and some serious scratches...I thought do I call the cops? Well, I don't think little punk-asses should be doing shit like that, though its better than other deviant activities...so I called the cops. Its only the second time I have had to do that (for a non-work related incidence). I guess I should feel good that I have had so little crime in my life...but you call, you give the location, the cop automatically thinks it s a place about five blocks from where it was cause that would be normal. Then he asks me to describe the persons..."where they black or white kids" Part of me hates to contribute to the amount of black men getting harrassed by the law, but damn it don't be throwing shit. But my white guilt rears up and says what might happen now? What if the cops do go and harrass them and they stop for tonight and eventually move on to more dangerous things. But the rest of me says, "Well, if that had gone through one of my windows, it could have caused an accident or injured a passenger if I had had one."

I am not the typical white mid-west kid. I have seen rascism from all sides. In college I sat with my "other minority" friends while African-American kids said we don't want them piggy-backing on us, there needs to be special attention given to the African-American students on this racist campus. I was deemed a "good enough" white person to get the blessing of my friends to educate others on race. A blessing I don't take lightly. My cousin has spent six years in jail, there are conflicting family stories about whether he was really involved in drugs or whether it was planted on him, because it isn't easy to be a young black man in our society. Either way he is another young black man who now has to go through society with a felony, which is always concentrated on more than how hard he is working to support his children and enrich all of their lives.

Or there are the forms of racism I have seen from the "white guilt liberals" to the "righteiously bigotted." My first year in college I was finally able to put my finger on what distinguises Northern racism from Southern rascism. In the north we hid behind smiles and fake nicetities and in the south they are real proud of it and don't hide it. So you know where you stand in the south, not in the north.

I wrote this to a friend several months ago, but somehow it seems important to include tonight:

What is funny though, is I was able to come home early today and take a walk. It is beautiful and spring flowers are everywhere. I was listening to an italian tape...and there was this group of middle school boys walking home from school, they assumed I couldn' hear them, so they were saying things like (and they were all black) "hey whitey" "whitey" "hey, white girl you ain't got no ass" I thought for a second about flipping them off, or asking them if their mama's would approve or that it didn't matter that I have no ass cause there is a beautiful Kenyan man who has the hots for me. But I just kept walking with my head held high. Now some white people would have been scared of a group of black boys, I wasn't. I was just sad. That they felt the need to see if they could get away with saying things like that to me. That they had to uphold racism...that they have internalized because of white people like me (college educated, middle class whites).

The same racism, the more insidious forms that are so lodged in our collective memories and deepest self-concious are the worst. The young men tonight were acting out for the same reasons. It may have just been fun and to see if they could get away with it. Or it could be like the kids I used to work with, what else did they have to do. The are smart and ignored and kids like that should not be left at loose ends, because they get themselves into trouble.

Psalm 34

I carry a handwritten copy of the 34th psalm in my purse. It is so comforting to me.

The Lord is close to the broken-hearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
A righteous man may have many troubles,
but the Lord delivers him from them all;
He protects all his bones,
not one of them will be broken.
-Psalm 34:18-20

I have spent much of my life battling clinical depression. I am often broken-hearted and crushed in spirit. I have wondered why He gave me this cross to bear. It is so lonely. It is so devastating to know that even if I get to the top of the mountain, the stone will just roll down again. I'm borrowing too many metaphors, but bear with me. I'm not especially sane at the moment.

I preparing to write this entry, I was looking at different translations of the Psalm, and I finally read the little snippet at the beginning that I often skip over. You know, the part where it tells you what that David wrote this one to the tune of Gilligan's Island? Anyway, the litte snippet for this Psalm is:

"A Psalm of David when he pretended madness before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed."

No wonder I like it so much. It's supposed to sound like a crazy person is speaking.

It's also an acrostic poem of the Hebrew alphabet. This amuses me in and of itself, but especially so since I found this psalm through a poem by Denise Levertov. "O Taste and See" is perhaps the only "carpe diem" poem I've ever liked. The poem is her response to the Wordsworth line "the world is too much with us," a sentiment I often agree with. If only the world would retreat a little, give me a little room to breathe, I could spend more time on God. I could spend more time creating peace and perhaps even figure out how to indulge in joy. Levertov's "O Taste and See" makes the point that when we engage with the world we are engaging with God. He's in the food that sustains us, in ads on the subway and everywhere in between. Every day we are

"living in the orchard and being

hungry, and plucking
the fruit."
-Levertov

Right now, I am struggling to remember that I am living in the orchard, that He will keep my bones unbroken, and that so long as I look to Him, my face will never be covered with shame. It helps to carry these words with me on a tattered sheet of notebook paper, especially when I can't seem to carry them in my heart.

Love,
ELizabeth Bathurst

Longing

Tonight the heat has subsided. The humidity has given way to cool air and rain. Soothing rain. On hot nights I leave the door to my balcony open. Tonight lying in bed with the soothing sounds of the rain, I look up from my bed to see the rain falling in such a way as to create a curtain between me and the tree outside. It is lovely, I think about my bed, large and so lonely. This is one of those nights I wish I was lying in it with someone to share the excitement a night like this holds for me. Or how the book I am currently reading broke my heart by page 13. I was surrounded by soccer fans in Heathrow airport and they were all excited from the match and I was crying. And the peace of canoeing at where the water gives way to the heavens. There are so many things I want to share with another. My joy, that can light up a room, and the heart-wrentching agony of life that I hide with my uncouth sense of humor. But tonight I have the rain, to lull me to sleep instead of a lovers arms.

At that hour, the boy happened to be lying on his backin the woods thinking about the girl. You could say it was his love for her that saved him. In the years that followed, the boy became invisible. In this way, he escaped death. Nicole Krauss, The History of Love, p. 12

And if the man who once upon a time had been a boy who promised he'd never fall in love with another girl as long as he lived kept his promise, it wasn't because he was stubborn or even loyal. He couldn't help it. And having hidden for three years and a half years, hiding his love for a son who didn't know he existed didn't seem unthinkable. Not if it was what the only woman he would ever love needed him to do. After all, what does it mean for a man to hide one more thing when he has vanished completely? Nicole Krauss, The History of Love, p. 13

Zoar Revisited;Salt of the Earth

I have always wondered about Lot's wife. Being a woman, we don't know her name or why she looked back. Was it fear? Was it curiousity?

I think that we are all broken people. Sometimes I think that the relationships in our lives are only there to create a vicious circle of hurt. We are hurt and broken and find it hard to love, so we injure those around us to make them more like us. It takes time and strength to heal from life's wounds. There is a balacing act of learning from the experience, agknowledging it for what it was and working your way forward to embrace a whole, loving life. At a certain point these things need to be allowed to rest, to no longer be burdens we carry. They must be firmly in the past to allow for us to move to the present and walk with love in our hearts towards the future. It doesn't mean that the wounds have healed or that they are any less raw, but you must let them go to a certain degree or they will fester and spread to every part of your life and soul. You will become toxic.

Like everyone I have my share of burdens and wounds. I have spent six years wrestling with some of them. It was a hard struggle to find my life again, to find my joy, and to open myself to love. However, it is a tight-rope walk. I am not strong enough to stop from talking or reflecting on the past when it is brought up. Recently, the rawness of these experiences flooded back into my life--most unexpectedly. I had no idea I would crack so easily. I think I am beginning to understand the lesson in the story of Lot's wife:

When they [the angels] had brought them outside, they said, "Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed." Genesis 19:17 New Revised Standard Version

Lot fears he cannot make it to the hills, so he asks of the angels that he be allowed to seek shelter in a small town--Zoar. His family reaches the town, but women being as we are rarely follow advice and the wife looks back:

But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. Genesis 24:26 New Revised Standard Version

Salt is interesting. It was once highly covetted as a spice, Romans paid their army in salt. Is salt really bad? But tears are described as salty, so are other parts of the body. Salt comes with sweat, whether from work or sex. But as we are warned in Luke, being too worldly has a cost. That life is not meant for us to strive for the material:

On that day no one who is on the roof of his house, with his goods inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. Remember Lot's wife!Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. Luke 17:31-33 New International Version

My question is, is it really that bad to be turned into salt? We all look back from time to time, and all recieve our due punishment for it. But salt is a natural mineral of the earth, made to be reborn.

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. Matthew 5:13 New International Version

And so despite reaching the safety of Zoar, I looked back. I have become a pillar of salt. However, I must have lost my saltiness long ago, because I was looking back on the ways in which I have been trampled. Can I become salty again?

The family you make

Being an only child I am a strong believer in making friendships that extend your family. I have a couple of friends that I consider siblings. I have other friends that are so close to me I don't know what I would do without them. For the most part, these friendships weather the storm of distance. I have very few close friends close by where I am currently living, however, when you make good friendships and truly connect with people time and distance do not seem impede the value or comfort of the friendships.

By nature I am a caretaker. I like to care for the one's I love and see them well. When I thought I would give myself to an intentional community and dedicate myself to social justice issues. I idolized Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement. I lived and worked in a Catholic Worker for awhile, I considered leaving school and giving myself to that life and serving god. I can't really say what happened that changed that. But events unfolded such that I realized that was not the path for me. While I craved community and understanding, it was not in that form. I work to live my life in the spirit and make all my interactions with other's meaningful and honest. I fail of course, but like Thomas Kelly says, "begin again where you are."

My current life is the most stable and fulfilling that it has been in years. I have a happy, loving relationship with my family. I am grateful for that, because it did not always seem like that was a possibility. I know in my heart that my life would not be the way it is now if it wasn't the love and support of my "chosen" family. The friendships that sustain me through sorrows and joys have allowed me to come to the place I am now.

I am planning on going the route of working professional these days. I want a salaried job that will fulfill my need to serve others but allow me to live in the "style to which I have become accoustomed." But not out of some middle-class need for stability, but to pay back those that have helped me when I most needed it. I want to be able to step in and make sure my friends have a safe harbor, whether that is a bed for a night or a month, or food in their bellies, or a monatary loan.

I have been thinking about all this recently. Two very dear people to me are suffering and I feel as though there is nothing more I can do to help that to be "present" with them. And know that means a lot, but at the same time it is hard to see someone you love suffer. I thought to turn to Dorothy Day and Thomas Kelly's writings today, hoping for something that could comfort me. But neither offered the comfort I desired, the words of wisdom I hoped for and found so many other times from them, did not speak to my condition. So I am left with prayer and while that is still a powerful tool and comfort, it leaves me still feeling that I am watching them being swept away in a torrent and can offer nothing, nothing to bouy them or support them.

We are all broken people to one degree or another. We are all struggling under our demons and inner conflicts. But how can one spread light and love? Its it patience and prayer? Or a solid prescence in the lives of others saying I am not going anywhere and you had better not leave me, damn you.

Nomad in Pants; alone, lost, and feeling awkward

Recently, I was talking with a friend who was asking how I pronounced something. She has been hanging out with some folks from Michigan. I told that while she may think my mid-western accent is still strong, it has had time to adapt. I have been back and forth between home and the east coast for nine years. It was one of those revelations that makes you reflect on your life, where it is and where it has been.

I am in a graduate program where I am at least four years older than the majority of my cohort. It makes me feel old sometimes. It makes me feel like I have seen many more snapshots of the world than they have. It makes me think about how nomadic I have been in the 9 years since I first left the shores of Lake Superior.

My friend and I also discussed fast-food employees that day. She was surprised to learn that my first job had been at Hardee's. She has been working retail all through college and graduate school, in addition to a research assistantship. But I am amused when people who meet me through professional settings are shocked to learn some of the jobs I had over the years. A person has to earn a living, you have to humble yourself to the mighty dollar. So inevitably you take jobs that sacrifice some dignity, that is, people will treat as though you are less than they are. There is a contempt and rudeness people show for fast-food employees and other minimum wage jobs that you don't get if you are percieved as being educated or on your way to middle class status. Even in my last retail job I was able to retain the feeling of being a person with dignity that I often did not get while I worked fast-food. Of course, my boss at the last job treated most of the customers with a bit of contempt to it was easier to realize I didn't need to take shit from people.

That was a bit of a side-bar to what I really started out to say. I recently was in a store where a song was playing it sounded sorta country, but I really don't pay much attention to popular music, so god knows what it was. But the jist of it was that you could always go home; there is always a place for you at home. How I wish that were true. After college I tried. I wanted to go home. I have family obligations that would be so much easier to keep an eye on if I were close by. Life didn't work out that way. I can't live in my hometown. It's leathal for me. I tried to move to a larger city in my home state, but that didn't work either. And now I am on the east coast too far away from my family. I am happy here; I think I could have a good life here.

I was listening to music while at work today (I have a professional type job these days, but sometimes you have to work on the weekend anyway) and I heard "Girl, from the North Country" by my main man Bob Dylan. And it was hard to realize that that won't be me. I always identified with it in a way, but I am not her. In this version of an odessy, I am a nomad in pants taking a road that I don't know where it will lead me. I am alone, lost, and feeling awkward.

Why Elizabeth Bathurst?

1) She wrote so well that there was speculation she was actually a man writing under a pseudonym. I aspire to write well enough to inspire gender confusion.

2) She was weak and sickly and didn't let that interfere with her ministry. I am sickly myself.

3) Despite all our self-congradulating talk about women's equality, there weren't/aren't that many female Quaker theologians. I'm a girl who thinks theology is important. Also, female role models.

4) Because I'm so not posting my real name on the internets.


Love,
Elizabeth Bathurst

I left my heart in Pistoia; the nunnery Part I

I have joked for years about how one of my callings on this earth is to found the first order of Quaker nuns. When I was younger and more bitter about my celibacy, I used to refer to it as the "nonery" and call us "nones." Because I am clever.

There are many reason's why I would consider starting a Quaker order of nuns, rather than just biting the bullet (for some militaristic imagery) and becoming a Catholic. First, converting is a pain. Second, I like being Quaker and while there are aspects of the Catholic church that I respect a great deal...there are other aspects that don't jive with my world-view. Thirdly, there is the whole debate (internal mostly) about marrying god and giving up worldly things, like sex.

See I have always prefered to qualify my celibacy by saying it is forced and not self-imposed. There is a little part of me that wonders if there are people placed on this earth who are not ment for carnal love affairs but are here to give themselves (w)hol(el)y to the divine to serve as vesels and instruments of god's love. But then there is a part of me who truly does not believe that god would ask us to give up sex. It is something that can be a religious exerience that is shared with another; it isn't meant to be frivolious or cheep or impersonal, it is meant to be mystical.

So what would my Quaker order of nuns be like? Is is realistic or just my bitterness at a life of celibacy? I know I am cappable of living an intentional and devoted life. But am I capable of living that life and knowing passion with another?

True God from true God

Due to family obligations, I recently found myself in a Catholic church for mass on a Saturday afternoon. Amid the mental gymnastics of trying to remember what to do and say when and deciding how to balance being respectful without being hypocritical, I found myself touched by the celebration of the Pentecost.
The Pentecost story is from chapter 2 of Acts, where the Holy Spirit descends on the Apostles and a bunch of other people in a gust of wind. Then there are flames that look like tongues on people's foreheads and whenever someone talks, everyone else hears it in their own language. Kind of like a backwards Tower of Babel.
I grew up aware of Pentecostal churches. I knew that the speaking in tongues, which is mocked in some circles as being among the more ridiculous of christian practices, was based on a bible story and that it was supposed to be a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. It's a denomination that always struck me as theoretically experiential.
In theory, the catholic church is the same way. The bread and wine aren't symbolic of blood and flesh, they are actually transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ. I know very few Catholics who actually believe this, but that's beside the point.
I'm not convinced that everyone who speaks in tongues is actually being moved by the Spirit to do so every time any more than I believe that transubstantiation happens during every mass. I'm not about to say it never happens. I'm definitely not going to say it can't. I believe that the Holy Spirit is capable of creating events which appear irrational or impossible.  
The priest had some lovely things to say during his homily about experiencing the Holy Spirit. He then clarified that we all knew what he was talking about because we'd all been baptised, confirmed and taken communion in the Church. Well, not quite.
Maybe the only reason I have experienced the Holy Spirit is that I was baptised with water as a baby and fed some leftover Host as a toddler. But I happen to believe that the movings of the Holy Spirit in me and my life have more to do with His plans than anything that my mother and/or a couple of priests did before I was old enough to remember or understand. Whatever the reason, whatever the means, I am grateful for the presence of the Spirit in my life and for reflections of my experience in the experiences of others.

Love,
Elizabeth Bathurst

Where I have been...ruminations on the tower of Babel

I could start this by being all self-pitying and self-centered and say that my recent travels have been a metaphor for my life--lost and alone. But then someone would say "yea, whatever, she is in Tuscany. I do not feel bad for her."

Italian is a language many people say they want to learn but it seems that few follow up on this. I wonder why? It is a beautiful language made to express strong emotions. I think that there are important lessons to be learned from the Italian way of life. They are not one of the economic powerhouses of Europe and part of that is because they still cling to the way life has been for centuries. This is evident in the beauty and sofistication of the crumbling villas; the way the sun refects off the young buds that will become olives; the roosters crowing all day long; the dogs that run free; the the italians arguing politics over a shot of expresso. In some ways I truly appreciate the way life has been preserved here, the way the olive trees and grape vines are the backbone of life. I am even more appreciative of this after my trips to Florence and Siena where I see Americans being ugly, rufusing to attempt to learn even the simplest Italian phrases or refusing to accept cultural differences. It pains me to make my colleagues and co-workers talk in English; I can understand a lot of Italian if it is slow but my ability to talk is almost non-existent. I feel the pain of coming from a country so proud it trandscends arrogance to something above and beyond expression.

The kindness that has been shown to me is amazing. I wish that somehow Italians could export that mind-set and way of living life to American we would be better for it. I feel a bit like Scarlett O"hara, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." Or however that quote is supposed to go.

Ciao!

The everyday is sacred

I was listening to "Holy Now" by Peter Mayer recently when I ought to have been in meeting. I was indulging in a little house-to-myself time instead.

"Wine into water is not so small,
but an even better magic trick
is that anything is here at all.
So, the challenging thing becomes
not to look for miracles,
but finding where there isn't one.

When holy water was rare at best
I barely wet my finger tips.
Now I have to hold my breath
like I'm swimming in a sea of it.

It used to be a world half-there
heaven's second rate hand-me-downs
but I'm walking with a reverent air
cause everything's holy now. "

I wasn't at meeting last week either. Last week I had worship at the home of a friend after a lovely breakfast. Part of the reason that early Friends adopted the phrase "meeting house" for the buildings they built for communal worship was that they regarded the people as the church.
The monthly meetings I have access to rarely meet my spiritual needs and I am grateful that He hasn't asked me to commit to any of them. I still go to meeting frequently, but certainly not every week. I do try to be aware of my place in the Church on a daily basis. Am I being attentive to the needs of the people around me? Am I encouraging their growth in grace as well as my own?
Sometimes, even when I'm feeling the need to take care of myself and I know that attending meeting isn't absolutely nessecary, I can still feel guilty about skipping meeting. It's good to be reminded of all of Creation is holy and that the First Communion was Jesus sharing a meal with His friends.

Love,
Elizabeth Bathurst