Menein

I am my own god, and I am faithful to my religion.
I chase nothing that matters, and am detached from everything with meaning.
I am faithful to the religion of myself.

Each day dawns with good intentions.
My feet hit the floor with little more than a detached nod in Your direction.
Before the sleep has even left my eyes my day of worship begins, and I move through my routine. A lifeless robot, I am enslaved to myself.
Dry, empty, and lifeless, I wander through the desert of my day.
Moving and chasing and following myself.
I am my own god, and I am faithful to my religion.

Life pulls and tugs, from the dawn of day until my eyes finally close in sleep.
There is always something demanding my full attention, allowing not even a detached nod in Your direction.
In the world my eyes can see, concerns of the heart and concerns of the soul are useless. There is no time or energy left for anything but my faithful worship of my lifeless god.
I am my own god, and I am faithful to my religion.

My ambition, my plans, and my pride.
My world, my life, my self.

I pursue myself until my life is a creation of my own two hands, separate from anything with meaning.
I have no purpose.
I am pointless.
I bear no fruit. Nothing good can come from me while I faithfully practice the religion of me.
The world is mine….and my soul is lost.
I am my own god, and I am faithful to my religion.

Yet there is a vine that grows through my life, quietly asking for my attention.
It promises life and peace and a fruitful existence.
Green in all seasons and blooming as would a tree by a stream.
This is the life the vine promises, but
doing fine on my own, I ignore its gentle nudges in favor of my own fickle and demanding god. In slow moments I hear it beckoning and am tempted by its offer, but return still to a life detached from the vine.

In spite of myself, I want more.
In spite of it all, I am drawn to this vine that lovingly pursues me.
At my core – in my soul – I want the vine and all it promises.
I see truth in the vine, and want to join with the vine on this journey of life.
I see You in the vine – the true God, the only One worthy of my worship and my time.
I see You there. I want to be with You there.
I want to connect with You there.
I want to know You there.
I want to feel You there.
I want to find You there, in the vine.

But still I run. There is no time for You or for the vine while I worship myself.
I am my own god, and I am faithful to my religion.
In worship of this god of self, my mind wanders,
My life fills up,
My time slips away,
And day after day passes apart from the vine. Day after day my feet touch the floor, I barely nod in Your direction, and I begin my day of worship.
Day after day, night after night I fight connection with the vine, pursuing only myself, and find that freedom from the vine is not freedom at all, and a life apart from the vine is not real life.
The process is slow but inevitable. I wither…
And fade…
And die
Apart from the vine.
But I am my own god, and I am faithful to my religion.

Angry All Over Again

Well....I wrote that post about my depression and anxiety and, most of all, my agoraphobia, and mentioned the disservice people like Tom Cruise do on the mental health community when they speak about things they don't understand. Becca didn't know what he had said, and since I cited him as a specific example, I went back to make sure I had my facts straight. YouTube strikes again, and I found this: Tom Cruise on Psychiatry. (You may want to watch that now, as I'm going to make a lot of references to it in a minute, I think.) As I sat here watching the interview, I was sick to my stomach. 'Thanks a lot, Tom," I said. "Way to promote understanding." I even thumped him on my computer screen. I got pretty upset, and once I calmed down some, I decided that I would take a road I had before not even considered. I went to the official Scientology website, since he cited Scientology as a part of his beliefs, to find out what they actually say about such things. Here's what I found there: "In Scientology no one is asked to accept anything as belief or on faith. That which is true for you is what you have observed to be true. An individual discovers for himself that Scientology works by personally applying its principles and observing or experiencing results."

Now, I'm all for people searching and trying to find meaning for their lives. I understand that sometimes people have to go through a period of seeking answers before they settle on a belief system. However, when a core value of the belief system he or she settles on is that "that which is true is what you have observed to be true," it seems to me that one such person would be more understanding of what someone else is going through. Such a person, who believes that his truth is what he observes, should not speak out on something he has not personally observed, but has only read about. Such a person should not say that having observed a child on Ritalin does not make him an expert, because such a person would take what he has observed to be true. Scientology seems to be a very open-minded religion, but even for a follower of such a belief system, Tom seems very misguided. I'm not attacking Scientology.....though I could, because it seems really messed up.....but I'm attacking the thoughts that Tom expressed, and his method and reason for doing so. He contradicts himself, and as one who has benefited from something he says does not exist I resent that. *deep breaths* I don't know. I don't usually express very strong opinions about things, except for things that I have personally experienced, and I think that might be an approach Mr. Cruise might want to try. That's all.

The Irony of an Agoraphobics' Support Group

This morning I had the Ellen Degeneres show on while I checked email and read blogs. I don't usually watch that show, but the TV was already on channel 10 when I turned it on, and I really only wanted it on for noise so it didn't matter what was on. Her first guest was some guy from Grey's Anatomy, and I didn't pay any attention to that. She announced her second guest - the Southern chef Paula Dean - and I prepared to change the channel. I don't know why, but I've had a serious aversion to her....more so than Rachael Ray, even....despite my loyalty to most things southern. I'm really easily bothered by weird voices or extreme accents, somehow, so you can see why I don't particularly like them. Other than that, though, I don't know what my problem was with them, and I wasn't particularly in the mood to hear Paula as I was trying to read about the squirrels outside Becca's house and children saying the pledge of allegiance. As they played the little blurb of what they were going to talk about during the interview, though, I dropped the remote and suddenly became very attentive. Apparently, Paula Dean had a 20-year bout with agoraphobia.

Having been officially diagnosed with agoraphobia (in the Greek, "fear of the marketplace"), and knowing that agoraphobia is something that is managed and not really ever cured, I became very interested in what I had previously wanted to avoid. I had to hear what she had to say. Agoraphobia is one of those things that comes with a stigma. It's kind of like depression used to be (and still kind of is, in some circles). The view is that it's a mental thing - something you can set your mind to getting over and it's not really a problem. People think it's irrational and doesn't make any sense if they've never been there, and they therefore think it's not real. Because of that - and the prevailing thought that people who struggle with mood disorders are somehow weak and/or crazy - most people who have this kind of problem don't want to talk about it. The fear is that people will look at you differently if they know. (That fear, for me, was a big factor in keeping me in my hole. If I didn't go out, people wouldn't have to know. If I didn't go out, there was no risk of having a panic attack in front of people.) It probably goes without saying, then, that when I hear someone openly talk about agoraphobia or depression or anxiety disorder, I kind of pounce on them. I always want to hear what they have to say.

And what she said was all very true. Being a talk show with other guests, there wasn't a lot of time for her to elaborate on what she went through, but she did say some things that made me throw my hands up in the air and shout, "Thank you!" It helps so much to have people come out and say things that clear the air or clarify what it's all about. It's kind of like when Brooke Shields was so open in talking about her postpartum depression. Other women realized they weren't crazy and were willing to talk about it themselves, and the stigma has lessened (no thanks to people like Tom Cruise, who have to open their big mouths and say what they think about the whole thing when they really have no idea). It helped me a lot.

One of the ladies from the Women of Faith Conferences - Patsy Clairmont - dealt with the same thing, and she has been very open about it in her books and devotionals. I actually wrote to her once, and she sent me a bunch of things that helped her through it and encouraged me with her own story. It's so amazing how, as Becca recently pointed out that Solomon said, there's nothing new under the sun. If you're going through something, there is always someone out there who has been through the same thing. The song "Lean On Me" says that no one can share the burdens that you don't let show, and that resonates deeply with me. Agoraphobia's curse is that it drives you into a hole, and unless you live with someone else who has the same problem, there's no empathy there. Sympathy -yes, but no empathy. No one understands like someone who has been there, but the mind of someone with a mood disorder convinces the person that no one needs to know. If we don't talk about it, no one will know and no one will judge us. Unfortunately, though, that also means that no one can help us.

A support group for agoraphobics, then, is most ironic. Much-needed and invaluable, but ironic.

A Battlefield in My Mind

I went back to the temp agencies today. I've been stubborn and selfish and just haven't wanted to do that. It's hard to explain why without sounding conceited and egotistical. The thing is, I don't want to be caught in another job where I am just a warm body. I don't want to get a job because I happened to be the name they drew out of the hat, and I don't want something that has nothing to do with me, my talents, or my qualifications. I'm in this weird place where I'm really working through all of this depression and self-esteem baggage, and am really starting to see that I do have talents and things to offer. Coming to that realization does not reconcile well with job hunting, because I'm also starting to see that I might have to settle for a job - any job - that is offered to me, simply because I need to work. How do you reconcile that? On one hand, I don't want to settle for just anything, but I don't really think I'm in a position where I can be so selective that I turn things down, either. Argh! I'm so confused, you know?

On a somewhat related note, we had a covered dish supper at church tonight (where I ate way more than anyone else there, I think....I can't help it at those things!) and after that there was a meeting for a new women's Bible study they're starting in a couple of weeks. It's Joyce Meyer's Battlefield of the Mind, and I can't wait. I have the devotional book and LOVE it, so I'm thrilled that we're going to do this. I'm excited about getting to know some of the other women in the church, too, so this will be a really good thing, I think.

Mailboxes

I'm sitting out on the front porch, in my nifty rocking chair, waiting for Scott to get home from work. As I sit here, I can't help but notice that our mailbox is crooked. This is not a new realization. We have known it is crooked for some time now, and we know why it is in that subtle state of disrepair.

Our mailbox is a frequent target for wayward cars. Since Scott moved out here about 6 years ago, this mailbox has been hit by a car 12 times. The post has been shattered, splintered, and replaced several times. The whole setup - mailbox, post, and all - has taken more than one flight across our yard, and the most recent of which sent it sailing across our driveway and into the other half of the yard. The box has been run over, smashed, sent airborne, and attacked with beer bottles and baseball bats. The hole it sits in has been cemented over and over again, and while I desperately want to plant some flowers out there around it, I can't help but think that before long, they will probably die a violent and untimely death that has nothing to do with my own botanical incompetence. It is a sad state of affairs, let me tell you.

There are several strange things about this whole situation. First, if you've been to our house, hitting our mailbox seems almost physically impossible. We do not live on a curve; in fact, the road in front of our house is wider than in the rest of the neighborhood, because we live near the entrance and the road is widening to accommodate the median/flowerbed at the entrance. Second, the mailbox in question sits not 20 feet from a light post, which has never been hit in one of these crazed fits of mailbox destruction. There have been tracks in our yard that seemed to lead toward it, but veered at the last possible moment. Third, my dear husband - for whatever reason - has never replaced the box. The post has been replaced countless times, but each time it happens, Scott just pounds the dents and dings back out and remounts the invincible mailbox. I think it is a test of will, at this point, and I think (whether he would admit it or not) Scott is somewhat attached to the mailbox. They've been through so much together that it would be hard to let it go. Scott has even said that if we ever move, the mailbox is coming with us.

The most recent attempt at mailbox demolition came at around 6:00 in the morning a couple of weeks ago. Scott awoke to our neighbor calling and laughing, saying that she was outside with a lady whose son had just plowed over our mailbox. (The story was that the kid's windshield was fogged up and he couldn't see, and he hit the mailbox with his mirror. Now, call me crazy, but would a side mirror ever be low or strong enough to break the post off at ground level and send the whole shebang 50 feet in the air across our yard? I think not.) Cheryl - our neighbor - was not being insensitive; she merely recognized the humor of the situation. She has lived here longer than Scott has and has witnessed all of the violent episodes directed at our poor, innocent mailbox. (Prior to this last one, Cheryl's stepdaughter backed into it and - after a very nice job rebuilding it - the box was back in business.....for awhile.) The lady promised that her son would be back that afternoon to fix the mailbox, and Scott told her - you guessed it - that she didn't have to worry about replacing the mailbox itself, but that if she wanted to have her son build a new post, that'd be great. We got home late that night from cell group and Scott went out to check out the teenager's craftsmanship. Irritated, he came back up the driveway and said that the kid hadn't even cemented it into the ground. Scott had been able to pick the thing - post and all - up out of the humongous hole the kid dug. No concrete. After a week or so, Scott called the kid's dad and told him about the bad job his son had done and, well....long story short, the kid came back and fixed it with concrete.....sort of. Now it's concreted in, all right, but it's crooked. Crooked in two directions. Apparently today's youth don't know how to use a level, and that's where we are today.

Being the way that I am, I was able to come up with a spiritual application for this whole thing. The youth minister inside of me will not give up! This is what I came up with: We are all like my mailbox. We get banged up, broken, chipped, and on the verge of ruin, but God keeps banging the dents out of us. He never gives up on us or revokes the special calling He has on our lives. He never says, "Well, maybe I'll get someone else." He wants us, and no matter what happens to us - no matter how the world beats us up and sin tries to take us down - he keeps reshaping us and putting us back into operation. He never gives up on us and refuses to believe we could be so messed up that He can't use us. How great is that?