Up in the Atmosphere

We spotted this tree south of San Fran...I thought it looked like the kind of tree Wordsworth would have mused under so naturally I had to introduce myself. Sadly its mood was rather taciturn. ...Had I remembered to pack my red and white checked tablecloth we at least could've picnicked... as it was, I thought I'd prove you're never too old for climbing.

**Photos courtesy of MommaLove**

3.0.

Home-haven

Audrey Hepburn first captivated my imagination when I saw her in the movie "Roman Holiday" at the age of twelve... but more than acting in films, Audrey loved being a mother. "Even when I was little, what I wanted most was to have a child," she said. "That was always the real me. The movies were just fairy tales."

At the age of forty, after having made her most famous films - "Sabrina," "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "My Fair Lady," and "Funny Face" - she settled down to a domestic life in Rome. The public was dismayed and suggested she was really settling. But Audrey had no regrets: "It's sad if people think that's a dull existence," she said, "but you can't just buy an apartment and furnish it and walk away. It's the flowers you choose, the music you play, the smile you have waiting. I want it to be gay and cheerful, a haven in this troubled world. I don't want my husband and children to come home and find a rattled woman. Our era is already rattled enough, isn't it?"

Hmmmm...if I had to choose one word to describe my state of mind after a Saturday chocked-full of holiday 'to-dos' it would be rattled. The Christmas season, for all its charm, can really do that to you, can't it? But this quotation inspires me to remember that, whether you are a mother or not, nurturing people matters. It may not get your face on the cover of a magazine, but what could be better than making an investment in someone's soul?

Rest for the Weary

Sickness, late nights, and the relentless tedium of maintaining a household have made me exceedingly weary lately, both emotionally and physically. Example: It is 3:30 in the afternoon as I write this and I am still in my pajamas.

As I struggle to put one bare foot in front of the other I have been meditating on Matthew 11.28-9 in which Christ says: “Come to me all who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

A couple of things strike me about this passage. First, Christ’s invitation – “Come to me” – is also a command. Secondly it is a command for a specific kind of person – those, like me, who are “weary and heavy-laden;” or, as another translation puts it, “those that labor and are heavy-laden.” Christ goes further by commanding me to take up His yoke and learn from Him, promising He is gentle and humble in heart and that I will find rest for my soul…

The phrasing of this verse seems to beg comparison with Christ’s rebuke of the Pharisees, the religious establishment of his time: "And you experts in the law,” He said, “woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them” (Luke 11.46). The religious leaders of Christ’s day used their authority to belittle and condemn the people beneath them. In stark contrast, Christ used his authority to serve… He did all the heavy lifting, spiritually speaking, by carrying the burden of my sin and receiving my punishment on the cross. Isaiah 53.6 says, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him [Christ] the iniquity of us all.”

So I am lowly and humble in two ways: first, as Isaiah 53 points out, Christ bore the burden that I could not; and second, per Matthew 11.28, I am weary and heavy laden. On a basal level, both of these things work to discourage me from any thought of approaching the almighty God…

However God must have understood my humility for He sent His Son to come to earth in human form; to subject himself to the laws of nature, to hunger and cold, frailty and fatigue. It also required humility for Christ to take interest in human beings… to care whether the five thousand families who came to listen to him speak had eaten before beginning their journey home … to allow a former prostitute to wash his feet with her hair…

He became low and humble so that we who are so low and humble can approach Him.

Not only so but He promises to take we who are low and humble and exalt us to high estate…if not in this life, then in the one to come. “He hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden,” says Mary, shortly after learning she has been chosen to bear the Messiah, “for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed…” (Luke 1.52).

The theme of humility preceding exaltation is pervasive throughout Scripture. James 4.6 says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.” Perhaps my favorite is 1 Peter 5.10: “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”

The same Christ who is “all-mighty,” who is now seated “far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given” (Eph.1.21) implores me to cast all my cares on him, believing that he harbors “affectionate concern” for me…

It awes me to imagine that I serve a God who will take my admission of weakness and frailty not as an ending point, but a beginning… As if He is saying, “Come to me, Heather. Rest in me, and watch what wonders I can and will accomplish through you.”

The word for rest connotes “cessation,” or, an ending to wearisome work. But the New Testament is filled with examples of men like the apostle Paul who labored ceaselessly for God… So my resting in God does not mean a cessation of my labor. In fact, Christ says notably that by coming to Him I will find rest for my soul, not my body… Thus while there may be no end to the work of my hands, it seems there is or can be an inner cessation; a quietness and rest of soul that exists and can be maintained in spite of my outward activity.

Interestingly, the Greek word for soul, psyche, is unlike the English word in that it is considered “the seat of the feelings, desires, affections” and not just the nonphysical aspect of a person. This reinforces the idea that Christ is offering me emotional rest, rest from my anxieties and concerns, and not what I am tempted to compartmentalize and turn into an abstract spiritual rest that has no real relevance to the cares of my everyday life.

Oh, Lord, teach me what it means to take up your yoke… let me surrender my concerns and be taken up with your concerns, trusting you to accomplish what you deem best both in and through me… there is little in my life that feels “easy” or “light;” and yet you promise me that your yoke is both of these things… teach me what this means; and show me how to experience it…

Solitude

While vacationing in Oregon I read Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s, “Gift from the Sea,” a series of essays first published in 1955 in which the author attempts, among other things, to formulate – in elegant, insightful prose - a method for achieving what she calls ‘a state of grace,’ where the inner and outer person are at perfect peace.

She insists – rightly, I think – that we women do not so much resent the fact that we spend a substantive amount of our lives giving, but that our giving, because it is so varied and so often undocumented, sometimes feels purposeless. It is for this reason, she suggests, that we often become drained, deflated, and despondent, victims of what Ms. Holly Golightly would call 'the mean reds.'

By way of chronicling the cluttered and fragmented nature of most women’s lives, Lindbergh contends that in order to achieve this ‘state of grace,’ we need, above all, time to be alone – either to be contemplative and creative, or simply just ‘to be.’ “Eternally, woman spills herself away,” she writes, “in driblets to the thirsty, seldom being allowed the time, the quiet, the peace, to let the pitcher fill up to the brim” (p. 38).

Lindbergh asserts that in order to “fill the pitcher” or feed the soul amidst its myriad activities we should aspire to be internally still as “the still axis within the revolving wheel of relationships, obligations, and activities” is still; and that such inner stillness can only be accomplished by means of solitude.



A beautiful idea, undoubtedly; but is this the way to keep the axis still? For a time, certainly. But solitude for its own sake is worth little, I think. One can spend a solitary 60 minutes of every day knitting, gardening, cooking, painting, exercising, reading, or any one of an infinite number of other things and find a certain degree of enhanced tranquility; can, indeed, develop a more serene disposition. But does an improved outward disposition also improve the inner fabric of one’s soul? Does it bring the inner and outer man into perfect harmony? And is it equivalent to living in a ‘state of grace?’

I'm not so sure.

Lindbergh’s election to use the term “state of grace” is interesting for although she doesn’t use it in a distinctly Christian sense, it stems from Christian theology. The theological definition of the word grace (charis) is: “unmerited favor.” In simplest terms, God has bestowed His unmerited favor upon mankind by giving us the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, His Son (Eph. 2.8, Rom. 3.21-25). Thus, from a Christian perspective, to live "in grace” or in a “state of grace” must, if it means anything at all, imply that one is living in a new reality whereby Christ is the light by which we see and experience the world.

To borrow and modify Lindbergh’s metaphor, solitude is, more accurately I think, but one of the many spokes emanating from what should be, what is, man’s only Hope of achieving any kind of lasting inner peace. It is a means and not an end; and to mistake it for the solution to all our disordered-ness, is, as Dutch would say, a bit like trying to cut down a tree by pulling its leaves off.

For it isn’t solitude alone that is going to cure our frenzied-ness, despair, and inner malaise – it is solitude spent with Christ.

(Re-)cognizing the Source of the Problem

“Thus says the LORD, "What injustice did your fathers find in Me, That they went far from Me And walked after emptiness and became empty?” ~ Jeremiah 2.5

“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.” ~ Genesis 3.6

I have this friend… I’ll call her “Juliette.” Juliette’s talents are limitless: she writes, paints, sings, sews, plays music, and cooks extravagantly good (as well as aesthetically pleasing) food. Let me tell you, once you enter this woman’s aura you don’t ever want to leave.

She is one of those people who could have done any one of a multitude of things very well… Yet in the grace and sovereignty of God, she is applying her talents to the manifold ‘art’ of motherhood, marriage and homemaking.

So you can imagine my dismay when she called yesterday to tell me she was suffering from an acute case of ‘the mean reds.’ She felt weighed down, she said; her brain, a muddle of confusion. She loved her two boys, desperately… but she felt stifled. She wanted to be home with them and yet she felt a failure for not having secured a niche for herself (as a painter or seamstress) somewhere outside her home.

In short, her life was a set table where there seemed room for everyone but her.

That morning Juliette had woken up with a spontaneous urge to simplify her life. She decided to start by paring down the number of needless toys which her sons had accumulated over the course of the previous year. By nine o’clock in the morning, she was on the floor of her sons' room, bent over a small wooden birdhouse, into which several handcrafted dollhouse stools had been stuffed.

“I could have cared less about the birdhouse,” she said, “but I wanted to preserve the stools because they are part of an antique French collection of dollhouse furniture and figurines which we brought home from Paris last year.”

An ordinarily very capable woman, Juliette was resolved – in spite of her current state of fragility – not to ask her husband (who was working from home) for help. “For the next 20 minutes my sole purpose of existence was to get those blasted things out!”

She had succeeded in freeing all but one when her husband – who had been listening to her grunting and muttering to herself from the next room – offered to intervene.

She consented, resignedly, and watched as he ripped the roof off the birdhouse and jostled the last remaining object onto the rug. “It’s not a stool,” he said, surprised. “It’s just a little lady!” (In fact it was the only lady in the entire French collection of figurines.)

“No, it isn’t!” said Juliette, suddenly irate. “It’s a metaphor…for my life! Just one little lady – stuck in her little house! Who cannot get out unless she is pried!”
…

Apart from identifying with Juliette’s frustration, I love this story because it so perfectly illustrates what I see as ‘the problem’ for many women – that is, the war that is taking place in many of our souls.

We have been lied to – by “our fathers” and our culture – about what will truly satisfy us (as human beings, but particularly as women).

Worse still, we have believed these lies, choosing, as the prophet Jeremiah says, to “walk after emptiness and become empty…”

When you partake of a lie, even a "seemingly" small one – as Eve did in the garden – it becomes a part of you, infecting you with its poison and coloring your perception of the world.

When you try to live a lie, whether consciously or not, a perpetual state of conflict inevitably ensues, just as a cat would undoubtedly feel frustrated by attempting to live the life of a dog. The earnest feline may go through the outward motions of panting pathetically at the sight of her master; or running, gums-bared, to retrieve a ball; but inside she will feel an increasing sense of perturbation, as though something isn’t quite right.

People often say, “depression is anger turned inwards.” A cliché, certainly; but it harbors a substantive truth: for depressed people are angry people – even if their anger is only passively or tacitly expressed.

Say what you will, but I propose that when one is in a perpetual state of being thwarted, of harboring a deep sense of irreconcilable conflict – feelings, not only of anger, but powerlessness, despair, and inertia, inevitably arise… And it is the persistence of such feelings which the dictionary – as well as countless diagnosticians – term “clinical depression.”

But identifying – or even treating - a problem isn’t the same as solving it.

So how do we solve it?

I’m not entirely sure. (Of course, only God is truly capable of ‘fixing’ whatever is broken in the heart of any person.) But I believe we can begin by at least recognizing the source of the problem; that is, identifying what, in part, this preponderance of women coming down with 'the mean reds' is all about.

‘What it’s all about’ is this: who gets to define what is valuable.

On one side we have what our culture wants us to value… on the other, what God deems valuable.

The culture says you are only valuable for what you contribute to society, regardless of whether your contribution can be measured monetarily. For example, apart from esteeming status-oriented jobs such as "the doctor," "the lawyer," and "the CEO," or service-oriented vocations such as "the teacher," "the military professional," or "the civil servant," society also bows in reverence to volunteer positions such as "the United Nations Relief Worker" or the ‘Peace Corps Volunteer;" but “the mother” – the mother – is spoken of almost exclusively in diminutive terms:

“What does she do?” is a question commonly overheard.

“Oh, you mean Catherine? She doesn’t work;” “She only stays at home;” “She is just a housewife; or “just a mother” as though all that is required of a woman unfortunate enough to find herself in such a degrading position is that she registers a pulse! (It elevates my blood pressure just writing about it!)

It is no wonder, then, that women like Juliette – and like myself – struggle, at times, to value the tasks of being a wife and mother when our society ascribes them with such little value!

We forget – or perhaps we never knew – that Eve was created by God to be Adam’s human counterpart and creative helpmate, equal in value yet different in purpose. We bristle, and become indignant, at the use of the word “helpmate” because we have been conditioned to believe that such a designation renders us inferior. "To help" is, in our culture, synonymous with being the help - an indisputably substandard position compared with being "the person in charge," or, the one who completes a job and gets credit for it (rather than "merely" offering assistance)!


We feel, rather vaguely, that we will be more valuable (to society? to ourselves?) if we are in a position to give orders, forgetting that greatness in God’s kingdom is achieved by embracing the role of a servant.



And so we are conflicted… and we don’t know why…

One part of us longs to exercise our maternal instincts; the other feels we should be looking for ways to master the world. We relish (perhaps secretly) being cared for; and yet we feel we must also fight to retain and protect our sense of independence. We feel a simultaneous desire to offer support and assistance to those closest to us; as well as to create and contribute something that is our own, distinct and separate.

We wonder, why am I frustrated? and attribute our frustration to circumstances, rather than recognizing that the problem is inside us, having to do with how we think and perceive the world.

Our minds have become deluded and corrupted by our culture’s warped perception of what is valuable. We have sold ourselves to the idea that we will be of greater worth as human beings if we can contribute something which can be overtly measured.

If once we realize the err in our thinking, what then?

When something has been sold, exploited, or lost, the only solution is to redeem it, a word which literally means "to buy back." We must, in God’s strength, redeem or buy back the vocation of motherhood, wifehood – and womanhood in general – by re-instating it with the value which God originally gave it.

I do not mean to suggest that we make of womanhood an idol – something which we dress up and bow down to and into which we vest our security – but to recognize that our roles as women are valuable because God says so:

“In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind…” (Genesis 5.1-2). God created woman in His image; and blessed her to be His image-bearer in the world.

But whether our creative undertakings ever take us further than the four walls of our living rooms is irrelevant and beside the point. It is not what we do that is valuable (many great men and women spent the majority of their lives rotting in prisons, after all); it is who we are — and who we are in the process of becoming.

(Re-)interpreting Circumstances

..[S]eeing me empty, you forsake
The listener’s role, and through
My dead lips breathe and into utterance wake
The thoughts I never knew.
~ CS Lewis, "Prayer"

Last night I revisited that classic scene from Breakfast at Tiffany’s in which Audrey Hepburn’s character, Holly Golightly, explains to her friend Fred what it’s like to have the mean reds. “You mean like the blues?” he asks. “No,” says Holly, “the blues are because you’re getting fat or because it’s been raining too long. You’re just sad, that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid and you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?”

Fred concedes that he does and Holly tells him that when she comes down with the ‘mean reds’ the only thing that does her any good is to “jump into a cab and go to Tiffany’s.”

She famously adds, “If I could find a real life place to make me feel like Tiffany’s, then I’d buy some furniture and give the cat a name.”

I think this “feeling” which Holly describes is one of well-being, security, and deep-down satisfaction; whereas the ‘mean reds’— (a somewhat fancier term for depression) – are marked by enduring feelings of fear, insecurity, and emptiness.

This scene - which I believe is even more resonant now than it was in 1958 - inspires the question: why are so many women and, more specifically (for my purpose), ‘women of faith’ suffering from the mean reds? And how do we overcome them?

I think that part of the answer, in addition to redefining expectations, has to do with how we ‘frame’ the narrative of our lives; that is, whose voice we allow to be Authoritative.

Most of us, whether we realize it or not, respond to the pain in our lives by crafting elaborate victim narratives for ourselves... We think: 'My life is this way because of... “...my shoddy upbringing…” “…my lack of education or opportunity…” "...my excess of education or opportunity (which alienates me from people by inviting scorn and envy)..." “…my poor health…” "...my failure to get married..." “…my failed (or failing) marriage…” Etcetera. Ad infinitum.

Why is this?

We consider, or, more accurately, we presumptuously assume that our version of events is Authoritative – that it is the only version – and we are unwilling to concede there could be any other.

It wasn’t always this way.

During the Victorian period, for example, most novels (such as Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities) were written in a 3rd person omniscient voice. The narrative perspective reflected the belief of the culture: 1) that there was a God; and 2) that God's perspective was True. Dickens didn't say, "It felt, to me, like it could have been the worst of times;" or, "in that moment it seemed to me like the best of times." No, he says, it was the best of times; it was the worst of times. No qualifications. No alternate interpretations.

In contrast, today’s novel is more likely to be told in the 1st person; the perspective is not objective but subjective; it is fractured, partial, and open to interpretation (I am thinking of James Frey's A Million Little Pieces). No one, in other words, picks up a novel and expects the narrator to give them an unequivocal - or even, necessarily, reliable - account of events. Instead, we expect to read only this narrator’s interpretation.

The point I am making is this: how we tell stories says a lot about how we view the world.

This problem – of warring over who gets to tell the story, of whose version is “True” – has been around for millennia, since the Fall of Man. The bottom line is, who am I going to let define what is ‘true’ in my life? And not just in my life at large, but in this situation, at this precise moment? Me? My feelings, family, or friends? Or God, speaking to me through his holy Word?

Romans 12.1 says: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

You'll notice that this is a command, not one in a series of infinite options which I can electively choose if and when I feel like it; and it requires that I respond volitionally, as an act of my will. Do not conform, it says. Instead: be transformed.

Our ‘response’ is also a responsibility – something for which God will call us to account.

I have been depressed… I know what it is to wake up in the morning and feel that you are five miles below sea level.

But I discovered – in the process of utilizing all the conventional resources – that in order to sustain any kind of lasting ‘mental or emotional health,’ to experience the ‘abundant life’ which Christ promises, I must constantly – over and over and over again – ‘reframe’ the narrative of my life, examining every facet of it through the lenses of biblical truth.

Instead of allowing my mind to wander and drift through valleys of gloom and self-indulgence, I must actively “dwell” (NAS) or “meditate” (NKJV) on things pure and lovely, things praiseworthy and noble (Philippians 4.8); I must, in fact, commit my whole life – and not some sliver or fragment of it - to the process of (heartsoulmind) transformation.

Do prescription medication and talk therapy, increased nutrition and exercise, help one to overcome the ‘mean reds?’

Of course.

But I don’t believe any of these can, in themselves, enact the kind of lasting internal change that is accomplished by the Holy Spirit working through the Word of God and its application in our lives…

If and when I give God this ‘right’ – the right to define what is ‘true’ in my life – then it is not only my perception of my circumstances which is altered; it is (slowly, and over time) my very experience of the world. I may not be "happy" as our culture defines it, but I will learn to develop lasting contentment as I find irrevocable security in Christ. This - unlike the fleeting satisfaction that comes from having things 'my way' - is something that no one can take away from me; and which no 'faulty' circumstance can overturn.

(Re-)defining Expectations

"'What shall I do now? What shall I do?'
'I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
With my hair down, so.' 'What shall we do tomorrow?'
'What shall we ever do?'
…We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms his prison…”

- T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland

It was Saturday morning - hot and dry and cloudless - and I was sitting in the passenger seat of my friend's car, garnishing a bit of pink ribbon to attach to a gift. We were on our way to a baby shower and, as we wound through the rugged foothills of the Catalina mountains, she mentioned an article her husband had read the night before stating that the use of antidepressants has nearly doubled in the last year.

The news of this increase surprised me, but only mildly.

“How is it that we live in one of the most prosperous nations in the world," my friend asked, "and yet 15 million Americans – the vast majority of them women – are depressed?”

It was a familiar question, but still worth asking.

Among other things, this statistic proves that wealth and well-being are not only unrelated; they are often mutually exclusive. Given that we live in a society where, as TS Eliot's The Wasteland so hauntingly illustrates, people are more dependent on technology than each other; families are fractured; and sex is often severed from true intimacy, it is not surprising that so many people are depressed.

That afternoon I read several mainstream articles on the subject and found that most, including this one from Today’s Christian Woman, approach the topic from the somewhat predictable perspective of trying to ‘get women help’ via a variety of very familiar resources - from increased exercise and nutrition to prescription medication.

The reasons for diagnosed depression are manifold: in some cases depression is attributable to ‘low serotonin levels’ (a neurological condition which anti-depressant medications, SSRIs, are designed to address); in others, symptoms are incidental – the result of job loss, relational stress, an illness or death.

Most of the articles, whether secular or religious, seemed to follow the same thread, aiming to reduce the negative stigma associated with prescription medication while suggesting that, in addition to the standard formulas, favorable outcomes are more likely achieved by those who also make more ‘me’ time; express their emotions; and practice thinking positively.

…But none attempted to address the question beneath it all: never mind the clinical causes and symptomatic treatment of depression – why are so many people depressed in the first place? And why are the numbers increasing so drastically?

Let me make clear that I would not presume to know THE ANSWER - nor do I believe there is just one. However, I would like to spend some time meditating on the subject in several series installments.

If my own experience may serve as any indication, I believe women – and specifically Christian women – are suffering from depression in part because their expectations for what life – and in particular, the Christ-life – should look like are in dire need of redefinition.

We not only expect ‘happiness,’ we feel entitled to it - especially those of us who have made what we deem to be ‘morally correct’ lifestyle choices (such as putting marriage before sex). We want satisfaction in place of lasting character… forgetting that character is never, ever free, but must be earned. (To be reminded of this, simply revisit any of the classics.)

We define ‘happiness’ very narrowly as: getting what we want. Then if and, more accurately, when, our plans are foiled, we easily form elaborate ‘victim narratives' for ourselves… concluding that God cannot really love us; that He cannot really be good.

We think, if only He will improve my circumstances, then – and only THEN – I can be happy, forgetting all along that He longs to work through our circumstances to grant us a state of holiness which cannot be otherwise achieved; and which is far superior (and ultimately more satisfying) than anything which the 'perfect' set of circumstances can produce.

If there is any hope of mitigating, and perhaps even eliminating, the incidences of depression in our lives, we must come to expect that 'happiness' or fulfillment does not, cannot mean getting our own way, but letting Him have His.