How to Secretly De-Stress and Re-Joy the Human Race

How to Secretly De-Stress and Re-Joy the Human Race

How to Self-Care Anywhere, Anytime

By Jane Tawel

January 8, 2020

“splat 01” by Simon Rankin is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

You lie awake in the wee dark hours, your mind churning and fussing over what happened in the past or what you are anticipating in a stressful future. Or you sit at your desk and simply can not focus on the menial or career-defining task at hand. Or you perch on an uncomfortable chair designed to keep you awake when bored in the umpteenth meeting for the umpteenth yakkity-yak, feeling your shoulders rise to your earlobe level, ready to scream at the next speaker, for no other reason than that they, too, keep using that ubiquitous and utterly irritating most recent pause filler again and again and again. I swear, the next time I am listening to someone speak publicly about anything and he says, “that being said”, I am going to take off a shoe and throw it at him.

 

That being said, here is what I will try to do instead. The next night or day I feel stressed-out, but am also trapped, and unable to get outside and walk around in the “real world”, the world not made of nightmarish sleeplessness or sleep-inducing boredom, or irritatingly boring meetings, or anxiety-inducing discussions with people I like, but who are causing me stress for some reason right now, etc. etc. etc. —  I will purposely practice relaxing and re-joying.

 

 I would, like you, of course prefer to run away from my nightmares by having a “nightcap” or metaphoric “toddy” of another chapter in my mystery book, relaxing by candle light, but I have to get up for work in two hours, so I really need to find a way to go back to sleep. By day, I would really prefer, to check my cell phone during a boring meeting, and fake a shocked look on my face, stand up, apologize to the people in the meeting, but tell them there is an urgent emergency that requires my immediate attention and I have to go. And as I hastily walk out the door when they ask me what the emergency is, I will tell them, “the emergency is that my head is going to explode if I have to listen to one more thing coming out of any of your mouths while, you like not-hot-at-all succubi, drain and suck the life slowly out of me.”

 

The following ways to de-stress when you can’t escape either someone else or your own churning thoughts, are old techniques, and yet, I hope, may be fresh ideas on how to try to de-stress your mind and body. These are techniques you can use when you sleep next to someone you don’t want to wake-up, or when you can’t let-on to the person standing next to you that you are de-stressing. These are the secret care -for- the- soul means and modes to find at least a bit of relaxation, less stress, and maybe some actual and evident true joy in whatever journey, day or night, you find yourself on.

 

Eight Practices in De-stressing and Re-Joying

1. Be a Cat. Cats enjoy themselves just for being themselves. If you are allergic to cats and can’t own one yourself, watch videos of cats, and then be as sneaky as they are in self-care. You don’t realize how completely committed to self-care, cats are until you have lived with one. Dogs may teach me that there is joy in being with others; cats teach me that I can find joy just by being with myself. Cats are endlessly able to make themselves happy and content by playing with fluff, stretching their limbs, yawning, staring out the window, scratching their itches, and licking themselves. I don’t recommend licking yourself in a sales meeting, or yawning when your loved one is droning on at you, but if they don’t catch you, you could stare out the window or play with a bit of fluff.

2. Silently repeat memorized poems. Of course, first you need to start, (if you haven’t already) memorizing things that will help calm you. I have a few poems by Dickinson, Frost, and Donne pretty much under my belt, a couple ancient psalms, and The Serenity Prayer memorized (except for the lines about “accepting things at they are and not as I would wish them to be”, which for “some reason” — air quotes aptly applied —  I balk at remembering). Memorizing de-stressing words of great artists and those human beings who left a record of having lived well, help me get outside my own thoughts and into something higher. Poetry is important to read and helpful to memorize because metaphors and concise imagery take us to a different plane of understanding and metaphors can grow in meaning along with our own individual growth. It is also easier to memorize things that rhyme or things that are poetic in structure, so there is that.

 Memorized pieces also can function as mindless mantras, sometimes, much like counting sheep might in terms of repetitive-type thinking meant to help in relaxation. Rather than using my brain to read or write or do something that requires me to take-in something that will stress or stretch me further, or require me to put-out something new and productive; repeating memorized “feel-good”, encouraging, or joy-inducing literary things, is a way to somehow connect little old me stressing-out within, to and with something big and grand and wonderful, without. Memorizing things comes in incredibly handy when you simply can not pull out something to read or watch.

3. Breathe in and out, but send the breath into different parts of your body. We can all get a bit lazy with letting simple breathing techniques relax or de-stress us. This technique is an old theatre exercise and one that you can do anywhere if you are relatively quiet about your breathing. Take a deep breath in and then mentally send that breath into a part of your body. If you are short on time, simply send it into the part of your body where you are feeling the most stress. If you have time and maybe a wee bit of privacy, or you are trying to sleep, you can lie down and do this properly. If you are able, you can stand up at your desk or sit back for a moment, spend five or so minutes, and close your eyes, and send the breath into every part of your body. If you are at work, one of those slightly extended bathroom breaks that we all take from time to time, is much better used for de-stressing this way, rather than sneaking time on your cell phone, and stressing out about the latest Kardashian drama or the text from your spouse or the screenshot of what your kid got on his math test. If possible, take several minutes and start the exercise by sending the breaths into your toes, then feet, then calves, then hips and work all the way up to the tippy-top of your scalp.

If we truly thought of our breath as our life-flow or our spirit, then we would honor it more in every part of our bodies. By letting my breath have space and a place in each part of me, I honor the whole of myself. By de-stressing my entire outer-being, my body, I am practicing not only a physical exercise but a spiritual discipline, and I will find that I am better able to let go of what is stressing my inner-being, or mind, heart, and soul.

4. Tense and release, starting from the feet working up to the head, and then reverse the order from forehead down to toes. This is also a breathing exercise and functions much in the same way as breathing into your body does. Again, start at your toes and “stress” them by scrunching them up, tightening as tight as you can all the muscles in them; hold the tension while you breathe deeply in;, then all at once, release the tension as you breathe out. Work your way up your body again from the bottom to the top, not forgetting any part — fanny, tummy, your fingers, wrists, jaw, forehead, etc. Breathe in- Tense. Breathe out — release. If you are out and about and people may be watching you, you can still do this pretty secretly with your feet, your hands and sometimes your facial muscles.

5. Massage your hands. The “handy” thing about this is that you can do it without anyone noticing. Try massaging your neck next to someone, and they will ask you what is wrong, and then you’ll be all stressed out explaining. Try massaging your feet, and you will be asked to put your shoes back on. But most people will not notice if you are massaging your hands. While not as relaxing of course, as a full body massage, or even a foot rub, massaging your hands does have benefits. In fact, there is a special little spot, between your thumb and forefinger — that little web-like spot, that if you squeeze hard between your other hand’s thumb and forefinger and massage that web in little circles — even to the point of a bit of pain — you can relieve minor headaches and relieve cold symptoms. I often need to put moisturizing lotion on my hands during the day, and will use that time to do a little massage of my hands with no one the wiser. (Choosing to have a good smelling lotion is an additional sensory technique for reducing stress which has acceptable public approval ratings).

Our hands do so much for us, it is nice to give them a little special attention and lovin’ during the day and they will return the favor by making us feel more relaxed. Pressure points on the hands work much like those on the feet to relieve a host of problems. Here is one schematic of pressure points in the hands and their associated problems that massaging can help relieve.

 

6. Replace bad memories, with good plans and vice versa; replace dreaded future events or things you are dreading ahead, with good memories from the past. 

I have a difficult time accepting that there is relatively and almost always nothing I can do to change the past, either in my own life, the life of someone I love, or the world at large. I can, however, take the memories or historical facts that are weighing on me, and use them for fodder to plan for the future. While it is true and important that we not avoid thinking about stuff, and must try to learn and grow by learning from past mistakes, that doesn’t mean that we may think and plan better if we also reduce stress.

So when the past is burdening my thoughts and spirit and I can not get the crazy, stressful ‘history-monkeys’ off my back, so to speak, I make not good plans, but “plans for GOOD”. I let my mind wonder into what seems impossible or un-doable and I dream big and imagine wildly. If something in a past relationship is upsetting me, I imagine a future where that person and I are traveling to Italy or having a moon walk together in a future where space travel is available and free for all. If I am feeling bad about myself in the past, I imagine a future when I am reclining on clouds, eating calorie-free bread, cheese, and chocolate and discussing and creating art with Michelangelo, Bach, and Shakespeare. If I am anxious and fearful about decisions leaders make that lead us towards war or increase pain and poverty, I quietly might sing the words to John Lennon’s “Imagine”, and dream about all the good things that will happen with enough daring hope and enough audacious kindness.

 

As for stressing out about the future, which I often can and should do something about, but which sometimes, of course, I can’t be certain of, or in charge of, or feel at peace about no matter what happens — I find it helpful to look to the past, of either my own life, or the lives of other human beings. I am a worrier and a planner and the two often go hand in hand, even if I am planning something that is “technically” a good thing. I get consumed with tomorrow when it is still today. I churn over wanting to find solid, immediate answers to questions that are still in the queue. Will it turn out? What if? Should I? Will she? Why? Why not? What is that pain in my side and will it kill me tonight in my sleep? Etc. etc. etc. And while none of us can foresee the future, we can all choose how to remember, focus on, or obsess over the past.

If I am stressing about something I am “driving” towards up ahead on my future day’s or life’s road, it is not only helpful, but wise to remember that I also should be looking in my rear-view mirror at what is behind me. I look behind me and realize, “oh, I did make it around that pothole successfully, even though I didn’t know it was there.” Or, “wow, I took that last speed bump way too fast which was kind of thrilling at the time, but I think I will slow down for this next speed bump ahead.” Or maybe, “that is a beautiful sunset and view, back there. I can’t turn around and go back myself, and I certainly can not turn the whole darn bus around for everyone else, but I can stop, and just gaze in my mind’s rear-view mirror, meditating on the beauty and joy that I and so much of the world, have traveled through.”

Looking at the past glorious sunsets and remembering successful points of view, can help us anticipate tomorrow’s sunrise, and find hope that the triumphant point of view of someone else traveling, just like I am traveling, will arrive, up ahead, just around the next curve.

7. When you can’t doodle or write lists, draw pictures in your imagination. This is where I, a hopelessly horrible visual artist, can rise to the ranks of a Van Gogh or a Gary Trudeau, depending on the need. If you are stuck lying awake at night, imagine the ceiling as your canvas and paint your own “Starry Night”. If you are stuck looking at a podium or projected power point, become a Gary Trudeau or a Bill Watterson and doodle some cartoon characters in your mind’s eye (just remember to chuckle silently or you may get a dirty look or two). If you are waiting at a bus stop, figurative or otherwise, and foolishly forgot your book, don’t hop on the cellphone where more stress both mentally and visually lie in wait. Gaze at the scars and junk around you and create beauty. Remember that lovely scene in the movie “American Beauty”, when the plastic grocery bag becomes a thing of beauty as it floats in the breeze, and the character named Ricky, teaches us that this is proof that “there is an incredibly benevolent force at work in the world”. It is good to allow yourself to believe that if you can find beauty, you can find benevolence. Of course, then go pick up that plastic trash and give it a proper burial in your closest recycling bin.

Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

Which brings us to:

8. Turn trash into beauty. This is a hard one for me, because I want to destroy trash, not find its beauty, but sometimes you can’t. However, I also find that allowing the trash to defeat my own peace of mind and inner beauty, allows both the real trash and my mind-trash, to defeat my inner fight for peace and joy. I sometimes can not stop my mind-trash from winning the immediate battle, but I can stop it from winning the war.

 I have two friends, both of whom take old things like broken furniture or shards of pottery, and they take what would be trash to anyone else, and restore and remake it into beautiful, functional, and artistically joyful new things. I need to do more of this “turning trash into beauty” of the things in my mind, heart, and soul that weigh me down, give me anxiety, or stress me out. Turning trash into beauty also can work to get rid of stress when someone is trash talking; when you can’t turn off someone’s voice that fills you with pain or anger, or you can’t turn off in your mind what someone said to you or about you or on the television or whatever. The mind is a powerful tool and can be used to turn ashes into art, and trash talk into poetry.

We should not do this by ignoring the truth of the dents, mars, holes, or big “boo-boos” in situations, jobs, choices, or relationships. Sometimes, you have to see things for the un-fixable messes they are, cut your losses, and choose better and more wisely next time. But sometimes, you have to realize that nothing — absolutely nothing — from a piece of furniture to a job to a human being — is perfect and without blemish. We simply can not keep hoping for perfection and throwing stuff out or blowing things up until we find it, because perfection is an ever just- out -of- reach goal, not a gift to hoard or a trophy to claim. Perfection is a motivator and a dream, not an accomplishment or historical achievement. Recognizing this in the wee dark hours or the irritating or fearful or angering ones, can go a long, long way towards finding honest but benevolent ways to replace a desire for perfection with a desire for joy in the journey.

And sometimes we should remember that one woman’s trash, is another woman’s treasure. To accept the imperfections of others, myself, and the planet itself, means that beauty is in the eye of the beholder if the beholder is focused on finding beauty. Creating and retaining a cesspool or nuclear waste dump of thoughts in my beautiful mind should be no more acceptable than creating and retaining them in our beautiful world. Once I recognize a thought as trash, I should find a way to clean it up and clear it out.

“American Beauty” — Thomas Newman

 

Not a day or night goes by, usually, that I do not have to “give myself permission” to de-stress and practice habits of finding ways to re-join myself to all that is positive and valuable in being alive and in being human. We all need to take more time and more thought to restricting the bad and re-joying the good.

It’s a funny old world we live in. Perhaps it is especially a wacky-world for us who are privileged and yet confined by being First-Worlders; humans who live here, with not just great stress from without made by those who rule us, but stresses from within, and those, often of our own making. There is much to be done about all the things out there that make us fearful or angry or stressed-out, and we should not take our hands from the plows as we work to make the world a better, kinder, more beautiful place for everyone.

 I long for a world where we are surrounded by people who automatically and quite naturally follow that universally admired but eternally just-out-of-reach Golden Rule; and by human beings who freely and joyfully treat other people with love, as they would like to be treated themselves. I yearn to find that kind of love within myself, not as a rule, but as a naturally occurring, deep-within-me, daily phenomenon and life-style.But to truly care for and act on behalf of others, we must practice habit-forming pro-active self-care and find practical, functional, as well as emotional and spiritual ways to “love ourselves, as we would like others to love us.”

Take the time, spend the energy, honor the Good in yourself, and as quickly as possible, clean up whatever is marring your beauty, peace, and joy in the journey. Love others today, by giving the gift of love to yourself and by practicing self-care. Then play it forward to some else.

Today, right now, wherever and whoever you are, Re-Joice in the best in all of us, past, present and future, and Re-Joy in the Journey.

“Cincinnati Sunrise” by Raymond Castro is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Do I Dare Care? – a poem of dissent and longing

Do I Dare Care?

A poem of dissent and longing

By Jane Tawel

January 4, 2020

*

Do I dare care?

When there are so many of us,

So much chaff,

So little substance,

Just charts and graphs,

These endless bullet points,

And births and deaths,

And I grow weary of one more breath…

Do I dare care?

*

 

The waves of humanity,

Rolling on,

Rolling over,

Here and yon,

Rising up to fade away,

Words like oceans,

Night and day,

None to care about,

None to care for,

Too many, too few,

Passing ships of you and you and you and you…

Too much care, too much care….

I’ll just stay buried here;

Blinding myself, Oedipus-like,

Screens blare and glare,

And all seems so life-like,

Moldering here,

So why dare care?

*

 

I could be agape,

For 24/7,

Searching for signs that shape

Our hells and our heavens.

But my heart will not long for long,

I grow listless and numb,

As the schisms between right and wrong,

Are buried alive,

In the mass overdrive,

Of taking and taking and taking

and making and making and making

and greeding and greeding and greeding

and needing and needing and needing…

Just what?

Just who?

Just why?

So why try?

Eat, drink, tomorrow I die.

*

 

Just what do I yearn for,

And why must I keep score,

When our planet burns shore to shore,

And the rich scorn the poor?

Each human being’s urge for

The crowd’s roar,

The prime floor, the front door, the top drawer,

We’re covered in gore,

And we’re all whores

In our endless drive for

more–

And more, more, more, more, more…

To earn more,

And learn more,

And get more returns for–

I can’t find the words for,

The sickness I feel for,

That all I have worked for,

And loved for,

And lived for,

Is nothing in terms for,

The non-ending search for,

The meaning I yearn for,

but now Red Alerts for

the whole world is worse for

the wear–

so why should I care?

*

The Judge has adjourned for,

Some place more concerned for,

Not starting a world war,

Or making more eyesores,

But beings who still adore,

The Maker of neighbors, next-door,

So, why should I search for,

Those great Gods of old lore?

They all took the exit door,

And now it’s our turn for,

Figuring out what the terms are,

A real live concern for…..

Survival.

*

 

So why should I care?

Soul-survival will be rare.

And that small little prayer,

That we thought would deflect,

Us from evil and death,

Can never protect–

 Judgement Day is a-comin’!

The beat that’s a-drummin’

Is the one I suspect,

Is the cause and effect,

Of the time I have spent,

In true love.

*

As the masses march on,

Love and life will be gone,

And a new world’s bright dawn,

With a new Kingdom come,

For those acting upon,

Not the rage to be first,

But the soul’s aching thirst,

For a world without end,

Where my foe is my friend,

And my only protection,

Is in new Resurrection.

*

 

Oh, there once was a Good Man

With the only stratagem,

For recreating our atoms,

Into new Eves and Adams.

The Good Man set the pace,

for our life in this place;

He began a pure race,

Made of sinners and saints,

Whom the earth will embrace,

In true heaven-like space.

It’s by seeking His face,

That my cares are erased,

And replaced….

With love.

*

 

There’s a world that’s not found,

In my burdens, earthbound;

But a kingdom that’s fueled,

By upside-down rules,

Led by Servants and Fools.

Isn’t that what I’m wanting

When I’m striving and flaunting?

But what just keeps on haunting

Me is just how darn dauntingly,

The day gets away from me,

And the night appears sneakily,

And by morning’s light,

I’ve forgotten our plight,

Long enough just to bury,

All the things that are scary,

And I busy me, mine, and I,

With pain-numbing lies,

About how the Divine,

Doesn’t care—

So why should I dare?

*

 

So, I search and explore,

  But meanwhile, I’m still lost,

In this endless, vast host,

Of my own words and thoughts,

All borrowed or bought,

And it’s all such a bore,

I can’t take too much more.

Oh, I swear,

I don’t care….

*

 

Yet this still, needling Voice,

taunts me to make the choice,

to pick both Truth and Dare,

and just care.

*

What I yearn for,

Is Somewhere,

And I beg

to be led There,

by the One who beat death,

just a man from Nazareth,

yet, the true image of,

Endless Meanings of Love.

Those who live like The Son,

And those acting upon,

Others’ needs, hurts, and cares,

Even now, as true heirs,

Will partake and drink of

Endless peace, endless love….

*

 

Oh, I slump here, world-weary,

Barely able to query…

Do I dare?

truth-or-dare

“Everywhere” – the third and final Poem in The Birthday Card Poems

Everywhere

Poem #3 in the Birthday Card Poems

By Jane Tawel

Everywhere, the Spirit rages

Through the world, and through the ages.

Blowing like the wind

Breath, like in and out,

Spirit of Imago-Dei,

Spirit of the heavenly way,

A whisper and a shout.

*

Spirit dressed in rags and riches,

In English halls, and Gaza ditches.

The Spirit loves the childless lady,

The wandering soul, the tiny baby,

the man of color, homeless girl,

and everyone throughout the world.

And everywhere, all humankind,

The Spirit of Love, can seek and find.

With just a spark of love and care,

the warmth of Love spreads everywhere.

*

Everywhere a soul is needy,

Everywhere a soul is greedy,

For the Spirit, not the prize,

Opening ears and using eyes,

To hear and see

To touch and be–

Why, that is where the Spirit of Love,

Can make a person worthy of,

A Christmas-sort-of-actuality,

Alive and well in you, and me.

*

The Spirit of true rhyme and reason,

Is not just for one single season.

For Truth and Love,

And Peace and Prayer,

Are ours for making,

Ours for taking,

Ours– always

And everywhere.

Wishing you and yours, and me and mine, a truer understanding of what the Spirit of the Christmas-type of love and joy can be for us each day in some small way, if  only we “make it” and “take it”.  Shalom, Jane

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“There” — Poem #2 of the Birthday Card Poems

There

A Birthday Card Poem #2

By Jane Tawel

61ac1-abraham

“Cold hands equal a warm heart,” Mama used to say.

I wonder if her hands feel as cold as mine do,

Nailed above my hanging head,

Bloodless.

I keep thinking about the beginning.

Oh! The stars!

The Star!

And I –almost human,

Barely just alive,

And all the people smiling, cooing, touching, weeping with joy.

Caught up in a contagion of hope and love, they were, back there

On that night.

*

 

Now, this day,

Now, only she weeps,

And not with joy.

And the rest of them laugh, or run away,

staying back as far as possible

From my almost corpse.

Afraid to be caught up in the contagion of death

As I hang here, barely still human.

*

 

The beginning was glorious.

They say babies can’t remember their birth,

But some of us can.

I do.

The wood of the stall where I began this life,

Felt nothing like this wood.

This wood, so unnaturally shaped (no tree could grow like this),

This wood, my arms and legs are splayed upon,

 is splintered, rotting, rough;

Worth nothing but the fire after I hang here on it today.

Contaminated by death, it will be

No longer of any use to anyone, after this day.

Just as I will be, no longer useful,

After this day.

*

 

People think a baby isn’t born to be useful,

But I was.

I was born to be of Good use;

Like a tree planted by streams of water,

Yielding fruit in season.

*

There, in Bethlehem,

Exhausted as they were from days of rough travel

Anxiety and fear making Joseph sweat and Mary weep

In pain, from journeying by kings’ decrees.

In pain, as Jews have always been.

Will always be.

In pain as I am, here, on this cross.

By the time they arrived there

Was no room.

*

 

Oh, I remember.

Though now, I am blinded with agony

and delirious, perhaps from loss of blood,

I can see perfectly, in my mind’s eye,

My birth-day.

My birth had spent my mother—body and soul,

She was weak from loss of blood there,

As I am here,

Our loss of blood like two parentheses enfolding my life.

She was so tired…

So very, very tired we were sometimes….

Until she could barely hold me to her breast.

Joseph, with strong hands, made feeble by my birth,

gently snuggled me down into the hay.

Some babies do remember;

We really do.

*

Like a baby bird made safe in my new nest,

I looked for the first time upon this world,

A world of trees, and stars, and faces;

And all seemed, back there,

Exactly as it seems to me today at the end:

The world is all so very new and as very, very old

as all Newborns know

The world to be.

*

 

The wooden trough where my parents nestled my infant form,

 was as soft as silk

From years of animal tongues, licking, honing, softening

Until not a splinter remained.

There, the wood was as lush and sweet-smelling and soft

As a king’s cradle.

My fledgling family baptized that wood

With my birth pangs.

That trough was anointed by shepherds and sheep

By kings and sages.

Who will anoint the cradle my body dies on today?

*

We had to flee that place,

Jews always do eventually.

But I like to imagine that wooden manger

 Is still there today,

A cradle where I was first loved,

Where I first loved.

 Wood, if properly cared for

Can be useful forever.

Trees, even in death, have long lives,

Eternal, one might say.

I know that as well

As any Master Carpenter should.

My earthly father, Joseph,

Taught me all about wood.

I think about that manger

 there

feeding the sheep again.

*

 

And suddenly, dying here now

 I feel I might join in

The laughter of the crowd below.

They would think me as more insane than they already do,

The crazy “King of the Jews”,

 but I Am

Secretly thinking about the irony,

Of the parentheses of my life;

The parenthesis of two wooden instruments,

One of life,

One of death,

Bracketing my life

Like wooden signposts

Leading forward.

*

 

Yes, perhaps I have just enough faith to think that—

Just enough words to tell them all, that–

both the wood of my cradle

And the wood of this cross

Are useful tools,

Are instruments of life,

Are places where human babies are safe,

Are symbols

Of birth.

*

 

The strange parentheses of my cradle and cross,

Will have no end.

The wooden brackets that surround my name,

Will lead people forward.

( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( (

When I was There,

I was already Here,

Going like a lamb from

Trough to slaughter.

The final bracket remains unknown

On the other side, Over There.

*

But I am not laughing, No,

Yes, I am crying instead;

Not so much from the pain,

Though it is almost more than I can bear;

Not so much from looking at my mother’s face,

Ravaged with sorrow,

Or from gazing weakly

At the few unlikely friends weeping there,

Those few who risk their lives to

Watch me die.

*

 

I weep

for the wood

   this earthly rood.

This tree I die on here,

Will never be useful again,

This tree too, dies with me today;

And it seems the whole world of creation,

Weeps with sorrow for the tree, once a sapling,

that dies here today; and for the

Son of Man

 who dies

here on

the tree.

*

*

 

“My soul is consumed with sorrow, to the point of death!

Like a sheep before its shearers I am silent,

I cannot open my mouth.

My soul is offered up as guilt offering,

And I will never see my offspring,

I can no longer prolong my life,

It is finished.”

But almost as I end my life here,

the still small voice,

Of My Father,

who awaits me There,

Says,

“Oh, My Son, this tree, too

Will feed the sheep.

And You, My Child,

Will be with Me, Here,

forever,

Feeding Your offspring

At your own breast

As your mother once fed you.

You My Son,

Will live to have many babies,

Reborn because You

Cradled them here today.”

*

 

(So, because of my mother’s willingness to serve My Father

I, her child, was born.

And because of my willingness to serve My Father,

My own children will be re-born.)

*

I embrace this wooden cross,

In death,

As once that wooden cradle embraced me,

In life.

My first breath, began the struggle.

My final breath is a fight to give it all up.

 I can just make out the words—

So faint—

Like whispers hovering over the void

Of the world–

Is it memory, dream or present reality?

The words I hear now,

 as my mother and My Father coo me to sleep,

As my mother and My Father gently sing,

“There, there. There, there, my Child. There, there.”

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A Christmas Letter Replay from 2015

It seemed like a good time for me, and maybe you, if you are reading this, to re-post the very first Christmas season post I wrote for this blog.  Whatever you believe, this post is about being and being-ness and not doing and doing-ness.  I am personally practicing more, different, and various forms of centering and breathing, of embracing the Now, and accepting who I am and the paths I have taken, as well as trying to understand who other people “are”, not so much what they “do”.  I hope you might wrestle with me on some of the thoughts I posted in 2015 in light of all that has changed out there, and in me and maybe in you, in 2019.

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A Christmas Letter on Being-ness

by Jane Tawel

December 24, 2015

A Christmas Letter is about all the stuff one and one’s family has done in the past year. It’s an accounting of achievements and that is as it should be since that is what satisfies the recipients’ curiosity. There is a saying people toss around when they are telling one not to stress– “We’re not called human doings, we’re called human beings“. As I age, I am distilling into more and more myself, which is (I’m often told) — impassioned and weird.  So once again this season, I write my traditional odd and intense Christmas letter, not because that is what I do, but because that is what I am — odd and intense.

Sometimes you shouldn’t stake claim and insist on being what you naturally are — being is like writing– it is important to understand context and connotation. In writing as in life, know your context and if necessary dial down your weird and impassioned. I’m a bit spotty on successfully doing that, I admit.  But I am learning that it is often okay to accept one’s particular self. Each of us is created in a unique way to reflect the image of our Creator God.  I serve an odd and intense God — an impassioned God, a strange one-of-a-kind God, who unlike other gods did not tell us to worship Him for what He had done or would do, but told us to worship Him for what He is: “I Am”.

We “Beings” are the only created “Imago Dei” of that God — imago means “idealized concept” — which fittingly has nothing to do with “doing” but means “a better than in reality idea”. That’s what we will be again someday — our realized ideal self. Meantime, we work at it. This time of year we celebrate the fact that while we were formed from dust into God’s image, because we rejected that image, God chose to be created in our image–ad imaginem hominis. We were given the perfect Being to model — Jesus, the Christ. As the hymn goes: “Amazing love, how can it be that thou my God, should (be born) and die for me!”.

I get all my strange random thoughts out of my head in a blog where you can also find this letter (janetawel.wordpress.com).  I am reading a lot of C.S. Lewis. One cannot spend time with C.S. Lewis and not become at least a wee bit changed.  Lewis has such a high view of human beings –that is if humans choose to sacrifice completely the sense of self to the sense of imago dei– through relationship with the living God and in the manner of the Son of God. It is a fearful thing to ponder that one day we will become what we have always truly been judged to be, with no regard to what we have done. The bible calls it God’s view of the true heart of one’s soul.

We are easily confused and disoriented by the distorted mirrors reflecting what is truly “us”. There is none good but God and no goodness in us but our Godlikeness in Christ. One can live in a state of stunned awe reading a lot of the Bible and Lewis.

I learned more about reading and writing with my 15 Azusa Pacific University freshmen. One of the things you try to help students with is that when writing, stick to the same verb tense.  The other thing is that it is easier to write consistently in present tense than in past tense.  I think it is easier to LIVE consistently in present tense as well — easier than living in past achievements and problems or living in future dreams and worries. Occupare Momento!

With my “at least on paper grown-up”  kiddos, I am failing but trying to transition from “doing mom” to “being mom”.  This is the necessity if you want to be friends with your adult children — you will always “be” their mom, but you don’t “do” mom any more — at least I imagine you can’t until they become parents and then you can do “grand” mom. Being mom means you let them all be who they are becoming and you just be there for them.  Whatever you do, don’t let on that you are still doing stuff for them. Except doing the occasional bill paying for them. That’s ok. This morning the best part of still being mom, is being with all my chicks and my hubby under one roof — even if only for a short amount of time. They all keep asking me what I want for Christmas — isn’t it obvious? — just to BE– together. There is a great old Peter Seller’s movie called, “Being There”. Chauncey Gardiner keeps saying, “I like to watch.”  I “like to watch” my children and husband bloom and grow.  So, I am watching my family being: Hard workers. Risk takers. Creators. Friends. Students. Travelers. Dreamers.

Christmas is a time of traditions.  Traditions are not things one has merely done in the past but they become traditions because you keep doing them–in the present. We, as perhaps you, are in the midst of our many Christmas traditions, like fudge and cookie making, driving around to see the lights, singing carols, hiding gifts,  and snuggling  together watching Christmas movies. Our traditions are mostly about being present in the season.

Advent implores us to live fully in the present reality while anticipating the future reality. As Christians we lean our frail earthly weight into our calling to be “on earth as it is in heaven” – which will merely BE timeless present in God’s presence. Advent is about Christ with us, in us, and Christ to be. The church liturgy helps ground us in the present of Christ’s presence, not by having us think on what He did — “He was born”– but by celebrating what His Being continues to mean daily, in this very moment, in the present eternity of our souls –“He IS born.”  “He IS Risen”. “He IS coming again”. He Is I Am.

This Christmas perhaps we First World human beings, are more aware of our frailty and transitory state as the Evil One rears in his death throes of ugliness, unnaturalness, violence, and hatred. Today increasingly seems to gain better odds at being my last day. While Eternity becomes a more present longing, it is yet good to be thankful for another hour to be present here.

We spend a lot of time doing good things that care for the body and mind. But what of that which is our innermost being? How shall we live to be Souls rather than Bucket Lists? We are called to improve and to love this created world and God’s created people– as our skills and callings and dreams allow. But the soul can only be bettered by the One who created it, so that the true self can be made into that thing which is all that will eternally remain –Faith, Hope and Love.

The soul is our being-ness. It is only in being known by our Creator, by knowing our Creator, and by allowing that humbling, undeserved but delightful relationship to God to inform all our human BEING relationships, that we truly become who we are meant to BE–  Little Christs– poor imitations but striving imitators nonetheless, of Him of whom the angels sang, “Glory to Him in the Highest”. And by giving Christ glory, may peace on earth and good will be to all souls. Hoping that in the New Year that you and yours, may BE all that you are meant to be.

Jane — December 2015…. and……. Jane, December 2019.  Shalom.

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A Psalm for The Day

A Psalm for The Day

By Jane Tawel

December 9, 2019

 

God of mercy,

God of grace,

Help me God to seek Your Face.

 

God of judgement,

God of power,

Grant me hope in this dark hour.

 

God of Moses,

God of Christ,

Give us all

We need for Life.

 

Fill me, as I empty out,

All my pride, and all my doubt.

Empty me to do Thy Will,

Listening for Your Voice, so still.

 

God of Light,

And God of Love,

Thy Kingdom here as it is above.

God of Love,

And God of Light,

To be My God, I, You, invite.

Forgive me now,

And teach me how,

To walk, and do,

In worship of You.

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Permissive Advent

Permissive Advent

by Jane Tawel

December 2, 2019

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This I read today from Jorg Zink—”Take the path that leads inward through the days of Advent. Set aside for yourself, if it is possible, time to breathe in; time to stop feeling that you’re on the run or under stress. Allow something to happen inside you. Turn your thoughts and hopes to the things that count.. . . “We humans contribute to the world’s gloom, like dark shadows on a dark landscape.…But now this man from Nazareth comes to us and invites us to mirror God’s image, and shows us how. He says: you too can become light, as God is light. What is all around you is not hell, but rather a world waiting to be filled with hope and faith. This world is your home as surely as the God who created and wrought it is love. You may not believe it, but you can love this world. It is a place of God. It has a purpose. Its beauty is not a delusion. You can lead a meaningful life in it.”

From Doors to the Feast, by Jorg Zink

 

I am beginning this Season of Advent, by seeking better practices of listening.  And to switch up St. Paul’s words, but I hope, not his intent, one way I hope to celebrate the onslaught of God’s Son living with us in this world, is to “set my mind on” the present Presence amongst us on earth, and not a wishful wannabe in a heavenly future. As Jorg Zink writes, I hope to “turn my hopes and thoughts toward the things that count”.

 

I have spent a lifetime communicating as a writer, teacher, parent, spouse, daughter, co-worker, and friend. But Advent is a good time to remember a man who was born as a baby and who excelled not only in communicating truth and love but in listening.  To listen not only to other human beings, but to listen to the very Earth herself seems to me a life-practice I have too often missed-out on, and I have been sadly suspectful that “merely” listening is not something valuable, active, and meaningful.

 

Listening seems so passive, and of course, for some people it is. It took me years to realize that the reason I talk so much and have so much outer-moving energy is because I think (and fear) that if I am not verbally responding, physically engaging, facially and bodily moving, and passionately involved with others, then I am not giving. In other words, I am so afraid of taking  and so anxious to connect in meaningful ways with any humans within reach, that I overdo the communicating bit. It took me years to understand why I am so depleted after work or social events or even just a car ride or dinner with a family member. It is because I was never really allowed to just be by myself or be quiet around others. I am the “cheerleader”, “stage-manager” who always just wanted to be what she was at heart, a nerdy introvert. So when I am with other people, I am caught-up in my own need to “give” of myself.  This is not altruistic, I realize; it is rather more like a hidden, undiagnosed phobia or syndrome. And to make matters worse, as an empath, listening to others, for me, means feeling everything the other person is feeling, taking it in, and not having anywhere to put it but back out there to “solve” or “help”,  or stored away smoldering and moldering inside my own mind and heart.

 

People who are like I am, end up with running tracks in their brains that often spill out their mouths. We pour out so much, that eventually there is a backwash. Eventually, our communications often morph and change from giving, caring, wannabehelpful and useful bodies of relational communication to unlivable, unsustainable towers of babble. Inside, we end up running along the lines that add tracks of worry to our faces, and fill us with secret fears and criticisms; and these can easily derail, leading off to side-tracks and runaway ramps of angst, anger, and hopelessness.

 

Advent is a time of permissions.  It is a time when lowly, stinky, homeless people were given permission to hobnob with kingly Magi.  It is a time when it was permitted to not just believe in angels, but to sing with them.  Advent gives us permission to come into the light, and stand, kneel, or dance before God. Advent gives us permission to love the world as The Creator loves it. It gives us license to believe there was once a God-man who loved the world enough to be born into it, even though He already had a different and better home; a God-man who had so much hope for and faith in the world and other human beings, that He thought he had enough love to make a difference; and so God gave Jesus permission to live in the world with all of its darkness, and to care for all of its brokenness, and even to die for its future. Now, The Christ waits for our permission to open the door, to let him turn on the lights, and to listen to him teach us how to be like him.

 

What do you need to give yourself permission to do, or not do, this Advent Season?  As you await, anticipate, engage with, and hope for what will born in and with you, what can you do now to prepare for what will give you more purpose and more joy in the journey?  You may find the answer surprising, as I have.  You may find that in not doing something you think you must do, there will be more meaning to not just this super-imposed upon us season, but more meaning to your life. For some it may mean, not buying, not going, not giving (just because it’s a Tuesday), not resisting standing out, or not staying silent but speaking up.  For me, this Advent will begin with instructing my heart to not being afraid to wholly and holy be a listener.  For me, I am giving myself permission to seek a heart of silent anticipation and to practice truly listening. I am giddy with anticipation of what I might hear. I am also a little afraid of what people might think or how I might feel (or not feel).  Maybe you feel the same about finally speaking up or speaking out? Maybe you are afraid to put yourself out there? But we don’t need to fear each other or our own trials and errors in changing for the better, because as Jorg Zink says, this world is our home.  We are safe here. We are together in this. We make the world have its meaning, and it in turn, the world we make gives meaning to our lives.

 

Did you know that because sound and light are both waves, they can conceivably be converted into the other?  May my words become loving light and may your light be converted into the sounds of your truth. May the Light which we celebrate at Advent, give us all the sounds, both spoken and silent, sounding out and holding close,  truth, hope, faith, joy, and love. And may those of us who need permission to shout, shout “Hosanna!”. And those of us who need permission to listen, may we be “still, and know that He is God”.

 

Jesus came to give us permission to be specifically who we were meant to be, just as he was and is. God is among us, granting us permission to live in a Truth that is available and unassailable because it is purely and divinely Love. Christ in us, is our permission to live, and to live fully and meaningfully.

 

Today, how will you share who you are giving yourself permission to be?

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Illustrations by Julie Vivas, “The Nativity”