I’m fat. Like the rest of America, I think Fat is a pejorative. A character flaw. Nay—a sin!
And I want to be skinny. But more than I want to be skinny, at times I want chocolate. Or those macadamia nut cookies that cost $1.25 EACH, but then they are SO huge.
Recently my husband uncharacteristically commented on my pulchritude, but not way before I acknowledged to myself the results of cookie coddling was getting out of hand. “I’m trying,” I say. “No more sugar.”
And I avoided the peanut butter cups for over a week, until I felt I had stepped up to lead the brigade on the stress front, and there they were in their covered glass bowl, small and snackable and sweet. That was three days ago.
“We still have any of those little candies?” said my husband who smokes and eats honey buns for breakfast.
Of course not.
“Who ate them?” His smile was sly.
How I hated him. And he knew it.
“I wasn’t being mean,” he said.
Was to.
I thought I was over this. I sometimes encourage myself to believe if I had all those years to live over again, due to my sustained spiritual practice I wouldn’t be so sensitive, tearful, downright rageful. If I had it to do over again, I’d definitely do it better.
Wrong.
“You’re just feeling guilty, or this wouldn’t get you so upset,” said the smoke sucking, honey bun guzzling guru.
And he’s not guilty of a crime that no one other than some awful, catty woman who’s not your friend would commit?
But I knew if I was angry, I was wrong. So I prayed that prayer where I recognized God didn’t create my anger, and it was a mistake, and Love was my only Reality, and I was willing to let the anger go, only I didn’t know how, but I was willing to let it go, and be shown the truth.
And it went. It did. I realized he had done nothing to me, and I really did know him, he wasn’t trying to be mean, and I was even able to let go of putting it off to he was just a man which meant stupid, and I did get to the Love part, and the evening wasn’t ruined, and the willingness to let go and the willingness to receive a different answer worked again.
But why again? Why was I still going insane over something like five peanut butter cups (the little snack ones)?
Then it occurred to me: I had felt guilty.
And there was so much of it I was still lugging around.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
What would happen if I let go of guilt? If the next time I was ready to go off on the cretins, instead of getting to the tears, the rage, the finger-pointing justifications and then praying to let them go, why not go for the jugular? Why not just let go of guilt…not theirs, mine.
Would I possibly be done then?
Friday, February 02, 2007
The God-Shaped Hole
Yesterday I wrote about do-nuts and how, if indulged, there seems to be no end to wanting do-nuts. I ended with “So is there really something else we are longing for? Some wholeness, healing, limitless holiness that offers not more desire, but peace?”
Last night I realized I got the do-nut message wrong. Wholeness, limitless holiness, peace is. Got it? That’s what we are. Now.
If we are longing, even for God, then we’ve forgotten who we are, what we are. And with that longing, even for God, we are just opening up a hole we are unsuccessfully going to try fill: with do-nuts, with trinkets, with people, with new skills, with new experiences, with God.
Won’t happen.
Got it? Just relax. What you really want is already here. Peace.
Last night I realized I got the do-nut message wrong. Wholeness, limitless holiness, peace is. Got it? That’s what we are. Now.
If we are longing, even for God, then we’ve forgotten who we are, what we are. And with that longing, even for God, we are just opening up a hole we are unsuccessfully going to try fill: with do-nuts, with trinkets, with people, with new skills, with new experiences, with God.
Won’t happen.
Got it? Just relax. What you really want is already here. Peace.
Letting Go
“How’s Alton?” I ask my friend.
“He’s okay,” she says. Her voice dips a little, deferring to ambiguity, acknowledging ‘okay’ can accommodate a lot of pain. “He calls his dad a lot to ask him to come home. Now that Justin has had papers drawn up, Alton may understand his dad’s not coming home, maybe he can get a little closure.”
What’s closure to a ten-year-old? The kid is great, full of vim, dedicated to whatever interests him, nice to old ladies, generous…an all around fine person. I know the statistics. I know children of divorce often carry wounds long into their adulthood. I do not want this for any kid, not for this kid.
“Tell him you know he loves his dad. Tell him even when he’s grown, he may still wish you and his dad were still together. But tell him sometimes when you love someone, you have to let that person do what he thinks is right, even if you don’t understand how it could possibly be right.” I want to help Alton, give him someway to honor his own feelings and still love his dad. I want something to heal the wound before it gets too deep.
Later I don’t know if I helped Alton or his mother, but I do realize I’d been teaching myself crazy pain doesn't come from what is gone, but from grasping for what used to be.
“He’s okay,” she says. Her voice dips a little, deferring to ambiguity, acknowledging ‘okay’ can accommodate a lot of pain. “He calls his dad a lot to ask him to come home. Now that Justin has had papers drawn up, Alton may understand his dad’s not coming home, maybe he can get a little closure.”
What’s closure to a ten-year-old? The kid is great, full of vim, dedicated to whatever interests him, nice to old ladies, generous…an all around fine person. I know the statistics. I know children of divorce often carry wounds long into their adulthood. I do not want this for any kid, not for this kid.
“Tell him you know he loves his dad. Tell him even when he’s grown, he may still wish you and his dad were still together. But tell him sometimes when you love someone, you have to let that person do what he thinks is right, even if you don’t understand how it could possibly be right.” I want to help Alton, give him someway to honor his own feelings and still love his dad. I want something to heal the wound before it gets too deep.
Later I don’t know if I helped Alton or his mother, but I do realize I’d been teaching myself crazy pain doesn't come from what is gone, but from grasping for what used to be.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Two Minute Musing
“He’s filed papers,” my neighbor said of her absent husband. She is wan, and her eyes are dark and distant and full of sorrow.
They have been married for 22 years. She could not tolerate me if I told her not to be sad. Instead I offer her the prayer I have to repeat often in my journey, using for her benefit God, since I know that is what she would use, as I often to do to name the Source of All Being.
Tell God you are sad, and that you know it is not His Will for you to be sad. Tell Him you are willing to let the sadness go, but you do not know how. Tell Him to take the sadness for you, and to show you what His happiness really is. Tell Him you are willing to accept what He wants for you.
This is how I have to do it…from having a fellow shopper slam my grocery cart, to some imagined offence by my husband, to the really scary life events I can’t control:
I do not deny how I feel…my sadness, anger or terror.
I acknowledge my feelings were not created by Source/God/Being/What I Am.
I acknowledge my feelings are a mistake.
I acknowledge my willingness to let them go, even if I don’t feel willing at the moment.
I acknowledge I cannot do this on my own.
I acknowledge my willingness to accept instead what God intends for me.
I don’t know how, but for me, it works every time. We are not talking about circumstances here; if I try to direct God’s Will, I am putting a limit on what I will allow Him to do for me. We are talking about feelings, as my husband likes to say sardonically. We are talking about peace/love/joy/happiness. And when I say my prayer (though sometimes I have to say it more than once…sometimes I say it feverishly, repeating it like an incantation…peace/love/joy/happiness always happens. I don’t know how it works. Maybe because that is the Source of my creation, because that’s all that I really am. The rest is just a foolish nightmare, from which I can easily awaken.
They have been married for 22 years. She could not tolerate me if I told her not to be sad. Instead I offer her the prayer I have to repeat often in my journey, using for her benefit God, since I know that is what she would use, as I often to do to name the Source of All Being.
Tell God you are sad, and that you know it is not His Will for you to be sad. Tell Him you are willing to let the sadness go, but you do not know how. Tell Him to take the sadness for you, and to show you what His happiness really is. Tell Him you are willing to accept what He wants for you.
This is how I have to do it…from having a fellow shopper slam my grocery cart, to some imagined offence by my husband, to the really scary life events I can’t control:
I do not deny how I feel…my sadness, anger or terror.
I acknowledge my feelings were not created by Source/God/Being/What I Am.
I acknowledge my feelings are a mistake.
I acknowledge my willingness to let them go, even if I don’t feel willing at the moment.
I acknowledge I cannot do this on my own.
I acknowledge my willingness to accept instead what God intends for me.
I don’t know how, but for me, it works every time. We are not talking about circumstances here; if I try to direct God’s Will, I am putting a limit on what I will allow Him to do for me. We are talking about feelings, as my husband likes to say sardonically. We are talking about peace/love/joy/happiness. And when I say my prayer (though sometimes I have to say it more than once…sometimes I say it feverishly, repeating it like an incantation…peace/love/joy/happiness always happens. I don’t know how it works. Maybe because that is the Source of my creation, because that’s all that I really am. The rest is just a foolish nightmare, from which I can easily awaken.
The Hungry Ghost Do-nut Jones
Last year a new do-nut shop opened in the strip mall a block from my house. Sometimes in the early morning as I walk my dogs the air is filled with the smell of cooking do-nuts, a heady mixture of yeast and sugar and sizzling oil that hits me like a rush. At that moment I want do-nuts, one, then another and another, all the do-nutty goodness promised by each intoxicating breath.
Only do-nuts make me queasy. One hot do-nut would melt in my mouth, so light it is almost nothing but an explosion of sweetness, and then I would want another, and even though I would not be nearly done tasting, tasting, tasting, I would feel my stomach roiling. Not to mention what limitless do-nuts would do to my already cautionary blood pressure, cholesterol, and body mass index. And the almost immediate carb coma.
I know this, and though I never buy them, still I want do-nuts. I am not hungry, and still I want do-nuts. I am seduced by the idea of do-nuts.
As you can guess, do-nuts are a…you know…metaphor.
For me the metaphor is the longing for an illusive temptation, something I don’t need, and is, indeed, bad for me, and even makes me ill, and that can never, ever give me enough to be enough. Like the next game of free-cell. Or another new book I don’t have time to read. The right recipe that will knock your socks off. The grievance I would control, expose, punish, forgive, and not forget because, darn it, you really hurt my feelings, and I never, ever want that to happen again.
Go ahead, name your own.
So is there really something else we are longing for? Some wholeness, healing, limitless holiness that offers not more desire, but peace?
Only do-nuts make me queasy. One hot do-nut would melt in my mouth, so light it is almost nothing but an explosion of sweetness, and then I would want another, and even though I would not be nearly done tasting, tasting, tasting, I would feel my stomach roiling. Not to mention what limitless do-nuts would do to my already cautionary blood pressure, cholesterol, and body mass index. And the almost immediate carb coma.
I know this, and though I never buy them, still I want do-nuts. I am not hungry, and still I want do-nuts. I am seduced by the idea of do-nuts.
As you can guess, do-nuts are a…you know…metaphor.
For me the metaphor is the longing for an illusive temptation, something I don’t need, and is, indeed, bad for me, and even makes me ill, and that can never, ever give me enough to be enough. Like the next game of free-cell. Or another new book I don’t have time to read. The right recipe that will knock your socks off. The grievance I would control, expose, punish, forgive, and not forget because, darn it, you really hurt my feelings, and I never, ever want that to happen again.
Go ahead, name your own.
So is there really something else we are longing for? Some wholeness, healing, limitless holiness that offers not more desire, but peace?
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