Bring in the Clowns

Years ago I collected clowns.  Back then, I thought they appealed to me to because they were wacky, light and friendly. It seems patently obvious to me now that there was something else.

I once blithely told a friend that you could bring 20 of my closest friends and family members together in a room and they still would not have the complete and true story of my life.  Heartbreaking.

Clowns are the ultimate artifice.  No matter what she is feeling, it is disguised by her -- literally -- painted-on-smile and entertaining antics.  That pretty much summed up my life prior to 1992.  I painted on a smile and acted happy.  I thought doing so would in fact make me happy.  "Fake it 'til you make it."  But it didn't work. 

In June of 1992, I found myself standing in front of 90 strangers and telling them that what I hoped to gain from my More to Life weekend was joy.  I was shocked to hear the words come out of my mouth.  Wasn't I happy?  I was not.  I was looking for the magic lens -- the little thing that would somehow bring my apparently wonderful life into focus so that I could see it as others did.

There was no magic lens.  Instead it was like a long awakening -- a slowly dawning sunrise -- that bit by bit revealed the truth about me, my mind, and my ability to choose.  Choice.  That was an entirely new word in my vocabulary.  In fact, much like St. Therese of Lisieux, I found my salvation not in the big choices but in the small ones.  I found my way forward by choosing not to get self-righteously angry at my noisy neighbors but instead to look at how loud shouting was a trigger to a cascading avalanche of emotions from my childhood.  I discovered I could choose to love others by reading between the lines of the alternate reality being written by my brain.  Perhaps just as importantly I learned that I could choose to love myself and to trust others with the whole truth of me.

A person of faith, I finally found a way to live out that faith that did not consist only of "trying harder" or "toughing it out."  For most of my life, I had been nodding my head in church saying, "Yes.  I agree. Amen.  But how?  How do I trust?  How do I love?  How do I forgive? "

As St. Therese said so eloquently, I began to see that  "Each small task of everyday is part of the total harmony of the universe."  I started living my life in the here and now.  I chose to forgive even when people around me could not agree that I "should."  I started literally slowing down to "smell the roses."  I learned that a day spent crying is as valuable as a day of fun.  And folding sheets can be as noble a purpose as any other.  A few years back I heard, "Holy as a Day is Spent."  a song that sums it up eloquently.  Carrie Newcomer sings, "Holy is the place I stand; to do whatever small good I can.  The empty page, the open book -- redemption everywhere I look. . . "

Today I dusted off one the two clowns I have left of  that collection. I held him briefly in my hand and considered putting him in the "give away" box.  He is a remnant of a collection and -- I daresay -- a remnant of a way of life. But I did not do it.  I chose again keep him close at hand to help me remember who I really am.

Gifts and Graces in Battle

I have been in battle this week and by "battle" I mean hand-to-hand combat with my mind. In the end most of what I struggle with in my life comes down to a spiritual battle. It all comes back to me telling the fundamental truth about who I am and which things in life are in my domain to "fix," change or even affect.

For example, I have been counting calories since January 15 and increasing my exercise to lose weight. I have been carefully tracking every bite and nibble, meditating, exercising, eating "low on the food chain" and generally paying close attention to my health. At the start, I had two really encouraging weeks in which I lost 2 pounds each. Since then, I have not lost an ounce and, in fact, when this week I stepped on the scale, I had actually gained 4/10ths of a pound.

Everything in me screamed, "It's not fair! I've been good! This is too hard! It shouldn't be this way."

Sound familiar?

I went through a process I'd learned almost 17 years ago in my More to Life weekend. It isn't magic - it's truth telling. And it is incredibly powerful to tell the truth in all it's fullness and magnificence.

Here a couple of the truths I uncovered: Weight loss is a process and there are hundreds of variables that affect weight. If I do what I know how to do--which is decrease calories and increase muscle-- it will eventually show up on the scale. I acknowledged what I had been doing for my health and the changes I've made to my lifestyle. But perhaps most importantly, I saw that I can do all that I know how to do and that's it. I could probably drop pounds by drastically reducing my caloric intake or ramping up my exercise to an untenable level but in the end, I'm "about" something else. I'm about being healthy and becoming fit while still carrying on with the other things that matter so much to me. My most important truth, however is that I am not in charge. Some things are out of my domain. The frustration factor comes in when I lose track of that. Once I can see the truth, I can go on about making a real difference in the world.

Perhaps most importantly, I remembered once again, with gratitude, what having these tools means to me. Once again, I am in creativity and able to see possibility in every area of my life. And I am once again walking tall with my warrior backbone in place. It's a joy!