let go or be dragged

Posted on Jan 10, 2012 in ex good christian women, healing, mommydom, relationships | 21 comments

i ran across this american proverb a while back & then a dear friend gave it to me on a magnet for christmas:  “let go or be dragged.”

it is so appropriate in more ways than one, and now i see it first thing every morning when i get creamer for my coffee.

i need the reminder.

as a parent, as a leader, as a friend, as someone healing from woundedness, one of the greatest gifts we can learn is the art of “letting go”.  letting go doesn’t mean giving up.  it doesn’t mean not caring.  it doesn’t mean not being engaged or connected.  but it does mean taking our grip off of things so tightly.

it means learning how to be less codependent.

it means trusting God is at work in ways we can’t see.

it means respecting our limitations.

it means practicing becoming better human beings.

it means being very aware of how much power we give to things in the past or the present that we have absolutely no control of.

when i think of church woundedness, “let go or be dragged” comes to mind.  when i was hanging on so tightly to the past, i was the one suffering. i was the one pissed off. i was the one in misery.  the people & systems who hurt me were perfectly fine. they had moved on but i couldn’t seem to. i was being dragged around by them even though they weren’t even doing the dragging!

when i think of parenting teens, it is also oh-so-appropriate.  i personally think parenting is one of the trickiest spiritual & personal formation opportunities in our lives. it is butt-kicking sometimes, just how easy it is to get hooked in to unhealthy, nutty dynamics as a parent.  there are times when i am trying so hard not to get sucked in and next thing i know, boom, i’m being dragged all kinds of places i never intended to go.

when i think of leadership, in whatever shape or form some of us might find ourselves in, this thought is a helpful guide.  the struggle with people-pleasing is real for many of us, even if we don’t want to admit it.  we care when people criticize.  we take things more personally than we should.  we can’t stand it when people disapprove or disagree.  one of the biggest learnings of 2011 for me was practicing the art of letting go as a leader.  of realizing that there are so many things beyond my control and i have to trust God & people & the bigger story instead of operating out of a place of desperation or fear.

when i think of journeying with people in the midst of hard stuff, this is also critical.  learning what’s our responsibility and what’s another person’s is really difficult when a lot of pain & struggle is involved.  gaining greater understanding of our responsibilities & also limitations is a skill that requires God’s tangible help and active-spirit-at-work-showing-us-the-way.

so this year i am going to keep practicing what it means to let go.  to take my white-knuckled-grip off-of-all-kinds-of-things-that-i-can’t-really-control-anyway-even-though-i-think-i-can.  to stay engaged & present & “in” without getting yanked and dragged into all kinds of places i don’t need to go.

what about you? what do you need to let go of this year?

the catch-up list

Posted on Jan 7, 2012 in church stuff, down we go, dreams, healing, incarnational, injustice, women in ministry | 1 comment

wednesday my four youngest kids went back to school after a great winter break.  yesterday i dropped my oldest son off at the airport and sent him back to college on the east coast.  now it’s catch up time!  i have all kinds of posts swirling around in my head and  january is going to be wrap-up-what-i-started month.  here are a few things i wanted to share before i dive back into real life next week:

• one word – i decided to participate in this for 2012.  in the past i’ve had five and end up never remembering any of them!  here’s a post i wrote for the refuge blog that has some ideas if you haven’t already thought of one yet.  my 2012 word is:  focus.  oh yeah, that’s the right word.

• honoring doubt – my monthly contribution to sheloves magazine is on one of my favorite topics from down we go: honoring doubt. i hope we can keep creating safe spaces to honor doubt.

• when Jesus met mary: a sacred friendship gathering – i am very excited to be part of this gathering–when Jesus met mary: a conference exploring friendship between men & women–in april in chicago centered on sacred cross-gender friendships hosted by my friend dan brennan. all of the details are on the website.  let me know if you can come be part of this brave & much-needed conversation.

• unladylike – my friend pam hogeweide’s book unladylike: resisting the injustice of inequality in the church is being released at the end of the is month by civitas press.  you can preorder a copy now if you want.  it rocks!

• and the resignation of eve – my other northwest friend jim henderson is always stirring up some great stuff for us to consider.  his new book the resignation of eve: what if adam’s rib is no longer willing to be the church’s backbone is coming out soon, too. i’m very glad this critical topic is getting some traction.

• convergence – i couldn’t go last year because of a family trip but am planning on being there this year, march 2-4 in portland. this year’s theme is:  staying power–presence & possibility as leaders.  if you haven’t been before, it’s a really wonderful gathering of strong & passionate women.

• synchroblog – we are starting off 2012 with a new teammate  & a survey to help gather ideas for the upcoming year.  if you are a blogger and want to be challenged to write on a variety of topics at the same time as other bloggers, all are welcome.

• with communities - my awesome friend john martinez created a log-in-so-there’s-greater-safety-and-connection site for incarnational community cultivators who could use some support, input, encouragement, and connection with other people who believe that prepositions matter and are trying crazy stuff, too. check it out here.

• walking wounded: hope for those hurt by the church – my friend phyllis mathis & i are hosting a 4 week online group for those of you out there who are painfully disillusioned by a faith or church experience.  our october 2011 gathering in denver was great for those who could pull it off, but this is a chance for others to participate, too.  because of some schedule conflicts, the date got moved to february 6th 2012.  go to live it to the full to register & for all the details.  if you or someone you know could use some healing, hope, laughter, and intention on getting unstuck, we’d love to have you join us.  this little video is sort of serious (i promise we’ll laugh and have fun, too) but gives an idea of what we are doing.  thanks for passing it on to friends who want to save some money on therapy and get some traction on healing in this new year.
  

i hope your year is getting off to a good start. i am looking forward to what’s ahead! peace, kathy

happy 4th birthday, little blog.

Posted on Dec 31, 2011 in just because i thought it was fun, the carnival in my head | 11 comments

4 years ago today  12.31.07, i was holed up in my house over christmas vacation starting this blog & joining facebook for the first time.  wow, did those 4 years go fast.  i am so thankful for the relationships i’ve made here, many of you i’ve now had the privilege to meet in real life, too, and i can’t say enough how grateful i am for all i continue to learn out here.  when i first started blogging i made a commitment to blog once a week for one year to see what happens.  that evolved into two years, then three years, and now it’s time to re-evaluate for a fourth year.  every time i wonder–should i keep it going or call it a day?

blogging is an extremely vulnerable exercise.  so many things can be misconstrued, used against you, misinterpreted.  i can’t tell you the number of times the minute i hit “publish” i have felt panic.  but i have also learned something really important through this discipline–it doesn’t really matter.   it’s just too much brain damage to think through that all of the time.  the much more important thing–and why i started this blog in the first place–was to practice staying current and freely sharing (from my heart not my head) my experience, struggles, passions, what-i-keep-learning, and dreams about life & church & relationships without editing all the time.

i hope to continue in 2012, at least as far as i can tell right now.  i do know that i’m pretty buried with day-to-day life at the refuge, which is more important than this blog & pretty hard to juggle along with my pile of kids!  but i will just keep doing what i can do and leave it at that.   i don’t have any big commitments here other than to actually wrap up some of the things i-had-hoped-to-post-in-2011-but-never-got-around to-because-it’s-always-so-nutty-here,  like the 8 ways to shrink a church series, a few more view from the margins interviews, and some stuff that got stirred up at our walking wounded weekend (i would love to have you join us for a 4 week online class starting the first week in february, too, if you are hurting & on the outs and would like to feel less stuck–the date changed because of some scheduling things on our end).  i want to keep exploring the ideas in down we go, too, and in the first part of 2012 really would like to hear more what some of it has stirred up in your practices.  well, that’s plenty to keep me busy.

if there’s anything specific you’d like to process in this upcoming year, let me know! email me or put it in the comments.

meanwhile, here’s a quick round-up of the top 10 posts of 2011 around here:

#1. why sometimes i get sad – my story of getting dumped as a baccalaureate speaker when some conservative pastors found out a female pastor was speaking.  just.plain.weird. yeah, we still have a long way to go on this issue.

#2. yep, i guess i’m a heretic – and yep, none of these things are all that heretical when it comes to being a Jesus follower, in my opinion, but unfortunately a lot of systems have been hijacked by a lot of rules. i guess a lot of you are heretics too!

#3. while the world is crying out for hope, we’re talking about theology – my theory is that we’d much rather talk about theology than actually have to practice it because it’s a lot easier.

#4. cross-gender friendships – men & women can learn to live alongside one another as friends, brothers & sisters.  it just takes courage & practice & God’s help.  in april i’ll be part of a gathering in chicago exploring this topic hosted by my friend dan brennan.

#5. Jesus school: not the most inspiring in town – this is an old post & i think about it all the time, how hard but good it is to be in Jesus school.

#6. rising up from below – sometimes i go a little prophetess.

#7. white privilege, male privilege, straight privilege, economic privilege – it’s good for us to remember how much it exists.  it’s not bad that we have it; the question is how are we going to use it?

#8. pericardiums – love hurts.

#9. loving God in lots of different ways – i am so happy that so many different people in various contexts used this material in groups & churches to explore how we connect with God.  i loved this material & glad it made its way into other people’s hands & hearts.

#10.  a nifty chart for the journey: stages in the life of faith – this post continues to be one of the most popular & i think it’s because this chart really helps us identify where we are on the spiritual journey, especially when we’re going through a lot of shifts, and what “going through the wall” looks like. it’s in down we go, too, in one of my favorite chapters–welcoming pain.

lots of love and peace to all of you. thanks for reading & have a fun new years eve! be safe.