What They've Got That I Haven't Got

Well, I'm starting to get really excited. The wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-you can't-sleep-so-you-write-in-your-blog kind of excited. A lifetime dream is about to come true. It's not the horse in the backyard that I've always wished for or that trip to Venice we had planned for this February. We had to cancel that so I could pursue this. I'm about to embark on an MFA program in professional writing.

Now what on earth is that, one might ask? And why would that be a dream of a lifetime? Simple. It's what I was always discouraged to do. And here, at the ripe old age of 52, I'm still rebelling against my writer parents. They were against education in the arts. "You either have talent or you don't and if you have it, you use it."

To them, one didn't waste time in graduate school learning to do something you already know how to do. They were old school, boxcar-riding, depression babies. They neither had the money or the time to indulge in MFA programs. (Actually, they weren't hobos riding in boxcars but I thought that sounded good.)

So now that they've both left this world and moved onto that great graduate program in the sky, I've found the courage to pursue this dream of my lifetime - to become a fulltime writer. They were fulltime writers and strongly discouraged me from following in their footsteps. Like good parents, they were trying to spare their child from a life of misery. And like a child who wants what she can't have, I've held onto this dream with a vengeance.

It's not that I don't like working in the prison and being a social worker. I've managed to write a book, a few books actually, while doing so. And articles and poems and screenplays. So, what's the big draw to the MFA? "What have they got that I haven't got?"

In the "Wizard of Oz", when the wizard is distributing the rewards, he prefaces each speech to the four seekers with "but they have one thing you haven't got." To the scarecrow, he says it's a diploma. I suppose I'm looking for the diploma, the piece of paper which will allow me to eventually write for a living from home, perhaps teach, and graduate from the prison. But it's more than that.

Someone once said that MFA programs don't teach you how to write but they provide courage. In that respect, I'm more like the lion than the scarecrow. It's not the brain I need, not the diploma but fortitude. That's the one thing I didn't get from my parents - an alcoholic father and an unhappy mother. Perhaps that's the one thing they couldn't give.

In the end, I suppose courage is the one thing I can only give myself - permission to act in the face of fear. But let's be honest, that little ticket stub called a diploma won't hurt either. It stands out on a resume and says "she can write" or at least "she can fulfill the requirements of a degree program." In the end, my parents will probably prove to be right. Nothing takes the place of action. And for now, this MFA is the action I'm taking.

In Praise of Imperfection

Yesterday, I mailed off a bundle of Christmas cards, finished the last of my Christmas shopping, came home and wrapped presents while "Scrooge" was playing on the TV. A perfect holiday-prep day, all around. And yet I felt like garbage inside.

I had done all the right things. Not in the order of Mother Teresa, mind you. I wasn't collecting money for the poor or passing out Toys for Tots but I hadn't murdered anyone or stolen anything. Now why is it that every time I do something decent, maybe even good, I feel so bad?

I have a cantankerous mind. It misbehaves in all sorts of ways but the most annoying aspect is this inclination to cut myself to shreds when I have tried to be good. I guess the Apostle Paul called that our sinful nature (see Romans 7.) But I no longer believe in sin. Then again, I might rethink this.

I no longer believe in a personal savior either though I might rethink that, too. I'm certainly in need of one. But whenever I call upon the name of God or Jesus, it's as if someone shouted "Incoming" and I feel like diving under the nearest table for cover. No offense on the Almighty. It's not Her fault. It's a residual effect of the cult.

So, I pick myself up and dust myself off, a daily experience. I've gotten to the point that I pray to God just to help me not be afraid to pray to God. If that makes sense. The last sentence in Paul Tillich's incredible book The Courage to Be goes something like this: "The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God disappears in the anxiety of doubt."

This God that's bigger than God is the God of imperfection, the God of what is. This God does not condemn. This God lives with, grows with, falls with, suffers with me. Sounds suspiciously like the little child born in Bethlehem. Maybe I do believe after all. Believing through self- doubt like mine is like trying to see in a monsoon. But I'll give it a whirl and when I do, I'll remember that I'm allowed to be imperfect. There's a word for that, too. Grace.

Merry Christmas.

Staying Connected

Today is a day of gratitude. Not just for "the sun, the moon and the apple seed" but for connections. Connections are hard for survivors of trauma. Connections require trust and they are things most people take for granted.

Connections are relationships - with God, with self, with others, with the world. And the challenge of feeling how I am related to the world is no small thing. I mean FEELING, not just knowing. I know I am connected. I am married. I have children. I work in a prison. I belong to a church. I am connected on the outside but inside, sometimes that's a different story.

The closest thing I can compare it to is being a burn victim. Your nerve endings are shot, incinerated by the trauma of fire. When one has been through trauma, I'll speak for myself here, now that I have lived through abuse, my natural nerve endings seem to be singed. I look alright on the outside but inside I feel nothing. My brain registers danger and it's easy to feel disconnected and alone. It's a physiological response - the fight or flight response to the alarm of impending danger. And nothing feels so dangerous as connections.

The real challenge is staying connected to myself and this happens through my body. "The body heals the mind," says my therapist. As I tune into my breath or my pulse, I am reminded that my body is a creation and I, my soul, inhabits my body. I am joined to myself.

I wish it didn't take so much work but this new paradigm requires concentrated effort - the effort to remember that I am free of abuse and free of my past. And that leads me back to gratitude. To be grateful for what I know in spite of what I feel. Feelings are not facts and facts are not necessarily feelings. I know I am blessed. It's just a matter of remembering day by day.

A New Paradigm

So the book is out and people are reading it. Amazingly. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I thought I’d send it out like some castaway with a message in a bottle and wait to see if anyone found it.

Well, they have and the response has been kind of overwhelming. Not that I want to toot my own horn. But when you’ve been slogging your way through the dark alone, or almost alone, for years and come to find out that there ARE actually people out there who are listening, well, it’s time for a paradigm shift.

New paradigm. Sounds like the Age of Aquarius. What I mean is that I’m working on a new personal paradigm where my inner experience matches the outer one. The new outward experiences I’m enjoying like ones of affirmation, encouragement and acceptance.

Sure, I’ve gotten some criticism – people say the book is too hard a read, too painful, too raw. But that’s kind of the point of the whole thing – to help other people experience and then empathize with what I and many others like me have been through. Losing the Way is not for the faint of heart. Neither is the truth. I appreciate those who can weather the storm and lose their way with me, only to be found.

I’m not saying I’m any kind of great writer. I’ve just written a book which I hope will serve as a cautionary tale for those who give their whole hearts, souls minds and strengths to anything or anyone other than the Ultimate. That’s the bottom line. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” As a former idolator, as a member of the human race, I figured I had something to say. I never figured so many people would listen.

On Faith, Luck and Four-Leaf Clovers

Yesterday on the golf course, I found a four-leaf clover. Walking along through the dewy grass (it was about 8:00 in the morning), I looked down and there it was, peeking up at me through the tangle of grass.

Every spring and summer, I look for four-leaf clovers and I find them. It’s simply a matter of looking - one of those “seek and ye shall find” things. And I always take it as a sign. Of what, I’m not sure. It certainly didn’t improve my golf swing yesterday. But it does remind me, in a funny sort of way, that I am not alone and for me, that’s the big thing.

After my mother died, I found several 4’s and even some 5’s. She is still with me, I concluded. On the golf course where my grandfather used to play, I frequently find them. He is there, I say to myself. And what’s so good about not being alone? Like faith, it reminds me that I’m part of a greater whole, connected to something beyond myself, even if it’s just a part of nature, that’s enough, too.

I have a neighbor and she believes in luck and God. She believes that God is overall and she believes she is held in His will. She also believes in the wheel of fortune – that sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down. I told her how to find 4-leaf clovers and she found a patch of four and fives behind her house. Almost forty of them. Talk about luck and she is, in fact, one of the luckiest and most giving and most thankful people I know. Now she finds them everywhere.

Four-leaf clovers are everywhere if you just know how to spot them. Someone actually taught me how. “Just look for the anomaly,” she said and there they were. Four leaves sticking out from among the their three-leafed brothers and sisters. It’s not about luck really – luck is the meaning we attach to the exception or the coincidence. Perhaps faith is the meaning we attach to the ordinary, day-by-day stuff of living. It’s about meaning and that’s what I’m still looking for, on the golf course and everywhere else.

Confessions of a Fledgling Churchgoer

This is a sermon I am going to give at my little church next Sunday. My minister was kind enough to ask me to speak. Here's what I came up with. What do you think?


About three years ago, I was standing on a beach in Westerly, Rhode Island on a very windy, drizzly day. It’s good that there was a mist in the air because I was crying. The reason I was crying was because I was missing someone terribly. And the person I was missing was the Lord.

“Go to church,” said a voice in my head.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Go to church,” the voice grew louder.
“I can’t , I can’t,” I cried. The picture of a small white church with green shutters came to mind. It was St. Mark’s.
“Just try,” said the voice. “Just try.”

Well, here I am, standing before you all, amazed at both myself and God. The reason I am amazed is because many years before, I had sworn I would have nothing to do with God or churches ever again.

You see, I had been in a fundamentalist cult called The Way International from the time I was fourteen until I was twenty-nine. The leader of the group hated churches. He hated religion in general, except his own brand of Christianity which taught you could basically commit any sin you wanted so long as you prayed about it and quoted Scripture. That was his definition of grace – playing God for a fool.

Well, like the Scripture says “Be not deceived, God will not be mocked. For what a man soweth , that also shall he reap.” The leader of the cult, a man named Dr. Wierwille, (he wasn’t a real doctor), perverted the Word of God and taught us to do a lot of bad stuff – the usual stuff you hear about in cults – sex, fraud, mind control. We learned it all and the whole time, I thought, crazy as it seems, that we were doing the will of God.

So, I reaped what I sowed and the whole thing came crashing down on my head after fifteen years. Spiritually and physically abused, I had nowhere to turn. I was not allowed to leave. It wasn’t that they were holding a gun to my head. No, cults hold people captive by instilling complete and total dependence on the leader. The three D’s of cultic control are dependence, deception and dread. Cult leaders capture the minds of their followers, just as mine did, and I was helpless to act.

Now, the Doctor always taught that seminaries were the breeding ground of Satan so as soon as I left The Way, I hightailed it for the devil and went to divinity school. It’s as if I was on a great boat that got shipwrecked and I got washed up onto the shores of Yale Divinity School. I was a wreck. I tried to go to services there but every time someone opened a Bible, it was like shouting “incoming” to a war veteran. I felt like diving under the nearest pew. I skipped my classes on the Old and New Testament (since I was very familiar with each) and immersed myself in the classics. My mind woke up. I started to think for myself.

In The Way, we weren’t supposed to think for ourselves. Cults don’t allow followers to doubt but I am curious by nature. I’m a doubter. But the more I doubted, the worse I felt. I was told I was not doing the will of God. I was told I was possessed. I was hungering for truth but leaving The Way would be tantamount to giving my soul to the devil. I was terrified to leave. If it wasn’t for my mother, who faithfully hung in there with me all those years, even when I accused her of being a messenger of Satan, I would not be standing before you here today.

Fast forward to St. Mark’s. Once I summoned up the courage to walk through these doors, I heard the minister preach and one of the first things he said was “Don’t park your mind at the door.” That was a refreshing change. Maybe this would work, I thought. Of course, I stumbled through the liturgy, books and papers flying everywhere, not knowing when to stand or when to sit, and mostly doing it with tears streaming down my cheeks. I was crying again. But this time from joy, this time from the feeling that I was home.

For the last three years I have had the privilege of facilitating the woman’s meditation and journaling group. I guess old habits die hard and I was programmed in the cult that I had to be involved. But I didn’t want to be too involved. I desperately needed the fellowship of other women, spiritual women, who were on the journey, seeking and loving God as much as I did. You see, it was really a selfish thing. I have been the one who has benefited the most.

I went to Bible study and encountered for the first time people actually expressing doubts about the Scripture (they did that all the time in seminary but I paid no attention. I had shut off my heart to the Word at that point. It’s amazing that they let me stay, at all, isn’t it?) Anyway, at our little Bible studies, I heard individuals speak their own minds and express their own opinions and raise their own questions. And they did this in a loving way. They weren’t afraid that the wrath of God would come flying down on their heads.

It seems like a long time since that day on the beach and an even longer time since my time in the cult, over twenty years, actually. I have two children who were born into the cult who are now grown and pursuing their own dreams, one in film, the other in law. I have just completed a memoir about my experience called Losing the Way.

In closing, what I really want to say is thank you. Thank you to St. Mark’s for opening your hearts and arms to me and allowing me to question and doubt and do dishes and not do dishes, sell cheese and not sell cheese and not damn me to hell for any of the above. I have been most fortunate to have found such a treasure right down the street from where I live, a place where I can bring all of me to love God with all my heart, my soul, my strength AND my mind. Thank you so much.

What's in a Name?

Alright, alright, so maybe “the Cosmos” isn’t the most personal and intimate designation for the Almighty but, in a funny way, it works for me. As a former fundamentalist who took EVERYTHING literally in the Bible, I believed that God was in fact a fatherly type being who loved me and cared for me. I never questioned the patriarchal bias against women and assumed I was a second class citizen.

Anyway, after leaving the rigid fold of spiritual abuse, I encountered all sorts of names for God. G-D, let His name never be spoken. Her name? Its name. you see how confused I am. I don’t know WHAT to call this supreme being who seems to have manic/depression (note the seasons, wasps, sunflowers, typhoons, sea horses, bluebirds) or is wildly hyperactive with attention deficit disorder. No offense on my Higher Power but something seems to be a little amiss around here.

Like, for instance, why don’t we know its (their?) name? A friend of mine says we should just call God “ALL” but that sounds too much like a laundry detergent. (It IS a laundry detergent.) I have landed on the side of “cosmos” or “universe” or “Mystery” because those seem to be the most general and inoffensive terms to my sensibilities. Other strokes for different folks.

This doesn’t solve the problem of a personal relationship with the Lord. See, I said it. “The Lord.” Now is that Jesus or Buddha or Mohammed or Lao T’se. No, I like to think of hanging out with Jesus even though he could be disconcertingly unpredictable – one minute tenderly gathering the flock, the next minute trashing tables in the temple. It’s hard to let my guard down with him sometimes because I just don’t know what he’s going to do next. It’s kind of hard to get the warm fuzzies from a spiritual terrorist (not that I’m saying that’s what Jesus was but he WAS radical. And “love” don’t even get me started.)

I know I’m going into more detail about my spiritual journey that you probably asked for but this, as they say, is “where I’m at.” My personal relationship and experience of connection with the Lord is the most important thing in my life. God and I have discussed this a lot – what he/she/it wants to be called and it mostly depends on how I’m feeling that day. I have lots of appellations for my husband – Lucky, Duardo, Duecalion, Duke, Guagy, darling, studmuffin – you get the idea. So why not God? What’s important here is how we’re relating to each other and I suppose as I slow down and stop looking over my shoulder all the time, I’ll relax into just calling God, God.

I have a ways to go before that happens. For now, like e.e.cummings said, God is everything that is “Yes.” So, Yes, I worship you. Yes, I love you. Yes, I marvel in you. Now, THAT’S a mystery worth seeking.