Losing It - Lightening the Load with Tilden Edwards

 The load of parenting changes in our home has been weighty.  I spent three months just in daily reading, creating, and adjusting the way we parent in order to help meet the needs of our recently diagnosed ADHD/ODD daughter.  The number of tasks we try to do in a day far outweighs the number of hours she is awake and a good bit of it gets skipped so she can enjoy a busy schedule of school, dance, martial arts, and scouts.  The skipped tasks add to my load because I feel guilty as if I'm failing.  I feel like I'm failing when I can't bring it all together in our reality to match how I picture it.

The load of chaplaincy changes at work has been weighty.  It has been a year since the shock of no visitors, the ICU units being full, the new requirements for masking, and working from home for some.  The lack of meaningful interaction has taken its toll on my spirit and ability to give in service.  The toll on my spirit also adds to my load because I feel angry and alone.  

The load of living away from my mom and brother has been weighty.  We left a little over two years ago not long after my dad passed.  The thought being we could have a place for my mom to stay in the winter with us in Texas, help me cope with the winter blues by lessening the winter, and Houston is a great place for the kids' lives to launch.  Honestly, I believe I take after my dad so much that mom would likely prefer Bart as she ages anyway.  That's all well and good when there is no conflict.  Conflict is constant in my family of origin and it is heavy and leaves me feeling weary from repeat issues that never get solved. 

The load of self-care has been weighty.  It has been nearly a year since my gastric sleeve surgery.  I no longer lose weight but I also no longer take the time for the self-care the doctor requested.  The guilt and feelings of ineptitude add to my load. 

The load has been unbearable.  Todd and I spoke earlier in the month and I shared how I feel like most of the days are drudgery for me right now.  I cannot find joy but continue to look.  In prayer, I have felt a leading to look back at the concepts of voluntary simplicity I learned in Quaker seminary.  So, when this week Todd says he is going to go to the office on Tuesday this week because he has tons of calls, and that way he can do all of his work talking in an office and give me some peace I said hurray!  He is now fully vaccinated hurray!  Tuesday the kids were in school, Todd was at work, and the house was empty enough to run the Roomba twice hurray!  

I pulled out Richard Foster's Freedom of Simplicity 

and Tilden Edwards Living Simply Through the Day, 

ready to settle in and reacquaint myself with the wisdom of voluntary simplicity to see how it might help some of the overwhelming load.  In Freedom of Simplicity, I turned to The Practice section as I'm already educated enough on what simplicity actually is. The beginning words pull at my heartstrings "We dash here and there, desperately trying to fulfill the many obligations that press in upon us." I settle into my chair thinking "perfect this is going to help." No less than one page later I put it aside angrily. He says he is now going to take Fridays for family time. Really? Fridays. Actually, I was so frustrated I flung it across the room. It must be nice for this man in ministry to say he is going to take Friday for the family. It really irritated me because of the patriarchal bullshit that is rampant in professional ministry. I longed for a feminist book written by a mom. I do not have a feminist simplicity book and recognize that if I started searching online for one I would spend all day doing searches instead of reading.

I turned to Tilden Edwards, even though he is also a man, with the hopes of something. Luckily I was quickly reminded how much I loved his writing. Foster can be rather tedious in the couple of his books I have read. Edwards is artful and seemingly soft in a sense and at least I didn't want to throw it across the room. When I got to chapter six: Relating, I began to see some connections. He discusses ways of relating (to others) as fluid and compares it to seeing a flower:

Five Responses on Seeing a Flower

• Ah! (Presence, Agape, Caring Presence, Acceptance)
• Oh, beautiful - I want it, but I will let it be! (Minding, Free Choice, Letting Be, Light Touch)
• Oh, beautiful - I want it; I will take it!
• Oh, beautiful - I can sell it!
• So?

As he breaks down the analogy, I feel a sense of lightness coming over me. In the section on Light Touch, he says that when "we are most at peace in ourselves when our confidence, acceptance, and commitment to simplicity as a way are at their height, then we are free for such a light touch." Going on to explain that when the Ah! (love) is carried through our interaction with the other person (our thoughts, judgments, awarenesses) it can create a space of being with that person that is lighter. Now, I read Living Simply Through the Day with the intention of finding simplicity in our daily living tasks but found this golden nugget and ran with it.

At first, the lesson connected with a conversation I had with my brother a bit over a year ago. I was sharing with him my sadness about feeling lonely for female friendships. I don't know why I shared this with him but we must have been having a rare deep moment that wasn't full of our normal sibling silliness. Anyway, he said to me that he wonders if maybe people might like more of the person I was when I was younger. Back when I enjoyed dancing, sports, going out, etc. "Well, maybe," I thought with some snark "but that isn't who I am. Who has time for sports except you?" Right back to sibling silliness for me - sorry Bart.

As I churned on this little golden nugget I remembered a conversation I had with my dad many years ago. I remember he had left his job in Dayton because his employer wanted him to move and my parents had decided they wanted to stay in Dayton in order to be there for their own parents, my maternal grandma and paternal grandpa, as they were aging. Dad must have been about my age now at least mid-late forties. He got pretty low emotionally as a new job didn't surface quickly. He was a very extroverted person and took much of his value in his professional life (Richard Foster would have been perfect for him). During this time I noticed he was grumpy and snippy, keeping to himself a lot and just not his easy-going self. I remember bringing to light my concerns for him because I was missing his usual way and worried about his wellbeing. Anyway, I believe my talk with him did some good because he started to turn a corner and seemed to return to his more normal self. I like taking credit for that!

A lightbulb moment came when I was observing the officers directing traffic stationed at the school this morning. How many of my fellow service professionals in the hospital do I meet that seem to be heavy and weighed down just like my dad was? How light and airy the traffic duty at school might seem to these officers. How light and airy having the kids at school feels to me. How light and airy having a home to myself to be able to do yoga in peace, run a Roomba while hiding from the noise outside or in my room, and reading spiritual books feels to me. The weighty things I write about above are on top of the weighty things I have chosen to throw myself into. Advocacy work in my volunteer time on gun violence and social injustices, restrictive diet and nutrition in my food creativity, leaving supportive relationships behind as I move on to new places, and parenting with the end-game constantly in mind that my kids are competent well-rounded functioning adults. Wow, where is the light in my life? No wonder the kids think I am no fun.

India Arie's I Am Light

is a part of my morning grounding routine. This song in particular helps me remember my personal goal is to reflect the light of God in my interactions. I hope Edward's Ah! will help me also reflect on the light-heartedness of God's love too. In prayer with patients, I am frequently offering the weighty burdens shared with me up for God to carry. I know I can't carry all of their burdens with me. I think maybe I'm not doing for myself what I do for others. God needs to carry more of the load and I vow to give it over her.

I hope this golden nugget has the effect on me that my conversation with my dad had on him. I have wished I had another conversation with him in the few years before he died when he was feeling low again. He was taking it out on me a lot in a way that made it a lot harder to be soft with him but I wonder how it would have affected his cancer to be his lighthearted self. What would have been his seventieth birthday is coming on May 19th. When he was alive I would ask him what he wanted for his birthday and his answer was always the same for my entire life "for you to be a good girl." Each year since he died we have celebrated his birthday by watching The Wizard of Oz with buttery popcorn, peach pie, and other foods he loved. This year, we will celebrate the same but my gift to him is to be a good girl with the lightheartedness of his legacy. I am committing to work toward letting the weighty load go and lightening my load in order to be a better reflection of God's and my daddy's love.

🕊🕊Peace🕊🕊