Full Circle

I am elated. Something has occurred that I had never really thought about, but when it happened, it was powerful. I have now walked into the home of one of my children (of course, I do mean Michayla) and found a book on their shelves with which I was not familiar and yet was drawn to and I am now reading and gaining from this novel. I cannot tell you how much I love having this happen. I am not even certain that I can explain why it means so much, but it makes me feel as though I got through and taught her something.

The book I am referencing is titled "The Birchbark House" by Louise Erdrich. I have not finished it yet and I may feel differently when I do because I do not think that it is going to end well, but I am enjoying the journey. There have been a number of passages that I really appreciated but there was one in particular that gave me chills. It describes so perfectly exactly how I feel when I am having a moment of profound discovery or a spiritual epiphany. Here is the passage:

"Yes, there was something about what had happened that made Omakayas very quiet. As she worked, she began to get all empty and peculiar and faint inside. A thought was coming. A voice approached. This happened to her sometimes. A dizzy feeling would pass over her. If she attended to it closely, once it was gone she would know something a little extra, as though she'd overheard two spirits talking."

Young Omakayas then has a powerful spiritual moment in her life. I loved the way the author described that feeling that comes when the spirit of learning or discovery is so real it is nearly an entity.

And now...I cannot wait until the day that I can discuss this novel with Michayla. I am missing her so intensely right now even as I find myself growing daily more proud of her and all that she has and is accomplishing.

The way I see it

Today I posted a quote from Lucille Ball on my Facebook wall. It said, "Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world." I stated that I was not certain that I agreed with this idea and invited discussion. Well...I certainly got what I asked for, and more. But there was one comment in particular that caused me to think that perhaps it is time that I said my piece on a certain passage of scripture. (Okay, I have said it before, but I need to say it again.)

In Mark 12:30-31 we read, 30)And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. 31)And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

I have always been told that this second part means that I am to love my neighbor as I love myself. But from a time since I was quite young I have read it differently. To me, when I read this first scripture, we are being told to love Him with everything we have got and then we are told that the second is like unto the first. So...in my mind that translates to say that I need to love my neighbor as myself. As me. I need to love my neighbor as only Cynthia can love them, with my particular gifts, talents, and abilities. I need not love them in any other way but the unique way that God gave me to love. Too many times we try to love our neighbor as someone else, as a facade, as we think we should be or as someone tells us we must be and we do not meet the measure of love for which we are capable. In my way of thinking, this means I must know myself, but not necessarily have a huge pile of self love. And I must know myself in conjunction with the first scripture, through God.

I struggle to love myself. But I do not struggle to love others. And the more that I am loving others, the easier it is to be less harsh with myself. So I am going to continue to read this scripture the way it makes sense to me and keep trying to be the most loving self that I can be, and hope that this is enough.

The voice of God

I have spoken many times of the fact that I hear God's voice in the pounding of the surf. But I sense something more in this time at the beach. It is the roar of the ocean, that roar that is ever present and when there is that momentary lull in the pounding of the surf, there is still that roar. That is a constant and it is powerful and yet still all that the same time. It is less of a noise and more of a presence that one feels more than one hears. It simply IS. THAT is what I really loved in what I have felt at this time at the beach. As I stood there this morning, my "special" scriptures suddenly washed over me and filled my mind. The scriptures in the last few chapters of Job, beginning with chapter 37 all began to dance through my brain. It was glorious. It was as though I was hearing the voice of the deep speak scripture to me. And as those scriptures began to make their way through my head, one stuck, Job 41:31, "He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment." And then He offered me the gift of truth that I really needed, desperately needed. All things, through God, can be a salve. All things can be an ointment of healing and power. The sea is that for me. I am healed of some basic ills from my time here. I cannot have this place all the time, but there is an entire earth and creation that contain His voice and I need to just use the holy spirit to make certain that I am hearing, or feeling that roar in whatever part of creation I am currently standing in. I know that it is available. It is up to me to hear/feel it.

Finally, I can explain it!

Okay. Deep breath. I am going to admit something here that will upset some of, perhaps many, of my literary friends. But here goes...I struggle with "Pride and Prejudice". There, I said it. I have not spoken up about this because frankly I could never quite put my finger on just why it bothers me. Well...today I was reading a book that my mom gave me and told me I simply had to read so that we could discuss it. Now this is a difficulty in the relationship between my mother and myself, we do not read the same things and so she knows that to ask me to read something that she has read is kind of a tough thing. As many of you know, I have a list an eternity long of what I hope to read someday and I hate bumping anything off that list! But she pleaded and she had already dropped the book in the tub so it was pre-soaked, which seemed a good choice to bring to the beach, so I am reading "One True Thing" by Anna Quindlen, at my mother's request. And then, today, I came to a passage where the main character's mother is explaining why she has an issue with Jane Austen and the breath left my body. This was exactly what I had been trying to formulate in my brain for years. Here is the passage, an exchange between the main character Ellen and her mother.

Mother: "I remember this book. I was reading it when I met your father. I remember admiring it but being a little put off by it, too, because it does that cheap thing that people do, it makes the sister who is sweet and domestic and good a second fiddle to the one who is smart and outspoken. Jane and Elizabeth. I remember them now. It didn't seem fair to me, that Jane was so good and yet Elizabeth is the one who is admired."

Ellen: "I suppose that's Austen fighting back. She was that kind of woman and she knew that it was the sweet and good girl who was esteemed in society, not the one like Elizabeth who speaks out."

Mother: "But Jane Austen should have known better than to make women into that kind of either-or thing..."

Ellen: "Do you really think she does that?"

Mother: "Yes, I do. It happened in another book, too. Little Women, there was the sister who was the writer, and the one who had babies."

Ellen: "Jo and Meg."

Mother: "It's all the same. Women writers of all people should know better than to pigeonhole women, put them in little groups, the smart one, the sweet one. Women professors at the college do it too."

Ellen: "Perhaps Austen just meant them as prototypes."

Mother: "No, they're real enough, both of them, Jane and Elizabeth. Jane admires Elizabeth, and Elizabeth admires herself."

Ellen: "Not true, Elizabeth admires Jane plenty."

Mother: "Really? Where? When you are reading it this time through pay attention to that, show me where, tell me if you still believe it when the book is done. I remember liking Pride and Prejudice, only wishing that it could be told from Jane's point of view which you and your father would say would make for a very dull book."

WOW! The mother's thoughts hit it right on the head for me. The mother was saying these things because she was a "Jane" through and through, who had been dismissed by both her husband and her daughter because of her "Janeness", just as Elizabeth does dismiss Jane in the book. I am a mix of Elizabeth and Jane and I want both sides of me and all different women to be appreciated and allowed to express themselves fully and not be deemed second class, no matter their lifestyle choice. I don't want any woman to ever be second fiddle.

I realize that there are few who would agree with me, but it is nice to come out and admit how I feel and the wish I have that this book and others (not necessarily Little Women, I think more balance is offered there, though it is still slanted) would give more balanced weight to every women's choice, even if it might be the conventional choice or the choice society dictates. Jane was happy to be a sweet and domestic creature and there is nothing wrong with that happiness.