Waking Up Earley

Thoughts, Ideas and Inspiration by Melissa Earley

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The Courtesy Wave is Dead

October 13, 2015 / / 4 Comments

I waved my arms like I was trying to attract the attention of a rescue plane and yelled at the car in front me, “YOU’RE WELCOME!” I had just let someone merge in front of me on a crowded interstate and I didn’t get the courtesy wave.

Do you remember the courtesy wave? Do you remember how back in the olden days when you let someone merge ahead of you in traffic and they gave you the little wave? Just a simple lift of the hand that acknowledged you? It said, “Thank you. I see you. I know you’re there and that you just did me a small favor. We are in this traffic together. You’re on your way somewhere too. I know it’s not all about me.”

It seems that the courtesy wave is dead. And not just on the interstate. By installing software that allowed their cars to emit more pollutants than allowed, Volkswagen gave us the finger instead of the courtesy wave. The effect is more than simple rudeness. The New York Times estimates that Volkswagen cars spewed more than 46,000 tons of pollutants into the air since 2008, causing 106 deaths in the United States alone. (Here’s a link to that New York Times article).

Don’t the Volkswagen executives, software designers, and engineers who perpetrated this fraud understand that they breathe the same air? Do they have some secret exit that rest of us don’t know about? Do they have their own special supply of oxygen? Do they not realize that we all live on the same island? It’s called Earth. And like Gilligan and his friends we’re stuck here. NASA may have found water on Mars but I don’t think we’ll be building subdivisions there anytime soon.

Because we’re all in this together, I’ll continue to give the courtesy wave. And because I see you, I’m going to ride my bike to work today.

Preaching Naked

September 29, 2015 / / 14 Comments

photo (17)

Before I preach I want to check to see if my soul is hanging out, like you might check to see if your slip is showing or your fly is down.

Preaching is hard. It’s not hard because you hunt for the right story or the perfect quote. It’s not hard because it’s a challenge to give the historical context without curing the listener of her insomnia. Preaching is hard because it is so vulnerable.

There’s the vulnerability of wrestling with the text. It can be a real match between what I wish the Bible said, what it really says, who I think I am, who I really am, who I want to be, and what the Spirit seems to be saying. I dare to let my soul be shaped by that encounter.

Every week I ask of what I am preparing to preach: Do I really believe this? Do I at least want to believe this? Have I experienced this good news or at least hope to experience this good news? Do I stake my life on it?

And then there’s the vulnerability before the congregation. In my 6th year at my church I think folks know me now. When I preach about patience they know the times when I’ve interrupted someone while I was trying to make a point. When I urge boldness they know when I’ve lost my nerve. When I preach about keeping promises they know when I haven’t followed through. They’ve brought me casseroles after a medical procedure and cookies for encouragement. Many of my congregants were there the Sunday I announced, through tears, my divorce. A few heard me swear like a sailor after slipping on the tile in our Narthex (on Christmas Eve). They know me.

All I really have to offer my congregation is the result of my wrestling match with God. I try to preach from scars and not from wounds.[1] My most personal sermons are often the ones where I don’t tell a single personal story.

My best sermons aren’t always the ones with the clever jokes or video-clips or tear- jerking stories. They are the ones where I offer my very self.

 

 

 

 

[1] Nadia Bolz-Weber uses “scars and wounds” to talk about how she chooses what to reveal about her life. She shares stories about things that are her past, and doesn’t share wounds that still hurt in her present.

Wisdom to Know the Difference

September 22, 2015 / / 4 Comments

pen and paper

The complaints of what was wrong with my life had begun as lament, a holy practice of prayer and honest soul-baring speech before God. I worried my grievances like prayer beads. But now the protest had turned into whining. Even I was sick of listening to myself.

I needed a makeover of the Self. I needed to repent – turn and go a new direction. I was desperate for conversion. That day’s journal entry reads: I am ready to recreate my life.

Hubris, really, to think I would recreate my life. That’s the work of God, I had always been taught. But God seemed to have fallen asleep at the switch so I was taking control. I did what I learned from my mother. I made a list.

Three lists actually:

What I am happy with
What I have to accept
What I want to change

I was full of the self-loathing that comes from failure and rejection. It was divine gift that made me start where I did. My list of what I was happy with wasn’t a complete accounting of those things for which I am grateful, simply a list of the parts of my life and personality that helped me be someone I liked being around:

flexibility and creativity of my job
living close to where I work
my friendships
that I like my family
that I read novels
my sense of humor
Mandy [my dog]
How I am when I travel – curious

I had overheard myself enough to know that some of my complaints were about things I could not change:

I am 46
I am divorced
My job won’t make me wealthy

No amount of railing would change the fact that my body is no longer 25 years old. I have shaped my life by decisions that cannot be undecided. I do not get a do-over. I will never again be who I was. It was not resignation I felt. It was grace. If I couldn’t do anything about the items on this list, maybe I could stop clutching it so tightly, checking it so often. There wasn’t something important written there I would forget to do. I could put it down.

My present is shaped by my past but not bound by it. There are things I can change.

the amount of stuff I own
my disorganization and messiness
amount of time I spend in front of screens
procrastination
be in better shape
be less concerned with what others thing of me
more open to others and new friendships – less “boundaried”

Like most lists of resolutions, many of these have gone largely unaddressed but that doesn’t bother me too much. The final three are reshaping the contours of my life. I am particularly tickled by the last one. I had forgotten it was on the list. It is becoming the most important.

 

 

 

 

 

Shopping for Love

September 15, 2015 / / 13 Comments

shopping list  “Smart, sexy, sweet,” is what he said he was looking for. I was chatting online with a man from Match.com. My carefully curated profile and his carefully curated profile had liked each other so we had taken it to the next step – the online chat. “What are you looking for in a man?” Suddenly I am at a car dealership having to negotiate with an aggressive salesman. “Well something reliable, and without too many miles. It’d be great for it to have some zoom. I really want a BMW but I’ll probably settle for a used Honda.” Instead, squirming, I wrote, “smart, fit, funny.”

Writing a profile for a dating site takes a gymnastic ability with words and the truth. You have to sound clever (but not trying too hard), fun (but not shallow), deep (but not too deep), and like you smell good. You lie about not having any baggage and being open to love but not too desperate.

I skip profiles of men that are looking for someone “sweet” or who care too much about what kind of shoes I wear.

I don’t like to buy clothes from a catalog. Being the item on the page is even more uncomfortable.

I tell myself that there is nothing wrong with “shopping for love.” Lot’s of people have found mates online. It’s really about creating the opportunity to meet someone. But it’s hard to get past the blatant assessment. Where’s the subtlety? The shared glance. Laughing at the same thing that no one else notices. The spark of surprise at instant connection.

I’ve been in love three times. Two of those times I fell for someone who was “not recommended.” Wrong age, wrong faith, too much baggage. And the one who checked all the right boxes ended up being totally wrong. Each time love took me by surprise, sneaking up next to me and not looking me in the eyes. It didn’t want to spook me.

Online dating is taking love by the shoulders, looking it square in the eyes, and saying firmly, “I want you.” It would be easier to jump out of an airplane.

Waking Up

September 8, 2015 / / 0 Comments

alarm clock

Waking up early
Helps me find myself again
Growing in wholeness
by David Aslesen

It’s called paresthesia – that tingling, pins and needles feeling you get when your leg starts to wake from being “asleep.” I am waking up and have paresthesia of the soul and heart.

I suppose it’s part of what happens in midlife. We’ve become who we are, we get restless, and wonder what’s next? The shock and grief of my divorce is behind me, and I am coming back to myself. But there is something more stirring in me, I think. And it is painful and awkward and wonderful all the same time.

It’s what gave birth to this blog – a need to stretch and risk and try something new. A desire to practice writing, and the audacious idea that maybe someone somewhere would want to read it.

Naming my blog involved sending friends text and Facebook messages with random words like dust, behold and wonder. Friends made helpful (and not so helpful suggestions): Dust in the Wind (I had an ear worm for a week), Scratchings in Dust (sounded like someone was buried alive) and (my personal favorite) Melissa Mouths Off. And then, the morning the blog went live, I woke up with the title Waking Up Earley.


I wake up early.

Morning is my favorite time of day. I prefer sunrise to sunset. I like to pretend I am the first person awake in the world. I linger over coffee, reading the news or a book or just staring out the window. I take my dog for a walk. I now try to do some writing.


I wake up an Earley

“Wherever you go, there you are,” a friend of mine from college would often quote, which is both blessing and curse. We cannot escape ourselves. When I wake up, there I am.


Earley is Waking Up

I am waking up to a holy unsettledness. I long for new practices and a new language with which to encounter the holy. I am homesick for mountains and sunshine. I desire relationship and deep connection; I want to be knocked on my ass in love. And this writing thing feels like a call. It’s scary to say that out loud.

I teeter on the edge of some new thing.

Wonder Fully Made

September 1, 2015 / / 4 Comments

 

Photo by Greg Metzler

Photo by Greg Metzler

I used to think it was the answers that mattered. I’m discovering it’s the questions. Answers are about getting the good grade, earning approval, meeting the expectation.

Questions are where the power is – and the risk. Questions can disrupt and unsettle. Questions take us into unknown territory. They create intimacy; reveal truth. Questions reflect the truth that every soul is a mystery and that God can never be boxed.

We religious types get it wrong when we think our faith is about answers and not questions. I am grateful to a former pastor of the church I serve who assured a now faithful member that figuring out exactly what she believed was not a prerequisite to being part of a church. “A community of faith,” he said, “is full of people asking the same questions you are. You will be in good company.”

I regret unasked questions. Not because my curiosity wasn’t satiated but because I missed the chance to bridge the gulf between I and Thou. I squandered the opportunity to stand with another on the sacred ground of their story.

Asking questions requires a promise. If I overstep, I will back out as gracefully as I can. If my asking makes something spill out I promise to find a mop and put up a caution sign on the floor. I promise to sit beside you on the shore of the lake that your soul pours out.

I regret not asking the questions that would have unmasked me in the asking. What do you see when you gaze at me? Why aren’t we friends anymore? Declarations of love and statements of hurt are questions in disguise: Do you feel the same way? Are you sorry?

I make up stories to finish unfinished conversations.  I write these tales in my head as I walk my dog and they are masterpieces. But they are not true. Accepting that some questions will forever be unasked and unanswered is part of letting go and moving on.

I am grateful to those who have asked me questions that helped my real self show up. What is stirring in your soul? Can you imagine being in love again? How are you…really?

Questions tell us that we are wondrously made because we are worth wondering about.

 

 

 

Nothing to Say

August 25, 2015 / / 4 Comments

About a week ago a new blogging friend (with many more followers than I have) posted a link to my blog on her blog Something to Say (well worth the read) in order to encourage my writing. I am very grateful to her.  She gave me high praise by introducing me as someone who “has something to say.”

But then terror struck my heart and the “what if’s” piled on. What if I have nothing to say? What if I have already run out of things to say? What if what I have to say is nothing that anyone else cares about? I spin out of control. I am certain that I will be unmasked and found out.  A fraud. An imposter.

Various titles pop into my brain: Unasked Questions, Do Over, Preaching Naked. They crash into each like bumper cars. My mind buzzes. I have cicadas on the brain. I want to tease out a single strand but I can’t – it’s one big knot.

See, I’m layering metaphor on metaphor. Is there no hope for me?

I confess I have become an affirmation junkie and the blank screen threatens my next fix. I chase every thumb’s up and comment thread like my dog goes after squirrels. What if future posts aren’t as popular as earlier ones? Is that the real purpose of my writing – external validation? I cringe.

A truly spiritual person would write here about the importance of silence. When we have nothing to say, he would say, it is a good time to quiet the mind and listen. Yes, I nod to this sage. But silence is hard for me these days. I am certain that parents with houses full of crying toddlers or teenagers slamming the doors would love a moment of my silence. But for me, there is too much of it.

And then a clear note of feeling that has words attached gently rises above the noise. I worry that my writing will expose more of myself than I intend.

I stop spinning. Threads of thoughts begin to untangle.

Is that the real source of my writer’s block?

Dawn and the cicadas go quiet.

It’s not that I have nothing to say, but I am afraid of what I might say. Can I bear to be truly seen? To be known is both glorious and terrifying.

Skunked

August 17, 2015 / / 4 Comments

My dog Mandy got skunked last night. I was enjoying a late dinner with a good friend on my patio on a just right summer night. The cicadas had finally quieted down and she and I could hear each other. I was beginning to think, “I should get the leash so Mandy doesn’t run into a …” when she squealed and came running up from the back of the yard.

The first time Mandy met a skunk I didn’t immediately realize what had happened. The odor was so much more intense than the skunk smell on the highway that I didn’t recognize it. It smelled like burning chemicals. I thought someone had committed a terrorist attack against my dog. In my panic I let her into the house and she ran into every room, rubbing her face on the floor trying to get the smell out. She ran into her kennel, her safe space, and ran right out again. For weeks the skunk smell lingered in the house. I swore I could see a haze of stink, like in a commercial for breath freshener.

Once I realized what happened, I found a skunk-off recipe on the Internet. It helped. But for weeks the only part of her that smelled like her was her feet. I would lie beside her on the floor and hold her foot up to my nose to take in her unique combination of dog sweat, grass and dirt that smells a lot like warm Doritos.

My dog’s been skunked and I have too.  I’ve tasted the shame of betrayal and felt the sting of being misinterpreted. I’ve been made into a handy scapegoat and been the object of gossip.

I’ve been skunked and I confess I’ve been a skunk. I’ve let my own hurt feelings, damaged pride and pent up anger spew onto others. Sometimes my absence has caused more hurt than any words would have.

I’ve learned through experience that once the spray has been released the smell lingers in the air and clings to those it touches.

There’s a story about Jesus in which he washes his disciples’ feet. It was customary for a host to provide a way for his guests to freshen up and wash off the road. What’s remarkable is that Jesus takes on the role of a servant and serves those who will soon skunk him. They’ll run away and pretend like they never knew him. And they will be skunked too when one of their own betrays them and their teacher is executed.

I am supposed to say that when Jesus washes their feet he washes the skunk juice off, a lesson for us that Jesus’ love can leave us fresh and sweet smelling. That hasn’t been my experience. Jesus’ love doesn’t take away the stink of skunking or being skunked. The odor clings and rises off of us so people cross to the other side of the street.

What is true is that Jesus doesn’t need us to smell good. He can acknowledge the stink without heaping on shame. He cradles our vulnerability like he held the feet of his beloved friends and he breathes in our most true selves.

Mandy

Mandy

 

Bitch Wings

August 10, 2015 / / 20 Comments

(Liz gave me permission to write about “Bitch Wings.”  She read this post and approved of it going public.  I am so grateful to her and her family for sharing this part of their life with me. )

I learned about “bitch wings” from Liz. We were standing in a hospital waiting room after Liz’s husband had died. The representatives of the organization that would harvest Frederic’s organs had given Liz a lovely quilted keepsake box as a memento. Her cousin said, “That was a bitch wings moment.”

“Bitch wings” are what women get when we put our hands on our hips, push back our shoulders, take a strong stance and are ready to take on the world. I learned from Liz that bitch wings come in handy when interrogating teenagers about what was happening in the basement. Her young adult children laughed about how their mom stared down their friends, hands on hips, eyes locked.

Bitch wings can say, don’t mess with me. And, I’ll carry you on my back for a mile. For 100 miles. Through mud. In the hail.

The previous days had been excruciating. The paramedics had rushed Frederic to the hospital after Liz found him. What followed was intubation, neurological tests, moments of hope that were dashed with the words “reflexive movement, not intentional movement.” There was the family conference with the neurologists who advised more time and more tests. Liz sat up in her chair and the wings came out. Would more time on the ventilator help Frederic’s brain recover? Would it help him speak again, or help him know them? She didn’t flinch when the answers came. So if more time will not help him heal we know what he would have wanted. He wouldn’t want to be like this. Not even for one more day.

Bitch wings make a woman fierce and brave and vulnerable and strong.

It was bitch wings that drove Liz to lift Frederic’s body when she saw it hanging from the rope in their basement and it was her wings that let her let him go.

Those wings gave Liz the courage to say out loud that Frederic had died by suicide, to confront him as he lay in his hospital bed with the pain he had caused her and their children. And those same wings stroked his cheek with a lover’s touch and whispered to him about the goodness of their life together.

On bitch wings Liz flew into the face of God, “You abandoned him. You abandoned me.” And she wrapped those wings around herself and her beloved as she gave him into the care of the Holy. With those wings she pulls her children and her friends close in a tight embrace.

Liz is moving soon to California to try on a new life. She isn’t done grieving, but she is willing to try flying in new directions.

Anyone can have bitch wings if she is willing to be strong instead of sweet. Though they make her terrifying, they are not armor. They send her into fire for those she loves.

 

By Mara, Liz's daughter "I find so much emotion in the pose, yet I know she will stand up proud and strong again. You can see that glorious strength in her." -Liz

By Mara, Liz’s daughter
“I find so much emotion in the pose, yet I know she will stand up proud and strong again. You can see that glorious strength in her.”
-Liz

 

Death and the Day Off

August 3, 2015 / / 18 Comments

My day off always makes me think about death. Not death in general – my death.

The day usually starts out well. I get up early and luxuriate in the morning. There is no rush to get to the gym before I head into the church or to a meeting. I can sit around in my bathrobe drinking coffee and reading the newspaper or a novel.

Do I take on a project that will give me a sense of accomplishment? Do I spend the day at a museum or kayaking or exploring a Chicago neighborhood? Do I curl up with a book? What about the laundry that needs to be done, the refrigerator that needs to be filled and the dog hair in the corners that needs to be swept? There’s always the task at work I successfully avoided all week that I could knock out in an hour or two at home.

Can I really head to the forest preserve even if I didn’t tick through every item on my to-do list? Do I get a day off when the stairs need to be vacuumed? Maybe if I just worked a little harder my sermon for Sunday would be done and the laundry would be folded.

My day off chastises me – yes, I confess, I am inadequate.

I imagine people I know doing meaningful things on their days off. Surely people with children are on family outings connecting deeply with one another. I probably know someone who is writing a book or building a tiny house in their back yard. I’m trying not to make eye contact with my dog who wants another walk.

I assess my life. I have no significant other but many close friends and a fabulous dog. I am housekeeping challenged. I have a job I feel called to and mostly enjoy. Some days I battle loneliness and melancholy. I’ve made decisions I regret and have been wondrously blessed.

My Rabbi friend tells me Sabbath is supposed to be a celebration of life. For me it’s a moment to accept the limits of my life. I will die. I will die without skiing in the Olympics, giving birth or being as neat as my mother.

And I will die. Folding all the laundry, vacuuming the couch cushions, and preparing a sermon is not going to change that. Maybe it’s okay to catch a movie.

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