What Spirit requires

I’ve never been a Bible thumper, not even much of a reader, but Mathew 7:7-8 keeps leaping out at me:

"Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened."

From everywhere.  Weekend before last, it cropped up in a retreat, then bled into the next day’s worship, as we were discerning a congregational calling. Today it was the basis for a daily Thomas Keating meditation and I have yet to spend the time in lectio divina (slow, sacred reading) with it I would like.

Before then, my prayerful partner and Quaker friend, Linda, cited that passage years ago. I’d known it, but coming from her heart and lips it became unrote and grew new meaning. I don’t even remember the circumstance, just that it was vividly important.

Almost ten years ago– can it really have been that long ago? – I followed a calling to Philadelphia to attend the two-year School of the Spirit for spiritual-nurture ministry. We met a week at a time, four times a year. The first session was held at Pendle Hill, a renowned Quaker retreat and study community. Leaving a toddler and first-grader behind, I flew off to uncharted territory, meeting two women with whom I would be close on the shuttle to Pendle Hill from the airport. We arrived and were welcomed into a small, old, quirky building and asked to choose a room. Jan, one of the women, said she wanted the one she always took and Marty chose a cozy twin room on the second floor. I selected the “family” room because there was space to do yoga, a sunny porch and it kept the family I had left behind closer. That first night I fell in and out of sleep, anxious, excited and uncertain. My door had no lock, I remembered as I heard newcomers climb to their room on the stairs located at the other side. I dreamt that I was asked to stay awake all night and guard the door and wondered why I had received the unlocked room. Somehow, in the midst of the tumultuous night and the lengthy dream, Jesus let me know it was a sign that my heart was unlocked. That I had knocked and the door to my heart had been opened.

At a reunion retreat several years later, I was assigned the smallest room and, again, Jesus whispered the reason: “because it’s closest to the worship space.”

I’ve got the knocking, door opening and seeking parts down. Guess I’m currently working on the “Ask, and it will be given you.” One of my lessons is to learn to ask and receive. I find it excruciatingly difficult to ask for things for myself; others, no problem. Our Quaker minister (we consider everyone a minister, she happens to be paid and calls herself a public Friend) kindly pointed out that I can’t seem to ask for myself even when people want to give. “You are depriving them of being able to give.” That hit home. As I was preparing a retreat on naming gifts last fall, I came across the idea that a gift is not a gift unless it is received.

I have no trouble giving; it’s my nature and I have identified it (helper) as my enneagram type. I do understand that too much of my identity is wrapped up in that mask, so asking is BIG for me; big as in hard to do and big as in deeply necessary.

Our minister has encouraged me to seek funding from my Quaker Meeting for my non-profit arts exploration for at-risk kids. I did screw up the courage to ask for a summer salary, which they generously supplied.

And, I can’t tell you how many times God has answered my prayers, even just today. Fear is what interferes with my ability to humanly seek help. Fear that I will be rejected, judged and viewed as less than because I can’t take care of everything myself. Ego has had me trapped, but Spirit frees me and tells me otherwise.

• What message(s) have been swirling in my heart?

• How do they stretch me?

• How have I possibly resisted as a result?

• What happens when I have asked, searched and knocked?

• What is Spirit trying to free me of?

I can give

until I bleed,

then rebound

and give

some more

it’s who

I have always

been

how I have

built my

identity

and yet

I am so

reluctant

to ask and

receive

for fear

it shows

my vulnerability,

which is what

Spirit requires

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Reversing the backwards Golden Rule

I skipped my usual Friday post out of busy-ness and lacking a pressing or compelling topic. Usually I have no trouble in that department.

So, here it is Saturday morning and I have a list a mile long to accomplish before my daughters and I undertake a weeklong jaunt to Philadelphia and the Delaware coast. In my desire to meet everyone's needs, I had mentioned a possible day trip to NYC, then recanted when I recognized that 7 hours of travel time, even on public transportation that frees me from responsibility, was just too much given our tight schedule.

And here I sit, showing up to blog. I feel a responsibility to my twice-weekly mantra. I think my subject lays in the last paragraph ... the part about desiring to meet everyone's needs and trying to cram everything in at some expense, usually my own.

Being a mother with the "helper" enneagram type feeds right into meeting everyone else's needs. I've performed this way for years unaware, craving the likability it brought me. If I did this one more time or managed to squeeze that in, it would endear me to whomever the task was aimed. I suppose that began as a child, a twin competing for parental attention. I became the "good" girl, who could wait, do what she was told and stay out of the way.

Boy, did I set myself up for tough times ahead: performing so I would be liked. Of course, I always could draw the line at integrity, well, except once. In fifth grade, a new girl arrived and she was different: kept to herself, talked to herself and dressed rather shabbily. In myself mode, I would have befriended her. But, for some reason, I bowed to the group mentality – a group where I felt high likability – and, one infamous afternoon on the playground, we followed her around ... all in a long line. Saying nothing. I think we were mocking her, instead of inviting her in. I am still ashamed of my behavior. I felt instant guilt and remorse and never did it again. It spurred me to try to get to know the new girl personally. Several years ago, I encountered her working in a super market. I went out of my way to be friendly and ask how she'd been; making up for that hurtful act.

I can't think of another time since that I've treated another as other. That was a huge lesson for me at a tender age. And it drives me crazy when I see so many arbitrary divisions in society based on superficial characteristics such as appearance, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, intelligence, dress, manners, etc.

Artsy Fartsy kids being themselves

Yesterday, I spent time in the nearby subsidized-housing complex from which Artsy Fartsy* draws most of its participants. This is a pocket of other as far as general society is concerned. Things happen here most of us could not imagine, me included. I hear the kids talk. They latch onto me when I show up, which I do with some regularity. Art, for them, provides an escape and means to express a confusing world. I've also met some very dedicated parents attempting to better themselves and their kids' lives. I can see the hungriness and innocence in these kids. Their deepest desire is mine: to be validated for who they are, not what they can or can't do.

Over the years, I have begun to unwrap my helper persona, leaving  parts of it behind. The parts that diminish me. I believe God is really intervening to help me ... like a few weeks ago when she directed me to lay down on the pew at a Quaker worship other than my own and surrender.

Cathy, you don't need any props (a book, a studio, turtlebox,  art program). Lay down and surrender. Lay it down.

After much consternation, I did. I am still discerning what the IT is. Luckily for me, I have a seasoned, ministry-care committee meeting with me the night after we return from vacation to listen to exactly where Spirit is in all of this. I suspect it's ego and the destructive web of identity it has created for me.

The command to surrender has brought me much peace over the past weeks. Peace in the midst of uncertainty. This week as I plowed through a vital grant application, laboring over the budgeting, I flinched and periodic spates of panic have emerged. What if I don't get the grant? What happens to Artsy Fartsy? Will I get enough to have a salary? If I don't, do I continue to donate my time?

At Monday night's Artsy Fartsy advisory board meeting, one member remarked how at peace I seemed with the unknowing. I was until I had to look at numbers ... as if they have a dulling effect on the joyfulness of this work. The draft of the grant is done while I go away, though I am taking it to mull over, but not too much.

Artsy Fartsy has been a labor of love; ministry God has directed. Not my ego telling me to do something to please others. If it becomes that, I want to be able to lay it down.

• When have I given too much of myself away?
• What does that leave me, exactly?
• How does my persona direct my life?
• What happen when I let God in?
• What has Spirit asked me to surrender?


I learned the
Golden Rule
backwards:

do unto others
FIRST, then
do unto yourself

because then,
they'll like you.

And you'll
completely
drain yourself.

A better approach,
I've discovered, is
the airplane-oxygen-
mask lesson:

Breathe yourself
first, so then you
can help others.

* Artsy Fartsy is an arts exploration for 4-6th graders in my neighborhood who would not have this opportunity otherwise.

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