De-Clutter the Moment

I have de-cluttered much in the last 3 months: my desk, my basement, my finances (not finished here). I even sat down one day and emptied out my wallet – with a self-challenge to make it 1/3 thinner. I’m happy to say that it now easily slips into my pocket and rests easier on my mind (I actually know what’s in it).

But there is one space that I have difficulty de-cluttering. It, in fact, is the most spacious of all the spaces I possess; yet the most crowded. That space? It is the present moment. Yes, I have trouble de-cluttering my ‘now’.

Like my desk, my ‘now’ is pasted with pastel post-it notes (guilt). Like my basement, my ‘now’ is piled up with unfinished projects (regrets). And like my finances, my ‘now’ is stacked with bills (unconfessed sin) and the I.O.Us that others owe me (resentments). Sometimes this junk completely crowds out the light and airy experience of ‘now’.

So OK, that’s next. I will de-clutter a present moment – this present moment.

So I pause… from tapping out these words… I push aside these distractions. And I see…no, I feel, the gift of ‘now’. Once you get inside the present moment, you realize how wide it is, how ‘always’ it is. And you wonder why you waste it.

And I realize that I’ve had this gift all day; waking in the bed, driving in the car, sitting in conversation. And this gift is mine – more surely mine than any material possession. It is my inheritance, my domain. Mine to do with as what I please. Why pack it with guilt, regret, and resentment when I can stretch out, breath and be grateful?

Shame X-ray

I’ve started with a chiropractor – lower back pain.

But the chiropractor tells me, isn’t about just pain, he is about wellness. I like the sound of this. Wellness is broader, deeper way of looking at health – whether physical or spiritual.  Proactively pursuing an ideal is better than reacting to symptoms. “But,” he reassured me, “we’ll treat the sciatica too.” OK – I am deciding on a deeper wellness.

The first step is an x-ray of my  spine. I sit still, the machine whirs and clicks –  no big deal. At the next appointment he teaches my wife and I what a healthy spine looks like; curvature, alignment, etc. He exhibits  x-rays of other people, ghostly, black and white portraits. You really feel like you’re getting to know someone when you can see the shadows of their internal organs. One person had a rod in their back. I sat up straighter.

“We’re looking for an angle of 31 degrees,” he points at the upper portion of someone’s neck.

After this, he takes us to the exam room to study my x-rays. I’m feeling OK at this point, even curious. After all, I’ve seen x-rays before… of my teeth or my leg… but this took a different turn. He wedges the 11 X 17 film into place and switches on the light. And there I was. Yes, there I was.

I stood for a closer look, but immediately regretted it. The profile image was near life-sized and at my eye level. I was staring into the left side of my skull, my  earless and hairless skull, supported by a chain of strikingly thin and fragile neck vertebrae. The sensation was that of inspecting a cadaver or maybe identifying a corpse. Blue lines and notations punctuated  the film. I noticed the angle, the one he had just taught us to look for -  ’10 degrees’. All this, I took in before he cleared his throat. All this, lodged awkwardly in my throat – my shadowy, boney throat – off by 21 degrees.

I nodded intelligently, aware of my cervical vertebrae shifting, tilting, possibly grinding. I wasn’t breathing and felt dizzy and slightly nauseous. This surprised me and I fought some panic (that I might actually become sick), which was followed immediately by embarrassment. Nonchalantly, I sat down, as if I had taken in all the data.  I could hear the Chiropractor and my wife talking above me. I was still nodding, but internally, I was askew.

And then I realized. All these sensations; defensiveness (‘that measurement is just wrong’), guilt (‘mom tried to tell me about my posture’), fear (‘my gosh, I’m like everyone else’) and nausea. These sensations, like a beaming, searing x-ray – exposed a bone-deep reality inside of me: shame. At the core, I feel shame.

Those x-rays show me how naked I am.  And when I see my nakedness? I am ashamed of my deficient angles; angry about my fragile neck; embarrassed by dark shadows in my bowels, guilty about my arthritis. Oh, I see it now. At the core, I am deeply ashamed of my mortality.

So where do you go for such a bone-deep sickness? Is there wellness for this?

Clearing my Worktable

I recently de-cluttered my worktable, previously known as ‘the project graveyard’.

I stand and look at it now: clean and organized. I found drill bits I thought lost, receipts from Lowes, a mass of sticky goo from something forgotten. To the delight of my aspiring mechanic/son, I found a duplicate ratchet set which now graces his worktable next to mine. And alas! I found peace of mind – having resolved a tangled mess that physically represents a deep guilt complex.

I found room – on the table, underneath on the shelves and internally in my mind – somehow the cleaned organized work station makes my chest less cluttered. I noticed an slight expansion (‘I finally did something about that’) and a inspiring sense of breathing (‘that’s one less thing nagging me’).

But oddly, I also noticed a retraction.

Yes, I definitely feel good about my clean workspace, but then, oddly, I feel this weird subliminal fear. I would brush it off, but I’ve noticed this before: when I’ve cleaned out a closet, completed an overdue task or reconciled with a friend. Often, actually very often – relief is followed by anxiety.

The anxiety is different than the stress over my messy table. The stress produced irritability (‘why is everything so hard?’) or self-contempt (‘what’s wrong with me?’). But the anxiety produces un-ease and is disturbing. I think I know why.

You see, the stress of my unresolved pile distracts me. It pulls my attention to problems that are familiar and possibly solvable. But when I clear the worktable and see all that space, a memory is triggered of the space within me. Like my worktable, that internal space is broad and full of promise. But unlike my worktable, I cannot see the edges of my inner space. It is not familiar, I do not know what to do with it.

And I realize, as I stand before worktable, that I rarely stand before my vast inner plateau. I am too busy with irritability or self-judgment. I wonder. Do I unconsciously create stress in my outer world in order to avoid responsibility for my inner world?

And I also wonder, if I were to brave this initial anxiety… and entered that space…which is given to me… would I find a similar expansion in my chest as I do when I cleaned my worktable? Would I find, in that given space, a lighter kind of air?

De-Clutter

Each year, I name my journal. Last year’s writing had the header: ‘open. a journal’

Before that, it was “love is a Gift….” I am thinking that someday… when I look back a the various names of the journals… perhaps I will be able to discern the trajectory of my journey. I’m hoping that it doesn’t denigrate so that the last one reads; ‘incontinent, one man’s story.’

So I’m trying to choose next year’s theme. I’ve got it narrowed down. After writing about being ‘open to God’ last year… I’ve seen that when I open my hands to receive from God, they are full of other stuff. If I am to be open, I am going to have to be de-cluttered.

But ‘De-clutter’ doesn’t sound very deep for a journal theme. Maybe I’ll use; ‘Make Room’. Or ‘Make Way’, both of which have a more distinct tone.

But de-clutter is what I mean.

This past year, I stopped a few times and looked around. I looked around my office and saw stacks of stress, unfunctional artifacts (an empty plant container, bent paper clips), too much furniture and unread books. I saw them for more of what they are: distractions, unfinished transactions and entanglements that I drag along behind me from day to day. My workbench would be a good metaphor. Or my desk, checkbook, underwear drawer, floorboard or heart.

After a personal retreat, I can back with a resolve to make space. I started with my desk. Minute, by minute the rich cherry grain became visible. Then calming. I remembered why I wanted that wood in the first place. I began to breathe. A clean surface makes room for both air and creativity.

Encouraged by the beauty of my desk, I went home and yanked open my top dresser drawer. I took a long serious look at my underwear, This sounds sorta creepy I understand, but this too resulted in freedom (by which I don’t mean that I’m sans underwear). I just mean that I don’t daily wrestle my drawer.

Given these experiences (which aren’t my first ones) why I don’t choose more of it?

This past year, I think know why I don’t. The open spaces are freeing at first. You feel lighter, less encumbered, less distracted. But once you are less distracted with lessor things, you turn to face the greater. And I have found that I am frightened of the greater.
Even so – I hear a voice in the greater open space.

So this year, I am going to make room; in my waistline, my budget, my closet and my heart. I am going to relentlessly. I know that shortly upon relief of what is often self-inflicted stress, I will encounter a type of anxiety of the unknown.

This year I am going to empty my hands and hold them out towards that space.

Discipline of Pleasure

I am eating bread. A sesame bagel – toasted, with butter. It is crisp and warm. There is little as so fundamentally good as toasted, buttered bread. But oddly, tragically and in so many ways, I avoid such common blessing.  I flee pleasure.

Oh, I complain about pleasure all the time. I plan, scheme and dream it. I lust, fantasize and sneak it. But seldom do I enjoy it. But now? I have, here in front of me, the pleasure of this bread, beckoning to my nostrils. I wolf it down. I’m busy, you see, planning for some pleasure out there – in the future – somewhere else.

Truth is, I’m surrounded by pleasure. It knocks at my door. It follows me around begging to be let in. I ignore it. I have bigger plans than say, stretching in the sun. But what could be bigger than receiving this (literal) astronomical gift? What could be more important than welcoming common grace? What could be larger than noticing daily love?

It sounds funny, but enjoyment is a discipline. Maybe it wasn’t this way always, I don’t know. But now, I have to ask myself to taste,  savor and enjoy. When I do, it is a spiritual achievement. When I do, I receive blessing. And that is what I was made to do. Especially, buttered blessing.

Thinking About Living Today

I have finished my bagel and sit staring at my keyboard. I am thinking about living today.

At the table across from me are 3 doctors who have met for coffee. They are talking shop; I hear snatches of their conversation; “My stenographers hate the way I mumble”, “1.6 % of Medicare….”, “You’ve got to trust your system…” They nod and laugh. They do important work. What’s more important than your health?

But I wonder, in my odd way… they are thinking about living today…but are they living? They are smart – judging from their medical degrees. They are pleasant – judging from their easy laughter. They are proactive – judging from their smooth transition into planning a new business venture. Yes, they smart, pleasant, proactive and successful – but are they living?

The young doctor on the left makes a point, gesturing with his right hand, cradling his coffee with his left. I could not hear what he said, but I find myself nodding in agreement with his intelligent, understated manner. He completes his point with an intelligent, understated sip of coffee. I feel certain that he was correct in what he said, but I’m not certain at all that he tasted his coffee.

I wonder. I am in life. I am in meetings all the time – smart, pleasant, proactive meetings about important things. In fact, I make my living  in meetings about living. But do I taste life? Do I cradle my given-life, raise it to my face and slowly breathe in the aroma? Yes, I think about living – but do I live?

Open Casket

Mom had some requests for the visitation.  “I want to wear the pink top – the one I wore to Emily’s wedding.” She looked at her hands, badly bruised from the IVs, “And I want them to cover these spots somehow.”  Mom knew what would happen.  There would be an open casket. People would walk past to view the body – her body.

She was self-conscious, I suppose, but not as I expected. Mom was a private person, shunning attention, particularly in a vulnerable state. So yes, she was self-conscious about the impending visitation, but not much. She had requests, but didn’t seem all that invested in them. No repetitive sentences, no belaboring – just matter-of-fact and direct, “Bury me in the pink top.”

In one way, her whole dying process was business-like. Her requests, though heartfelt, were efficient; picking out scripture and hymns, insisting that
an invitation to faith in Christ be issued at her funeral. She sternly implored us, her children and grandchildren. “Don’t fight when I’m gone.” But, as the hours passed, mom was clearly looking past the business of last affairs.

I’d heard about this phenomenon. When people know they are dying, they begin to disconnect from this life. Sometimes they speak less and pull inward. Their eyes focus faraway and they say seemingly random sentences, “Your daddy was a good man.” “The silver platters go to the grandchildren.” “Noah.”  “I’m dying.”

In her sleep, Mom pulled at her clothes and tried to remove the O2 monitor on her finger. The night before she moved to Hospice, she somehow managed to yank the med port out of her chest. To me, her behaviors were saying, ‘I won’t be needing these’. I’d heard about this, but always suspected that it was a way for the family to rationalize the loss. Witnessing it changed my mind. My mom, my ‘don’t-talk-about-dying-because-it-means-you’re-dying’ mom, was making ready. She was looking past the open casket.

She became newly tolerant of the whole viewing thing. Tolerant in a ‘if that’s what you need’ kinda of way. Self-consciousness was no longer a priority to her. Where she was going, she didn’t need it. It was almost like leaving for college. In high school, you wear your Monogram Jacket every chance you get. But after a couple of campus visits, you decide not to take it with you. You hang it in the closet and never wear it again. Mom was leaving and checking her insecurity at the door.

So at the visitation, I walked past the open casket. I saw my mom wearing the pink top, the one she wore at my daughter’s wedding. Her hair had been done. People said to me, “She looks good.”

At one time, those words would have mattered a lot to her. But they sound oddly humorous to her now.

She’s in Another Dimension

“She’s in another dimension.” Marita, the hospice nurse, just came and checked  on my mom.

She showed me the creeping bruises on Mom’s arms, the shallow breathing, the cool hands and the lapses in breath. “Yes,” I repeated back to Marita, “She’s in another dimension.”

Earlier, when I had walked into Mom’s room, I was stunned by the change of 3 days. Her head was characteristically tilted to her right shoulder, but the angle was too sharp, too stiff. Her jaw hung wrong. She was so pale. And her soft brown eyes, so predictably attentive to me, were filmed and focused elsewhere.

I spoke, told her who I was. She blinked. ‘Are you in there, Mom?’ I wondered.

Yes, I definitely saw her eyebrow raise. It was that slight twinkle/twitter thing that she does. Funny, I’ve never put words to that expression before. Yet I realize now how much I search for that confirming greeting. Whenever I go to see her, I expect and want it. I even compete for it.

For that matter, when I walk into any room with anybody, I work  for it. ‘There you are,’ her eyebrow says. Because she believes ‘that I am there’, then I believe it too. At least for a little while,  I say to myself, ‘I am.’

It was her face, after all, her little twinkle/twitter eyebrow thing  that was my first experience of being told that I am real.  Her face suggested to me that I have a face. Her flashes and flickers taught me that I flash and flicker.  My mom’s body literally transported me into this dimension of real. Then her face confirmed it with a thousand greetings.

But mom isn’t exactly inside her face now. Yes I saw the remnant of the twinkle/twitter, but Mom’s eyes are focused elsewhere. Mom is partly elsewhere. She is being transported to another dimension, where the great ‘I AM’, the great Twinkle/Twitter  will greet her and shout, “There you are!”

Mom, who gave me generous tastes of that greeting, will soon have the real thing.

Hospital Room

I just spent 21 hours in a hospital room watching over my  mom. That wasn’t long,  I know people who for weeks on end, have sat by someone they love, sponging hands and faces, feeding with a spoon and watching respirations.  They live in sweat  pants, acclimate to the ebbing 12-hr shift cycles, learn the names of the staff and eat out of coolers.

My 21 hours wasn’t even 2 cycles of the room. But it was long  enough to see where I was. And maybe who I am.

During visits, Mom was engaged and talkative. Then she’d rest. In between, our dialogue meandered, “Hand me a tissue.” “Did you call
Merle?” “That nurse looks like Jean?” And she talked; UNC  basketball, stories about my father, and details of death . Then she’d close her eyes and tilt her
head left.

I sat and looked around the quiet room. It  was a logistical marvel. There were 20 or more electrical outlets – not spaced  around the baseboard – but  clustered in banks midway up the wall. They were arranged this way for machines; pumps, monitors, the mechanical bed. Mom’s not hooked up to machines. Except for oxygen,  ‘built-in’ –  supplied through an ‘outlet’.

The room was designed to cycle life:

• For nutrients, fluids and meds – there were ceiling
  hooks and hangers.
• For waste – there were hooks along the bottom of her bed.
• For supervision – there were trees and hangers for monitors.
• For protection – a call remote,  a rack of latex gloves, a hand-sanitizing dispenser and a biological waste container.
• For company – a phone, a TV, chairs that folded out into a bed.
• For privacy – a curved curtain rack.

Through a 4 ft door revolved a myriad human care teams; food service, house-cleaning, RNs, NAs, MDs, residents. In the 21 hours, at least 12
different staff came through the door.

I sat like a time-lapse camera. I began to realize how truly massive is human need. And I saw how God made the world like that room – designed to sustain massive human need. And I saw, though ambulatory, I am like my mom – dependent and needy.

Sleep mom. God knows our needs.

My Mom Told Me She Died.

My mom (89) is in the hospital. She says she died. And was brought back.

This conversation happened  in the Cardiac ICU last Tuesday night. I spent the night with her there along with my sister.  Late Tuesday, she told me, “I died last night.”

“Are you dead now?”   I asked, because I didn’t know her mental state.  I asked, thinking she was disoriented.   

She looked at me, “No.”

“What happened?” I asked. I’d already heard some of the story from my sister who had gotten there earlier. But I wanted to hear myself. I wanted to assess my mom’s mental state. But I didn’t end up assessing her state.

“I don’t know…” she looked past me.  After several successive puffs of breath, she said matter-of-factly,  “They brought me back.”

“There was more than one?”  Why I asked this instead of the more obvious, “Who?” I don’t know. 

Maybe I was trying to restore my equilibrium. I focused on the details of her story, in an effort  to distract myself from how she told the story. 

Its Friday now and I can’t shake her odd expression. The best way I know to describe it is that she wasn’t defensive. She wanted to tell me that she died, and that she was brought back, but she didn’t have to make me believe it. She apparently felt no burden to make it make sense.  It was just what it was. She felt free.

So I wasn’t disoriented by the odd details; I was disoriented by the odd freedom.

Mom has recovered a couple more details in the last couple of days. She said that there were people there – she felt that she knew them but couldn’t now say who they were.  And there were flowers, lots of beautiful flowers – pastel. Beyond that, she doesn’t say much.

Reading the Hospice site, I see that one of the ‘Pre-active Phases of Approaching Death’ is talking about death and stating that you are dying. I don’t know  mom is in that stage or not. It felt more like she’s ‘Approaching Life’.