Tag Archives: perfection

Opposite of Shame by Shannon Leith

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Posted by kritzau on February 1, 2012 – 8:38 am
Filed under A Beautiful Mess, Finding Hope

 

shannon leith is an artist.  her life is consumed with finding clarity and contentment in the ordinary. she writes in all lower case. her website shines with creativity.  you can find her with her camera, with her pet bird, or with friends and family because even though she finds hope in the ordinary, she is extraordinary. 

 

 

 

hope has felt hopeless lately.

with men— it seems like i will never find a fit for me. am i going to be alone forever?
with money— i honestly don’t know how i’m paying this month’s bills.
with my art— i often feel like a 4 year old: what i create just feels like a cute and pathetic try.
with my business— the dreams i’m pursuing feel like they’re failing.
with my home— i wish i had someone here to do the daily with.
with my pet bird—why does he always bite me? WHAT THE HECK.

as i sit with these disappointments its become pretty clear to me that i deal with shame.  the voices inside tell me that i don’t deserve a good guy in my life, that i am incompetent with money, that my art is awful, my business sense is off, i will be alone forever, and that i can’t even take care of a bird.

turns out: these things aren’t true.
but they seem true.

i met with a woman last week who told me that the way to heal my shame was to claim hope.

i essentially feel hopeless and worthless right now in almost every area of my life. it seems absolutely impossible to have hope that i will one day find a man who is inspiring and vibrant and deep.  it seems impossible to hope that one day i will have my finances under control.  it seems impossible to think that my dreams are worth pursuing.

so, as a way of practicing my theme of no-shame 2012, and as a way of claiming hope—— i’ve been photographing myself after my favorite time of the day: my shower.  i love the feeling of being all drippy and fresh and awake and alive. i love the warm towel after. i love the steamy bathroom.  i love deciding what to wear.  i love putting on moisturizer.  i love the look of a clean and bare face.  i love wet wavy strands of hair.  i don’t miss a day. showers make me feel grounded and centered and lovely.

 
these images are a declaration that i don’t have to downplay myself.  i can put a little bit of hope in the possibility of something being bright and full today instead of disappointing and empty. it’s a new day.

 
(no shame 2012.)

 


Noticing Hope by Ivy Zequeira-Russell

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Posted by kritzau on January 25, 2012 – 11:30 am
Filed under A Beautiful Mess, Finding Hope

Ivy Zequeira-Russell is a woman I admire and respect.  She is true to herself, her voice, her values, family and community. She is a dear friend and teacher to many, including her boys who she home schools.  These days she is also preparing to welcome Baby #3 who will be surrounded with lots of love and much hope.

I’m looking for things all the time.  “Mom, where’s my Lego magazine, my shoe, my baby, that little piece of paper I wrote on?”  Really I could go on.  So I look.  Often times, its right where we left it.  With a little searching much is found and peace is restored.  However, a few months ago things got really messy.  I wasn’t as available to find many things…not toys, keys, cell phones, clarity, joy, or hope.  You know, all the necessary things in life.

It started when I was 10 weeks pregnant with our third baby.  We have a 7 year old boy, a 3 year old boy, 2 cats, 3 chickens, we homeschool, I volunteer as a La Leche League Leader, and then my husband, Ben, broke his foot playing soccer.

Initially that broken foot helped me realize what a helpful, kind, and fully engaged partner I had in Ben.  His way of showing our family his love is primarily by being physically engaged, playing hide and seek, going on walks, running errands, helping with dishes, doing yard work, etc.  All of a sudden this loving person didn’t have his language available.  He felt so mute to me.  I missed sharing the life and rhythm we had created.

But then after 8 weeks, his foot didn’t seem to be healing.  That was 8 weeks of me doing all the cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, potty runs, driving, taking the trash out, and getting up to attend to our 3 year old every time he needed a parent and I was pregnant.  Thoughts of my 20 year old single mom of three kids flashed through my mind.  I hated it.  I had so little space to grieve, empathize, and integrate these new meanings of my childhood.  I began to say things to my children that again reminded me of my life as a child.  I argued with Ben about how right I was to give the kids a piece of my mind.  I felt so justified.  The tears came from all of us.  I tried to talk to Ben about his healing when I felt I couldn’t handle it any longer and it always ended in an argument.  I felt he needed to do more, consult with another doctor, keep searching for help, just something!!

I cried the kind of cries that come from your gut and leave you wanting to vomit.  I was so stressed about stressing my little fetus.  I couldn’t believe that I was pregnant and in this mess.  I had planned, charted, and seduced to get pregnant!  I was so in control of it all.  How could this amazing pregnancy have become so overshadowed by the craziness?

So fuck looking for shoes, Legos, books, toys, or even food.  Find it yourself!  Then I’d cry, take a nap, and eat.  And luckily some semblance of the good enough mom reappeared.  The family survived.  They found food, played, visited friends, sang lots of Christmas carols, and little by little I joined in.  I gave up trying to understand what was happening to Ben’s foot, I simplified, kept simplifying, changed my expectations, and then I simplified some more, but after 4 months I wondered would his foot ever heal?  Would our relationship be restored after all the frustration and exhaustion?

Hope came in the form of wise women who looked at me straight in the eyes and said, “Its time for you to get help with the kids, housekeeping, cooking, and yard work.  Its time for you to pay attention to how much you’re giving to others and not taking care of your self.  Its time.”  I listened.  I especially had to listen to the baby inside of me.  And then I was able to take in the resilience of my boys.  My 7 year old was kind, creative, and began to tap into a very responsible part of himself.  My 3 year old was saved by the Christmas season and its wonder.  He sang loudly as he memorized his favorite Christmas carols, wrapped lots of presents of little things he made for baby and me, and he was always eager to do whatever I had energy to do.

Hope came all around me.  Not hope in Ben’s foot healing but hope in the moment. For right now, we’re okay.  It was a deep knowing that just as the bread and juice sustains and reminds me of all that’s come before and that I’ve endured, we will make it through the next few hours.

I’m slowly making sense of it.  Its in my mind, body, and soul.  This time hope found me because I sure didn’t have energy to look or care about it. It seemed to gently spring up and I began to notice its presence.

Blossoms of hope by Staci Kennelly

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Posted by kritzau on January 18, 2012 – 3:32 pm
Filed under A Beautiful Mess, Finding Hope
Staci Kennelly is mom, teacher, mentor and housemaid to three wonderful and amazing girls.  In her spare time she enjoys playing hooky with her husband and children, cooking yummy food, exploring new cities, collecting vintage cameras and photographing all of it. 
My Japanese Magnolia tree is one of my favorite plants in our yard.  It is a big beautiful tree that is green all of spring and summer.  Come autumn, all of it’s leaves slowly loose their color and fall.  Then the tree sits there for weeks, bare.  The whole thing is this great gray stick. Each year, this is when my heart seems to fall in love with my tree more. Not because of what it is, but because I know what is coming.  You see, in the middle of winter, when all of my garden is sleeping and waiting for spring, my Japanese Magnolia blooms.  It doesn’t have a single leaf on it…  only pretty pink flowers.  This giant gray stick is suddenly a bursting with life!
©2012 Staci Kennelly
The first year we lived in this home, I thought I had killed it.  It was just so bare.  But now, I know that when it is bare and seems to have nothing else, that is when I am to be reminded of the years past.  That is when I reach back and remember the Januarys filled with pink flowers.
©2012 Staci Kennelly
Hope is like that.  We do not need to be reminded of hope when our soul is in a spring season.  Spring is  full of new life.  Summer is filled with freedom and warmth.  We seem to carry summer’s warmth into autumn.  But when winter comes, sometimes, its cold reaches so deep into our soul that we forget what  warmth and freedom felt like.    This is when we need to remind ourselves of years past.  We can remind ourselves of our own beauty and our own strength.  We can remind ourselves of the times we fell, only to rise up again.  Winter seasons in my life no longer hold fear or worry.  They are a time of great hope.  For I know, right there in the middle of winter, I will bloom.
©2012 Staci Kennelly

Tomorrow’s Sunset by Melissa Mills

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Posted by kritzau on January 11, 2012 – 8:47 am
Filed under A Beautiful Mess, Finding Hope

Melissa Mills is a dear friend and one of the most passionate people I know.  She works tirelessly for justice and speaks the truth in living authentically in her community.  I’m proud to share her essay as the first installment of our “Finding Hope” prompt for this Winter. You can find her personal blog here.

How do I find hope when life is full of disappointment?

“I’m going to walk away now,” I said, my voice cracking.  I turned around and reluctantly, did just that. I hoped he wouldn’t see the tears that burst from my eyes, blurring my vision.  He didn’t. Instead, he got into his car.

And. Drove. Away.  

I was left having to say goodbye yet again to a guy I really liked and all that I could hope was that somehow this year…this hard, awful, amazing, crazy year would be worth it. But I had to choose that hope. It didn’t come naturally.

****

“Come awake from sleep, arise. You were dead but come alive. Wake up, wake up, open your eyes. Climb from your brain into delight.” – David Crowder Band , “Come Awake.”

Sometimes after work last year, where I was on the edge of breaking into either tears or song, I would find myself driving west on the 210 when I was supposed to be driving east. Somehow after an hour I would end up at the beach journaling and totally free to just be. These moments would come upon me like flashes of lightning. I would just know it was going to be an amazing sunset and then would drive as fast as I could without getting pulled over: the 210 to the 118 to the 405 where I always held my breath knowing that the traffic could turn on me at any second.  I always ended up in Santa Monica. It wasn’t that it was my favorite beach, it just had the most of my history and in those moments, I needed to be known, even if it was by a place.  Read More »

Getting off the ladder

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Posted by kritzau on September 14, 2011 – 11:23 am
Filed under A Beautiful Mess, Spiritual Direction, Thoughts on life

My sister-in-law called me last night. She just returned from a trip and I started teaching, so we had a bit to catch up on.

“How’s work going?” I inquire, because she talked about a promotion right before she left.

“Good, but they might end up moving me to full time. I know you’re supposed to ‘climb the ladder’….”

I cut her off, “Yeah, whose ladder though?”

“I know right? I lose freedom of my schedule and I’m just not sure I want that, but I do love it.”

I hear the wrestling match in her voice.  The part time job which allows her flexible hours and the benefit of three day weekends every weekend might move to more time at the office.  Opportunity is about to knock – or is it?

(my sis and I)

Earlier in the day, I saw similar wrestling matches going on in my new class.  My students look worried as we enter into the world of deconstruction. Read More »

What is work?

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Posted by kritzau on August 18, 2011 – 2:23 pm
Filed under A Beautiful Mess, Home.Food.Garden, Spiritual Direction

I declared these past 10 days Take Your Wife To Work Week. My husband works for an international humanitarian organization and travels quite a bit.  Due to my old job responsibilities it was never an option for me go with him.

As I made the transition to my new role in the university, we quickly realized there was a window of time for me to travel to Costa Rica with him.

It didn’t hurt that we tacked on a couple days to the front end to relax at the beach.  However, we soon found ourselves at Nate’s boss’ home ready to begin our work week.  I figured if you have to lesson plan, what’s the difference between my home office or working in a different country with my husband?

My other companions on this trip were textbooks – leadership, spiritual formation, writing – along with other “fun” reads like Wendell Berry and John O’Donohue. As Nate sat for long planning meetings, only breaking for meals.  I found myself diving into outlining, reading and lecture writing. Ten hours later I had finalized a syllabus and planned two lectures. I had learned new presentation software and done mental gymnastics in order to translate ideas to a new generation of students.

I was spent. Read More »