180

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Having felt a genuine sense of exhaustion from being overwhelmed with "the holidays" at work and at home, I completely crashed and had almost an entire week of illness and recovery - for which I was grateful since I was able to actually lay in bed for two days (almost - Kelsie tried to crash my ill-party on day 2). Suffice to say, it was utterly impossible to enjoy any aspect of Christmas, because it was nothing but work and more work - with over-eating, over-drinking, and over-spending in between just to have a false moment away from responsibility. We were unable to even sit down and light the advent candles. And I was only able to create minimal time and space for reflection and contemplation. Sometimes the toilet was the only monastery available.

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Our Free Bitch film last night was Ingmar Bergman's "The Silence". The narrative follows two sisters (one intellectual, the other sensual) traveling home by train - but stop temporarily in a foreign country (Spain?) due to illness of the intellectual sister (Ester). In an early scene, Ester finds herself so miserable that she begins chain smoking and drinking vodka in order to feel high and kill the physical (and emotional) pain - "climaxing" with masturbation, followed by exacerbated misery due to dehydration and hunger . The other sister (Anna) acts on feelings of insecurity by seeking out silent men who are interested in random sexual encounters. Anna seems to use this power to hurt Ester as well, who seems to feel a sense of jealousy towards Anna's sexual freedom (or possibly Anna herself).

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Ester's temporary experience of getting high speaks directly into the past six months of our life as a family. Kelsie and I are desperate to escape for even a moment with alcohol, chocolate, sex, food, money - even running or revolution are helpful (albeit healthier) distractions. At this juncture, we are incapable of giving our children what they need, what they deserve - same with our marriage - same with our Spirituality. We are standing atop the cliff known as burnout - feeling mostly contempt for the things we love - for those things that most identify us. In part, this is due to our resistance to let go of the freedoms and flexibilities of our twenty-something season - and deeper than that, our resistance to let go of being dependent, of being children ourselves. These things must change.

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Interestingly, God has overtly given us the number "180" in the past week - revealing to us, I believe, the "nature" of what is happening - that this indeed IS a time of turning around and fully embracing our adulthood, moving on from childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. This must now be a time of saving instead of spending, a time of cleansing and renewal, a time of being that which God created us to be - fully - as Peacemakers, Parents, and Placenta Encapsulaters :). We seem to have been given a green light - and though it will be work - we are still Children of God - and we don't take it lightly when God reveals to us direction - enlightening our path - connecting new pieces to the puzzle.

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Thank God for Winter and Spring - for Death and Resurrection.

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