Two weeks ago, I had no job, no more unemployment, no mortgage payment, and no sure hope that I could preserve my household intact. I was rationing my prescriptions and living off food boxes. I screamed and sobbed because I had tried so hard and failed so badly at life. My house quaked like an aspen and its people, human and fur, were so many leaves about to whirl away with the next disaster into whatever happens when you slide out of the middle class at last. Stomachaches came and went. I slept badly and woke tired. I have never forgotten that mental illness is the best predictor of homelessness, and I believed I had lost the battle at last against the alphabet soup I seem to be drowning in, which had this year been joined by this new Thing called Asperger's, which is now apparently called high-functioning autism and just proves I will never, ever be normal or whole or fit in with everybody else.
And yet.
One week ago, I had a job, no paycheck possible for six weeks, and job-related expenses that I didn't have cash-on-hand to pay up front and no way to get fronted due to the way I'd been hired. Three counselors set aside turf issues, policy, payments, and anything else that stood in the way of hearing me talk--or sit silent. Mutism is one of my stims. It certainly seems to work like a stim, for me. I held myself in suspension. One of my counselors promised to hold my hope, because I could not hold hope for myself.
Now we both hold my hope--in pieces, perhaps, cracked and ringing like broken lead crystal, but hope, nonetheless. Around us are watchful eyes for social systems that aren't family or state, but represent the substitute for family that people like me rely on.
Today is Christmas Eve, and it feels as if Uncle Scrooge has relented at last (or been ordered off). I'm still eating out of food boxes, but I don't have to apply for SNAP or fear sliding into homelessness, for now.
I have had to take some entire days and just be still, thinking as little as possible, which life's whiplashes have made possible. I make up for it when I am able, and so far I am keeping up with work.
I am a very bad Ch'an Buddhist, so the states of Mindfulness and No-Mind are foreign places. My limited glimpses of them suggest that there is safety there, because anxiety attacks get set off when I try to look too far into the future. To be present in the Now is to be away from the fear of the future.
When I can do no more at work or at meditation, I pray, because prayer is the last refuge of the helpless. I believe in the God of answered prayer, even though I'm not a particularly good Christian, either. I feel enormous humility because this is surely grace: I don't deserve rescue, as a sinner no better than anybody else. I didn't ask for the gift of faith, I just got it, like my hair color and eye color.
If I do, in fact, receive a paycheck in 8 days, I may finally believe, for a time, that I have come through the most disastrous year I've had in 14 years, and the hardest time spiritually, emotionally, and mentally in 40 years. I don't think the experience has made me any wiser. But I have seen this much: while my sofa cushions have been beaten flat by use, the faith cushioning my footsteps through this gauntlet of whips, scorpions, and thorny places seems to be a bit thicker. I am grateful for small things. I am especially grateful for this: a kind tone of voice inside, not always heard, that silences the vicious judge within, the vicious voice that tells me I'm not good enough to have earned my reprieve or receive a break.
All lies gain their power from the tiny bit of truth in them. I have not earned my reprieve. Grace is given, but it can't be earned.
In the name of Jesus, amen.
And yet.
One week ago, I had a job, no paycheck possible for six weeks, and job-related expenses that I didn't have cash-on-hand to pay up front and no way to get fronted due to the way I'd been hired. Three counselors set aside turf issues, policy, payments, and anything else that stood in the way of hearing me talk--or sit silent. Mutism is one of my stims. It certainly seems to work like a stim, for me. I held myself in suspension. One of my counselors promised to hold my hope, because I could not hold hope for myself.
Now we both hold my hope--in pieces, perhaps, cracked and ringing like broken lead crystal, but hope, nonetheless. Around us are watchful eyes for social systems that aren't family or state, but represent the substitute for family that people like me rely on.
Today is Christmas Eve, and it feels as if Uncle Scrooge has relented at last (or been ordered off). I'm still eating out of food boxes, but I don't have to apply for SNAP or fear sliding into homelessness, for now.
I have had to take some entire days and just be still, thinking as little as possible, which life's whiplashes have made possible. I make up for it when I am able, and so far I am keeping up with work.
I am a very bad Ch'an Buddhist, so the states of Mindfulness and No-Mind are foreign places. My limited glimpses of them suggest that there is safety there, because anxiety attacks get set off when I try to look too far into the future. To be present in the Now is to be away from the fear of the future.
When I can do no more at work or at meditation, I pray, because prayer is the last refuge of the helpless. I believe in the God of answered prayer, even though I'm not a particularly good Christian, either. I feel enormous humility because this is surely grace: I don't deserve rescue, as a sinner no better than anybody else. I didn't ask for the gift of faith, I just got it, like my hair color and eye color.
If I do, in fact, receive a paycheck in 8 days, I may finally believe, for a time, that I have come through the most disastrous year I've had in 14 years, and the hardest time spiritually, emotionally, and mentally in 40 years. I don't think the experience has made me any wiser. But I have seen this much: while my sofa cushions have been beaten flat by use, the faith cushioning my footsteps through this gauntlet of whips, scorpions, and thorny places seems to be a bit thicker. I am grateful for small things. I am especially grateful for this: a kind tone of voice inside, not always heard, that silences the vicious judge within, the vicious voice that tells me I'm not good enough to have earned my reprieve or receive a break.
All lies gain their power from the tiny bit of truth in them. I have not earned my reprieve. Grace is given, but it can't be earned.
In the name of Jesus, amen.
