Monday, July 5, 2010

Over this holiday weekend I've seen two powerful moveis, "Solitary Man" and "Winter's Bones".   I saw "Wicked" at the Hobby Center in Houston, and I finished the novel I've been reading, CUTTING FOR STONE, by Abraham Verghese. 

I admit it:  it's been self-indulgence to the max, doing some of my favorite things, and I am aware of how lucky I am to have the freedom to do that.

The dialogue within each movie, book or play keeps bouncing around in my head, and I think that the main characters have taken up permanent residence in my mind.  Especially am I moved by the difference in the character played by Jennifer Lawrence, Ree Dolly, the young girl who is the main character in "Winter's Bones" and that character played by Susan Sarandon, Nancy Kalmen, in "Solitary Man." 

Each woman's life is profoundly altered and devastated by the behavior of a significant man in her life.  Ree Dolly's drama is played out in the Ozark mountains in a culture as far from the glitz and glamour of New York City and Boston, Nancy Kalmen's world, as it could possibly be.  Ree's father cooks meth in the mountains; Nancy's ex-husband flitters away his wealth and his opportunities, his status and family, pursuing the next, young, shiny thing.

Each woman pursues her man and offers loyalty and help, albeit for different reasons and in different ways, but a line from "Winter's Tale" socks me in the stomach.  "Don't you have a man to help you?" asks one of the rough, tough, weathered mountain women of Ree, and Ree respond, "No, ma'am."  And I wept.

I'm struck, though, by the flat affect of Sarandon's character at the end of the movie and by her choices, in contrast with the intense, focused and determined energy of Lawrence's character.   Was Sarandon's character simply worn down from too many years of betrayal and disappointment?  Was she hardened, though glamorous and still beautiful, by too much effort to save her man or her marriage?  Had Ben Kalmen, convincingly portrayed by Michael Douglas, finally sucked the joy out of her by his adolescent antics and narcissitic obsessions?  Or was what I saw as "flat-line" just emotional reserve and calm, inner strength, bought with a price?

Was Lawrence's character's youthful energy the thing that made her able  to stand up so fiercely to the forces of oppression with every ounce of strength and courage she could find?  Was Ree's determination born out of a life-or-death survival?  Was she born with that fierceness or did she choose it? 

Did Nancy Kalmen show a different kind of strength than Ree Dolly?  And why are these issues on my mind?

Obviously, every person's response to life's hardships and to the choices inflicted on us by others is different, but the questions these movies and these women evoke from me are big, big questions.

More and more I'm confronted with the realities of human struggling and suffering, and more and more I'm convinced that the only way to build courage and stamina, resilience and inner strength is to stand up to the things we fear most, which leads me back to the first chapter of Jim Hollis' book and his challenge that our lives not be governed by fear.

So -- have you seen those movies?  If so, how did they strike you?

What do the characters teach us about what it means to be a woman in today's world?

And of myself, I ask again these questions below.  I'd be interested in your responses, as well.

What are your greatest fears?

What are you doing today to build that inner core of moral courage for yourself?

Grace to you --

Jeanie

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

James Hollis proposes in Chapter 6 of WHAT MATTERS MOST: LIVING A MORE CONSIDERED LIFE that it does in fact matter "that we risk growth over security".

What is growth, anyway?   And what is security?

Is there a standard definition, a way of measuring either growth or security that applies to "the average person", whoever that might be?  Or are growth and security different for each person?  Is it possible that what appears to be growth could be just ego inflation?  And is it possible that the things we think give us security merely assuage our anxieties for the moment?

Time was when I thought that "growing" meant learning more, gaining more insights, adding notches to my educational or intellectual belt.  Through the years I've heard various people propose various ideas about what it means to "grow spiritually,"  ideas that have pumped up pride but not deepened compassion.

My ideas about growing changed on a hot August day several years ago when someone said to me, "Jeanie, you are going to have to stop lying and start telling the truth.  You are going to have to stop people-pleasing and become authentic, and you are going to have to stop dying and start living.  And it's that serious."

I remember that my heart almost stopped, listening to that challenge.  I'd long quoted Deuteronomy 30:19 as one of my favorite scriptures:  "I have set before you today life and death, blessing and curse.  Therefore, choose life."    With the challenge I was given, I was about to learn even more about what it means to choose life.

Suddenly that hot August day challenge put me face-to-face with some truths about myself that opened up a whole new way of "growing."  In fact, that challenge became my agenda as I began examining the ways in which I was my own biggest problem.

As I continued to meet the challenge that had been given to me, I learned some valuable lessons about growing and growing up, lessons that would allow me no room for making excuses or justifying or rationalizing my behavior.  I learned that it is children who blame and adults who assume responsibility, and that as long as a child blames a parent for whatever, he/she is announcing to the world that he/she is stuck in adolescence!   I learned that it was up to me to assume 100% responsibility for my choices, and that when I did do that life somehow worked better.

I didn't realize how good I'd gottten at living in illusions, telling myself half-truths and putting on a mask to cover up feelings I didn't want anyone to know I had.  I've learned that on the days when I tell myself the unvarnished truth, I'm more at home with myself, but it isn't always easy to do that.

For years I had worked to overcome the ways and means of people-pleasing, but on that hot August day I realized that I still had a long, long way to go in overcoming those habits of thought and action, speech and attitude.  Nor was I aware of how interrelated dishonesty and people-pleasing were.

Nor did I realize how much my dishonesty and my people-pleasing sucked the life out of my day, leaving me drained and depleted by keeping up one of my facades.

As I look back on the years since that painful confrontation, I realize that there are some Big Moments when I made huge leaps forward in "growing".  I've decided that facing your fears has to be one of life's grand essentials and assignments.

In these years some significant moments stand out.

-- I remember stopping an angry person who was going off on me by saying, calmly, "I cannot allow you to talk to me this way."  I had to repeat it two or three times before that person heard me.  The significance of that moment was that for my whole life, I thought that I had to allow persons to say whatever they chose to say to me. 

-- I remember the day I resigned from a board, beginning the process of disengaging from systems that take my work, my money and my energy, but in which I have no real power to effect change. 

-- I remember the day I made a decision to let go of the suffocating feeling of responsibility for other adults' happiness and well-being.

-- I remember the day I began feeling the freedom of letting go of things that were none of my business.

-- I also remember the moments when I stepped forward to do what I loved to do, working from my center, instead of doing what others expected me to do.

-- I remember the times when I chose to have fun, waste time, bliss out -- and let my tasks wait until another day.

-- I remember the moments when I chose pleasure over obligation, solitude over command performances, and the joy of friendships as a consistent part of every single week.

I have to keep re-visiting these decisions and sometimes I slip back into my old patterns, but every time I conquer the old fears that lead me to those self-defeating patterns, I grow up a little more.  And every time I allow myself to receive grace when I have regressed -- every time I forgive myself and start over again -- and every time I cut myself a little slack, I feel freer and more at peace with myself and my wonderfully imperfect life as it is.

It has taken me a long time to realize that the "security" I thought I had by maintaining and perpetuating my pet illusions is a flimsy security, indeed.  The security that I kept in place by my people-pleasing habits was a total illusion.  Facing my fears about telling the truth and living authentically made me realize how life-giving it is to live in truth.  Walking in the light of honesty, boldness, courage and integrity really is choosing life, moment by moment.

What about you?

In what ways do you lie to yourself?  What are your favorite illusions?

In what ways do you put on a face that you think will please others?

What does that cost you?

What does it mean for you to "choose life"?

What are your growing edges today?  (Find your fears:  therein will lie your growing edges!)

Who do you love?  Who fills your cup to overflowing?  Who gives you deep joy? 

And how long has it been since you have spent time with that person?

Grace to you--

Jeanie