A better day - and a chance to take stock

All the sickies seem to have turned a corner.

Happy Old Year!

There were many blessings and challenges in 2010.  New, dear friendships.  Loved ones moved away.  Sometimes both of those things together.  New beginnings: weddings and pregnancies among dear friends, for instance.  Relationships transformed: long-sought reconciliation; a final, beloved parent gone home to be with is bride and his savior for all eternity.  Old friendships renewed, via a visit to San Antonio for our goddaughter's Confirmation.  A new approach to old and new issues: Teri and I spent 3 months dialoguing every day, for the first time since our Marriage Encounter over 22 years ago; I reentered therapy to find a better solution to some of my struggles, including the depression that began to plague me this year.  And a milestone birthday spent with people we love, even if it didn't include some of the ones who were most important to us.

This annual ritual of taking stock of the past 12 months is, of course, an arbitrary thing.  The boundary points we establish between the weeks and months and years are convenient, useful constructs that allow us to get our minds around the passage of our lives.  Today is already a "new year," in the sense that a trip around the sun can be considered to start anywhere along our orbit and to be completed at the same point approximately 365.25 days later.  No need to limit it to a particular time of day, either.

Yet it's still useful to have a "new beginning" point that doesn't happen so frequently, and I plan to take full advantage of this one.  I plan to nurture thinking patterns that help me be the person I want to be, think I should be, rather than undermine me.    

And I plan to continue some things that I've begun previously.  I will keep turning away from the darkness of doubt and despair.  I plan to grow as a person, as a beloved son of a loving God and a follower of my Savior, and to pray consistently and fervently for those I love.  I plan to continue to embrace the relationships that mean the most to me, and to resume using the tools that best help me to nurture the most important of those relationships.  (That latter part isn't entirely up to me - one of them is a two-person tool - but I need to do my part in encouraging us to use it.)

Thus will I discover all that 2011 will bring . . .

Ringing in the new year, not so merrily

It's hard when your loved ones are sick and there's nothing you can do to help.  Our youngest grandkids have been sharing very well this visit.  Unfortunately, what they've been sharing is the stomach flu.  That's actually the easier thing, though, for us if not for their parents.

What's harder is to see our oldest daughter going through withdrawal because her specialist in Indianapolis can't seem to make sure she gets her prescription in time.

There's very little we can do to help with any of that, except to be present and supportive and sympathetic.

Wonderful Christmas

We had a truly blessed weekend.  Friday evening, everyone was over to open gifts, as our oldest grandsons needed to take advantage of the opportunity to see Uncle Nic while he's here; they were headed to their respective other families for the remainder of the holidays around 9 on Friday night.  It was great to have everyone there (well - almost; Josh had to work).

The music really couldn't have gone better.  A friend who'd never attended any of our services was thrilled with midnight Mass, deeply appreciative of everything from the (hour of) pre-service music to the beauty of the liturgy.  It was pretty fabulous.  Then it was a shorter-than-usual night's sleep for me, as I needed to be up early to work on part of Christmas dinner that I just didn't have time to get done in advance as I'd planned.  Another wonderful liturgy on Christmas morning and, following an unexpected delay due to Emma awaking from her nap sick, everyone except the two grandsons were back for dinner.  We wrapped up the evening with friends, concluding with a marathon game of Bones.

I set the alarm Sunday morning to do music for both Masses, then managed a short nap before we took 4 of the grandchildren to see Tangled - which was entertaining, if typically Disneyesque.  Came home to watch the DVR'ed Ravens' game (only takes half as long!) and then we had a simple dinner of leftovers followed by our first-ever viewing of Holiday Inn, which was a little uncomfortable due to the use of blackface and stereotyped roles.  But I was surprised by the number of tunes I recognized, in addition to the well-known White Christmas. I thought Holiday Inn's integration of story and production  held together better than in its better-known successor (mostly - the inclusion of the war footage wasn't so effective), even if it doesn't seem to have withstood the test of time as well.

*Sigh*

I've apparently got to let go of things on my agenda for my time off - things that are important to me, like Christmas cards and having cookies and planning Christmas dinner and everything else we're still two weeks behind on - because apparently there are more important things for me to do with my time off.  I shouldn't complain; it's good stuff.  It just wasn't my plan, and it's happening this afternoon with a house full of 8 kids when what I want instead of this new agenda or my old one is just a few hours of SLEEP.

I know I'm not supposed to say "FML"

I know if my world feels smaller and smaller and colder and harder that I'm doing it wrong . . .

Still nothing from Cassie. Teri reports that Cassie "wants to shop" today, so I'm requested to please go to work early so I can get in my half day and be home around noon.  Haven't the foggiest idea what that means, exactly, but it feels like I'm, well, of no value as a dad and grandfather except as a babysitter.  (I'd add "husband" but then I'd also have to add "cook" and "handyman.")

Got home from 3+ hours of rehearsals last night to discover that mrs tg and middle daughter had gone to the movie at the top of my list this season. While I'm glad they went out together, what it means for me is that not only did I not get to see this movie with Teri, but I will now get to either miss it entirely or go see it by myself another time without her.

The only time I've felt good in the last 36 hours is when I've been doing music, and even there I seem to have issues going on.

My makeshift Advent "wreath" has been put away to make room for other decorations.

Still haven't found my wedding band.

So I've been up for an hour, am showered, and just waiting for it to be late enough to go into work and get my half day in.  I have a little work I can do from home, which I suppose I'll start in on in a few minutes, for lack of any more appealing options. After I pray . . .

Discussing doubt

So how is it possible, after all my experiences that have reinforced my faith over the decades, that I could have doubt?

Hell if I know.  But in general, talking about it isn't my favorite way to spend a lunch hour . . .

Silly annoyances

The last day has brought some disappointments along with the blessings. I'm hoping that writing about them will help put them in perspective.

Our mouse issue, which we thought we'd taken care of, instead seems to have grown worse, as we're seeing evidence of them in new places.  Gross.  We're taking more aggressive action now, but I have to figure out where they're getting in.

Cassie and her wee ones got into town safely, but she's apparently decided to stay at her mother-in-law's place, and we didn't even see her and the kids yesterday.  I fully support her staying wherever she think is best for Nic to be, and I can understand she didn't want to go out, but we couldn't get invited over to say hi?

I had a major schedule conflict last night.  When Jubilee discussed our potential gig at St. Luke, I already knew about our love circle's Christmas party, and so I told everybody I wouldn't be available for Evensong.  But after missing a gig because of being out of town, and then getting snowed out of evening prayer at both Maria Stein and St. Helen last week, as well as being out of town for the previous two Sundays' evening prayer at St. Helen, I just wanted to sing with Jubilee last night.  Unfortunately, it meant leaving a lot of folks I love at the party after only being there for an hour, including 3 of our oldest 4 grandkids (Dylan was out to dinner with his folks for his birthday).  So I ate way less than I wanted, including skipping dessert, so I wouldn't have anything interfering with "the bellows," and the party was over by the time we finished with the service at St. Luke.  And I missed seeing Michael and Christopher as magi and Kyra as Joseph (!) in the kids' pageant. But it was also very good for me to be where I was.  Afterward, someone mentioned how glad she was that I was there, especially observing that Shout to the Lord just hadn't been the same at rehearsal with only piano and bass. I had to agree with some of the attendees who mentioned that it was just what they needed, because it was just what I needed, too.

Then I got home, to discover that someone had left chocolate where Potter could get it, on the coffee table.  While it isn't good for him, it wouldn't have been any big deal, except that he also knocked off the glass centerpiece full of potpourri.  I went ahead and cleaned it up before anyone got home, and am just glad he didn't get cut on the glass.  But oh, did he know he was in trouble.  He didn't even come out of his kennel to greet me when I came in.

Probably the most frustrating thing was realizing late last night that I still hadn't put my wedding ring back on.  It's a new band that Teri bought me last year, much more weighty and nice than either of the bands I'd previously worn.  Well, after searching both pair of pants I wore yesterday and the two most likely places it could have fallen out of my pocket (my car and Teri's recliner), it's still missing.    :(

This morning there was something else, that made me think, "Okay, that's it, I need to write about all this now and get beyond it."  And now I can't even remember what that was.  I don't know whether to be grateful that it was so trivial or worried that it isn't and that it'll come crashing back into me later.

I must remind myself that none of these annoyances is any big deal compared to a) what we've already been through this season or b) the many blessings in our lives that outweigh them all.

More about dad

Like I said, my bride (of 30 years) and I were on-again, off-again during high school, and mostly off-again thereafter.  It was nearly two years before we started dating again, through a miscommunicated message from a friend.  She was actually seeing someone when I called, so we caught up on each other's lives and wished one another good luck.  It was a spring evening a few weeks later, when she'd broken up with whomever she was seeing, that we first saw each other again.  On this day after our anniversary, I'm tempted to dwell dreamily on the way we just looked into one another's eyes that first evening.

But this post is supposed to be more about the way dad seemed glad to see me back in his daughter's life again, how he encouraged our relationship.  Before the year was over we were married, and dad continually supported us, even through things that I don't know how I'd have handled had I been in his shoes.

Bringing it home

Self-forgiveness probably bears at least a little discussion of its own.

There are a whole host of things that self-forgiveness isn't, separate from what forgiveness of others isn't, which bear recognizing.  These are unhealthy - not alternatives, really, but behaviors that we may engage in:

• Rationalizing away our hurtful actions
• Minimizing their effect
• Justifying them
• Transferring blame to others
• Making excuses
• Compensating with other actions

Okay, that list could go on for a while, and it occurs to me that these items are all different ways that active abusers live with themselves and perpetuate their abuse cycles.

And of course, some of the things that aren't the same as forgiving others also aren't the same as forgiving myself.  One thing that comes to mind is forgetting. Sometimes we might, in fact, succeed in blocking out of our memory some of our own most hurtful actions, but that interferes with self-forgiveness and healing rather than facilitating them.

The thing is, I keep reading from multiple sources that we should be quicker to forgive others and not so quick to forgive ourselves.  I think that's true because it's important that we address and correct the things that cause us to hurt others.  But I also think that, for me, self-forgiveness is more about fully receiving the forgiveness that I've been offered by those I've offended, especially including God. Psychology seems to direct quite a bit of attention to the concept of self-forgiveness, but I don't see any biblical basis for it save one - though it's a biggie: love your neighbor as yourself.  If I am to forgive my neighbor, then I must forgive myself. 

And that means not holding my offense against myself, not calling to mind the hurt I've done, not dwelling on my shortcomings any more.

(3/24/2105: Why is that still so damned hard!?)

And some more . . .

I often hear people focus on whether someone deserves to be forgiven.  "Have they done enough to make up for their offense?" seems to be the underlying question.  I tend to think this question arises chiefly from the mis-association of forgiveness with trust.  It may well be healthy for us to require some evidence of trustworthiness before investing our faith in someone again.  But I can, probably should, and often do make the decision to forgive someone independently of any decision to trust them again.  My self-trust is a great example of that, in reverse.

I'm convinced that the Christian approach to forgiveness of others is meant to be independent of any action on the offender's part.  It's grace: unmerited favor.  It is a gift, to be freely offered as it has been freely offered to us.

Oddly, the burden of unforgiveness often does more harm to the person originally offended than it does to their offender.  And this burden is often heavier and does more damage than that of the original offense.

In a nutshell

As I've thought more about it over the past few days, and experienced it more deeply from those who have come to offer it to me gradually, I've decided that, basically, forgiveness is the decision not to hold someone's offense(s) against them (any more).

Earliest memories of dad

Teri and I first dated in high school.  She also had a brother named Tom, and one of her older sisters had a long-term boyfriend also named Tommy, so I was the third Thomas to be hanging around the house.  She was one of nine siblings, though (at least) the oldest two were no longer living at home when we started dating.  I remember being intimidated meeting them for the first time, but really don't recall anything about the encounter.  But I do recall being welcomed to their home for dinner, and coming over to swim in the summer while we were dating.  Not too often for the latter, though, as we had an on-again-off-again high school relationship, and so there were no summer-long stretches of going over to their house to swim several times a week.  But dad was friendly and welcoming from the beginning.

That time is past

I awoke this morning - the third or fourth time - with my sinuses giving me grief and my head foggy from the Nyquil.  My first thought upon waking was something about what they might do medically to help dad today.  Then I quickly remembered that he is beyond need of such assistance now, though the way I first thought of it was "it's too late for that."