Order. Disorder. Reorder. What next.

This post was originally written September 21, 2019

I sat in my studio Thursday afternoon on that couch over there in the corner by Noreen in the green shirt. The workshop was over Monday afternoon, and all that remained as evidence of it's vibrancy was a few bags of trash to empty, tools that had yet to be returned to their proper place, and a glow from the creative energy and sense of connected community that each person who was there contributed to so willingly. 

Spontaneously, I posted an image to Instagram, sharing my thoughts and ending with a series of hashtags, including one that said "everythinghappensforareason" and as soon as I posted it, it bugged me. 

I don't actually ascribe to the mindset that everything happens for a reason. I see it as a cruel dismissal of real people during real seasons of horrific trauma and pain. How do you explain away to a young mother without her baby in arms that there was a reason her child would not grow to see it's next birthday? How can you say everything happens for a reason to a widower who lost their beloved spouse to a tragic accident?

No. Just no. Sometimes there are things in life that just happen. Hard things happen because the world is home to both beauty and brokenness. 

I do, however, believe that there is something for me to learn from most of my experiences in life. Maybe it's about resiliency. Or maybe the situation is teaching me to have patience with someone I find challenging. Maybe life is helping me to shed false beliefs about myself. Or the cycle I find myself in over and over again is removing something from my heart that keeps me from connecting more deeply with another. Like a woodworker's block plane gliding across the surface of an invisible scar. Removing layer upon layer of tissue through the repetition, until I can once again feel love and be loved without defensiveness. 

But I also believe that without reason, we lose hope. That believing everything is arbitrary and random allows for chaos to have no redeeming quality. It just is what it is and no outside force is going to save me is a belief I used to have. It led me to some pretty messy decision making because I had no hope that something greater then me would step into my circumstances. 

That randomness of everything left me feeling like a victim. I joked about being the court jester in the theater of life. I threw in the towel and thought really terrible harmful thoughts like "it's all up to me". And let me tell you, when you are a woman who grew up in a home with an alcoholic perverse man as a father, and who got pregnant at the mere age of 15, gave birth to your first child at 16 and moved into your first roach infested apartment with your husband and two year old child at 17, thinking that there is no one you can rely on but yourself is a pretty dismal prospect in life.  

Eventually, and through a series of unfortunate events, I began to see that this truth wasn't the truth. Life began to inform me in a way that allowed a crack in my heart for God to step in. 

My story with God isn't tidy. And this post really isn't about that, except to say if I had to stand up and give you my testimony of that time that saved me, It would be more than a few hours long. Messy people (aka - most humans) often need saving over and over again. And there was the kind of saving where I knew without a shadow of doubt that a hand over my life had led me to that thing. But there also has been the kind of saving where that hand was simply leading me to discover what I already contained within myself. Not as "all up to me", but as a strength and ability that came through the newfound confidence of knowing I am really not alone. Somebody does have my back. 

I hear those protests. I spoke them aloud to myself and my kids for years and years. I know all the best arguments and all the irrational logic that can come from the belief in God, or the belief in no God. I've walked on both sides. Many times. I've swung back and forth in the process so completely that my life might be described as a pendulum. If I were a politician, you'd accuse me of being a flip-flop. Swinging from belief, to unbelief, to different versions of belief, to various ideas and philosophies. Or what Father Richard Rohr describes as the typical believers process - Order, Disorder, Reorder. 

Order is a season where everything has to happen for a reason. It is a tidy belief where God has control of everything and my job is simply to put on the sweater set, the pearls, get a sensible haircut, stop swearing, and smack my kids on the back of the head when they roll their eyes too much or fall asleep in the church pew. 

Disorder comes next. Tidy doesn't stay tidy very long. Kids rebel. The dog of life runs through the mud and tracks it all over the clean kitchen floor of your heart. There is no way to explain away the terrible thing you are going through with the belief that everything happens for a reason without winding up hating God, or believing that God hates you. Or your neighbor. 

Searching for meaning that is tidy and fits these things can make an even bigger mess of it all. In this season, where I am still walking fairly consistently, I haven't stopped believing in God. On the contrary, my belief has become stronger. I stopped going to church, but not to God. It's been a different experience then when I dropped out just after I was "saved" as a teenager. It's not a rebellion, but an expedition. I am forging my way through the jungle of my heart and the lies I've believed. His hand is that carpenter with the plane, shaving away what isn't serving me well. Not that shaving thing that happens when you are in a season of order, and the sweater set, pearl wearing version of yourself throws away all the Metallica CDs. Quite the opposite. 

Disorder.

It's the part that begins to grasp that there is something beautiful in the mystery of not knowing. In the lack of explaining. The lack of the dualistic black and white thinking. And the lack of being able to explain it all away with a cheerful glowing God has a reason blah, blah, blah. I begin to understand there is something more. Deeper. Wider. More free then I can imagine.

It is in the chaos that comes from breaking free of the rigid restrictive rules of order that I meet myself. In that old place, I am ever in jeopardy of losing my ticket through the pearly gates. One wrong move and it's over. Disorder helped me see that I don't have to walk that plank. 

In this place called Disorder, I find the green valley at the foot of the mountaintop. I can run. I can walk. I can lay down in the grass. I can read different ideas and explore my own thoughts, and find my way through each story I encounter to find the shining glimmer of truth it contains. I am learning to let go of my fear. If I talk to someone who believes differently, I don't have to be afraid that their beliefs will overpower me and invite something horrible in. What a closed door that would be to connection. But I also see that I don't have to allow every toxic person to have access to my life. It is not my job to be present for everyone and anyone who crosses my path. I don't have to prove anything for God's sake, or my own. 

Yesterday I heard a woman on the radio talking about the difference between safe spaces and brave spaces. Safe spaces are places of protection for the traumatized person to recover, to recoup from the trauma, in whatever form it came for them. Safe places look like havens for the lost and abused survivor to allow their reactive adrenaline driven response system to stop firing every time a car backfires. When I left the world of order, I needed safe spaces to regain my equilibrium. Some people make fun of safe spaces. They're probably the people in need of them most. Order says if you follow the rules you are safe. Disorder says sometimes the rules are harsh and extreme and unattainable. Or just flat out don't work for us all.

Now, I'm on the verge of finding my place in Brave spaces. I've been practicing. Very deliberately allowing myself to state my truths in places where I may meet opposition and backlash. Feeling uncomfortable letting myself be known and seen by people who may very well not like what I have to say, or what I believe, or even just me as a person. Letting myself feel that discomfort and resisting the urge to run away and hide is my training for being brave. I don't know if it ever gets easy. If it felt easy to be brave, I am pretty sure it would mean there is something inside of me that is still in hiding. 

That thing that cares about what other people think of me isn't going away, it's maturing. I want to be known and liked for who I am. But I also want to live passionately into the causes that I believe in and for the purpose I see for my life. I'm more and more okay if I'm not seen, known, understood by all. I'm okay if someone of the same belief disagrees with how I walk, if other artists think I'm weird when I talk about God, if I'm judged for the near constant coffee or toothpaste stains on my shirt. I want you to like me, but I'm okay if not.

Reorder. 

Reorder looks like freedom. I get to choose. I get to follow that glimmering trail of truths and not be afraid of where it might lead. I can toss out the ill fitting sweater sets, the pearls and the self-flagellation. I can embrace all of me with the understanding that the way I see, the way I am wired, the experiences I've had and the stories I contain are not flaws. They are my strengths. They are what enables me to be brave. 

Reorder feels like calm. Not from outside circumstances, but from inside that place that knows I've walked through the valley and now I'm ready to follow the trail to the mountaintop. Father Rohr says most Christians get stuck in order or disorder. I see that. The narrow path is the place of reorder.  

Reorder brings me to a place of walking bravely into the future and it begs me to ask the question, what next? It's not a formula. Of all the things I thought I'd be doing, all the places I've been, all the information I've gathered, I weed through it all and life starts to inform me. What is my next? Reorder is a restructuring. It's an inside job. It can't be done through outward appearances. And it's impossible to do without tearing down that old foundation called order. That old foundation could have never supported what Reorder is bringing me to. 

Now that is informing my hope for the future!

So really, what is my next?

I sense it. This place of transition I am in. Where I begin to live more on the side of Reorder, than Disorder. I feel that confidence rising in it. But I feel somewhat lost. Because it is time to make decisions. My body is reminding me that it has been through more in the past year than many people deal with in a lifetime and it can't be pushed anymore. So I sit quietly and ask important questions. Of myself, of God, of the universe. What now? What do I do next? And then those little glimmering flashes of truth begin to shine brighter. I open the mail to find a royalty check from the new publisher who bought out the one that published my book.

Penguin Random House. In all my years of dreaming, I never thought I would be able to say I am an author under Penguin Random House's umbrella. I want more of that. Writing keeps pushing its way into my dreams and I know it's time to listen. I am determined to write. To begin to draft that next book, the one I keep calling my book without pictures. The one I didn't think my old publisher would see as a good fit for them, but wasn't sure where else to take it. Now I have a little glimmering light shining on a new possibility. I am going to follow it. 

And the studio. I thought when I moved to my new home that I would have to let the big studio go, because I couldn't afford both. I knew it would change the way I work, but didn't know what else to do. In the process, I realized I wasn't ready to let go. It wasn't just about how my work has changed because of the new space, enabling me to work large and messy, that made this space outside my home appealing - but the way that it serves to bring people together. I started seeing new possibilities to create stability in my income and life by keeping my studio, not letting it go. And in the dreaming about what that would look like, new glimmers of truth and light presented themselves. Once I allowed myself to follow those flickers of promise on the horizon, things started moving rapidly. 

That is as much as I can share with you about that. Soon enough I can share more. But it is in that place of letting go of what I thought I was supposed to be- order, what I had to shed- disorder, that I found my way again- reorder. The old dream about a gathering place. People working side by side. Community. Connection. This much I can say, sitting in my studio listening to the sounds of life, watching connections being made, creating together works of art and true belonging. That too is part of my next. 

Reorder. It looks like truth and life.