Christmas, Uncaged

It started like this:

“Imagine,” said the man leading our Advent retreat. “Imagine you’re someone in the scene. It could be Mary or Jesus, an angel or goat. Whatever. Just spend some time there and listen for what God has to say to you.”

“Whatever,” he said, and a moment later I saw myself as the manger.

Yep. The manger: Inanimate. Hard. Empty. But open. A trough waiting to be filled.

I sat in the silence, allowing myself to be this manger: Watching Mary as she set the bundled Christ within me. Feeling the warmth of his wriggling body. Oh, to be a place for the Son of Man to lay his head! Oh, to receive the Presence of God!

This is enough. But there was more.

A (NOT SO) GREAT ESCAPE

Soon I began to experience a familiar restlessness, and along with it, a growing anxiety – a desire to run, to flee, to somehow escape. I can think of a few reasons why being the manger made me uncomfortable, topmost among them the two abortions I had as a teenager. In a way, I am always an empty manger.

So I let the feelings come, and received the comfort in Mary’s gaze as she entrusted her newborn son to me. There was no condemnation, no restlessness, no fear.

Yet the desire to escape remained. What, then, do I want to escape? I wondered.

I knew the answer before I finished the question: Myself.

I’ve spent much of my life trying to escape myself, but until recently, I believed I was only trying to escape my thoughts, my feelings, my past, my circumstances. Turns out, running from those things IS running from myself. And more importantly, no matter how much I try, I can never truly escape me.

And boy have I tried! Drugs, alcohol, entertainment, worry, anger, getting in my car and driving aimlessly for hours. None of it works for very long. Not even throwing myself into God and prayer.

You see, God doesn’t want us to escape ourselves.

Flee yourself by running to God and sure, he’ll hold you. But eventually, He’ll lift your chin and make you look Him in the eye…to see yourself reflected there.

God will make you look at you.

CAGED

So there I was, curled up in a ball, a rather anxious little manger, and I let myself wonder some more: What if I fled right now, only in my mind, only for a moment? How would I feel then?

I anticipated a sense of distraction or relief, but instead I felt something totally unexpected:

Abandonment.

At first this seemed out of place. But then I saw her: the part of me I leave behind every time I try to run. She was small, alone, arms wrapped around her knees, shivering from the cold of rejection. And for the first time in my almost 50 years, I realized that I cannot run from myself without also abandoning myself.

Self-escape is self-abandonment.

Suddenly I feel like a dog who forgets she’s on a leash and takes off running only to be yanked back by her collar. Even the relief I seek causes me pain. I feel more trapped than ever.

Cue panic.

Forget the dog on a leash. Now I am Laurence Sterne’s starling, the wings of my heart beating furiously against its cage: I can’t get out! I can’t get out!

Oh how I want to run!

But God says: “Stay…..Stay…..Stay.”

So I stayed. I felt the fear. I waited inside the bars of my heart. The Starling’s cry reverberating through my hollow bones: No! I can’t get out! I can’t get out!

Then, clear as day, I heard Jesus say: “That’s OK. I can get in.”

That’s OK. I can get in.

What’s a cage to Christ?

ALL IN ALL

I can hardly describe what happened next. It was as if I began to see in fractals: the entire cosmos – galaxies, earth, people, atoms, the emptiness in between – in endless motion, a tesseract folding and unfolding. And Christ impregnating it all. The All in all and all in All.

Christ in me, the hope of glory.

I can’t get out because there’s nowhere to go.

No outside. No inside. Immanuel. God with us.

And just like that I am back in Bethlehem. Carried on the wings of eternity herself, lilting through the starry Judean sky, over the shepherds on the threshold, down to the earth beneath the babe, I am the manger.

We couldn’t get out. Of our heads. Of our suffering. Of our own way. Of our loneliness. Of the mess we made. Of the mess others made around us.

But He got in.

Perhaps He always was in – always IS in – but blinded as we are by this dark world, we struggle to recognize Him. So our relentless Lover found another way to step into our line of sight, to bend the light around his being, and shout into our souls “I Am!”

Perhaps all of human history can be summed up in the exchange between a desperate woman: “I can’t get out!”

And the Son of God: “That’s OK. I can get in…

into the world
into the womb
into the manger
into the cage of your raging heart.

I Am with you, all along.”

© Nichole Liza Q.

When Shame Kills, Love Stays | Thoughts on Shame, Rage, Dragons, and Jesus

They nailed love to the cross.

That’s what my friend, Simara, said during a Lent meditation over Zoom: They nailed love to the cross. They killed love.

I’m used to hearing things like death was nailed to the cross and our sins were nailed to the cross. But love? Simara is a gifted woman who speaks the words of the Holy Spirit. So I’ve learned to listen, especially when those words catch me off guard.

Surely they did nail love to a cross…or more accurately: Love. Because Jesus is love personified. I find it easier to think about nailing sin and death to the cross, than to consider that, in their depravity, people nailed Love to the cross. Because “they” is me and why would I kill Love?

Photo by Nichole Q Perreault

One day, many years ago, I became acutely aware of my personal participation in the crucifixion of Jesus. I was outdoors, kneeling before a large wooden cross at our old church, when God revealed the deep resentment, hatred even, that I feel toward Him. I saw that even though I wasn’t physically at Calvary 2000 years ago, I was guilty of wanting to destroy God. Some call this original sin – a base opposition to the Lord, a desire to be one’s own god. Some call it pride. But maybe it’s more complex than that.

Maybe the death of Love is rooted in our shame and separation from God.

Shame. It’s an awful feeling: a hollow yet lead-heavy sensation in the gut, a stomach full of spoiled milk, a million needles piercing your skin, overwhelming self-loathing, the need to run and disappear, and the rumblings of self-destructive, all-consuming rage.

That’s how it feels to me, anyway. But what is it? Shame is the core belief that there is something inherently wrong with one’s own person. For me, shame sounds like this: I am inherently defective, flawed, less than, unlovable, irredeemable.

I’ve dealt with my shame a lot. In prayer. In therapy. And I’ve come a long way from the days of believing I trespassed my way into existence; so far, that I can now say (and mostly mean) that I am legitimate, I am good, I am enough, I am worthy of love.

One question: WHY AM I STILL SO DAMN ANGRY?

Me, just last week, texting friends: I am filled with unquenchable rage.
Friends: Why?
Me: 🤷🏻‍♀️ Menopause?

Yes, I’m kind of young for menopause! That’s beside the point. The point is, rage lurks within me like a fire-breathing dragon, and early-ish menopause seemed a valid explanation. Until a few days later. When God, in His ever so gentle way, pointed out that my rage is actually connected to unresolved issues of shame.

That was exciting; I mean who doesn’t love to revisit shame issues? <<<insert sarcasm here

Of course, when something is disturbing enough, like say unquenchable rage, you find a way.

I suppose it’s no coincidence that last week I came across the article Rage, Shame, and the Death of Love by David Cloke. Fair warning: after reading it, I felt like someone had turned me inside out, body and soul. It hurt like hell, but the truth often does.

Here are a few highlights:

  • Shame often begins in infancy when healthy familial attachments are thwarted for one reason or another; or it may begin later in life when a person is exposed to abuse, significant loss, or other trauma.
  • Shame is excruciatingly painful and therefore ends up buried deep within the unconscious. When something triggers buried shame, a person typically responds by doing whatever is necessary to stop the pain. This can take many forms such as distracting oneself in healthy and unhealthy ways, avoiding shame-inducing people or circumstances, seeking revenge, etc.  
  • Shame often stems from “rejected love” (when one’s love and affection is spurned by another) and leads to a “now despised urge to love” (when one hates one’s own desire to love). In Cloke’s own words this “evokes destructive feelings that attack the very thing that is desired, often precipitating an inevitable death of love.”
  • Shame is often part of a shame/envy/rage/guilt cycle. For example: A baby experiences some form of abandonment and that excruciating pain is thrust into the unconscious. Later in life, the child sees another person getting what she wants (attention, affection, praise) and feels envious. This triggers unconscious shame, setting off a rage response (according to Cloke anger and rage are different). Some children will be frightened by their rage, which could lead to rejection and further abandonment, and therefore they try to hide it. Other children will act on their rage. Both will likely feel guilt and an increased sense of shame as a result of their choices.
  • People experiencing the shame/envy/rage/guilt cycle often create a “redemption fantasy” in which they believe certain people or circumstances will magically relieve their shame. I will use myself as an example again. While growing up, I viewed every boy as my potential rescuer; I believed his love had the power to save me from my shame, that his love would somehow make me lovable. Yet I eventually came to despise them all – even the ones who treated me well. My reasons for hating them always included a common thread: I judged them all as weak. Ultimately, this perceived weakness was really about their inability to rescue me.
  • According to Cloke, shame-based rage may have several intentions including: “magically changing the other person, creating in the other person a shame feeling…as a form of empathy, to penetrate the other in a powerful way, or to seek revenge.” People experiencing shame-based rage may lash out at their offender in various ways ranging from snubbing to slander to murder, and everything in between.

There’s a lot more to the article, but that’s a solid recap. Rather than tell you all the ways this affects me personally, I want to focus on something more universal, something that, I hope, will speak to us all.

I nailed Love to the cross. Not death. Not sin. Love. And pride doesn’t kill love. Shame does.

Shame has been my constant companion since my days in the womb, when I was first called “illegitimate”, when my existence was a burden, and my presence was feared. Life got messier after that; it doesn’t matter how or why. Shame has many fathers. What matters is that shame lives inside me like a sleeping dragon, and when she wakes no one in her path is safe.

I am not alone. According to many mental health experts, including Bill Cloke, Brene Brown, and Daniel Amen, nearly everyone experiences some level of shame, even those who have relatively healthy childhoods. Why is that? Father Thomas Keating, founder of Contemplative Outreach, says that the real root of shame is our perceived separation from God.

Woah. Let’s think about that for a minute: God is our Source, our Father, our Mother. Yet here in the fallen physical realm, we experience separation from our perfect Parent and the Love we so desperately desire. This is no small matter. It has rent the very fabric of the universe, left a gaping chasm in every star and leaf and rock and atom, even to the very depths of our souls. The separation is excruciating. All of creation cries out in pain. We feel cut off from God, abandoned, exposed, naked…and ashamed.

What if shame is the universal lie that blinds and binds? Telling us that we are lost, alone, unlovable, and irredeemable, that our pain is incurable and our rage is unquenchable? Telling us that our only options are to run and hide or to attack and destroy?

What if our opposition to God stems from that shame and our fear that we’ll never be good enough? Adam and Eve hid. The Pharisees judged. Cain lashed out in rage.

What if we hide from, judge, and lash out at God because, as the unattainable object of our deepest desire, He is also the source of our greatest pain?

What if this is why we nailed Love to the cross? Because we came to believe that Love’s destruction was the only way to end our unbearable suffering?

What if we nailed Love to the cross not so much because our hearts are evil but because our hearts are broken?

I nailed Love to the cross. And I have murdered Love in my heart a thousand times since then.

Shame kills.

But what if Love still pursues me? What if Love is running after me, not to harm me, but to heal me? What if Love picks me up, spins me around and says, Go ahead. Put your hand in my side. Feel the scars in my hands and feet. Yes, I am still here.?

What if Love sinks Himself deep into my dragon lair of shame, builds a fire, and puts the kettle on for tea?

What if Love says, Do your worst, Nichole. I am here to stay.?

© Nichole Liza Q.

under water

it’s still
     dark in here
     and sometimes the darkness
still wins

i think
     maybe this time
     the darkness won’t
get me

won’t scare
     me, won’t wear me
     down, but this darkness is slick like oil
and spreads

on me
     before i
     know it, stinging my eyes
my throat

i jump
     into the deep
     end, to stop the burning, to
escape

it’s dark
     here too, and
     heavy, all this water
crushing

but i
     remember i’ve
     learned something new, i’ve
learned how

to breathe
     without air, without
     love, without hope, I’ve
learned how

to breathe
     under
     water

© Nichole Liza Q.

Hollow

Insides carved out
Walls scraped bare
I am just a shell
Brittle and broken

I must be broken
because nothing fills me
Rains fall but never gather
rushing away in streams beneath me

Dust blows in
on sandpaper wind
gritty in the eyes, the throat
then blows away again

Leaves and flower petals flutter
down down down
only to dissolve
pixel by pixel before my eyes

Emptiness becomes anxiety
the urge to fill me up
to scavenge
for berries
for blood
for dirt and leaves
crab apples
mud
Bits of glass
and shrapnel
Things that hurt
work best
At least the pain is
Something

Familiar
I know pain
Thoughts that slash and burn
the same worn paths
Searing scars
deep into the folds of
my aching brain

Until I’m sick
and I lie here
wondering which is worse
emptiness or pain

What would happen
If I sat still in the
hollow
heavy
empty
void

If I unclenched my fists
and let the falling rain flush
the shards from my flesh

If I let myself
Bleed
Would I remember
how to breathe?

© Nichole Liza Q.

A New Name for that Place Between Sadness and Depression

Do you think you’re depressed?

People ask me that sometimes. Friends. Family. Even some ballsy people who don’t know me very well.

Photo by Unsplash | Public Domain CC0 

My immediate response is usually, No. Occasionally, I add something like: I’m just working through some things.

How could I be depressed? Depressed people don’t get out of bed and shower and put on clean clothes and go to work. Depressed people don’t dance when a good song comes on or sleep out for Hamilton tickets or go to Red Sox games. Depressed people don’t host holiday parties and laugh around the campfire.

Do they?

Continue reading “A New Name for that Place Between Sadness and Depression”

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