Lent and TMS (letter to April)
Hi April,
It's still Lent, but I did not go to church. I can give you reasons for this, mostly all wimpy, but mostly I didn't go to church because I preferred to stay home. I feel a little guilty over adding this to my pile of Lent failures. (My sister asked today, not to accuse but just to be curious, what I had given up for lent. She said, "I forgot what you gave up this year..." I confessed to failing at all of the things that I meant to do to observe lent, including things I usually do even when it's not Lent, like go to church. But as I am writing this to you and thinking about what I was about to write next, about the other thing my sister noticed, I am thinking that what I SHOULD give up for Lent--or forever--is keeping an internal tally sheet of all of the things I suck at. I suck at a lot of things. Can I not just acknowledge that and move on? Why don't I? Add Lent to the list and keep going. Because the real truth about lent, and I know it's true because I just felt tears come as I decided to write it, is that all of the things I suck at don't matter to God. God loves me anyway. Jesus was put to death for crimes he didn't commit and still said "Forgive them, for they know not what they do" to the people who were so horrible they participated in his torture and death. Is there anything I could do worse than that? No. I can suck at EVERYTHING and still be forgiven, and THAT, my internal bully, is what Jesus is about. And that is what I somehow need to really really viscerally learn.
And my TMS is here to help! Yay mind-body syndrome!! At lunch today (for her birthday,) Cassie told me that I was having some sort of reaction to the neck of my sweater. My neck was all covered in a nasty-looking rash. I told her no, I've had the rash for a couple of days, and I've been putting hydrocortisone cream on it, but it's still not gone. "When did you get it?" Cassie asked--as if she knew what I was going to say. I got it Friday, after a hike where there was poison ivy, and a day and a half after I was in the ocean on Thursday morning.
"Right," she said, "but those rashes would be on your ankles, wouldn't they? That's your TMS. It started when you had to come back to your normal life."
Shit. She's totally right. I looked it up, and yes, rashes are often a manifestation of the symptom imperative (the idea that if you haven't solved the mental/emotional root of the problem, a new symptom will sprout from it, even if the old one seems to be on the mend.) Then I read something really helpful and profound from one of the TMS people. He is the TMS equivalent of a motivational speaker. He says that TMS is a thing that causes us to slow down for a minute and see the big picture of our lives. Am I all better? No. I still stress over every little decision, and, as you know, teachers make about 100/minute, even when home and grading. I am still beating myself up for every mistake or every thing I didn't get done. I can tell myself that I'm fine and ready to go back to work, but TMS tells me I am lying to myself. And because it is choosing to manifest itself as a wildly itchy and very ugly rash all over my neck and upper body, well, I can't ignore it.
I really really really want for this TMS thing to be the greatest blessing of my life--the thing that makes me a gentler, more joyful, more balanced person. I want this to be the tool that an exasperated God gave me because this whole Lent thing just isn't working for me and maybe, as self-centered as it sounds, Lent is less about what happened thousands of years ago and more about how we can be creatures God meant us to be. Some people maybe need to suffer and sacrifice to get there. Maybe others of us need horribly itchy rashes to remember our places in this world. I beat myself up plenty, but, even though that is Lent-like, it's sin because I am making everything here too important. I need to remember that I am dust and to dust I shall return. And everything in the middle is a gift.
So I ate salmon and chocolate and wine during Lent. And I itched.
It's still Lent, but I did not go to church. I can give you reasons for this, mostly all wimpy, but mostly I didn't go to church because I preferred to stay home. I feel a little guilty over adding this to my pile of Lent failures. (My sister asked today, not to accuse but just to be curious, what I had given up for lent. She said, "I forgot what you gave up this year..." I confessed to failing at all of the things that I meant to do to observe lent, including things I usually do even when it's not Lent, like go to church. But as I am writing this to you and thinking about what I was about to write next, about the other thing my sister noticed, I am thinking that what I SHOULD give up for Lent--or forever--is keeping an internal tally sheet of all of the things I suck at. I suck at a lot of things. Can I not just acknowledge that and move on? Why don't I? Add Lent to the list and keep going. Because the real truth about lent, and I know it's true because I just felt tears come as I decided to write it, is that all of the things I suck at don't matter to God. God loves me anyway. Jesus was put to death for crimes he didn't commit and still said "Forgive them, for they know not what they do" to the people who were so horrible they participated in his torture and death. Is there anything I could do worse than that? No. I can suck at EVERYTHING and still be forgiven, and THAT, my internal bully, is what Jesus is about. And that is what I somehow need to really really viscerally learn.
And my TMS is here to help! Yay mind-body syndrome!! At lunch today (for her birthday,) Cassie told me that I was having some sort of reaction to the neck of my sweater. My neck was all covered in a nasty-looking rash. I told her no, I've had the rash for a couple of days, and I've been putting hydrocortisone cream on it, but it's still not gone. "When did you get it?" Cassie asked--as if she knew what I was going to say. I got it Friday, after a hike where there was poison ivy, and a day and a half after I was in the ocean on Thursday morning.
"Right," she said, "but those rashes would be on your ankles, wouldn't they? That's your TMS. It started when you had to come back to your normal life."
Shit. She's totally right. I looked it up, and yes, rashes are often a manifestation of the symptom imperative (the idea that if you haven't solved the mental/emotional root of the problem, a new symptom will sprout from it, even if the old one seems to be on the mend.) Then I read something really helpful and profound from one of the TMS people. He is the TMS equivalent of a motivational speaker. He says that TMS is a thing that causes us to slow down for a minute and see the big picture of our lives. Am I all better? No. I still stress over every little decision, and, as you know, teachers make about 100/minute, even when home and grading. I am still beating myself up for every mistake or every thing I didn't get done. I can tell myself that I'm fine and ready to go back to work, but TMS tells me I am lying to myself. And because it is choosing to manifest itself as a wildly itchy and very ugly rash all over my neck and upper body, well, I can't ignore it.
I really really really want for this TMS thing to be the greatest blessing of my life--the thing that makes me a gentler, more joyful, more balanced person. I want this to be the tool that an exasperated God gave me because this whole Lent thing just isn't working for me and maybe, as self-centered as it sounds, Lent is less about what happened thousands of years ago and more about how we can be creatures God meant us to be. Some people maybe need to suffer and sacrifice to get there. Maybe others of us need horribly itchy rashes to remember our places in this world. I beat myself up plenty, but, even though that is Lent-like, it's sin because I am making everything here too important. I need to remember that I am dust and to dust I shall return. And everything in the middle is a gift.
So I ate salmon and chocolate and wine during Lent. And I itched.