We got Elfed!

Sunday, December 9, 2007


Hey, we just made total elves out of ourselves!! Click on the link below to see the Mueller family having a little holiday fun!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1257324002


This elfin' greeting brought to you by OfficeMax®.

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Tears Talk, Part IV

Saturday, December 8, 2007

The Instinct to Heal

"Mourning is not just suffering. It is productive suffering. Mourning is about processing the hurt, about expanding the self, about growing and moving on – without having been crippled or diminished by the loss. Mourning is complicated. It takes time. It takes creativity." Robert Karen, PhD


Today is Friday. It’s the first time our women’s group has gathered since Beth’s funeral. Sitting around a large conference table in the church library without our dear friend (there are only nineteen of us now), it seems we each wear our losses differently. Our meetings usually open with announcements, and then we take turns answering a given question. Sophie suggests we spend our time reflecting on Beth, and what she meant to us. The question she offers is, "How do you grieve?"

Nicole jokes, "I think it’ll be okay if we deviate from one of our usual what-color-underwear-do-you-have-on questions, don’t ya think girls?" We can always count on her for a good giggle. She is smiling so hard it looks like it hurts. And she’s just getting started.... "Or, maybe we should pair the two questions: How do you grieve, and what color underwear are you wearing?"

Everyone bursts into laughter that’s a little too loud. Are we grateful for the unexpected levity, or have we been holding our breath for days?

The first two women in the circle actually try to answer both questions, and the humor quickly spirals south (literally). When it’s Karly’s turn, however, she snaps at us with a motherly reprimand. "Enough with the underwear already! Let’s just answer the first question."

She’s a bubbly personality herself, but today she’s simmering with seriousness. "Okay, what’s the question again? How do we grieve?" She is burning a hole into the table with her stare, as nervous as a schoolgirl taking an important quiz. "Ummmm. Well, I don’t know. Do you mean where am I at with grieving Beth’s death?"

Sophie clarifies that the question is more general than that. "No, Kar, it’s just how you process grief. But you can answer however you want."

Karly’s lips are pressed tightly together. She is shifting in her seat. Crossing her arms. Uncrossing them. "I don’t think I know what to say. It’s too hard to put into words." There is a long pause before she blurts, "I guess I just talk to people."

The group breathes a collective sigh of relief, and moves the question clockwise. It seems the question’s a hard one. Several women admit to stifling tears. They say they do it because they don’t want to heap their pain onto anyone else. But I wonder if they’re only protecting themselves and inadvertently preserving the cultural taboo.

I find it interesting that six of us (almost 1/3 of the group) admit we don’t grieve "well." We’re at a loss for how to do it. We keep busy, avoid, ignore, pretend.

Creative Grief

Whatever our learned emotional habits, depression can teach us how to quiet ourselves in the center of our pain.

The funeral for Beth was filled with beautiful liturgy and music. There’s something about relying on ceremony to help with grief that feels right and helpful: wearing mourning attire, gathering together, sharing stories, sharing a meal, throwing fistfuls of dirt onto a lowered casket, giving our friend’s body back to the earth. Sitting in the church sanctuary with hundreds of other heavy hearts, I wondered about the role ceremony could play in helping women move through depression. How can we collectively grieve our losses? Do we do it already? When? Where?

It was comforting for me to partake in a funeral with everyone who knew and loved Beth. It was a day where we shared few words, but felt a deep bond. Simply serving a meal to grieving family members, and cleaning up afterwards was healing. But in the days that followed the funeral, I was left to process my feelings alone. For some reason (perhaps it was instinct) I found new inspiration to work on my scrapbooking.

I had been making a baby book for my youngest son, Sean. He was already nine months old, and to date, I had only finished the book’s title page. My kitchen table looked like a messy collage of photo envelopes,"It’s a Boy" stickers, colored paper, funky scissors, die cuts, and other creative materials.

It took me awhile to get started, because I had a mound of memorabilia to leaf through: hospital i.d. bracelets, card after card after card of congratulation, ultra sound pictures, Sean’s footprints and birth certificate. I lingered over each item. And then gently fingered a striped pink-and-blue hat, remembering how snugly it had fit over Sean’s delicate, dark head of hair. It certainly wouldn’t fit into a scrapbook. What would I do with it? It was a precious piece of him, and I couldn’t throw it away. I set it aside, undecided.

Eventually I moved to sorting through pictures. They stirred up feelings of loss and love: I’ll never forget cradling that warm, sweet-smelling bundle in my arms. What a gift it was to feel those tiny ‘fresh-from-God’ fingers clutching my thumb. Would he ever again play with my hair like that? And the maternal look on my oldest daughter’s face when she first held her infant brother–tender, touching.

These treasured moments were lost to me forever. And yet, placing the pictures onto album pages, and knowing the value of visual storytelling was healing. It felt as if a beautiful heirloom vase had been shattered, and I was on my knees, gathering all of the precious pieces together for a new work of art–a mournful mosaic.

Allowing ourselves to feel these little griefs can help us process the "bigger" stuff. In a sort of mental, non-literal scrapbook, we can shuffle and reshuffle different memories, searching for balance, symmetry, beauty. We need to remember, reflect, and make sense of our loss. More than just thinking about it, though, it’s necessary to feel our way through the creative process. It’s spiritual metamorphosis. Our whole being can shift, respond, change.

The Cocoon of Depression

I believe creative mourning is the call of depression. Mourning becomes creative when we allow ourselves to go to our dark places, trusting that grace will help us emerge alive, awake and new. We visit our pain, attend to it, and linger over our losses in a way that helps us heal.
Mourning can feel as strange, ugly, and mysterious as a caterpillar’s cocoon, but the process is transforming.

Many of my depressed days were spent wrapped in the blankets of my bed. I knew that I couldn’t remain swaddled in my king-size covers forever, even though some days I wanted to–desperately. Willing myself to roll out of bed felt like begging a paralytic to scale Mt. Everest. I’d lie in bed and wonder how I was going to make it through another day, when suddenly I’d hear the sound of a heavy chair being dragged across the kitchen floor, and I’d roll, because I knew within moments my daughter would be making a dangerous climb to the breakfast bowls.

Those mornings in bed–although they felt very cocoonish–weren’t my most creative moments with depression. I was hiding from my pain, resisting the day. I began moving towards a more creative form of mourning, however, when I promised to be gentle with myself, expecting less than my usual perfectionistic standards. I told myself I would move slowly (ha! as if depression truly gave me a choice in this), honor my pain, listen, learn, breathe, and retreat when I had my husband’s support with the kids.

But, it was only on the drive to my weekly therapy appointments when I seemed to follow through on this approach. Sitting in traffic, anticipating my therapist’s questions, I’d finally connect with my soul. I’d settle into some neglected part of myself, give a soul-sick sigh, and cry. As painful as it was, it felt like I’d begrudgingly returned from a long and lonely journey, and come home. Then, sadly, I’d wonder why all the other days of the week I had abandoned this blessed, Spirit-nurturing place that promised healing.

For these reasons, the 30-minute drive to therapy became almost as important as the therapy sessions themselves. My car was a cocoon of "me" time. I was no longer surviving the tasks of my day, I was attending to myself. Very few others (my husband, therapist, and one friend) were willing to listen repeatedly to the relentless wails of my heart, but I could listen. And when I did, it was healing.

I’d leaf through my thoughts, feelings and memories like they were artful photos in need of safe keeping. They would tell me stories, and I’d let my tears inform, guide, sustain and change me. They became loyal, wise, truth-telling companions that caressed my cheeks and clung to my chin.
Rarely did I wipe them away. They were a precious piece of me.

"Thou hast taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Thy bottle." Psalm 56:8

This post is the fourth and final in a series on Listening to Depression. To read the first three posts, check out those entries titled Tears Talk, Part I - Part III.

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Bearing Grief

Thursday, December 6, 2007

I've been thinking more about grief, and how each one of us in life has sorrows to carry. Grief comes in all different shapes and sizes, and the reality of it sneaks up on us in different ways.

For some it is like a jack-in-the-box--unexpectedly jumping as we wind and wind and wind through the ordinariness of our days. It surprises, and we stuff it back down where we'd rather it stay--latching the lid tight.

For others, grief is like a thief in the night. Stealing in to our private places and robbing us of familiar pleasures and joys.

For me, during this season, grief has been like a warm scarf. I've been more at peace with the pain-filled nature of life. I wear grief comfortably, trusting it will serve its purpose, perhaps warming my neck until the cold season turns.

Jesus, too, was familiar with grief. Isaiah 53: 3, 4 says:

"He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. . . "

What a sad image: "Like one from whom men hide their faces." And what a gift: "He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows." It makes me wonder, perhaps people despised their Savior and turned away because He wore grief like skin.


A Blessing for the New Baby
by Lucy Shaw

Lightly as a falling star, immense, may you
drop into the body of the pure young girl like a seed
into its furrow, entering your narrow home under the shadow
of Gabriel’s feathers. May your flesh shape itself within her,
swelling her with shame and glory. May her belly grow
round as a small planet, a bowl of golden fruit.

When you suck in your first breath, and your loud cries
echo through the cave (Blessing on you, little howler!)
may Mary adorn you with tears and caresses like ribbons,
her face glowing, a moon among stars. At her breasts
may you drink the milk of mortality that transforms you,
even more, into one of your own creatures.

And now, as the night of this world folds you in
its brutal frost (the barnyard smells of sin),
and as Joseph, weary with unwelcome and relief, his hands
bloody from your birth, spreads his thin cloak
around you both, we doubly bless you, Baby,
as you are acquainted, for the first time, with our grief.

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Advent - Beginnings & Endings

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Yesterday, snow fell from the sky, blanketing our Minnesota earth in eight inches of beautiful white. I shoveled the driveway (several times) while the kids played with sleds, made lopsided snowangels, and tried to form snowballs out of fluff. Their laughter and play--along with the steadfast flakes that silently laced everything in wedding white--filled me with a rare peace.

It was much needed, because on this second day of Advent, I'm mourning an approaching death. The dear husband of a cherished, life long friend is dying. I keep thinking, He's too young. She's too young. Their kids are too little. I cannot fathom the road that lies ahead--how they can possibly find the gracious words and loving actions to say goodbye.

As I pray for them, and prepare my heart for these two--seemingly polar--opposites, I sense that I am at the precipice of an impossible divide. How do I ready myself for Christ's birth and at the same time, John's death? The two realities seems to whisper, We are closer than you think.

Birth and death are treacherous journeys, both. Neither are "easy." I am led to throw out commercial and sentimentalized images of Christ's birth--welcoming instead his heaven-to-earth crossing as dangerous, grievous, lonely, painful, but ever-hopeful. Looking at the divide in this way nudges me to ask:

Do I enter Advent and wait with the same depth of pondering, wondering, asking, searching, humility and prayer I have given to death, specifically John's?

In this season, and through many more deaths and births, I pray for the wisdom to journey well. I want to walk with companions of Love, Hope, Patience, Peace, Gentleness, Self-Control. May Christ be my All-Knowing guide.

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Tears Talk, Part III

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Good Grief
"I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness, sad as an eagle without wings, sad as a violin with only one string and one that is broken, sad as a woman who is growing old."
Jean Rhys

It’s Monday, another sacred morning with Sophie. Together, we are writing a eulogy for our mutual friend, Beth. She died of a Lupus-related heart attack on Sunday at the age of 44. When Sophie received news of Beth’s fatal accident, she immediately got into her car and came over. Once again, she is on my couch. And I’m in my blue chair. But, I am trembling with anxiety. She is filled with grief.

Struggling to calm my nerves, I blurt, "Anxiety is my signal. I must be avoiding how awful I truly feel about this." Beth was a caring, generous woman from my Friday women’s group. I had cried when I first got the call about losing her, but not since.

"I know it sounds irreverent," starts Sophie with a giggle. "But Beth would have found it hilarious that she died in the church bathroom." My friend, who is a Sandra Bullock look-alike, begins bubbling with a mixture of laughter and tears. She sits Indian-style in the center of my couch, slapping her knee with her right hand and wiping tears with the back of the hand that holds her Cinnamint tea. "Can’t you just hear her making a joke about it? She had such an amazing sense of humor."

I can’t even muster a chuckle. My Mindy Smith C.D. is sending soulful wails around the living room in a way that now feels intrusive. I get up from my chair, cross the room, and turn her off.

"It’ll feel weird going to group on Friday without Beth there. I can’t imagine moving on without her. I wish we didn’t have to continue this stupid study on Grace."

Sophie sets her tea on my kid-battered coffee table, and folds her hands into her lap, reflectively. With such a calm pose, it looks like she’s praying. Then, she tilts her chin at me, nudging my perspective. "I know how you feel. But I think grace is exactly what we need right now."

As usual, Sophie is wise, sensitive, and right as rain. But instead of responding, I hand her a pen and paper so she can record memories of our dear friend for the funeral. Then, I collapse back into my comfy blue chair like a nervous overweight ragdoll, and remind myself, Breathe Cheri. Just breathe.

Paralyzed with Pain

Anxiety often masks tears. It can be a symptom of unprocessed grief. It creeps in when we don’t feel permitted to cry, wail, weep, wallow, suffer or grieve. Or, if we succumb to sadness, it attacks when we place unrealistic parameters on our pain: We sniffle a little, but dare not let grief disrupt our composure, contort our face, or knock us to our knees; We cry, but only in culturally-defined permissable settings, at a funeral, for example, but never in our professional lives or in line at the grocery store. We reflect on our losses, but only for a short season before feeling the need to pull ourselves together and ‘move on.’ Then, anxiety bubbles up like a warning.

Anxiety can signal that we’re too accustomed to strong emotional kicks in the butt: We engage in vigorous mental aerobics to shake unwanted feelings free. We scramble to find diversions. We race away from ourselves on relentless treadmills, wanting to forget how deeply we mourn. But then suddenly, we can’t even do a spiritual sit up. We lose our ability to feel.

Worried that we’ll never again enjoy the taste of anything but tears, we ask ourselves where the upbeat, passionate, determined sides of our personalities have gone. When attitude-muscles have always worked for us, it’s terrifying to feel useless, paralyzed, broken.

And yet, cultural messages crop up everywhere: T.V. commercials chant "Just Do It" while the image of a well-toned woman running down a tree-lined street, glows with sweat and pride at the ability to make life happen according to her own terms; Sermons from the church pulpit suggest–when things go wrong, pray harder, aim higher; Spiritual self-help books offer challenges–focus less on yourself and more on other people’s problems. And so we struggle to pull ourselves together, patch up our pain.

Every last ounce of energy is spent trying to avoid depression. Perhaps, inadvertently, we are walking right into depression's cause.

In so many ways, culture ties heavy stones around our necks, cautioning us to stay in shallow emotional waters lest we drown. But if we never learn to swim, what happens when tides rush in, and we’re swamped with unexpected deep?

Nobody tells us that if we muffle our tears, we risk silencing our souls.

This is Part III in a series about listening to depression. To read the first two posts, check out Tears Talk, Part I and Tears Talk, Part II.

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A Lost Poem

Thursday, November 29, 2007

I sat down at the computer this morning to check up on a few blogs, when I noticed an old notebook lying at my feet. The kids must have pulled it off the bookshelf and left it here, I thought. Flipping through the pages, I discovered it was a journal of mine from last summer. And in reading some of the entries, I was shocked to see how despairing I was about our financial situation back then.

I am in such a different place now.

Things are still bad, but we're moving forward with plans for bankruptcy. December is a difficult time to be dealing with all of this. But, overall I am at peace.

At the same time I move through this season with such a sensitivity to materialism. Maybe that's why the following poem (from a July journal entry) is one I feel compelled to share:

We reach
tears leaking from our fingertips,
grief
puddling
at other people's feet

there's nowhere
for grief to go
but down
and out. . .

it rains, rains, rains

on the self-righteous
who hold sturdy umbrellas
and large shopping bags
determined

to look the other way

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Hands-On Jesus

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Christmas decorations are up: the tree is trimmed with red bows and twinkling lights, our Dickens village has been sprinkled with snow, and the Fontanini creche is sitting in our bay window. The creche is my favorite part of Christmas preparations. A mom-friend who understands my affinity for accessibility gave it to me as a gift--4" resin figures, perfect for sticky-fingered kids that like to play.

This year, while Sean napped, Ryker helped set up the creche. As he pulled the rustic-looking stable from its off-season nest, Ryker exclaimed (as if truly seeing for the first time) "Why would God put Jesus in here?"

It was the perfect opportunity to retell the story of Joseph and Mary's journey to Bethelehem. And to explain how they searched for hopsitality when labor pains urged, "It's time, it's time!"

Within seconds of finishing the story, Sean woke up and came prancing towards the moss-lined stable, saying, "Is this mine, mommy?"

"Yes, it's yours!" I said, picking up the small resin figures for some fresh introductions. "Do you know who this is?" Sean had played with the nativity set as a 2-year old, but I wondered if he'd remember the baby Jesus. He shook his head no.

"This is baby Jesus. And this is Jesus' mommy--Mary, and Jesus' daddy--Joseph."

Instantly, he was at play, shuffling the figures around, repeating what he'd heard. "This is baby-Jesus. This is Mommy-Jesus, and this is Daddy-Jesus." My heart swelled and tingled when he said, "Mommy-Jesus."

I love it when my children unpack and play with the Christmas story. Not only do Mary, Joseph and Jesus do cartwheels and somersaults, but I love the way my kids turn things over and over in their mind, shaking Truth up like a snowglobe and watching what happens.

It's pure magic.

Or maybe it's pure risk. Of course leaving the creche within easy reach of a three-year old (or even a cynical thirty-year old) is always a risk. But losing the tiny 2" Jesus from week to week--finding him inside sippy cups, and dangling from Christmas tree branches, or nestled between blankets in the children's beds--is what it's all about. I'd have it no other way.

Because Jesus is supposed to be "hands-on."

It's the whole point of the Christmas story: Jesus risked everything, subjecting himself to human hands with the chance of getting lost, mistreated, rejected, abused. But in the end, accessiblity is what mattered most.

The idea of accessibility makes me wonder about the church. Are we too protective of Jesus--worried about sticky fingers, or fearful about where he'll end up if we let people "play" with their theology, prayers, and growing perspectives in life? If so, what magic might we be missing?

Maybe Jesus is a snow globe, and along with him we must get turned on our heads to discover truth that glitters like gold. If we're willing to shake things up a bit, or be shaken, maybe this Christmas we'll discover Jesus not only in a stinky stable, but in new places, too--in loveless living rooms, sterile hospitals, flourescent-lit shopping malls, empty bank accounts, over-indulgent parties, dark alleyways, and beneath the covers of our own quiet beds--close, close, close to the places where we need him most.

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