The Butterfly Tree

When my sisters and I were little we had a bedtime routine we followed every night. Primarily it consisted of a bedtime story, song and prayers with our parents. My dad loved to make up songs and one of our favorites was:

Daddy loves Sara (or Becca or Hannah, depending on who’s room they were in)
Daddy loves Sara

Daddy loves Sara

Mommy does too!

Mommy loves Sara

Mommy loves Sara

Mommy loves Sara

Becca does too!

Becca loves Sara…

Well, you get the point. We’d chime in with other people (Grandma Sue! Uncle Bill! Fr. Steve!) to add, often including the dog, until finally Mom and Dad would say “Enough” and tuck us in.

One of our favorite “stories” was the Butterfly Tree, something Dad made up. We didn’t get to hear it often but when we did we were captivated, lulled to sleep with his vivid images. Today is my dad’s birthday. My youngest sister and I are getting butterfly tattoos in celebration of this beloved part of our childhood. I thought, in addition to the tattoo, I’d write a sample of the Butterfly Tree to wish Dad a very happy birthday.


You are walking barefoot through a meadow. The grass is long and soft and a gentle breeze makes it dance. The sun is high in a clear blue sky and warms your skin. The dirt beneath your feet is damp and cool and you wiggle your toes into it. Somewhere in the distance you can hear a brook babbling and you head towards the sound.

When you reach the edge of the meadow and the brook you find a weeping willow, its branches swaying in the wind. You step through the branches like a curtain and sit at the base of the trunk, glad for the cool shade. Out of your backpack you pull out a small bag of popcorn. As you munch on it a squirrel appears, peeking through the willow’s branches, nose twitching, eyes bright.

Slowly you pull a piece of popcorn from your bag and gently toss it toward the squirrel. After a moment’s hesitation the squirrel finally steps into the willow’s circle and picks the popcorn up in its front paws. It nibbles the popcorn gratefully, watching you all the while. You throw another piece of popcorn in the squirrel’s direction, this time a little closer to you.

Eventually the squirrel comes forward and before long, after a trail of popcorn, he’s at your feet. You lean forward, popcorn kernel in your palm and extend it to the squirrel. He sniffs, nose crinkling, and finally accepts the popcorn from your hand. As you lean back he suddenly darts away and up the tree, so fast you hardly see him move.

Smiling you close your eyes and rest your head against the tree, listening to the water tinkle and laugh as it rushes by and hearing the leaves’ rustling response.

When you open your eyes again you discover a small white butterfly flitting around the edges of the willow’s branches. You watch as it darts up and down, suddenly visited by two more similar butterflies. Pretty soon there are at least ten of them, circling and dancing around one another. They fly near and around you but never close enough for you to reach them. As you watch you spot a  few bright green and yellow butterfly, and then electric blue and black butterflies.

For a while the whole inner circle of the willow tree is filled with butterflies of all colors and sizes swirling around you and one another. Your eyes dart, trying to follow their dance. And then, suddenly, they’re gone. For a moment you sit, still and waiting, wondering if they’ll come back.

Just as you think they’ve all gone you catch movement out of the corner of your eye. There is the King butterfly. A huge, brilliantly orange and black monarch has arrived. It flits around the circle and then comes close. You hold out your and hand he lands, lightly, on your finger. His wings open and close slowly as his legs tickle your skin. You sit, watching one another for a while. And then, the monarch lifts off your finger and disappears through the curtain of weeping willow branches.

You rest your head against the trunk of the tree and sigh. Closing your eyes you let the tickle of the breeze and the sounds of the nearby brook lull you to sleep.

When the Going Gets Tough...

…I usually turn around and go the other way.

But then, a couple months ago I joined a running group to train for a 5K. 3.1 miles may not sound like a lot – and indeed, it really isn’t – but I went to the first meeting skeptically. We used the “Couch to 5K” program, alternately running and walking, building up endurance. I was skeptical about my own ability, about whether I'd actually follow through. Never in my life had I run a mile – not even in gym class when we did fitness testing.

For the last 2 months I have gone to all but one of our Tuesday night group training sessions. Most weeks I have trained 2 other times on my own. I have purchased, and used regularly, a foam roller for my aching shins and calves. I have rubbed copious amounts of Tiger Balm into my legs. I have hydrated, and hydrated, and hydrated. I now have cold weather running clothes and have done many, many loads of laundry, trying to keep up with my work out schedule.

The biggest leap in the training program comes in week 5. We went from running 8 minutes, walking 3 minutes, running 8 minutes to running a continuous 20 minutes. I was SO nervous about this jump! I called my sister – a runner and fitness pro – for inspiration before heading out the door on a chilly and cloudy Sunday afternoon. I told her how nervous I was. That I was worried I would feel like stopping. That I wouldn’t be able to make myself keep going. That it would be too hard.

It was during that conversation I realized a deep truth about myself. I do not do things that are hard. It was astonishing to sit back and realize that I have arranged my life so that I don’t have to do difficult things. I suddenly discovered that I generally do not challenge myself. Usually, I take – seek out – the path of least resistance. And, to my chagrin, I can be a quitter.

My sister gave me an excellent pep talk. She assured me that I could do it. I’d been training for it. I was ready for it. My brain might say otherwise but my body was able.

I left my house feeling anxious and uncertain. And then – I DID IT! I gasped and groaned and kept checking my timer for the last 5 minutes but I did it! I got home grinning and swelling with pride.

This morning I ran the 5K we’ve been training for these past 9 weeks. It was hard. It hurt. It rained the entire time. I wasn’t always sure I would make it. But I did. And I feel good! I’m excited to start training for a 10K this spring and a half marathon next fall. I am reveling in what my body can do and overcoming mental hurdles that have been in my way for a long time.

Running has become a metaphor for me. It has challenged me to think about myself and life differently. I have begun to wonder about and look for other ways I have been living complacently and to get ready to tackle things that might have previously seemed too difficult.

The Trials and Tribulations of Online Dating

Last week I created a profile on yet another dating site.  I did this for one of two possible reasons. Either hope truly does spring eternal or I am a glutton for punishment. In my experience online dating can, in one fell swoop, fill you with confidence and promise of possibility and, at the very same instant, cripple you with self-doubt, assuring you that you are entirely undateable.

I know people who have had great experiences with online dating. And everyone “knows someone” who met their spouse on [fill in the blank with one of the innumerable dating sites out there]. This all just serves to keep that fickle temptress named Hope alive.

And so, let me tell you a story about the out of control, distracted, sleep deprived spaz online dating has turned me into this past week. It all started last Tuesday when a new friend from my running group told me about the dates she’d been on through a dating site I hadn’t tried yet (and let me tell you – I have tried many). On a whim I decided I would go ahead and sign-up. I’m new to the area and it would be a good way to “get out there” and meet people.

On Thursday I created a profile, answering questions about things as mundane as my hair color and birth order to the more substantial such as how important religion is to me and “how ambitious” I am. I uploaded the cutest, most flattering pictures of myself, wrote a brief summary “about me” and then let the games begin.

BAM! My phone started going crazy. Men “wanted to meet” me, they “favorited” my profile, and then they started messaging me. A very, very cute 22 year old messaged me and asked me out – suddenly I was aware that I am, in fact, old enough to be a "cougar". Another man messaged me and at first seemed innocuous enough but our conversation quickly escalated to his persistent, repeated question: “Would you tickle me?”

Oh dear. What made me think it would be different this time?

But then, my phone pinged. Someone “wanted to meet” me. I clicked on his profile and that tease Hope flared again. Here was a very sane, together seeming man. Significantly older than me – ok, not outrageously so but enough to notice. He was witty, a little self-deprecating, smart, very cute.

I messaged him and we began talking. Sometimes light and funny and a little flirty. Sometimes dry and a little formal. I was excited about him and eager to meet and realize how “right for each other” we are.

In the span of 24 hours I went from being a sane, rational, relatively calm human being to a wriggling, simpering mass of nerves. Is it too soon write back? Did I say the right thing? Am I coming on too strong? Am I being too introspective? Why hasn’t he written me back yet? And on and on…

Well, after a fairly consistent back and forth (for 4 days) I asked him out. I have, for the past week, been filled with a nervous, bold, flirty energy and decided to just go for it. He seemed interested. I felt good and excited.

BAM! I told him a date and time I was available and asked if it worked for him. SILENCE. I have heard nothing since Monday night.

What happened?

And this, my friends, is the thing about online dating. This is the real dilemma. We can never know what happened to the person who stops responding. Instead, we are left to wonder what went wrong. To ask “was it me?” And this is when I start to spiral.

Here is a sample of the various scenarios that have run through my head since Monday night and the potential ways I have come up with to “handle” the situation:

Did I come on too strong?

Was he not ready to date or to meet?

Was I too forward? Should I have waited for him to ask me out?

Was my flirting too over the top? Or was it too subtle and just fell flat?

Was I too introspective and serious?

Did I ask too many questions? Not enough?

Maybe I came off as too confident and intimidating?

Did he get distracted and busy?

Does he not realize we didn’t actually finalize our plans?

Is he talking to someone else he’s more interested in?

Has his work and writing project (did I mention he’s doing NaNoWriMo? How hot is that!?) and his kids just overwhelm his time and he hasn’t thought about online dating since Monday?

Was there a horrible, tragic accident and even now he is lying in a coma in a hospital bed?

No matter the myriad possibilities, rightly or wrongly, I am left wondering – What did I do wrong?

And so, I have written many responses to his lack of response in my head, trying (and failing) to be light and breezy, no pressure, not needy or pushy, to try and understand what happened.

Things like:

“Hey, I haven’t heard from you in a while. Just thought I’d check-in to see if we’re still on for Tuesday.”

Or

“Hey, so you never got back to me. I hope you had a good week. Do you still want to go out on Tuesday?”

Or

“Hey there buddy, I haven’t heard back from you about Tuesday. I have a date on Saturday that I am really kind of dreading and I’d love it if I had something to look forward to on Tuesday.”

Or

“Since I haven't heard from you I'm assuming you actually aren't interested. If you’re too busy right now or just aren’t interested that’s ok. JUST TELL ME!”

Each feels desperate and pushy and I feel increasingly irrational and unstable and I look over the past week and I think What happened to me!? I don’t even know this person! Why do I care? Why have I let this affect me so much?

I will likely send something resembling the first two on Saturday. In the meantime I am trying to ground myself, to remember that I am a fairly competent, together individual.

It’s hard to meet new people when you move a new town. When you’re not in school. When you live alone. Online dating is one way to help ease that challenge.

It is a game, though, with subtle rules and strategy. You've got to play it to win. This is where I have a hard time. I am not good at the game. I don't, in fact, want to play. I don't put in the energy, time and focus it requires. I go in spurts of activity. So, I just need to take a deep breath, remind myself that it is, in fact, not me and just keep on keeping on.

I doubt it...

I grew up in a home that took faith for granted. That my sisters and I were or would be Christians was never a question. We went to church, Sunday school and youth group regularly – read: weekly, without fail, uphill both ways. We talked about theology and the church and the world at the dinner table. We prayed before every meal. We prayed at bedtime. We prayed after reading one of the Gospel Christmas stories, our stockings in our laps waiting eagerly to be unwrapped.

The assumption was we believed. Our theological formation mattered and our parents took great care in helping us to grow into critical thinkers, to be kind and generous, to love our neighbors as ourselves, to pray often. They tried to instill the habit and rhythm of church attendance and participation. But the actual “if” of believing was never addressed.

To be fair, I don’t think either of my sisters ever talked to my parents about any doubts they may have had. I certainly didn’t. But by the time I did begin wrestling with doubt I was in my early 20s and was fairly certain it would upset my parents too much to know that I didn’t think I believed any of it anymore. I felt like I had failed them. So I swallowed down the lump of doubt that stuck in my throat and “talked the talk” I’d learned so well. It was surprisingly easy to fake faith.

My first experiences with doubt were while I was a student at Calvin College. It was particularly painful because I was surrounded by comfortably certain peers – or, at least, they appeared happy and easy in the certainty of their faith. I stopped going to church off campus or chapel on because it hurt too much. I was sinking into what I now know was depression but what I only then knew as darkness. I was scared. Everything I thought I knew was suddenly gone, like the floor had been ripped out from under me and I couldn’t find solid ground to stand on.

I was particularly stuck on the idea of “proof”. Science could not prove God – no, it couldn’t disprove God either but that was much less compelling at the time. It could, however, explain much of what we as Christians like to attribute to God. When something was worrying me and I prayed about it, psychology could explain the relief and calm I felt afterwards, I reasoned. I had good friends who were atheists and Buddhists and they were some of the kindest, most generous people I knew - Christians certainly did not own the market on that. So, if we can’t prove God exists and Christians aren’t notably different from others how can any of this be true?

I became angry. I felt duped. I’d spent years believing this set of ideas and living a certain way because of them and it was all a lie. What a waste of time.

I couldn’t talk to my parents about it. I was sure my mom would cry and my dad would shove theological essays and books at me, all about “doubt” and “truth”. I couldn’t talk to my friends. They were all content to continue to go to church and sing praise songs and be “Jesus freaks”.

After graduating I moved back to my hometown and started going to my parent’s church. Not because I believed any of it but because it was home, because I loved the people there deeply and longed for somewhere to belong. For months I had to walk out after the sermon only to return just in time to take communion – missing the Nicene Creed, the Prayers of the People and the Eucharistic Prayer. I just couldn’t handle that part. I kept ducking back in for Communion, though. I knelt at the altar rail and looked at the other parishioners and loved them and envied them. I wanted to believe. I wanted to know what the truth was.

As I continued to doubt and fret I began to wonder if I needed to make a drastic lifestyle change. I was still living the way I had when I was a Christian. If I didn’t believe any of it anymore why was I still acting like it? I figured I should start sleeping around and shooting heroine and generally being a jerk – it was a naïve and simplistic understanding of piety and Christian living to say the least. The overhaul in my lifestyle never came, which only served to frustrate me further.

The issue of Jesus never stopped nagging me. As much as I had stopped believing much of what I’d been raised to accept as truth I could not give up Jesus. It was easy to accept his human, 30ish years on earth, but more than that, I couldn’t stop believing in him as real today, as personal. I couldn’t stop believing in him as the Son of God. I didn’t know what to do with that.

And then my dad asked me to teach middle school Sunday school.

I am not entirely certain why I said yes – except that I felt like to say no I’d have to also tell him about my doubt and fears and anger and disappointment. Teaching the class felt safer and easier. It turned out to be one of the most fun, life giving things I have ever done. I fell in love with those middle schoolers and we had a blast doing Bible study and playing games together. It also kept me coming back to church.

One Sunday, in late fall, as I knelt at the altar rail and my mom sang a solo I started to cry. Something in me broke open. “Ok,” I said, inwardly, “Fine. It can’t be proven. I will never know for sure. But I still want this. I choose to believe in all this wild, irrational grace, forgiveness, love, justice, trinity stuff. I choose to be a part of the church.” I walked home after church sort of in awe. I felt so light and unburdened.

I cannot explain what changed. I truly do not know. Since then I have had moments of doubt – I currently can hardly say “He will come again” in the Nicene Creed – but I am grounded differently. Grounded in the choosing and the opening up to the mystery of it all.

What I have come to realize is that in those years of doubt what I needed was someone to say “It’s ok. Doubt is a normal and healthy part of faith. I am here for you. You don’t need to do this alone.” And maybe, had I given them the benefit of the doubt (pun intended?) my parents would have done just that.

I appreciate the Episcopal church’s ability to do much of this. We are eager to say “It’s ok! Doubt is ok!” And it is. My hope and prayer, though, is that we can offer more. Let’s tell our own stories of doubt and faith, of the darkness and the light, of the uncertainty and the choosing. Let’s acknowledge that even though doubt is ok, it can also be lonely and scary. Let’s assure one another that this path does not need to be walked alone. AND, let’s find ways to share Truth with one another that is not alienating and isolating but instead affirming and inclusive.

Body Positive

A couple weeks ago a friend and I took a day trip to Calistoga to visit a spa for a mud bath, mineral bath, steam room and towel wrap. It was a day of rest and relaxation and pampering, much looked forward to. Before going I asked my friend if we would need swimwear for our treatments. Neither of us had done anything quite like this before so neither of us knew what to expect. I decided to call and ask to just to be sure – knowing would help relieve anxiety, wouldn’t it?

The woman on the phone was friendly and cheerful when I called. It was clear that she’d gotten the question before. “Yes, bring a suit for the mineral pools. The mud baths are nude.” Funny how hearing that made my stomach do a flip. Even though I was sure I’d have a private room and wouldn’t actually be naked in front of anyone I still felt slightly queasy.

When we arrived at the spa we were assigned lockers, given giant towels (more like blankets than anything, really) and told to strip. Dutifully we tucked our things into our lockers and undressed with a deftness learned and finely honed in middle school, balancing the towels wrapped around our bodies in one hand while unclasping and tugging at our clothes with the other. It is a funny and humbling thing to be a 30-something woman with the same sensibilities and self-consciousness of a 13 year old. My friend and I were the only ones in the locker room at that point and yet we hid and protected our bodies as if we were strangers.

I was not prepared for what we walked into after we left the locker room. In one large room were several tubs filled with mud, showers, and more tubs full of water. Our spa attendants greeted us, explained the process, and then extended their hands expectantly, ready for our towels.

I experienced a moment of panic. You want me to drop the only thing protecting me from total exposure? You want me to hand over my towel and stand naked in front of you and my friend? I suddenly felt so shy and fragile. For one brief and flashing second I thought about asking if perhaps they had a private room I might use.

Instead, I gritted my teeth, pretended I was at ease, and relinquished what had become my adult security blanket. I stepped into the shower, not bothering to draw the curtain closed, rinsed off and stepped back out. My attendant then guided me to my mud bath and helped me get in. I wriggled and squirmed and sank into the delightfully hot and gloriously obscuring mud until my nakedness was covered.

My friend and I soaked in neighboring mud baths for 15 minutes. I, for one, was coursing with adrenaline as I processed my unexpected, and what felt like public, nakedness. Not only was I suddenly naked in front of one of my closest friends – a woman I have been vulnerable with in many other ways – but also with strangers – clothed strangers.

As I tried to surrender to the calm tugging at me during that mud bath I began to contemplate nakedness, vulnerability and body image. Why was it so uncomfortable to be naked in front of someone that I trusted, who knows me well and whom I know well? Was there an as yet un-experienced power imbalance between the attendants and me because I was forced to be suddenly vulnerable with them while they remained clothed? Why was I feeling such shame and embarrassment about my body? Where did that come from?

Sure, I don’t look the way I would like to. I would like to lose weight. I have stretch marks and cellulite and insane tan lines. I am not hairless or spotless or without scars.  In so many ways I do not fit the standard of beauty I compare myself to, even though I know better than to compare myself with what the media offers. And I reminded myself that I know almost no one who fits that absurd standard and even fewer people who feel good about and happy with their bodies.

I ended up thinking a lot about Anne Lamott and her essay in Traveling Mercies about her “Aunties”. She writes about heading to the beach and being “ambushed” by a group of young, fit teenage girls and the shame she felt standing next to them, comparing her body to theirs. But then she goes back to her hotel room and is filled with affection for her thighs and the rest of her body and the life they represent. As I soaked and steamed and sweat I started thinking about what my body has been through, the places it has taken me, the things I do like about it.

By the end of our time in the spa I began to think about my body differently. It has traveled the country with me. It has packed and unpacked new and old apartments. It has hugged loved ones, offered a shoulder to cry on. It has danced at weddings. It has sweated through Bikram yoga classes and Zumba classes and seasons of jogging. It has slept on the floor at youth retreats, been bruised and sprained from epic dodge ball games. It has climbed up to roofs in Mississippi to help with Katrina relief. It has laughed deeply and often. It has been wracked with sobs in grief and in celebration. It is mine. I would not trade this body and the experiences it has lived through and the people it has loved for anything.

Eventually, as I laid on the table, my towel draped over me and light, plinky music playing in the back ground I began to wonder about how I might take better care of my body, how I might show it appreciation and tenderness. I committed to more fresh fruits, vegetables and water. I committed to using it more often to run and to do yoga and to play. I committed to getting better and more consistent sleep. I committed to pedicures and massages. And when I can’t afford a pedicure or a massage I committed to bubble baths and hammocks and lotion. I committed to sunscreen. I committed to more laughter and more touch. I committed to less magazines and commercials and other such things that perpetuate the unhealthy game of comparing myself to fiction.  I committed to surrounding myself with good friends who are supportive and encouraging and committed to being body positive with me.

I have been wondering, since, about our aversion to nudity. It seems to permeate not just to our bodies but to vulnerability in general in this culture. What would it be like if we practiced exposing ourselves more often, in healthy and constructive ways? What would it be like if we supported others as they practiced this same thing with us?