DIFFERENTIATION

Concentric circles have always been a very important part of my journey to know God and to know myself. I am reminded of them again this morning as I consider the task of the last 24 years of my life, differentiation. Differentiation means to form or mark differently from other such things, to distinguish, to change or alter, to perceive the difference in or between. And differentiation is the task we are to make as we journey through life - it is "soul formation".  We are born into a family, a culture, and we spend our formative years being molded into an image. Soul formation demands that we find our own face, that we differentiate and become our own true self.  And it's quite a job...pretty much a life-time task.

And that's the work that I feel was finished yesterday with the burial of my mother. I didn't plan that. Who knew? But it feels like what happened.  

For a few days before we left for East Texas, I had felt a dread.  I've hated East Texas for a long time, and I've blamed a lot of my "stuff" on that place and that culture. And now, a very important piece of me was headed there to be buried in that red dirt, and I felt a heaviness, a sadness, a "stuckness".  But that's NOT what happened. What was fully and finally set free yesterday was my soul.  I am me, and I like me.  Me is beautiful, sure, grace-filled, conscious (most of the time), and free.

There was a hugeness about yesterday, which included a letting go and letting my brothers do what they do best.  For the most part yesterday, I was an observer, a smal-time bit player in the final act of my mother's life.  And I had a great view of the whole show.

I watched as my older brother's love and sense of calm blanketed the whole of yesterday. I watched as he tenderly held and carried my mother's ashes from the pavilion where we gathered for the service to the waiting open grave, her final resting place. It was as if I was watching him walk beside her as I've seen him many times over the last few years, tenderly helping her find her way home. He is the family patriarch now. He is the glue that holds us still together. He is wise and gentle, and kind - very kind. And I am grateful.

And my middle brother, the family historian, took care of everything at the cemetery.  He's taken care of all this little final details that some of us would overlook because "it's not our thing". He taken care of having the stone engraved. He's ordered flower urns for each side of the stone, and will have R.B. and Millie engraved them. And, I figure, as long as he and his wife live there close, Mother's and Daddy's graves will be cared for.  And in a way that surprises me, that comforts me. And I am grateful.

And my baby brother gave the final service, one that celebrated the life of my mother - not my best friend, but my mother.  And I needed that - something else that surprises me. I listened as he spoke of the Proverbs 31 woman, and I smiled.  She loved and fulfilled that role perfectly, while I have hated that passage and failed at it so miserably. I could feel her next to me saying, "It is what it is." My brother helped us celebrate her roots, her love for Daddy and their life together, and with his help, we celebrated the giving of her life to us, her children. I am grateful.

It has all comforted me.  And what are final "good-byes" to be, if not a comfort? Between the two services we held for Mother, we celebrated the whole of her, what she had been for us all her life, and what she became for herself and to so many others in her later years. And I am fully and finally grateful.

But something else happened yesterday, something inside of me. I felt a release, as if a great work had been finished.

Early Friday morning, with a very heavy heart, feet that dragged, and a pain in my spirit, I wrote this poem.

Burial Grounds

Back to the red dirt that stains your feet

like the culture stains your soul.

Back to the red clay that grips your feet

and holds them in place,

captive.

Boxes too small for large-lived lives.

Dreary and musty,

Not antique, just old

Dilapidated

Outdated.

Broken dreams

Broken spirits

Shadows, limits, failures, heartache

And lies spoken about ourselves,

our value and our worth as women – human beings in our own right.

Lies told about God and his expectations of our lives.

Creating a false me

A bound me

A crippled me

A caged me

A just-common me.

Clipped wings

Tail feather plucked

Grounded.

She and I soared together

Wild and free

All restraints broken.

She is fully and finally liberated.

She prays for me.

I didn't want to go back to East Texas.  I didn't want to leave my mother there. I knew that's what she wanted, so I was willing to do it, but I didn't want to.

Jim and I talked about it on the way home. Something inside of me let go of my hatred of East Texas. Something let go of the shame of being an East Texas girl. Something inside of me quit blaming East Texas for my "stuff".  It's just a place. That's all - a place on a map, a spot on the earth.

For so long, I've hated East Texas. I still know why. It's complicated.

But reality is, I lived there for 12 years of my life, just 12 years - only 12 of 64 years. That's all, not even one quarter of my life was spent there. The first 10 years of my life were spent in West Texas, and the last 40-plus years have been spent right here, on the Gulf Coast. This is where I raised my children.  This is where I met the love of my life. This is my home.  East Texas is just a place where I lived along the way. My parents are buried there, so a little of my heart is there, but it no longer defines me.

Who knew forgiveness includes places and cultures? And forgiveness is really about setting our own souls free to love and to grow. That's the release that came for me yesterday. I forgave a place and a culture. I have let it go to be what it is. And I am as free as she is.

I woke up during the night last night thinking of that double headstone, with R.B. on one side and Millie on the other. The journey of my own soul began with the burial of my daddy all those years ago. The realization of my soul fully came yesterday with the burial of my mother.  It has taken me 24 years to "become" my own face. But I am fully and finally me.

When my dad died 24 years ago, I heard Christ's voice saying, "Follow me."  I've always referred to that invitation as my "Abrahamic call": to leave your father's house and go to a place you know not of. Yesterday the words of Steven Charleston seared themselves fully into my soul. I felt Mother breathing them onto me:  

Lift up your heart today, lift it up to receive the warm light that seeks you. Lift up your spirit, release it to fly free from old constraint, a soul skimming the clear air of freedom. Lift your hands to embrace the love another day has brought near you. Lift your voice, sing even if you think you cannot sing, sing your own wisdom out into the weary world. Lift up your mind, lift it up to a higher place where visions wait between the passing clouds. No weight of sorrow or hurt can hold you down: lift up your life today. 

I am home, inside my own skin. Now for the next task - to erase all those lines inside those concentric circles and to realize the unity that's really there, to reconcile the differentiation and become one with all that is. Onward!