Coming Out Party

Yesterday was a little bit like a coming out party for me. With the generous help of the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St. Luke,  I hosted an "event"in the cathedral's parish hall. I called it "Upside-down and Inside-out: Stories from a Mid-Life Journey," and about thirty-five people were there!

And that's what it was--some of the stories (there are so many more!) from my journey out of Episcopal parish ministry, through the process of getting clearer within myself to my decision to renounce my ordination as a priest. What's quirky about my journey, and what had the "coming out" quality for me, was that I really had to give myself permission to take a vacation from God, to start living my life without concern for the idea of God, in order to hear my soul.

One of the things I love about writing is that when it "works", I learn things in the process of writing that I didn't know, or at least didn't know quite so clearly, when I started. Or I find better, more compelling language for understanding myself and my life and hopefully for helping others to connect to their own lives, too.

One particular gift that came to me in preparing to tell these stories was to see that "cutting myself loose" from God and letting God go on without me and me without God was much much more than a theological experiment or project, if you will. It was, and is, about life, about being human, and especially about being myself from the inside out, trusting my own unfolding relationship with my soul in conversation with the life around me. As the "Two Books" story reminds me when I get fuzzy, it all boiled down to a choice between "death in holy orders" and "living free".

"The Two Books", c. Sukie Curtis, 2009

Another gift was the realization that, not unlike the way so many women learn to put other people's needs and wants before their own and sometimes do not even acknowledge that they have any needs or wants at all (a lesson that I witness again and again spending time with my ninety-year-old mother!), I was doing exactly the same thing. Only my list of "more important" claims included not only my children, and David, but also God and the Episcopal Church! My ordination had all the fancy language signaling a "holy obligation". But what never occurred to me to ask was what kind of holy obligation I owed to myself.

Over the years since leaving my ordination behind, I have come to believe more and more that each of us has a truly holy obligation, a sacred duty, to be fiercely committed to (which also means taking responsibility for--sorry!) our own happiness, our own deep, soul-level happiness.

That's not a simple process. It takes commitment, diligence, awareness, attention, patience with the learning curve, courage in the face of pressure to "revert". And it brings with it much joy and freedom and lightness of heart!

I got asked some good questions at the end of my talking, and in retrospect I wish I had allowed more time for letting that conversation unfold some more. Maybe I'll bring some of those questions and some written comments into the blog for an expanded conversation.

And while I'm at it, I might as well post the text of what I spoke in the blog too. It was pretty long, so that  will take care of several days' posts, and might actually help me to get back in the swing of blogging!

Let's hear it for coming out parties! And thank you to everyone who came to St. Luke's yesterday! And to David for lots of support and tactical assistance.

Another Inspiring Country

Without really setting out to do so, I seem to be gathering a list of "countries I admire" as I read and come upon interesting stories. First, there was Ecuador when they passed a new constitution protecting the rights of non-human species, whole ecosystems, and the process of evolution to work its way in the natural world. 

Then (although I had first read of this a couple of years ago) after my new year's post about happiness my friend Barbara Babkirk reminded me of the Kingdom of Bhutan, one of the first nations to begin to consider policies and actions from the perspective of a "gross national happiness" index, which embraces all sorts of quality of life issues, instead of the dominant "gross national product" approach (which, as we well know, can lead to all sorts of excesses, abuses, and social and environmental distress).

Now, comes Costa Rica in Thomas Friedman's column on Saturday's New York Times. Costa Rica began in 1997 to build on an understanding that protecting the incredible beauty and bio-diversity of their natural environment would be key to the economic health of their country, and they have structured their government ministries and policies accordingly, with impressive success.

There may have been a time (well, yes, let's say roughly from election day 2000 until the eve of election day 2008) when I actually imagined moving to one of these countries. I'm sure there are others to consider as well, if I were really going to get serious about it. 

But now it's clear to me that my "short list" of admired and inspiring countries are for me signs of hope, sources of inspiration, and a reminder that whole nations (albeit smaller ones than ours) really can commit to saner and more sustainable ways of living and doing business--and succeed! Oh yes, and be happier in the process! What's not to love about that?

Anyone else have a favorite admired and inspiring country to brag about?

By the way, speaking of bragging, aren't you at least a tiny bit impressed by my new-found facility with adding hyperlinks to my blog? (Thanks, David!)

Here's to Happiness

OK. I'd like to begin the new year with a confession: about a month ago while browsing the website of Martha Beck, a best-selling author and life coach, I followed a link to a Martha Beck-certified coach who was offering free "Happiness Lessons" (www.takehappinesslessons.com ). In a playful and curious mood, I signed myself up, and eventually two of my old friends (whose names are my safe with me) signed up too. 

"Happiness lessons?" you may be asking yourself. "Has Sukie gone totally off her rocker?" (Or perhaps you're thinking, as the neighbors say of Mr. Plumbean in Daniel Pinkwater's book, The Big Orange Splot,  she has "popped her cork, flipped her wig, blown her stack, and dropped her stopper. . . gushed her mush, lost her marbles, and slipped her hawser.") Perhaps I'm overplaying this a bit, but I couldn't pass up a chance to quote Daniel Pinkwater.

What occurred to me as I signed up for "happiness lessons" was how truly against the grain of my upbringing  it was--that is, within the context of good old New England, Anglo-Saxon, stiff upper lip, always put others before yourself, being and doing good are more important than being happy ways of thinking and being. And that doesn't even begin to touch on some of the more painful contributions of the Judeo-Christian tradition in general and of Christian theology in particular to the topic of happiness and suffering. 

Let me say simply that it felt almost dangerous to consider taking happiness lessons, as if I might be putting my soul in mortal danger (even though that's more of a Roman Catholic sort of category than a Unitarian Universalist-turned-Episcopalian one). At the very least it seemed somehow borderline shameful, shadowy, a little bit "New Agey," flaky, and without doubt self-serving or self-centered or self-indulgent or some other self-word-combination. As if that's about as bad as bad can be! 

In an act of extreme courage (which is often hard to distinguish from craziness), I even put myself out there cyber-wise as the leader of a local "happiness hub," not having a clue what that might mean, but thinking it might gain me access to some kind of bonus lesson or something. What it did gain me was an inquiry from another area resident who turns out to be a master certified Martha Beck life coach--so I really did get "some kind of bonus lesson" in a form I never could have anticipated. More on that another time.

Not long after, I was continuing to read Martha Beck's book Finding your own North Star and came across the following paragraphs:

"I once gave a speech to a group of devoutly religious women in which I stated my belief that all God really wants from us is an unshakable commitment to our own happiness. I could tell the audience was shocked by this comment. After the speech, several women commented that I'd gone a bit too far, and one said I should be 'dragged away in chains.' These women seemed to share a religious belief that suffering is the way to paradise, while the road to Hell is paved with happy times.

"If you believe the same thing, I encourage you to put down this book and pick up one of those cute little whips with razors embedded in them, because you're not going to find any support for your world-view in these pages. I don't believe in suffering for its own sake. Enduring a thankless, painful life doesn't mean that you deserve happiness as a kind of recompense; it just means you're enduring a thankless, painful life. If I'm going to suffer, it better be for a damn good reason. It better yield me more joy than it costs. If not, I will do anything I can to avoid it, and I advise all my clients to do the same.

"This is a profound sacrifice for the martyrs among us."

Clearly this is a large topic, and one that I believe to be worth unraveling fully in due time. But for now, I want to state that I hereby declare, for 2009 and beyond, my own "unshakable commitment to my own happiness." To be committed to my own happiness means, among other things, that I am not expecting or passively hoping that someone else will take care of that for me. It means giving up trying to manipulate someone else into doing that, guilting someone else into doing that, or otherwise, through all sorts of well-tried, devious and indirect means, roping someone else (or Someone Else, e.g, "God") into being responsible for my happiness. 

And on the positive side, it means continuing to learn and to practice (and practice,  and practice, and practice again) paying attention to what's going on in my head and in my body. To afford my body some much overdue respect and honor and affection as my most trustworthy, God-given teller of the truth about what delights me and what drags me down; about when I need to rest, when to eat, when to get outside and breathe fresh air; when I need to be alone, and when to join the party; when I want to laugh, when to weep, when to dance, when to sing. And then to dare to follow its instructions! And usually that means noticing and then ignoring or hushing up a lot of prim, judging, fearful, cautious,  and sometimes downright nasty "voices" in my head telling me why I should do just the opposite.

So here's to happiness! My own, and yours, and to the increasing happiness of an increasing number of people around the planet. 

P.S. In case you're still really worried that "claiming happiness" is brazenly and unforgivably selfish,  or that a commitment to your own happiness will turn you into a self-centered brat with no thought for others, I have two suggestions. First, if the word "happiness" makes you flinch, (as I'm afraid I still do sometimes when I hear someone say, "the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness"), try substituting "contentment." Maybe contentment sounds like a deeper, more grounded, less happy-in-a-bouncy-kind-of-way state of being, and maybe that makes it a little easier for you to contemplate. Second, look at the Dalai Lama: he sure looks like a happy guy to me, and yet he is clearly anything but a self-centered brat lacking in compassion or concern for others. And he is the author of that conviction I alluded to above, "that the very purpose of life is to seek happiness." 

Well, how 'bout that! 

Happy 2009.

Wild and Crazy Wins the Day

The zebra print leggings nudged me as I was deciding what to wear today. And the words "wild and crazy" nudged me too. I bought the leggings about twenty-two years ago when I was still a new priest in Concord, Massachusetts. A woman from the Netherlands came to visit my boss's family, I think, and she sported some zebra leggings that I loved. So I gave her some money so that she could send me some from Europe when she got back there, which she did. I thought at the time that it would be good to spice up my days-off wardrobe, and I do remember I wore them once to the New England Flower Show with the rector's wife(!). I was exceedingly self-conscious and tense the whole time. I think I may have worn them once or twice more in public before they took up residence in the bottom drawer of my bureau. That is, until my teenaged daughters (and even a friend now and then) decided that they were good for certain occasions, Halloween among them.

Seeing them this morning (I had actually worn them to bed last night), I thought, "Perfect. I think dressing wild and crazy is what I need to do today." And putting them on, my bearing and my outlook perked up considerably! This was going to be fun; I just knew it. And I quickly decided to put together some truly outlandish combination of clothing, things that really don't "go". I found myself remembering many many years ago, as perhaps a sixth grader, having my mother and my sister react to my chosen outfit on some school days when I came downstairs for breakfast, suggesting that perhaps my stripes and plaids weren't really meant to be worn together. I can't imagine I went very far outside the lines. But today I had the pleasure of putting together a wacky wardrobe and then wearing it in public. Even Anna tolerated being with me in one store (and chose to stay in the car at the next, though she swears that wasn't the reason!). And Anna has willingly taken my photo with her camera.

I so much enjoyed wearing my zebra leggings with Anna's polka dotted rubber boots, topped by my multi-colored handmade sweater with six different buttons (buttons by Lacey Goodrich, sweater by me), and two mismatched earrings in the style of my beloved friend Sarah, that I may just have to do it again soon. I may even wear the leggings every day between now and Christmas. I think they may be magic leggings after all.

And it just may be that dressing wild and crazy, or doing something else a bit outlandish with the potential for being thought unseemly for a fifty-four year-old, strengthens one's "core muscles" of joy, delight, and happiness.