Going Public

It has been a season of retreat for me.  My foot forced a retreat from running.  That, in turn, meant that a lot of my running relationships have been put on hold.  Not lost, necessarily, but put away at a distance for a while.  Conflicts in the family schedule caused me to not participate in either the women's advent service or the cantata.  I just decided not to force the issue of Christmas cards, and I didn't do it.  And more than that, I've found myself feeling the need to pull away, to draw into my shell, into my home and family and my own silence.  It's harder to talk to people I usually talk to.  I haven't had much to say.  My writing and correspondence became stilted and far more difficult than just being silent and keeping to myself.

And then.

For some reason, out of the safety and quiet, I felt nudged to speak.  First, I felt that people ought to read some of what I write, not that I write much or that it's brilliant.  No, I don't feel confident in my writing at all, so I do not understand the sudden reemergence of the desire to be read.  Why would I want that?  And yet, I sent links to my journal to a couple of people.  Then I posted one journal entry on Jen's facebook wall.  I immediately freaked out and wanted to delete it.  Why the freak out?  Someone might read it.  And in reading it, they might know me, or at least a little part of me.  I have become very aware that while I am hungry to pour myself out to someone, to be fully known and still loved, I am absolutely terrified of being known more than a little piece here or a little piece there.  I didn't realize how carefully I guard the essence of what is really me.  I always have.  I guard it well enough that one journal entry that reveals a humorous scene with my daughter and a thought about religion seems like I've blown open a hole in my heart and invited anyone who passes by to take a good long look at what kinds of things go on there.  Today, just for kicks, I googled it, and guess what, that particular entry has been shared around enough that it comes up on google on a site for links that have been shared within the last hour.  I can't breathe and think about that fact at the same time.  It's really so mediocre, so unfinished, so flawed and not thought-through.  And people read it and suggested other people read it.  Why would people want to read about my life?  How self-indulgent and self-important to suggest that they might.  (And yet I like to read about other people's lives. Hypocrit.) 

And then.

Even though I did not much savor that experience, even though I remember none of the exultation of having written something I liked for a few minutes and all of the horror of realizing that I put something mediocre out there onto the INTERNET (!!!), I still kept researching starting a more public blog, one with pretty pictures that is more inviting to read.  And I started one here, on blogspot.  Why would I do such a thing?  I'm worried I might actually post things on it.  And then I might tell people how to find it.

AND.

A week ago Pastor Bill e-mailed me to ask me to help lead iwitness.  Maybe it's the same ridiculous compulsion that made me post things on the internet that made me e-mail him back that I probably would do it, but that I wasn't sure that the kinds of things I might say would be entirely appropriate.  We talked, and he said they were OK, so I said I would do it.  Ummmm....  what?  I said that I would stand in front of a sanctuary, during a church service, and confess my very most private opinions about God?  Am I CRAZY?  Yes.  Yes, because then I went directly to the nearest table (in the church library) and started to write.  I wrote more that afternoon.  More that evening.  It's raw and real and terrifying to me, mostly because it's unbelievably personal.  I tried to keep a little distance, and for the first third or so, I succeeding in not saying anything that anyone else might not say.  It's completely true, but also nice and unsurprising.  But a little voice in me kept insisting that I poke another hole in the exterior.  And this time, I'm not just posting it somewhere for someone to maybe come across.  I'm saying out loud in the front of a church where people will be sitting with the sole purpose of listening to and thinking about and evaluating the things being said by the person in the front.  Shit.

And yet.

I feel the same kind of ambivalence about this message thing that I did about the blogs.  On the one hand, I am a little bugged that an e-mail went out from the church saying that one of the three of us speaking, not the one that is me, will be giving the message.  So people all think it's him, and no one knows it's also another person and me too.  Part of me resents that it looks like it's his show.  Part of me wishes people were also excited to come see me.  There is a whole other section of the church that would make a point of going to that service just because I am going to be in it, and now they won't know.  Of course, I could publicize that I am speaking, as the other person has done, posting it repeatedly on facebook and telling anyone I suspect might be interested, but there again, although for some reason I feel bugged by my exclusion from the publicity, a part of me would rather eat raw cat litter than make a big deal about what I am going to say because  (a) that seems so arrogant, and (b) people might truly be interested, and they might show up.  And listen.  And hear.  And know.

The thing to do, I suspect, is pray about this.  I don't really understand the prayer thing, so I might do that, but what I always have done is write stuff out.  So here it is.  And do not think that I am not aware that there is a great deal of irony attached to the fact that these things are the things that are causing me a level of anxiety so high that I have physical symptoms, and yet, I am about to hit "post" and send them out into the world for anyone to see.

Oh Lord.  What next? 

I'm not sure if that last question is a whine or a request.