Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Hopalong on July 08, 2007, 03:28:57 PM
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Hi all. I'm done in January with my 2-year term as worship associate (lay leader, and each of us does a summer sermon). Then I wait two years before I serve again. I wanted to share this one with you, who have had so much to do with my ispiritual growth in the last year. And thanks to ...TT...was it you?--for the Dickey poem. Love, Hops
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Good morning. If my voice sounds kind of tubular, I apologize. My summer vacation has begun with a summer cold. But I am very happy to be here. This annual sermon is the carrot they hold before us, and you may have seen how eagerly I trot. I am also grateful to have C___ as my own worship associate, because again he instantly grasped a vague idea, and offered wonderful elements that complete this hour. I’d like to thank L__ too, whose talents and sensitive choices are framing our service in music.
I apologize also for this sermon being rambling. There’s not a lot of structure to it. It may be partly due to my cold, but I believe the primary cause is genetic. I write poems, for example. And, when my daughter was young, she would lie in her bed at night and talk out loud for at least an hour, not telling stories to dolls but addressing the ceiling, waving her arms, before she slept. One day she said, “You know how I talk in bed? Is there a name for that?” “It’s called free association,” I said. She asked, “Can a person major in that in college? I’m really good at it.”
A third apology should probably be for choosing the irreverent dog for the cover of our Order of Service, but that would be insincere. I’m not sure there’s anything more reassuring than a happy dog napping on its back, spine relaxed to full length, jowls flopping onto the floor, tongue so unhitched that it hangs over the edge of the lip like a gooeyduck, and nether parts sprawled unguardedly under a beam of sun.
But that’s daytime sleep. Afternoon naps seem much less complicated than the idea of getting through an entire night unconscious. As UUs are always open to new revelation, I will share one that has visited me: at night, it’s daaark.
I’d like to invite you to examine with me, or more accurately ramble around in, the moonlit space between waking and sleeping. It might be a metaphor for agnosticism, or the space between faith and reason, and for any of you who also get lost in vague spaces now and then, maybe it will be useful.
Perhaps, like me, some of you practice Self-Soothing with Labels. I have latched on to various self-definitions as though they were nurses in the night-time. I have called myself a very optimistic agnostic ripe for a deathbed conversion. Lately, a more reluctant agnostic who prefers to read mysteries because I’m scared of what more mystical books might demand. I have also defended agnosticism with passion, as a wonderful membranous space that’s as full of worship as a happy ascetic, as full of thought as a peaceful philosopher, as full of positive purpose as a good teacher.
One thing I feel very clear about is that agnosticism is not atheism, and for some reason it really gets my dander up when the two are lumped together carelessly, alphabetically, as though an agnostic is too lazy to make metaphors for “I don’t know, but I remain open.” Agnosticism is not the absence of caring, it’s not dismissal, it’s not arrogant, it’s not fixed, it’s not a lot of things. It requires courage and a sense of wonder. I am conspicuously lacking in the courage department, but I’m awash in wonder.
And too often, in general dread. Falling asleep strikes me as a fine parallel for a transition into faith, because both involve a great deal of trust. When we roll over that soft cliff every night of our lives, why are we doing it? Why on earth would we DO that? What’s at the bottom? Where’s the GPS? Who’s in charge? I may have taken the words too literally when I was little, but night after night, I went to bed obediently pronouncing that if I should die before I wake, I prayed the Lord my soul to take. These were not good suggestions for a small chicken such as me. I latched onto my soul with hypervigilant determination as I recited my prayers, and not much about that has changed, unfortunately.
As I’ve gotten older and sleep has become even more complicated, life has brought a turn so that sleep often preoccupies me during the daytime, too. Where I work now we sell products related to sleep, and sometimes we’ll talk about sleep in the same yearning or blissful tones that people use when they describe a new flavor of high-cacao chocolate, or write incomprehensible adjectives about the tastes of wine. Customers come in with weary faces and tell us stories of pain, or insomnia, or thrashing, or allergies, or their inhospitable beds. I feel I recognize them, these kindred sleepless spirits. I want to tuck them all in, tell them a soothing story and croon a lullaby. Ragged insomniacs from all over the country call us on the phone. People with desperation in their voices talk into our ears about their sweaty night-long battles for sleep, their wild desires for painless rest.
I am a little contrary in that I often have a wild desire to not sleep. But still, I know that for our animal species like most others, there is no choice. We must sleep. Our bodies grow weary or ill or we find in fatigue that our minds no longer make sense. So we must trust that our hearts will continue to beat, our lungs breathe, and barring death or disasters—which do happen—the people we love will be there in the morning as they were when we said goodnight.
I think faith is, or might be, a similar roll off a soft cliff. The question has become much simpler to me, perhaps because I’ve stayed awake about it, although no easier. I finally figured out that I have spent so many years fixated on arguments with myself regarding the object of faith that I forgot about the verb. I have gone cross-eyed trying to figure out what I could have faith in, whether there is a deity or no deity, whether there’s love in the sky or only Christopher Hitchens, and if there are a deity or deities why are they so mean, and if love is the answer then why hasn’t love won the brutal world-wide debate.
My uncle the preacher once told me when I spent the night on his farm, “I nearly wore out the knees in my pajamas praying for your soul last night.” I loved my uncle, who was not mildly distressed when I became a UU, and I shared his love for the garden. But not his religion. Still, I knew that something like a moth hovered over me while I was there. As usual, I had not much of an answer for him, so I just said, “Why thank you! That must be why I slept so well.” If looks could condemn one for unbelief, I might well have been planted in his tomato patch that morning.
How does anyone go to sleep with these questions unanswered? I often can’t without banging myself over the head with a tablet, so I do pretty much the same thing my daughter did, free-associate for an hour or so, although usually not out loud. If you think of it, making metaphors and analogies can be endless. They’re great sleep fighters. You can make analogies between people and animals. Between reason and dream. I could spend hours asking such questions as, if insomnia is a mind aware of danger, is sleeping soundly stupid? If robust health is like that of a well-loved animal, what is bolting awake at the sound of a cricket? If a dog runs and hunts brilliantly in her dreams, what is Restless Legs Syndrome? Am I running in my sleep? From what? Am I getting somewhere? Where is the finish line?
Lately, I have begun to realize that I will probably never have a satisfactory answer about the object of faith or a comprehensible map to the land of dreams. I know I want faith, but I don’t want to be tricked. I want the kind of faith that everybody could agree with, because I hate discord. I haven’t polled anyone, but I think generally speaking a good kind of faith would be that which promotes harmony, relieves suffering, and lessens fear. I am dubious about the forms or interpretations of religion that promote disharmony, cause suffering and increase fear. Try to unglue me from this community and you’ll have a fight on your hands. Anyway, the object of faith still escapes me. But the verb continues to attract and overcome me, and I will roll over the soft cliff in spite of myself.
I have a new goal: to “do” faith rather than to “have” faith. Consider that “to place faith in” is an active choice rather than passively “having”. It means to trust. So I have come to believe at least this, which may be sounder than I know: I believe that I will do, or experience, faith, the more I choose to do, or experience, trust. The challenge for me, and perhaps for some of you too, is to trust with bravery and discernment, rather than surrender to mayhem. For example, I trust entirely that this beautiful planet will continue to roll in its sleep without help from me. I do not trust that the earth will keep breathing polluted breath or bathing in polluted seas without sacrificing uncountable forms of life, including ours, without help from me.
There is a membrane, a boundary between wakefulness and sleep where so much mystery lies. Perhaps some of you also like to linger in this sub- but not unconscious place, rather than sensibly wake or sensibly sleep. The attraction of agnosticism is not lack of commitment. It’s not fence-sitting, it’s fence-walking. In the middle of the rail is no time to pick a side, it’s a time to feel the reality of gravity and balance, and to sway and be amazed at the miraculous ability of lifted arms to prevent your fall.
Agnosticism handled gracelessly may explain a particular kind of insomnia. It’s not that I have difficulty going to sleep, although I do. It’s more that I defy sleep. Sometimes I feel it coming on and literally shake myself awake. Who does that? It’s not that I can’t anticipate how this episode of Dog the Bounty Hunter will end. It’s not that I’m uncomfortable or unhappy. I’m not afraid of sleep. Dreams are deliciously interesting and I know I feel unusually good when I have slept long and thoroughly. I recognize that it’s a healthy way to proceed. I just too often find sleep a poor competitor with the balancing joy of walking along the top of the fence. I don’t know how high the fence is, I can’t think about that. But if you said to me that defiance of common sense is not the cleverest of reasons to be short on sleep, I would agree with you.
I know I’m not alone with sleep issues, however. If you have any of these you could say Amen. There’s nothing embarrassing about snoring, is there? How about apnea? Restless legs? Early waking? Insomnia? Hypersomnia? Narcolepsy? How about sleepwalking? Or my favorite, sleep eating? I took an extra Ambien by accident one night and woke up in front of the refrigerator at 3 a.m. eating cheese. I also fed the dog.
For so many of us, why is sleep such a battle sometimes? Why doesn’t the spirit of sleep just fly over us like the big green moth in the sleeping pill commercials? Why do so many of us toss and turn at the edge of sleep instead of abandoning ourselves to it as naturally as a napping dog? Doesn’t anybody slumber anymore? I don’t think so. I think in this culture slumber has mostly gone the way of having nothing much pressing to do, or porch swings and lemonade, or home-made music. In my case, as stupid an idea as insomnia has proven to be, I just don’t want to miss anything.
One of the gifts of trying to go without air conditioning most nights is experiencing the sounds and soft air of a muggy summer. When I was little I hated school but loved reading. So at night I would take my lamp and put it under the covers, risking inferno, and read under my heated tent until about 3 a.m., and then I’d be prodded out of bed at 7:00, so I began to experience in daytime a lot of waking dreams I hadn’t had time to finish the night before. I think in fact that may explain a lot of things about my life. Unsympathetic teachers, when I flunked the ninth grade, seemed to feel that I lacked discipline. I’m sure I just lacked sleep.... I was as disciplined about smuggling novels into my classes to read behind propped-up textbooks as I was about the night-time reading. I had obligations—to the story. I owed the author my full attention until the night was through and only exhaustion made me fail.
In a similar way, I am devoted to free association. Poets know that it releases the metaphors from their cages of consciousness. Good metaphors, few of which you’ll hear from me this morning, are as dazzling to me as bolts of lightning. Like conversion experiences! Even if they might come from the unconscious, the plain fact is you have to be awake to read them or to write them down. Here are some words James Dickey wrote in 1961, in his poem “The Heaven of Animals”.
For some of these,
It could not be the place
It is, without blood.
These hunt, as they have done
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,
More deadly than they can believe.
They stalk more silently,
And crouch on the limbs of trees,
And their descent
Upon the bright backs of their prey
May take years
In a sovereign floating of joy.
I want everybody’s sleep to be a sovereign floating of joy. But years of being agnostic have taught me that you can’t get joy by willing it. You can’t “get” sleep at all, really. You have to allow it to get you. Maybe it’s the same as faith. As elusive and as comforting. Maybe trying to get it, as though sleep is an object you can grasp, is what keeps it away. And maybe like the spirit of sleep, the spirit of faith has nothing to do with the objects of sentences, but only with their verbs.
Maybe the simplest way to be at peace is to work hard for what is right, play music for our planet, stretch our spines to their full length, tend to our health, and help each other. Maybe we can just do that—do those good actions—without fixating on the threats and distractions that might prevent us. Maybe the spirits of faith and of sleep will come to us if we do those things. I don’t know, but I remain open.
In spite of peril and war and injustice and fear and disasters which do happen, I believe we can make it together, when the good verbs of the day are done. When the good verbs of the day are done, we can lie down to sleep, and we can dream sweet dreams.
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Hi Hop,
Wow! You are VERY intelligent. I'm not sure I get alot of the things you talk about, but it's very clear you have a great mind.
Now to the topic of sleep. It's been very scary for me. I am a chronic sleepwalker. Well, not so much anymore, but I used to be.
Last night I was up & walking around(I guess) because I woke up this morning naked! My clothes were folded neatly at the foot of the bed. I mostly live alone right now because I'm on WC waiting for surgery & my husband is a truck driver. I'm also going through menopause. I might of had a hot flash! :lol:
Usually when I have one of those I know it. It wakes me up.
Let me tell you about my worst case of sleepwalking.
I was about 25yrs old. I had worked a double shift & fell asleep on the couch. My ex husband woke up with the stomach flu. I didn't know that at the time. All I heard was moaning and groaning & him saying "Oh no!" "Oh God!" I thought he was being killed! I ran, in my PJ'S, down the street to the neighbors about 5 houses down. Why them, I don't know. They tell me I banged on their door & screamed "Let me in, somebody is killing my family!" "I need help!" Well, the next thing I know, I'm coming to in their kitchen with a phone in my head with the cops on the other line! The first thing I see is their kitchen clock reading exactly 4 am. The cop on the other line saying "Lady, there's nobody in your house!" The poor neighbors were horrified! At that point, I realized I was doing my "thing" & apologized & left. My ex was on the porch calling for me. He knew I was sleepwalking, too. I'm still mad at the cop! LOL! What if somebody really was in my house?
Anyway, that was the worst thing I've done. (So far). I had a doctor tell me that I must be a really troubled person, because my case was pretty severe.
Now I know WHY I was doing that. I WAS troubled. You guys know my story. Same as yours, different face. My sleepwalking as diminished a great deal as I have a nurturing environment in which to sleep.
I'll tell you, Hop, I used to HATE to fall asleep!
Take care friend,
Bigalspal
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Thanks Bigalspal.
It's not about smartness, I just had teacher parents, not TV and stuffed my head with an unusual amount of reading when i was young, and it added up to writing. What about a sculptor who makes beautiful, powerful pieces but never went to school? You know what I mean. But thank you!
Wow, sleepwalking. That must be scary sometimes. The only good news I know is that sleepwalkers rarely harm themselves or anybody else, and that the best thing is to just gently guide them back to bed. I didn't know it was trauma-related, though that sure makes sense.
I'm sorry, for whatever frightened you.
(((((BAP))))
Hops
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hi Hops
Hi Hop,
Wow! You are VERY intelligent. I'm not sure I get alot of the things you talk about, but it's very clear you have a great mind.
I second that. I doubt that I could ever write anything so eloquently as you, that anyone could ever understand. I never received good marks in English Composition. I had/still have no imagination, let alone a firm set of beliefs in one thing that would/could make me write as well as you.
I now expect it is because of "lack of voice" when I was very young. I don't remember ever having a fantasy or speaking out loud about somewthing that was "just mine".
I gather that UU is your church and that it is a place for agnostics?
Was your chosen topic faith, or sleep?
and hey bigalspal --what a sleepwalking story!! I find that hard to believe, but I know it happens. Anyway, I can't walk tee-hee I read mystery books until I am seeing double, then insert my bookmark, curl up in the fetal position (something I have done since the accident) and I am off to sleep.
My situation calls for a trip or two to the bathroom in the night, but it's right back to bed and right back to sleep.
I dream and none are very offensive to me. For the first in a l-o-n-g time the N was in my dream last night (too much time on this Board?) but I had the upper hand!
Ever since I confronted my sister, in real life, about a betrayal, my dreams of her and her toxicity have stopped. How ineresting!
but then, you know, or maybe don't that I write song lyrics and music. That is MY way of expressing myself!
Love
Izzy
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Hey friends,
I think we need another good laugh! I don't care one bit if it's at my expense. Really! Me & my husband & ours kids LOVE talking about Mom's sleepwalking excursions.
Ok, here goes, one night I went to bed before my husband. He's watching TV & I come flying down the hall, bursting into the livingroom & look at him meanly & shout "WHERE IS GRETA!!"
He goes (I don't remember, but I believe him) "GRETA??" "Who is GRETA??." I tell him "I KNOW you know where Greta is!!" He, of course is very flustered & upset, but realizes I'm doing my sleepwalking thing & promises to find Greta & that placates me & he's able to tuck me back in bed!
Now I do know a Greta. She was my best friend in high school, but I haven't seen her since 1976! My husband has never met her! Today, that his one of our favorite family stories.
I think the favorite one is when I was working 3rd shift & I just came in from work. My husband & 3 kids are up having breakfast together. Well, My husband tucks me into bed (It's a thing he likes to do for me) & goes back to be with the kids. About 15 mins later I come flying into the kitchen & yell "I'm late for work!" My husband & kids try to assure me that I'm not. I don't believe them & yell "I' HAVE to get to work & I'll just FLY THE PLANE". Everyone laughs & says "We don't have a Plane!" I say:"Then I'll drive the BUS!" My family said I went through all kinds of modes of transportation before I slowly came to in front of a hysterical family!
How funny is that! I won't go into the time my husband saw me hop down the hall towards the kitchen acting like a rabbit! I have lots more!
I bet I made you forget about your pain at least for a minute! :Lil:
Bigalspal
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VERY FUNNY BAP
NOW!! do you sleep naked?
Izzy
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Hey Izzy,
Only when my husband's home or have a hot flash!
LOL!
Bigalspal
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Hey Izzy,
Only when my husband's home or have a hot flash!
LOL!
Bigalspal
Anyone ever catch you?
HA!
Izzy
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That is my worst nightmare! :oops:
Not so far, but I DO have sleep tonight!
LOL!
Bigalspal
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Hi Bean,
Your tender last para. Thank you. I'm honored to be remotely compared to an engineer! (A first. :))
It probably didn't come through in print but when I'm up there I try things with voice and timing so it actually had a few laugh lines. So that lightened up the confusion (I hope). Thanks for reading it. And I love the word kindred. Kind and red, can't lose.
Hi Izz,
My topic was really the spirituality of sleep, if there is such a thing, but sleep and faith morphed into such related ideas during the writing that I just followed along to see where I was going. If that makes no sense, you're right! And the UU church is not "for agnostics" (we have all sorts of folks...easiest way to grasp it is to read a little at www.uua.org (http://www.uua.org)). Thanks, Iz.
Your responses mean a lot to me.
love
Hops
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Hops,
You make a brilliant worship associate...I bet the UU congregation love your sermons - very eloquent!
Janet
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Thank you Janet, for such kind words.
Hops
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Hey Hops,
I enjoyed reading your sermon... and you got up there with so little sleep, not feeling well, and waking up late!! Do you get nervous speaking in front of a crowd?
Bean..
cause each day we wake to a ray of sunlight on our cheek, and we are all thankful, deep down inside, I believe. Thankful that we have been given the opportunity to sleep again, so we could wake again, to feel the warmth of our dear sun..
I love those words. They create a calm when thinking them.
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Hi MS,
I used to, years back. Sometimes I'd take a Valium.
But I have given a lot of public poetry readings over the years, and I think that helped more than anything.
About 15 years ago, on a lark and because it was free at my workplace, I helped found a Toastmasters club. That speech was the first time I got a crowd to laugh. What a feeling. Before, I had people respond more intensely, to some painful poems they found themselves touched by.
But laughter? That was a revelation. And it did somehow start a crack in the fear of public speaking. Somehow I think I made a connection between people laughing, and my being helpful or loving in helping them release stress. And when I felt that way, sort of a big empathy for all the people I was talking to, being "up there" became a different thing. Not about me, but about them.
It's been a long time now since I've had "nerves." This worship experience has helped me grow so much. It's actually changed the way I interact with people in many ways. I'm not scared, I feel welcome, I assume good intent. I feel, literally, friendly. I want to put people at ease and I sense they believe me. That's what humorous lines, and compassionate lines, seem to do. Put us all in the room together and I just happen at that moment to be standing. But I am trying to speak in some way for everyone. For the quiet or sad or confused parts of us, as well as the parts that are yearning for a laugh.
Once I'm in "that space", there's nothing to be afraid of.
Thank you for asking, MS, helping me think about it. It's a gift to me to speak to people, because it seems to allow me to express something I have inside that is about taking that risk of being vulnerable, and finding love there.
love
Hops
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Hi Hops,
And thanks to ...TT...was it you?--for the Dickey poem. Love, Hops
No. Twasn't me!
:oops: Sorry about that link. On second look, twasn't a good idea! :roll: :oops: :roll:
tt
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Hey Hop & friends,
You are NOT going to believe this!
Remember how I talked about my sleepwalking?
Well, I went to bed around 9:30pm last night. I get up about 6am this morning. I always head for the fridge for a coke. I don't drink coffee. Anyway, I found my fridge door wide open! I thought "What in the world?" Thank goodness I live alone while my DH is on the road, so I don't keep alot of food. And I have a double door fridge with ice & water on the door, so the freezer door was closed. Anyway, I need to make a phone call. The phone I like to use is on my nightstand in my bedroom. Well, when I get to the phone, I notice GRAPE STEMS on the table!
I must have got up & went & got some grapes from the fridge & left the door open! I sleepwalk more often when I'm troubled about something. I have neck disc surgery coming up on the 30th.
My husband called about that time & he's so sweet & caring. He said "Baby, you don't have to worry! I'll be right there with you during surgery & I'll be there to take care of afterwards!" :D
He said the same thing. That I must be worried & I was sleepwalking. At least THIS time I wasn't NAKED! :oops:
I went to the puter to a FDA site & figured out what I need to throw away.
Not alot, thank goodness, but I guess I need to go to the store sometime today.
Thought my friends could use ANOTHER laugh to start your day!
I hope I don't start "sleep eating". That's a real disorder & people (usually women) gain ALOT of weight from it and don't realize WHY! :shock:
I think it was just an isolated incident.
How about them apples! (Pun intended!)
Love,
Bigalspal
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Hi Red,
I'm no medical expert, OK. But a couple things to consider. If you take Ambien it could be the cause of the sleepwalking/amnesia. Obviously, not everyone experiences these symptoms, but I'm a total insomniac, have taken Ambien, have experienced amnesia and the spike it causes in ones appetite. Second, have you had your blood sugar checked? As I say, I'm not a medical person, so any advice I offer in that arena may be worth no more than you paid for it.
Hops, this may be way off your UU sermon or not. I think you mentioned Ambien and the subject was sleep, but I'll go ahead and apologize just in case.
Can't remember if I've extended a hand of fellowship to you Redginger, so I'll do it now. Welcome to VESMB>
tt
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Hi TT,
I probally have Hijacked poor Hops thread, so I'm sorry! :oops:
Anyway, TT, I have taken Ambien in the past, but none in my system.
This all started as far back as ANYONE can remember.
At least is does relate to my problems with my NMother's abuse, so I'm not completely off topic.
It's always been an outward manifestation of my troubled mind & spirit.
I think it's because of my impending surgery.
At the last place we lived, my husband installed a better lock on the front door to make her harder for me to get out.
Anyway, have a great day TT!
Bigalspal
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:shock: AMBIENT SPIKES APPETITE????? :shock:
I did not know that!! I've gained 20 pounds!
But wait. I don't eat after I take the Ambien... :(
Shoot. Thought I had an easy answer.
But, do you know if taking it means you'd be having appetite control problems steadily, or just as a spike after you take the tablet?
Wow, TT...thank you so very much for mentioning this.
(No worries about hijacking, BAP, I never mind. I like it when threads wander and also feel that if anyone wants a thread to return to subject, they can simply type: Need to return to my subject, anybody got a comment on that?)
thanks again,
Hops
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Hi Hops,
My experience OK... About 20 minutes after taking Ambien, I have an irristable urge to eat. After taking it for a few days say three or four, my personality is affected negatively. That's not a good thing since it's taken me quite a few years to get one! :D So I went online to see what I could find out about it. There is a message board (didn't record the URL) where people tell of their experiences with Ambien. Some are VERY bizarre. For those who don't suffer side effects, it's a good thing.
tt
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Wowsers. Thanks, TT.
I have a couple samples of Lunesta.
I'll try that.
It will be a long-term project to wean myself entirely, but I intend to.
thanks again.
Now, my topic--anybody else have a comment on my "sermon"? :D
My head is back to its original size, promise. I'd enjoy knowing if anyone has more of a feeling of "getting" what it's like to be me, spiritually speaking...it's the first time I've been able to get it out at such length.
If it's too confusing or obscure, no worries. I can even confuse myself. And we've got plenty other stuff to talk about.
love,
Hops
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I had just finished reading a book on Francis Bacon,an artist,when I came on board and read your lovely sermon. Hops I don't type so bare with me --but I wanted to share this--as I felt it pertinent. I am reading a great deal this summer,as I teach Art and I really want my students to elevate thier level of creative / abstract thinking. Here's what I was reading....
"Unconscious scanning"is the name which Ehrenzweig gave to the active but unfocused attention as a result of which we make discoveries and establish correspondences which are denied to 'normal', concentrated, focused attention. It is a common and universal experience of everyday life that if we momentarily forget something, we cannot recapture it by knitting our brows and concentrating;but if,on the contrary, we relax our attention and let the mind go limp,the missing fact will find its way back of its own accord.Ehrenzweig suggested that what was formerly known as 'the chaos of the onconscious' is, in reality, a serial structure of supreme beauty and complexity; and that it is accessible only to unconscious vision."
Day-dreaming!!! Now I can do that----Be still and listen.....
The book made one other point I thought worthy.....
"Vertical thinking has been defined by Edward de Bono as knowing how to dig an already-existing hole deeper. Its antithesis is lateral thinking: digging a hole somewhere else, and knowing where to begin. Vertical thinking can be taught, and is the basis and object of formal education. Lateral thinking is something quite different. De Bono suggests that its principles can be considered under four heading: recognition of dominant or polarizing ideas; the search for different ways of looking at things; relaxation of the rigid control of vertical thinking; and the use of chance."
I can relate religion, relationships and healing to being able to adopt a more lateral view!!!! Lord knows I got the hang of digging in the same spot !!!!!
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Thank so much, Birdy and CB.
Birdy, that's the first time I've read a description that almost exactly nails what it feels like to me when I am relaxed enough to write poetry...when the images or metaphors swim up and take shape and one goes: bingo. Thank you!
CB, that's so comforting...to be so understood. Thank you so so much. I appreciate it very much. I often wish that I hadn't had the crisis of faith I had in my 20s. But, then again, I usually take that thought back. It just felt so lonely for such a long time, to find myself one who doesn't know. I think that's why giving this one meant so much to me. My church not only accepts doubt and deep questioning, but encourages it. Somehow, for me, doubt doesn't have a negative meaning any more...it's just using the mind that the universe gave me. There are so many good things I DON'T doubt, that I think I'm usually wrestling with language, not with core values that in my childhood were no question from religious teaching--like kindness and empathy and honesty. Come right down to it, the deity concept isn't a bother, because it's a word. It was the rules of the church, the contradictions in the texts, the suppression of women, that drove me away. But now I'm in a place where I can be who I am. I am so grateful.
Thank you both.
Birdy, I think I need some Vertical thinking too. Maybe the clean up your room and do your paperwork kind. :) And thank you so much for taking the trouble to type all that to me, when I know it hurts your back.
love
Hops
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Hi Hops,
I think the gist of what you said in your sermon is that you view agnosticism as defiance of faith or choosing defiance rather than faith, along the same lines as having the capacity to defy sleep because it is in your power to do so. It seems to me that the act of defying faith or sleep is an exercise in faith. So I don't know if it is possible to defy faith, because the defying is a form of faith.
Edit in: You've got me thinking. I'm asking myself, how many things in my life are driven by resistance or defiance? I think I'm going to have to do some thinking out of the box.
tt
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Wow, TT, that's a very interesting take...I hadn't thought of it like that.
Thank you very much!
Hmmm.
Well, it did take a LOT of defiance to survive the consciousness-raising thing (about women, how they are taught and trained to view themselves and each other). It did.
Spot on. Thank you. I would like to do some more more more thinking about spirituality and gender. I went to a feminist theology workshop and it bored me to tears because it was about embracing matriarchy and examining old potshards that indicated women were once revered. But I don't want to replace male power over female, with female power over male.
I think as long as it was all linked to masculine pronouns and language, I had to let it go. I did, but it was like digging up deep roots. Very hard and slow.
Now, spiritually, I'm a little like the hole I described to Ami (except I am positive about the seed and the outcome).
thanks for your thoughts, TT.
Hops
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Hops,
What a challenge. I think you'll be doing a lot of free association trying to figure out those issues.
tt
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Hops ,
I was so touched by your sermon filled with hope and humor
and such beautiful kindness and wonder.
When you wrote of the quest of faith or sleep and said
"maybe trying to get it as though sleep is an object you can grasp is what keeps it away"
was such an insight.
Such lovely words
love to you,
moon
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You know, TT, I actually feel okay about not having it figured out.
Strangely enough, the more deeply I embrace the fence walking as my own dance of life, the more it seems to me it cannot have a dire outcome.
Moon, I'm so glad you found those things in it.
I love you back!
blessings awash,
Hops
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Hops,
fence walking
Better wear good shoes otherwise you'll get splinters in your feet! :wink:
tt
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Better wear good shoes otherwise you'll get splinters in your feet!
True, tt.
And coming down on both sides of that fence can be pretty painful also.
mud
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Luckily, my feet are calloused from years of fence-dancing, and my derriere was designed for ... oh.
Well, I think at the moment of falling, should I not evaporate upward instead of downward, when I abandon choice I may have a moment where I realize it was all a waste of energy and I should have been writing romance novels and pocketing the change, or, I may discover that it simply IS one way or another way and I have no choice about it regardless so again, the fence-dance was a foolish hobgolbin of my little mind, or, I may find that the universe is neither kind nor cruel but even more beautiful than anything I can imagine and that a Great Kindness I'm more or less hopefully banking on was all a figment of my imagination but my imagination and what I did with it was the point. Or my little wink of energy may go out without fuss and there may be emptiness and maybe somewhere else, a birth, or not.
Sheesh. I am grateful I am not a philosopher. I literally couldn't read most of them. My brain responded the same way as it did to math. Not well! :lol:
CB: There are 4 women and 3 men in our worship associates; one man is leaving because he's going to be president of the board (that predecessor a woman). It has been a wonderful thing. In a few years I may do it again, but I'm tired so it'll be good to have one less meeting and stuff. It was funny in our planning meeting, we were going around talking about our topics and when it was my turn I said well I know I did Loneliness 20 years ago and then last year again, so how about I do it again? (Nobody looks too thrilled. ) Then I go, well another thing I've thought about a lot is Narcissism (I keep looking, they're willing but...) and out of nowhere I go, or how about the spirit of sleep? Everybody's face turns bright with interest, so that was that. Then when I wrote it I found out during the writing that it would become a parallel thing about faith, that's what is such a gift to the WA--it places you in a position where you do challenge yourself to be open and dig pretty deep to do justice to the privilege.
Sent it to my D and an hour later she sent me, and several friends, a painstakingly typed copy of a satirical essay her Dad once wrote on something scatalogical.
Hops
Hops