The Invisible Fire

 Deep Calls To Deep    Mixed Media Collage by Crystal Neubauer

 
Just a few minutes late, I made my way to the back of the crowded room where I could observe the guest speaker without being noticed. I still wasn't sure what I was doing here, what brought me back to this small church meeting in a basement room each Sunday morning. It was a difficult time in my life and I needed more then the disconnect I had been feeling in my regular church home. It wasn't them, it was me. I felt God challenging me to know Him in a deeper way, but this place was outside of my comfort zone, and this morning in particular, filled with people, standing and sitting, who had come to see Todd White speak, it was even more so then usual. My day had started with an earnest private pleading with God to still the waters of my life and bring me peace. Bring me peace God. Please. Please. Please God. I was feeling fragile and I didn't want to be seen.

As I squeezed silently against the back wall, Todd, who had been facing the other side of the room, suddenly stopped mid-sentence and looked directly at me saying in a voice that carried above the crowd "God wants you to know you are entering into a season of peace"! Tears sprang to my eyes and before I could stop it my own small voice gasped "I prayed for that this morning!" There were appropriate praise murmurings all around, but they faded to a buzz as I stood amazed at the timing of this prophecy.

That afternoon a tree lost its limb smashing the rear window of my car in the driveway.

Today I am settling into a new home with only a few of my own belongings around. I can't help thinking this must be what it's like for families who have lost their homes to a fire. In some ways, I think, a fire might have been easier to sort it all out- the good from the bad- damaged belongings verses salvageable goods, and according to our insurance company would have meant our losses were covered.

Just over two months ago we moved to another home that my husband had agreed to renovate in exchange for lower rent. It was to be a time of sacrifice in which, if all went according to plan, we could begin to pay off debt and save our money to finally purchase our own home. But the house needed much more then the cosmetic work my husband had agreed to, a terrible musty odor permeated the air and no amount of cleaning could remove it.

By the time we realized how serious the problem was I was losing my hair, dealing with inexplicable dizzy spells while sitting in bed, and worsening skin and airborne allergy symptoms. Our precious kitty woke ill one day and continued to grow worse - the vet said her kidneys had shut down the day we had to put her to sleep- a result of the toxicity of the black mold spores unseen in the air.

In a sense it was an invisible fire. Thankfully many of our possessions –including my entire studio -were still in boxes stored in the garage, safe from the toxic air, but we had to throw away beds, dressers, rugs and other items which were at highest risk. Everything else went into storage, where we will slowly begin to decide one box, one item at a time, what we can attempt to clean and what else has to be thrown away.

A very wise counselor answered my fears one night in alarm as I lamented over what to do, not having any money or place to go, but knowing the situation was serious "Honey you just get in the car and GO! God will meet you there!" And there I was again; back three years ago in that season of begging God for peace to calm the waters that were threatening to flood my life. Without resources and with no permanent place to go - could I really trust Him to meet me in this?

Stepping back to the big picture, there is an array of core lies that God has been weeding out of my belief system for several years now- indeed through each one of these stormy seasons there have been blessings and breakthroughs- but still I wrestled with the big one. Will God really meet me in this?

Can I really trust God?

A lifetime of fears was at stake and God had lovingly hemmed me in. Bring me peace God. Please. Please. Please God. And that is exactly what He did. As I got into my car and drove away He was there to meet me. From the well timed large sale from my website the first day, to winding up renting a home fully furnished and stocked – a story I might share in more detail another day – God was meeting me in my need every step of the way and showing me just how much I could let go of control and trust Him.

It turns out the prophecy spoken to me three years ago was correct, I really was entering a season of peace – but as long as I had my eyes on the storms around me I was missing it.

Peace, you see, had nothing to do with my circumstances and everything to do with trusting a loving God.

^{Matthew 6:19} “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.

Dear Friends...

"Minute Book" Mixed Media Collage by Crystal Neubauer

I am opening up a need to you all and will do so by pasting a copy of a letter I posted to my Facebook wall below. Many of you have already written to ask how you can help aside from the prayers and several people have responded by making purchases of my art. This has been very humbling to have to say yes and to be direct about it, but if ever there was a time for me to do so this would be it. I still have several pieces of my work available on clearance here and many other pieces are available on my website here. If you are in the Chicago area and would like to see my work in person I have several pieces available through Randy Heller Design, she can be contacted here or you can visit her showroom at this location. If you are in the Scotsdale Arizona area Xanadu Gallery is now carrying my work and if you are unable to visit the showroom, those pieces are available at the website here. And finally, many people have written asking for my email address to write me privately. I am deeply touched. My email address is crystal_opf@comcast. com.

"Dear Friends - A little over a month
ago my family moved into a rental that my husband agreed to renovate for
the landlord in exchange for low rent. It sounded like a good way to be
able to pay off some old debt and get our feet on the ground during
continued cutbacks at his job. Unfortunately we discovered that the
house is infested with mold. I have become ill from the exposure and had to leave a few days ago and one of our
dear cats fell ill as well, this weekend she went into renal failure
and we had to make the heart wrenching decision to have her put to
sleep.

We will be packing and putting all of our belongings in
storage in the next few days and will each be staying with family or
friends until we figure out where we can go from here (as of last Wednesday I have been staying at various family and friends homes). It has been an
extremely emotionally and financially devastating experience, putting a
strain on the marriage and is very frightening to think of the health
ramifications we may be dealing with still.
I am reaching out to you
to ask for prayers to cover our circumstances. Already since taking
action to deal with the issue God has been providing and I am just
looking to Him each moment to help me to make the wisest decisions for
the next. This community has always been extremely supportive and kind
and I greatly appreciate this. Thank-you."

http://crystalneubauer.com/section/278508_Clearance.html

On Anne Lamott and the Epiphany of Friendship

"The beams of our house are cedars" : 10" x 10" Collage comes in 20" x 20" shadowbox frame &mat 

 I've been processing a pretty major decision in my life and this morning I think I've had something of an epiphany. Funny how these moments strike - they feel like they are something out of the blue- the Aha! of it- but in actuality they are a sort of symphony that has been slowly building to this climatic moment and only in retrospect am I able to see it. The "epiphany" brings with it a sort of clarity - as a veil has just been lifted and I am able to see all the underneath parts of the decision making process and the moments that have led to this moment.

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I do have to guard against wasting time, but on the love side is being able to glean from people who inspire me. One of my favorite authors is Anne Lamott, who writes lengthy status updates on a fairly regular basis. Little snippets of her life, her views on world events and oftentimes advice to aspiring writers. I love her "voice", her wit, and her overall sense of confidence, which she somehow exudes even when she is pointing out her flaws. In other words, she's a real person and I aspire to be like her. To so unashamedly live from that place of confidence, without concern that not everybody shares my point of view or gets my sense of humor- or sees my jiggly parts.

A few days ago Anne posted this advice to her aspiring writer fans: "I just tweeted something that might be helpful to you writerly types out there, which is that I get mentally arthritic when I "try" to write, or take myself too seriously, and breathe down my own neck. And when I notice that this stuckness, I switch over to pretending that I am just writing my story/memory as a letter to my very dear younger brother. It totally takes the pressure off. It's just my brother, not Mitchiko Kakutani. He is always interested in what matters to me, and is non-judgmental, with a great sense of humor. I thought, Hey, everyone could pretend to write their stories or tell their memories in a letter to my younger brother. So get to work! His name is Stevo."

 Something about that description of Stevo stuck with me and this morning I thought of it as I found myself processing the decision I spoke of earlier. I realized I was blessed to have a few "Stevo's" in my life in the form of friendships. A few very dear friends who love me and accept me in the same non-judgemental way that Anne speaks about her brother. One friend in particular has listened to me wrestle with my life again and again, always in a safe and loving way, totally accepting me just as I am and believing the best for me, even when I am at my worst. And it was a question this friend spoke to me at the start of the wrestling over this particular decision that wound up being the catalyst for this epiphany: "But do you want to do it?"  - not a pep talk on pushing through, or a lofty sermon about handing it over to God, no glossing over of the issue at hand, or some sort of chastisement about my fears or indecision or a shame inducing lecture on responsibilities and not everything being about me. No, a total warm encouraging accepting question "Do you want to....?" 

Do i want to...it's kind of a loaded question. Do we really wrestle over things that we are certain we want to do? Sometimes. Yes.

And so the slow building musical score to my life built its way to the part where the drums of self-condemnation are beating loudly in my ears just before the release of the epiphany. A gentle moment of clarity where I am able to see the fears to which I am in bondage and the number of ways I have given away my power because of those fears.

But the clarity was not in the knowledge of, or acknowledgment of, my fears alone. No, it came in the form of releasing myself from the shame of having those fears in the first place. They are there and they are a part of me, part of my Limbic System with scientific names like Amygdala and Basal Ganglia which have written my emotional auto-pilot gut reactions long before my conscious memories were formed. And in that small, but monumental moment of truth - I see that the only way to overcome them is not by pretending they don't exist or by shaming myself in a faux demonstration of bravery, but simply to befriend them and accept them. To befriend and accept me. Just as Anne's brother Stevo accepts her and just as my dear friends accept me; without judgement for the fears, but with every bit of confidence that as I press into them I will eventually find my way.

Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch: Four Boys

There seems to be a movement developing - as I am once again bringing to you a guest author who is writing on the topic of being vulnerable. The author of my last guest post, Jan Avellana introduced me to this quote by Frederick Buechner from his book Telling Secrets -- writes "What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are . . . because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier . . . for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own . . . ”

And so without further ado, I introduce to you my friend Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch, the author of two bestselling books on Encaustic Wax Painting and the brainchild behind EncaustiKits and EncaustiCamp, here today to share vulnerably from her heart the story of four boys.... 

And then there was one~

Vulnerable:  tender, precious.

These words come to mind and more when I think of being vulnerable.  Oftentimes connoting negative imagery, on the contrary vulnerable has proven to be my greatest ally.

Four boys.

Giving birth to and raising one child catapults you into a place of vulnerability-your heart tears open wide- your senses go on a keen alert; perhaps likened only to the alert necessary to keep oneself alive in a battle ravaged war zone…

for the next eighteen years your hearing, seeing, smelling, even tasting and touching are all hair-triggered to the being that just tore your heart away and at the same time filled it full.

I have four boys.

four red headed, left handed, brilliantly wonderful boys. Men now, I must admit, since they tower over my 5'6^" frame by more than a head each....
'Have four boys': I read that again and wonder on what it means. How it is defined. For to have, implies I hold them, possess them, am with them.
I don't.

I don't have each and every 'finish your breakfast' 'don't forget to brush your teeth' 'have a great day I love you' days. I don’t have them all under my roof.
They are 2200 miles across this great US. Land locked in the center of the mitten state.

My boys.
It wasn't always this way. I married their father fully intending to 'till death do us part' never part. Raised Catholic, conservatively protected, 'always stay together no matter what' family history; I was trained to live no other way.
And then we failed. Marriage crashed. Trust departed. Love, exposed never existing love, vanished of possibility and we were no longer together. Parted.: Yet not yet 'until death'.

Four boys.
Amicably; that's what we called our efforts to remain centered around raising the boys; amicably communicating.
And so we left the decision of whom to live with up to each individual child. For a year I continued as mom of four; everything I had ever known and been still intact and all appearances of carrying on properly fortified.
Until Daniel left.
I put him on a plane with a stilted, hard-fought smile that came crushing down as I hit the passenger seat of my ride home.

Conner went next; but not so painfully.

 Taking off at eighteen to find his wings he returned to the fold three months later; growing into his leaving in stages until finally flying at twenty.
Brian was close behind.

Just shy of his sixteenth birthday.  I'd begun to play the game in my head that Daniel had gone off to boarding school; and so took up the same mind game with Brian’s departure.

So much too soon before I was ready to release them from my fold.

So vulnerable.

But in this vulnerable, real. In this vulnerable, pieced back together. In this vulnerable, throwing away the super glue and no longer furiously trying to hold the pieces together. In this vulnerable, realizing I had the super glue inside of me all along.
Tender.

This didn’t make it easy. It didn’t make it make sense. It didn’t ward off the demons of judgment telling me ‘what kind of mother are you?! That your children would leave?!’

But it made it possible.

And that was enough.

To wake up to. To begin again to. To open my eyes to.

Four boys.

Daniel's departure had prepared me for the reality of living this new way; his growing potential for success, thriving in his 'only child' status under his father's roof had proven hugely positive.
And so despite being newly sickened by my second child's early departure, I was nonetheless a bit more emboldened to trust it was a good thing. And,
Patrick remains.
At sixteen now himself, he steps into the next stages of life firmly determined to finish under my roof. I am grateful, yet also recognize the immense value of the long distance mothering I've been gifted in my others' departures.

Vulnerable to trusting my boys to a world I don’t trust. Vulnerable to trusting them to trust who I am. Vulnerable to trusting them to still let me be mom; without being able to make them dinner, and kiss them goodnight, and watch out the window as they walk up the road with their backpack slung low…

So vulnerable. Yet, so empowered.

Precious.

Giving birth once, twice, thrice then four times proved to not be the real picture of vulnerable after all.

Their before their time leaving did.

Because life turned.

And from vulnerable: weak, defenseless, exposed, came vulnerable: tender, precious.

I am momma.

I am confidant.

I am counselor.

I am encourager.

And I am believer.
Their leaving has given me space to give birth to more, while birthing in them more.

More than their next meal or homework assignment or chore.

More than their clean clothes, brushed teeth or washed hands.

I couldn't have, in my worst nightmares, have seen their early departures from my fold, but in my wildest dreams, couldn't either have foreseen the beautiful growth of confidence, opportunity and courageousness that was gifted not only to them in this independent decision, but in myself as well. Stepping into motherhood in a whole new way and becoming an inspiration and hero to my boys.
I have four boys.
And it is so vulnerable.

And it is good.

Jan Avellana on Safe Community

I'm practicing the art of asking forgiveness over permission today by borrowing my friend Jan Avellana's recent blog post on being a safe person and practicing safe community. It's only 4:30 am in Hawaii as I post this, so I tell myself Jan would rather I steal her post then call her to ask to use it at such an ungodly hour!

Jan say's the vulnerability I displayed in my last post inspired her to step out and practice a little vulnerability of her own by writing this post. I'm pretty honored to have my words effect another person in this way, especially someone whom I admire and love as much as I do Jan!

Once you finish reading, i hope you will take a moment to leave Jan a comment and let her know how her post spoke to you. And if you have a blog post that leaves you feeling vulnerable be sure to leave me a comment too! And so without further ado (and Jan when you wake up this morning and find this in your inbox, I hope you will forgive me....




(Jan enjoying summer near her home in Hawaii)


True story: A woman at my old workplace would go out of her way to be super-duper friendly to me. She’d stop me in the street as she drove by, rolling down her car window to wave to me, to chat at the stoplight, even. I let my guard down and let her in. My weirdo-radar (apparently an obsolete model) gave me no indication that I should keep my distance from her. So, I didn’t. After a few months of this easy-breezy-chatty-friendship, I found out that she and another woman I hardly knew were spreading rumors about me that were totally untrue.

I was speechless. Really. The fact that someone can even conjure up something sinister about my life (whose highlight is going to the 7-11 for some spicy tuna sushi) is pretty exciting—oh, I mean really, very sad. My first reaction was to defend myself to “everyone”, to show them my resume, let them talk to my pastor and best friends who could vouch and attest for me that I am indeed a non-evil-entity and someone who can be trusted not to eat the very last piece of chocolate in the box because she thinks so of others more highly than herself. Truly. Kindof. My next reaction (and this sickens me to say) was to be extra nice to this woman! As in, there is something wrong with me and if I were just nicer then she will take back everything she said and I would be okay again. As in, more truthfully, I didn’t have the courage to confront her and ask, “What the hell are you talking about woman? (continue reading...)