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Safe Church

I feel extremely fortunate to have found a church community that feels safe to me. I know that this is a big struggle for people who have left their church or plan on leaving. What next? Is there a place for me? We worry about this as we exit. This is why back in Illinois we created our own place. Most of the churches in our area were evangelical or catholic. We didn’t feel like there were any safe churches, but we still wanted that type of community to be a part of our lives, so we formed it, and invited people to join us.

It was wonderful, it was beautiful, it was downright fun. But it was also hard, stressful, and tiring. Without a denomination behind us we weren’t getting paid. In fact it cost us quite a bit to host Mosaic every week. Soon we had a baby and it made everything harder. We knew we couldn’t keep doing it. It was especially hard for me, an introverted, stressed out, new mom. I just couldn’t handle the amount of work it created in our home.

When we decided to pack up and move across the country we also decided to end Mosaic. It was a hard choice but it was clearly the right one for my sanity. It also happened to work out that a large core of the people attending were also moving away to other parts of the country at the same time.

When we moved to Portland we took a break from church for a while. I had zero desire to go within 1000 feet of a church and was again questioning everything I thought I knew about God. I was starting to doubt God was real. The only overtly spiritual element to my life was occasionally listening though an entire Gungor album on a long drive. Those solo worshipful experinces kept this tiny spiritual lifeline alive for me. I didn’t know who God was, or what they did, but I was pretty sure there was something more still out there.

Eventually we decided to actually look around for a church. We found a few we were interested in and visited. Those visits were hard. It took a lot of courage to go though those doors. We visited a UCC church and the people there were so kind, but we knew before the service even ended it wasn’t for us. We visited another church that met in a bar, ok thats kind of progressive, but it really wasn’t anything different from any other evangelical church besides the location.

Two churches and I was done. I just couldn’t do it. The one in the bar was trying to recruit me for ministry after only being there for 20 minutes, ughh… I was not ready for that.

I gave up. I was pretty sure we weren’t going to find a church where I felt safe. I still had my car rides with my Gungor albums, the only “Christian” music I could stomach anymore. That was enough “church” for me.

Then one day, 3 years after we moved to Portland, on a typical trip to the grocery store I was stuck in traffic and looked out the window of the car to see a sign that read “Sellwood Faith Community.” I wrote before about how I went home and read the whole blog that night.

I wanted to visit right away. I was too excited to wait long! The fact that they met in a house and not a church was huge to me. By this point in my life I had started having crippling anxiety attacks. It got so bad that a few months later I had to leave my job and get in therapy. It was a really hard time for me and my family. Going into a church building was too much, if this community had met in a traditional looking church I wouldn’t have gone. So for me, a huge element of the church being safe was the fact that it was a house church.

They also met over dinner and had a real group discussion (the bar church claimed to be discussion based but, disappointingly, was not). This was also big for me. I was not ready to sit down and be preached at. I had done that before, I was trained to preach myself. I’m not much into preaching anymore. Another element of safety for me was the lack of preaching.

A factor that surprised me was how wonderful it has been having a female pastor. I wasn’t specifically looking for that, and it didn’t seem important at first. Now I feel like having a female pastor has allowed me to feel more like I matter. I don’t feel like she is an authority figure trying to reign over my life, which is how I so often felt with all the male pastors from my past. I don’t think every male pastor is like that, but for me, a female pastor has helped SFC feel like safe space.

I didn’t walk into SFC and have this glorious moment where I knew I was at home. I walked in and had a panic attack. I came back and had another panic attack. Some weeks I had to work super hard to not have to run out the door. I felt for sure these people were judging me, or would turn on me at some point. At first I was worried about every word I said. Would I say something too conservative? Did I doubt too much? Was it ok that I was super unsure about God these days?  Was it Ok that I wasn’t a democrat? Would they think we were insane for being Unschoolers?  I was terrified of doing the wrong thing, or thinking the wrong thing. “Wrong” thinking was what led to me leaving my home church.

It was weird being part of community that held so many opposite beliefs of our old community. It has also been strange being in a space where differing thoughts are valued. It has been extremely difficult to learn to trust a religious community again, and I can’t say I even do trust them 100% yet. But I’m getting there. They have been gracious, welcoming, and kind. They are loving towards my son, who might not receive the same treatment in a typical church due to some of his developmental and behavioral characteristics. This is obviously extremely important to me.

I’ve heard people say things like “Trust God” or “Trust the Universe” when it comes to finding the right church, the right space for my business, the right friends, or even the right employees. Its been true in this case. Sellwood Faith Community (a United Methodist Church) came into my life at the exact moment I needed it and I met this community of wonderful, passionate, loving, patient people. This is my safe church. I can’t tell you a single denomination that is “safe” becuase safe is going to look different for you. You might need pews or a particular style of worship or some other thing. I would say at minimum a safe church is a place that doesn’t ban any questions or concerns. It is a place that accepts you and all your baggage and all your doubts and struggles. What that looks like in practice is going to be different in each community. I found a safe church, and I think safe churches are becoming increasingly common across the country. Keep an eye out and you might find one.

Thank you Eilidh, Jeff, Paige, Kat, Micheal, Austin, Maddy, Chris, Travis, Jeff, Amanda, Colleen, Aric, Stacia, Curran, Avery, and others that I’m know I’m forgetting. Thank you for accepting us right where we are. You have helped me heal in more ways than I can accurately express. You have succeeded in being a safe place for us and I love all of you.

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Sunday Dinner around the Lowery’s dining room table.
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Some Spiritual Backstory

My last post really seemed to connect with a lot of people, I got several comments on facebook and private messages about it. So today I’m going to write about how I came to end up in the Assemblies of God in the first place. Oddly enough it was not the church I was raised in, but I came to find myself in one as a teen. Lets start at the beginning.

I was raised Roman Catholic. My parents both came from large Catholic families who followed many of the Catholic traditions. We went to our local Catholic Church on and off throughout my childhood, but pretty consistently from ages 5-12. After first grade my Mother even pulled me from the public school and sent me to the Catholic school that was associated with our Church. So from second grade onward I was in deep by no choice of my own. During my childhood years I didn’t care all that much about religion. I certainly believed God was real, and believed heaven was real but, beyond that I didn’t think much of theology or Church, it was just another thing I had to do every week that took away from time I could be doing fun things. It assuredly wasn’t as annoying as school.

As I grew older I developed more interest in spiritual things, and wanted to know more about this God thing. In 8th grade in my Catholic school, I had an experience that to me, proved the existence of God. I’m not sure I want to tell that story publicly, as I know it can be explained away by statistics, and its really only meaningful to me. It wouldn’t hold meaning for anyone else. I’m just including it as an important part of my background story.

I had that experience right around the time my family officially quit going to Church. My Mom was dealing with her own faith and at the time I didn’t care enough to do anything different from what she decided.

We moved to a new home so I could continue going to Catholic School for high school (becuase my mom was so disgusted with the public schools and saw this as a better option). I went to a large Catholic High School for my freshman year and then begged my Mom to leave. That was one of my worst years of school. Everyday I was met with bullies, and judged by kids who were more rich than I was. We could afford to go there, so we were well off, but most of the kids who went to the school were from the richest families in the area. I didn’t fit in. They didn’t get their moms old beat up car at 16 (like I did) they got new BMWs at 16. My only friend at that school was Joey, the only other super dedicated skater at the school. We both lived to skate and would skate together after school every chance we got.

At this point in my life skateboarding was my religion. It was everything. It was how I didn’t go crazy from the bullies and from the teachers and the awful school work that was either far too easy or far too hard. There never seemed to be any work worth doing early in High School. But still I had a desire to search out spiritual things. I didn’t like Catholicism anymore. To me it was all show. God might be real, but Catholicism didn’t seem like a great way of learning about him to me. Catholics seemed to care a lot about making a big deal about being Catholic, building fancy buildings, putting expensive robes on the clergy, and not much else. I didn’t see a faith that translated into anything of substance in real life.

For my sophomore year I transferred to Woodstock High School. It was my first public school experience in 10 years. I would have been a total mess if I didn’t have skateboarding at this point. I didn’t have any friends besides my friends at the skatepark, and now I was going to to a new school where I knew literally no one. Starting at WHS I became friends with a few of the new freshman, since I had to go to the same new student orientation as them. Overtime my friendships grew with a handful of these people mostly though our involvement in the music program. One of those people was my now husband, Ace.

At the same time my younger sister, Sam, was making friends of her own, and eventually she was invited to this local church youth group. All I knew is that it was one of those weird Christian churches that listens to that crappy radio station and raises their hands when they sing. I was super judgmental at the time. Over the years Ace eventually got involved in the youth group as well, and had become one my closest friends. Early in my Junior year of high school, they (Sam and Ace) finally convinced me to not just drive them to Youth Group, but to go with them.

The first time I went I sat quietly in the back judging everyone. I counted how many people raised their hands during worship and went home and had a good laugh with my Mom over it. But soon enough I went back. The people were nice, the games were fun. They may have some silly beliefs (most of which I didn’t understand at all), but I was hungry for meaningful relationships and this place seemed to have that in abundance. Soon enough I found myself bowing my head during youth group and silently praying along with the “Sinner’s Prayer” I was 17 and saved.

Everything changed. And I mean everything. I went in really deep really fast. I found my best friends at youth group. I joined the worship team. I was volunteering right away, and eating up everything I could about Jesus and the Bible. God was finally accessible and I was hungry for spirituality and couldn’t get enough. Everyone that knows me knows I go all in all things, sometimes too much (who needs a raised bed, how about 1000 sq. ft of garden!?), and this was no different. The youth group filled some deep needs I had for love acceptance, and spirituality. It gave life a rhyme and reason, it gave me hope, it gave me answers.

My Mom was not excited about our new found faith. She thought believing the old testament was literal was insane. I was happy to find any apologist I could to back up my new found beliefs. I was 17, I was pretty sure I knew how the world worked.

Below are some pictures of some of the youth group from the summer of 2004.

My friend Jon and I, not sure what we are doing.
Ace being pensive against a post.
Playing games outside.
My sister (right) hanging out with youth group friends.
Playing pool.

 

I was soon working at our Church in a few different capacities and even getting a paycheck for doing childcare. I was spending less and less time at the skatepark, since it had been sold to a new owner and I had lost a good percentage of my friends there. Youth Group and the Church it was a part of was my new family. I didn’t end up in a fundamentalist, pentecostal church becuase my family was a part of it, I ended up there becuase they were meeting my needs for love, acceptance, and spiritual longing.

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Healing from Spiritual Trauma

I’ve been binging the “Ask Science Mike” podcast over the last few months and I’m almost caught up. Recently I listened to episode 79 where someone asked about recovering from spiritual abuse. They explained how they suffer from an anxiety disorder and how things associated with Christianity now trigger panic attacks, including the Bible and corporate worship.

I used to think the terms “Spiritual abuse” and “Spiritual PTSD” were pretty silly, now I see how well they fit what I’ve been though. I’ve been at the point this person was at. There was a point when going into a church caused immediate panic and I still don’t feel comfortable inside a church.

When my faith started to evolve I started to lose my community, I had inklings that things weren’t right. I was uncomfortable in my church.  I learned that the love of these people, who I saw as family, didn’t work the way I thought it did. They professed God’s unconditional love and claimed to love people in a similar way, but they didn’t. Their love was conditional, and my evolving theology moved me to the outside. I was moving away from fundamentalism and so they began to see me as the other and treat me as the other. I remember the times that people in our church were honest about struggles and were punished for it, removed from their teaching positions, removed from the worship team, taken aside and told to watch out, be careful, your on thin ice for saying those things…. I was good at avoiding being one of those people. I was good about being quiet about my disagreements, becuase that church, and the kids in that church were my life. At that time I still very closely believed what they did, but I had changed my views on the end times, I didn’t believe homosexuality was a sin, and I was leaning towards universalism. I had stopped talking about the end times and hell at all in kid’s church. It didn’t fit with the God of Love I knew. At first it was easy to just avoid the topics I didn’t agree on.

Soon though I couldn’t even stomach the model of church we had. We had an increasing number of outside speakers coming in speaking things that I was astonished my pastor allowed. Things from prosperity gospel to banning openly gay people from the church grounds. How was he not stopping this? Not only was he not stopping it, he approved of it. My heart was shattered. It destroyed me, but not all at once.

I found myself invited to a very small conference for “emergent church” leaders. A fellow student at my Pentecostal bible college had invited me. He had noticed who the rabble rousers were who thought boycotting Pepsi becuase they supported gay marriage was insane. He was starting his own church that looked nothing like a church. Where juggalo kids sang secular songs together, and read poetry, and had dances. I thought it was beautiful, while at the same time I was becoming increasingly disgusted with the church I found myself working in. A church I had helped found. A church in which I had built the entire children’s ministry basically by myself from nothing.

This man invited me to this conference, Ace came with me, as well as one of our closest friends (at the time). We saw what others were doing, and heard their ideas of what church could and should be, and that was it. That was the weekend I knew I had to leave. I couldn’t do it anymore. I hadn’t lost my faith, but I knew my faith wasn’t the same as my churches, it was evolving and it would keep evolving, and I knew I didn’t fit.

My two young close friends and I decided to bring all our grievances to our pastor directly, we really wanted to do this the “right” way. I now know there is no right way to tell a spiritual man you think he’s not doing what God wants, but it was the best idea we had. We even wrote out our main points and read it to him. He was clearly upset during that meeting around his kitchen table, but he held it together. That was the moment I lost my spiritual family. He had called me a daughter many times, but on that day it ended. I wasn’t following his leadership anymore, and he didn’t outright freak out or anything, but I still remember the look in his eyes of anger, hurt, betrayal. I was going to be his prodigy, to get ordained and go out and start the next church. I told him that night that I was going to leave his church after Christmas and that the three of us would soon be starting our own church. I was 24. You don’t start a church at 24 in the Assemblies of God. You are rarely a given a senior pastor position at that age. I had yet to even finish Bible college. I graduated from my Pentecostal Bible college 6 months after I left my Church. I just wasn’t Pentecostal anymore.

Despite the clear negative feelings from the pastor, his wife, and the other church leadership, they did their best to act in grace. They said they would support us, they did a big blessing on our last Sunday. They told us we were all on the same team. It was all show. It was all lies. The worst thing was that I believed them.

One of our best friends choose to stay at that church, he had gone to Assembly of God Churches his whole life, he loved playing on the worship team. He was the obvious choice to take over leadership of the worship team when Ace left. Yet, the Church decided to give it to someone who came in right as we left, when our friend was there from the beginning. That broke our hearts too, but what could we do? Soon we heard worse things, they were praying for us “To get back into the will of God.” Ouch. How was that support?

The following February we started our church, Mosaic. We built it around all the ideas we came up with that weekend months earlier at the conference. We had an open house everyday from noon-midnight. We ate dinner at 5, and did discussion and a few songs at 6. Many of our friends who hadn’t gone to a church in years were excited to come. It grew and slowly we found our groove. We had fantastic discussions, people were venerable, people aired their doubts, atheists came in and challenged us, we responded with love, they thanked us. It was beautiful.

When we would run into members of our old church around town, we would be excited to tell them how Mosaic was going, they had no idea what we were talking about.

We found out that after those couple of prayers for us to “Come back into the will of God” we were essentially erased from the church. Our ministries had been drastically changed to look like typical evangelical ministries. They didn’t care about supporting us, they just didn’t care about us. Our names were not spoken anymore. I had lunch with another friend who had left that church when she moved, she was now going to a satellite campus of a mega church. I was excited to reconnect with her. I was excitedly telling her about what we were doing with Mosaic when she snidely remarked, “Well I’m glad your have fun.” Her voice was so thick with attitude and disrespect I still hear it echoing to this day. That remark hurt deeply.

It didn’t stop there, becuase young adults we knew from other local evangelical churches were coming to Mosaic (mostly high school friends of ours) word was getting around what we were doing; we didn’t believe in hell, we didn’t say the sinner’s prayer with people, we let everyone have a voice, we sang “weird” songs. What we were doing wasn’t that weird in mainstream Christianity, and not strange at all in progressive Christianity, but to evangelicals it was clear, we had started a cult. That was what was going around. Which is hilarious becuase Pentecostalism (basically fundamentalism + speaking in tongues) fits the criteria for a cult much more closely than our little ragtag group that had no single consensus on belief. We were young people, most of whom believed in a Christian God, but didn’t really know much beyond that. We were much better at knowing what we weren’t. We had yet to be fully exposed to all the streams of Christianity and Deism and Mysticism that were out there. We were still pretty darn normal from a mainstream Christian perspective. If only they knew what I thought now!

This experience of leaving my church, losing my community, and having my community who I thought loved me turn against me, was the second hardest experience of my life, the only thing that beats it is loosing my father at 4 years old, these things, still hurt to this day. Losing my church, hurt about as much as my father dying, thats how deep it goes. There are days when I feel like I’ve really made peace with that part of my life. I’ve wrote about it on this blog. You can go read it. But there are times when it still hurts, and discovering all these other people like me though Ask Science Mike and The Liturgists podcasts has me re-experiencing and reexamining these wounds.

I was spiritually abused, both within my church and after I left it. And it messed me up. It messed up every area of my life. I’m finding healing though a few things. First, having my son. Having my son has taught me how to love like nothing else ever has. I thought I loved kids, then I had my own baby. I know we are biologically wired to value our children over ourselves. I know that our DNA wants to continue replicating and the best way to do that is to have kids and protect their lives at all costs so they can have kids of their own. Yet there is still something spiritual about raising a baby. He was not an easy baby, I met the edge of sanity many times, but each time I just learned how to love a little better. I’m still healing and learning how to be a better person though my son.

Secondly, I’m healing though telling my story. I didn’t realize it at first, I picked up that realization when I read “Finding God in the Waves” a few months ago. I’ve told my story so many times to so many friends, I even tried to squeeze the whole story in when I met Mike Mchargue here in Portland back in November. I hadn’t planned on doing that, but when it was our turn to meet him, it just all started coming out. Its part of my larger story of my life, an important part, and I’ll keep telling it.

Finally, and possibly most importantly, I’m finding healing though my new Church home. I had given up on finding a church, and I wasn’t sure if I even believed in God anymore (thats for another post), when I saw a weird sign, “Sellwood Faith Community.” It piqued my interest, and I went home and googled it. I found the pastor’s blog and I read almost the whole thing that night. “Ace she’s like us!” I just kept telling him. I couldn’t believe there were weird people out there like us, who were Christian but welcoming of non-christians, who saw value in a nontraditional gatherings. They, like Mosaic, ate dinner together on Sunday nights and had discussion. I have more to say about that in another post as well, but for now I just want to say that finding a church that accepted us right where we were at has helped me heal in ways I didn’t expect.

Spiritual PTSD is not crazy, its real, and I went though it as well. I’ve been though some extremely difficult times, and so many of them were related to the way I was treated by my Spiritual community. No one should have to experience that and I’m glad so many of our friends left the church before getting to that point. I know there are others from our own community that have felt what we have felt, and to them, and everyone else who has experienced this kind of trauma I say; keep going, there is healing, it might not be in a church, or it might be, follow what feels right, talk to other people, and keep moving forward. It will get better. If that means not going in a church right now, or hiding your bible in closet or even throwing it in the garbage, thats what it means. God and the Church and the Bible will still be there if you ever decide you want them. Take time to rest, take time to read, take time to just be. You will be ok someday, and if you look around enough you can find a spiritual home if you need it. Its ok to not be ok. Its ok to not know what you believe. You are enough.

If you are feeling spiritually homeless or confused I’d highly recommend all the resources I mentioned in this post, The Liturgists podcast, Ask Science Mike podcast, and the book, Finding God in the Waves.

Peace.

 

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A typical evening at Mosaic.
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Some things I’m working though…

Recently I was explaining several of my daily struggles to my therapist hoping that she, as she so often does, would have some good strategies I can use to help me with them. Among my complaints was that I struggle to follow conversations, especially when the are long or intense, and most especially when the other person is talking for a long time.  I also told her about how I hate that I unconsciously bite my nails and that I’ve chewed on my nails for as long as I’ve had teeth, how I can not concentrate if there are other people making sounds in the house, whether its read a book, write, or watch a video. Just now I got snappy with Mark becuase he’s running around yelling and my train of thought vanished.

I’ve been seeing her for well over a year now and many of these issues were on the original form I filled out, but I had a far more pressing issue at the time, crippling panic attacks. I can’t remember clearly how many times I thought I was for sure going to be dead in the next five minutes. The last time was just the other night when I was driving in the snow.

The difference now though, is that I recognize it as anxiety, and I have tools to get though it. I slowed my breathing, took deep breaths into my belly, and watched the pain. It took about a year before I had any idea what was meant by “Become an observer.” At one point I was provided with worksheets that showed me how to do it and they helped. Now I really get it and yoga was the biggest help with that. I can remember that my body is a body and it has all sorts of feelings, pain being one of them. I can “step back” and watch it. As soon I realized the pain was not increasing and was not in one place but moving from my chest to my shoulder to my neck and then to my head, I calmed down. “This is not a heart attack, this is a panic attack”, I thought to myself as my podcast yammerd on in the background. I realized I had not heard a word of it in at least 5 minutes and I started to listen again.

Now that I know how to do what I just described, I can finally move on in therapy to other things, my relationships, my weird habits, my day to day struggles that make life difficult; beyond severe panic. Last time I went in I rambled for a while about all these things and I got a response that only partly caught me off guard, “I’m not big on diagnoses, but you might fit an attention deficit disorder.”

There have been times I’ve wondered if that fits me, but not with any real depth. I had teachers insist it fit me when I was in primary school, and my mom fighting saying it didn’t. I think my mother didn’t want me on medication, which is great, becuase I don’t want to be on medication. In fact, I asked my therapist, are there other people I should see and talk to about this? And she said, “You could see a psychiatrist, but they will suggest medication, and I thought you didn’t want to go that route.” She also went on to say something like “I see that you struggle with these things, I’ve noticed them too, but I also see that you work very hard to overcome it.” and she talked about my strengths for a little while.

I didn’t realize that my experinces aren’t “normal” (whatever that really means). The fact that my therapist actually noted that I have some unique strengths and struggles oddly makes me feel a little less crazy, I really am a bit of an outlier.

I decided to write this all becuase I saw this silly buzzfeed list, and read it and thought again, “Wow, this really does fit me.” Maybe this fits everyone, maybe not, I’m really not educated enough to know. I’ve only lived this one life with this one brain, and I’ve never fit in or understood other people. I’ve always been a weird one. Having this information doesn’t change too much for me, except now I can try to discover more specific strategies to make my own day to day life easier and more productive.

I’ll end with said buzzfeed article.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolinekee/adhd-is-a-disorder-not-a-choice?utm_term=.jkKN4rwlL#.yk3mP0y4E

 

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I am Sad

That’s a hard thing to accept, being sad. I’ve been taught my whole life that its no tOK to be sad. It’s weakness. It’s an inconvenience. You just don’t be sad. You be strong. Somehow these things can’t coexist. There is sadness and there is strength.

The problem is when you don’t allow sadness it becomes illness. I’ve done this my whole life without realizing it. I don’t allow myself to experience sadness in any healthy way. I let it build and build. And sometimes I will finally cry and cry and cry and sob. But more often I will withdraw. I will hide within myself until I feel nothing. And then I slip into depression and become of a shell of my true self.

This week has been that. At the same time I recognize that there are other factors at play. My hormones are making this week extra hard. I have really rough symptoms of PMS and PMDD sometimes, this month is one of them. I’ve had some insane dreams this week. In some of them I’ve been dying and those dreams are somehow comforting. Thats a weird thing to wake up feeling. Its hard to grapple with.

Right now I’m missing all the dates I had hoped for for Stronger Skatepark. Its not happening on schedule. At the same time I’m constantly refining the business plan as I learn more information and I’m watching the costs grow and realizing to do it well I’m going to need more financing. This is a hard thing to accept. Either, I’m going to get lucky and find a building that will have low costs from whatever jurisdiction I open up in and will need only a minimal build out, or I’m going to need to find a co-owner or another investor. This is hard to swallow.

I know its an absolutely insane comparison, but the one thing that brings me hope is looking at Elon Musk and his endeavors. He dreams big, real big, and nothing ever happens on schedule or on budget, but it happens. I see a Model S drive by me and I see so much more than a technological marvel thats going to change the world, I see his vision realized. Someday thats going to happen for me. Its not going to happen on time or on budget, but it will happen. Someday I will be putting our logo up on a building and bringing together my whole team of designers, builders, investors, friends, and supporters to build the park. And wherever it ends up its is going to change lives. It might not save the the world from carbon emissions or put us on Mars, but it may give a young person a second chance at life. It may convince a parent to let their child do what they love. It may provide someone who has never had community with a community where they can be accepted for who they are.

It is not happening on time and that makes me deeply sad.

I’m here dedicated to this to the point where I’m pushing myself to the edge financially and emotionally over it and its not happening like I’d hoped and planned. I am sad, and I’m letting myself feel it. I need to so I can move though the feelings and keep working toward the dream. I am sad and I am strong.

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I Remember Better Days

These days are hard days, but not the hardest of days. I remember worse, much worse days, but I also remember better days.

I’m in a good space with my mental health these days, which makes the challenges significantly easier to weather. Even my therapist was surprised with how level headed I was today. Things are objectively bad. The skatepark is going slow right now. There’s not much I can really do. Each day I look at buildings, most days there are no new ones. Often times there are one or two to look into. I e-mail the government that has jurisdiction, I email the relator. Usually I quickly get a “No” from one or both.

“This is zoned industrial, your use would not be allowed.”

“This space has already been leased”

“They are asked $20/sq. ft.”

It’s just closed door after closed door. It really gets me down. Then people leave comments on social media “Is anything actually ever going to happen with this skatepark?” Ouch. That hurts. Believe me, I’m way way more invested in this than you. There is literally no one as invested in this as much as me, except maybe my investor, but even they are only in 10% at this point. I’m in 110%, and then a little more. This is my life, my mission, my dream. My greatest fear is that I die before I see it to completion. I will look for buildings until I’m successful or I die. I will make this real, no matter how many ways I have to come at the problem. I’ll do it with or without you.

Then the fucking election. Just wow. I’ve been saying for several years that Hilary would be our next president, long before she even announced her campaign. It was clearly her next career move. She is smart and calculated. But she messed up, the DNC messed up. And their supremely unqualified opponent won. I don’t even think he thought he would win. Everyone is shocked.

I’m gonna be honest and say this has shaken me up. I had a panic attack when it was clear he had won. I’ve had three over the past two days. Thats more than I’ve had in several weeks. I’m legitimately scared for minorities in this country. Even if the president-elect does none of the awful things he’s promised, his victory has given racists everywhere permission to be openly racist. People are already meeting violence on the street simply for the way they look. This is not the country I thought it was. I’m deeply disturbed by this.

I’ve already decided that all I can do is whatever is in my power to bring peace. I’ve spent some time looking over why people voted for this man to try and understand better. I get some of it, but I don’t get prejudice. Its just extremely difficult for me to understand. All I can assume is that these people were raised this way. They certainly weren’t born that way. They must have experienced some trauma or some training to make them think that others are less than human. They were probably treated as less than human at some point in their own lives.

I’ve also made it my mission to stand with anyone who I can that is oppressed by these people.  The people who are now in danger are the people I must stand beside in whatever ways I can. I love them. How can I not? They are people too.

Stronger Skatepark is part of my personal mission to bring more peace into the world. A place where those of us who get our best therapy on wheels can come and feel peaceful again. A place where those who have no other community can find acceptance. A place of respect for all people. A place where we can learn to love one another.

Today is hard though, as that dream seems a million miles away, and it seems as though we’ve lost a lot of progress in this country towards peace. This place seems the least peaceful I’ve ever seen it. It’s scary.

Today all I can do is hold on to what we have right now that is still good and beautiful. I have music, I have skateboarding, I have friends, I have family, I have nature, I have sex, I have food, I have all these things and more that keep life worth living in the hardest days. Each time we seem to loose something, the only choice we have is to pick ourselves up and keep going; day in and day out. Tomorrow is another day. A day where I will do my best to find the good and beauty around me, a day where I will do whatever I can to stand with those who are oppressed, a day to be a force for peace instead of a force for division.

I hope you will do what you can to bring peace to the world.

Love wins.

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My name is Allison and I wrote this.
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Light House Church was a Great Experience

A lot of what I’m working on in therapy and on my own, is reframing the story of my life. In reexamining these events and phases of my life I find myself grieving things I’ve needed to grieve, celebrating things I never celebrated, and finding healing and peace for old wounds.

In the process of starting a business I find myself relying most heavily on my experience at Light House Church as the Children’s Program Director. I’m reading an excellent book right now entitled, “Do Cool Sh*t” by Miki Agrawal. I’m not finished with it, but I love it so far. In it she discusses three routes to bringing your idea to reality; the intrepreneurial approach (working from within an existing organization), the entrepreneurial approach (starting your own organization) and the philanthropic approach. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was essentially doing the philanthropic approach with Light House Church. The philanthropic approach says to find an organization that you support and lend them your skills, which helps you to develop your skills. Its a mutually beneficial arraignment.

I spent five years working on Light House Church aside several other people. I wasn’t a key decision maker as to the direction of the organization, but I was in charge of an entire department. When we were first starting out that simply looked like a list of things you need for childcare so we could have a very basic nursery. All I had to do was get the items and schedule volunteers. As time went on my job grew, soon we had a children’s church program. I designed the curriculum and taught it. I did everything at first, and still had the nursery to staff and maintain.

Soon I started having ideas of my own for more programs and events, so I made them happen, often on a shoestring budget. I’d organize almost everything for these events including, marketing, equipment, set up, volunteers, food, and clean up. The events varied pretty drastically in size and scope, some with 5 kids attending, some with nearly 100 kids. As the years went on this became a very time consuming job. They even started giving me a very small amount of money for all the work I was doing. All this while going to school and working at a doggy day care. I was busy, but I was rocking it.

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Eating ice cream with the kids on a Wednesday night in the summer. 

This experience of running the children’s programs at Light House Church was absolutely invaluable to who I am. I learned that I could do it. I could dream up a program or event and I could make it happen. I could do it even better when I had a good team on my side. I learned that I could learn a lot of skills all on my own. I managed a database, I made videos, I made power points, I crafted lessons, I crafted crafts, I created something from basically nothing. And now I’m going to do it again and I have my experience from Light House Church to lean on when I think I can’t do it.

When I watch videos of contests at WARP and think “There is no way I can do that. Its just too much, its too big, too many people, too many details,” I remember how “too big” didn’t stop me when I organized a community easter egg hunt for underserved kids or when I decided to do an even bigger christmas event or when I took on running Wednesday night programing on-top of Sunday morning programing. I’ve looked at “too big” and I’ve done it.

This next endeavor might be big, but I’m going to build a good team, and I’m going to do it. We’re going to change the Portland skate scene forever and I never could do it if it wasn’t for Light House Church.

This realization of how valuable Light House Church was for me is another reframing. There was so much hurt clouding my vision when I looked back on that experience. Choosing to leave my community was one of the hardest choices I have ever had to make, and the pain that followed that has been close to my heart for a long time.

I’ve come a long way since then and I can now see that experience for the valuable part of my life that it was. We did a lot cool stuff, heck, I did a lot of cool stuff and I’m really glad that I did.

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Being Present

Its so strange to me that being present in the moment is such a struggle. Its so blissful when you can be fully present in a good moment. Its incredibly deep when you can be fully present in a hard moment.

I struggle with being present. In my head I’m usually living in the future, worrying about what is to come. Sometimes I live in the past dwelling on what has already happened.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe planning for the future is essential, and that processing the past is valuable. But I have a tendency to put so much thought and effort into the future and the past that I struggle hard to be fully in the now. Or to be in the now at all.

Being mindful and being present are things I’m working on in my life. Taking out just 2-3 minutes to sit quietly and focus on nothing but my breath has been a challenge. I’ve been trying to do it for months now and I’m just starting to get the hang of it. My hope is to eventually work up to ten minutes of meditation everyday. It helps to clear out the plethora of worry that is constantly swirling around in my head and bring me back into the present moment. From there I can get a better sense of how I should go about my day.

Writing is another tool I use for mindfulness. Its hard to think of anything else when you are in the flow of writing. When I come this blog, I usually have a good idea of what I want to write. But even when I don’t have a good idea of what I want to write, I still write. I fill up my journal with all sorts of random writings.

When I write in my journal or in a notebook, I try to just go. I just write and let words flow. It doesn’t matter what they say really, once you get in a groove good things start to hit the page. It is a way to focus in on this moment. And in this moment of writing I can often also manage to process recent events or even plan for the future. When I do it though writing its a focused thing. Its not the same tangle of worries that clouds my mind and makes me anxious. Writing helps me to work though those things in an orderly way and come to a place of being present.

In addition to daily meditation I want to be writing daily or near daily. I hope to post on this site at least once a week. The topics will vary drastically, but they will all be things I’m thinking about. Alongside writing I’m working on not giving so many fucks about what other people think. I’ve been giving way too many fucks for way too long. I worry about what people will think of my parenting, or my clothes, or my home, or my writing. I shouldn’t let so much of my energy go to worrying about what others think. That effort is going to show here. Like it just did, when I used the word fuck. Its a good word, its a strong word. And sometimes you just need a really fucking strong word. I’m not going to censor myself to make other people comfortable. I’m not forcing anyone to read this.

So here I am, in my effort to be less anxious and more present, writing on this blog. You are welcome to take it or leave it. You are also welcome to take what you like and leave the rest behind. All I ask is that if you comment you remember that a real human being is on the other side reading it.

 

 

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2015 Year in Review

This last year brought a lot of changes for us. Including both Ace and I moving from more traditional employment to self-employment, Mark learning and growing a lot, and lots of dog challenges.

In January I worked hard on planning my first (and very large garden). Ace found out that he would have to buy a new camera or loose his job with Millennium doing exterior home inspections. We chose to let the job go and rely on my income as a nanny while Ace focused on music for a while. His primary goal was to grow his YouTube channel to 10,000 subscribers by the end of the year. We had no idea if he would be able to make a good income from his music, but it was worth a real shot. Ace took his first trip to a convention going to Music and Gaming Fest (MAG Fest). We had no idea how much that would change our lives by making so many new friends through YouTube.

February was relatively uneventful, I was busy working and we were saving money to visit Illinois. Ace was learning the ins and outs of YouTube and getting deeper into mixing, editing, and collaboration. We started working on the garden by having the area tilled and putting up the fence at the end of the month. It was a very hard two days of work, but it was worth it!

In March Mark surprised us by starting to read simple words all on his own! I continued work on the garden by starting seedlings indoors. We also happened to find our new church home by chance. I was driving home from the grocery store when I saw a sign that said, “Sellwood Faith Community.” I went home and found their blog though the power of the internet. We visited just before Easter and loved it. They very much aligned with our values, and are a wonderful group of people that we are so glad to call our friends now. On Easter we had a small easter egg hunt in our backyard for Mark and our friend’s kids. At the end of the month we celebrated Vincent’s sixth birthday, Isaac’s second, and Mark’s half birthday.

In April we started even more seeds for our garden and took a much needed trip to Illinois! We got to stay and Barb and Carl’s house and visit with many other family members. Unfortunately my mom was pretty sick the entire time we were in town (and for many months to follow). While we were in town we explored the Woodstock Square, got to go on a date, and visited the natural history museum and the children’s museum in Rockford. Mostly, we just got a chance to relax for a few days! When we returned to Portland we enjoyed one of our first bonfires of the season with our amazing Portland friends.

May was a very busy month. I took an overnight trip to Seattle to skate with tons of other girls and woman for the annual Wheels of Fortune contest at All Together Skatepark. This event re-inspired me to pursue opening an indoor skatepark. Then we went to an unschooling conference in Vancouver, WA where Mark had an amazing time playing with other kids all weekend. We enjoyed exploring parks, restaurants and markets that the city had to offer.  Later in the month we had an amazing step forward, we refinanced our house from an absolutely terrible loan (that allowed us to move to Portland without jobs), to a more standard loan with a very low interest rate and much lower monthly payments. I signed the paperwork on the morning of my 29th birthday! Throughout the year I focused hard on making more money while lowering all our bills in order to give us the best shot at Ace succeeding in his pursuit of making Music his career. This was a huge step forward in that pursuit. At the same time I was starting to have some frustrations in my work as the job was getting increasingly more difficult and stressful, yet I loved being with kids all day.

June was a challenging month, my Mom got a lot sicker and was thousands of miles away, we were darn near broke with no money for anything beyond food and bills, I was working like crazy in the garden hoping to grow our own food, Aiden was battling an ongoing UTI and bladder stones (a battle that still continues), I was very busy between my day job as a nanny, working skate camps with Skate Like a Girl, and working car seat checks on the weekends. In our little bit of free time we were enjoying our Zoo Membership we had received as a Christmas gift the previous year. I was just holding on, trying to just keep going, just keep going. It was also the hottest weather we had ever experienced in Portland. It was a drought and keeping the garden happy though it all was a challenge. We didn’t have A/C and our house was HOT all the time. We would go walk around the mall to cool off on the days it reached 100 degrees. Every extra dollar I made that month went to Aiden’s vet bills. Though all of this, Ace was slowly growing his YouTube channel and music career. There was a glimmer of hope it was going to work.

July brought more heat and more work. Ace released his amazing Sizzler video on his channel, collaborating with several of his new friends. Soon after he released his 3rd album of Video Game Music Covers. The growth was becoming tangible. The garden was starting to produce lots of food! My efforts were paying off in a big way! Squash, lettuce, beets, chard! And there was only more and more from that point on. More food than we could eat, we gave away lots to friends and neighbors, and fed it to our friends at our bonfires! In Portland there was talk of the unrelenting heat, dildos hanging from power lines, skyrocketing rent, and the impending earthquake. Ace visited his second convention SGC (Screwattack Gaming Convention) where he made even more friends in the the world of YouTube and Gaming. I was starting to experience Anxiety without knowing what it was, my chest would hurt, my heart would beat harder and harder. My stress levels were high, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it but to just keep going.

August was one of the hardest months of my life, my job was the hardest it had ever been. I was starting to have panic attacks. It was SO DAMN HOT OUT. We broke down and bought a portable A/C to keep in the living room. It was well worth the $300. The garden needed so much work and under the weight of ever growing anxiety I was ready to throw in the towel. I knew I needed to quit my job, but part of me really didn’t want to. I had my last day of work at the end of August. I also scheduled my first visit with a therapist at the end of August. Anxiety was taking over my life and the last thing I was going to do was let it get worse. We planned a trip to San Juan Island (my favorite place in the world) as a vacation to let me have a real break.

Early September wasn’t much better than August. I felt like I lost those months to anxiety and then depression. Was I failure for quitting my job? How were we going to get by? Would this ever end? I sold my Motorcycle, I sold my McDonalds stock (Thanks Grandma), I sold everything I could so I could continue to take time off work and work on myself. It was the right the choice, but it was really really hard. I spent some time finishing my rough draft of my skatepark business plan. Soon Mark was turning 5. He was a fluent reader by this point and a Minecraft expert. For his birthday we got him a 16in bicycle, which he loved! He’s a very good bike rider and jumped right on the new bike for a ride down the road with Ace. Late in the month we took our trip to San Juan and Orcas Islands. It was wonderful getting away for a few short days (it was too short). We got to see the new baby whales in “J” and “L” pods as well as a lot of other wildlife. I injured myself at the famed Orcas Island Skatepark, we read though “The Mouse and the Motorcycle” with Mark at the campsite and did light photography as a family.

In October I started planning an in-home childcare business, it was my new idea for doing childcare in a less stressful way, it was a very slow start. Mid October brought one of my most favorite events of the year, The Portland Retro Gaming Expo! We had several friends come stay at our house and we all went to the convention together to roam the con floor, see panels, and most importantly, play video games in the massive arcade! It was a great weekend, but I was still struggling pretty bad with Anxiety and this weekend was no exception. I often had to escape the chaos of the convention and the crowded restaurants to catch my breath and slow down and try not to freak out. At the end of the month we celebrated the rainiest Halloween I’ve ever seen in my life. It was insane. Mark dressed as a creeper, becuase he wanted “A clothes costume.” Becuase most store bought costumes are too itchy and uncomfortable. After trick-or-treating we had our, now traditional, dance party and Chinese food.

November brought the real start to my new business doing childcare in my home for other unschooling families. I spent most days at home with Mark and many days we were joined by one or two other kids close to his age. I was finally making an income again! It felt good. At the same time I was starting to see the real benefits of going to therapy. I was having far fewer episodes of panic. We spent November mostly at home. It was honestly a pretty uneventful month, which is exactly what we needed. By this point Ace was starting to make real money on composition jobs. He was writing music for YouTube shows and podcasts and had several other opportunities on the horizon. Aiden has continued to have health struggles throughout the year, allergies, chronic UTI’s, and a leg injury that had us supporting his back end with a towel to help him walk. He is healing, but its slow.

In early December we were blessed with a visit by Ace’s Parents Barb and Carl. They stayed with us for 5 days. We had a lot of fun with them seeing Christmas lights, eating lots of food, and just hanging out. Ace and I got to have a whole date day. It was so awesome! I can not wait to have another. We already miss them and hope they can come back soon. In December Ace had an amazing opportunity. He had been covering music from the successful independent video game, Undertale, when his friend Rich preposed they release all their covers together on an album. Ace worked an insane amount to make this happen. He worked more hours in two weeks than I’ve ever seen. Getting 12 songs arranged, recorded, mixed and mastered. The album was released on December 21st, and was huge success. By the end of the year we had accomplished our goal, for Ace to be making enough money from music for us to pay all the bills. Not only does the money keep coming from the Undertale album, but Ace has a few composition jobs lined up for January as well. He will also be launching his Patreon page in the coming weeks. This is amazing.

Christmas was wonderful, filled with good times with family and friends. We mostly stayed at home, inviting friends to join us for Christmas eve and celebrating by doing a lot of nothing on Christmas day, exactly how we like it. We built Mark’s new lego sets, read lots of books, and played plenty of video games. We closed out the year by having some fun around Portland and having a very quiet New Years at home.

If you want to keep up with our adventures in 2016, keep an eye on this blog, and follow me on twitter @AWatersCPST

(And Ace hit 7,777 subscribers overnight on New Years Eve. Not quite 10,000, but a number we are very very happy about none the less.)