Whitey, Noise: On #BlackMass and our own bully

Lovey and I ran away from home on Saturday night. The nice neighbor couchsat while our littles slept sweet melatonin-infused dreams. We went to go see "Black Mass," which is the opposite of a sweet melatonin-infused dream, but which might be core curriculum for anyone who's ever lived in Boston. Even if you have no investment in the stories of Boston boys-turned-gangsters from around the way, Johnny Depp's performance is eerily good. I pretty much agree with everything Ty Burr wrote about the film, as I generally think he gets it so right. A major focus of Burr's review which was especially sensitive to the families of Whitey's murder victims is on the villainous portrayal of Whitey Bulger. His character in the film is not intended to be liked. He is to be feared, foiled with his statesman brother, aligned with his boyhood friend who became his FBI liaison.

The villain that is James Whitey Bulger, whether rotting in prison in real life or portrayed on a silver screen, is sometimes easier for me to confront than the enemy that lives with me. It is easier for me to vilify someone whom I will never meet and expect fair punishment for the crimes committed than the enemy I live with everyday. The voice of the enemy that whispers often enough to me, You are so far from the mark, girl. You haven't come close to your potential. No wonder you are unloved and uninvited. I have heard the lies that gangster spits long enough to recognize a bully. But because I've lived with this bully so long, I sometimes assume its permanence. When I skip my medication for a couple of days, the voice becomes louder to the point of deafening. When I stop recognizing the bully for what it is, I slide into some kind of Stockholm Syndrome, as if the lies are a defense for me, an excuse for self-loathing. It's been some years since suicide ideation was a part of my daily life and I'm grateful. But it doesn't mean the villain isn't lurking, stashing its venom behind the corners of my mind that I prefer not to visit.

A few months ago, I started working on some strength-training goals. Nothing too crazy, just a plan that an online trainer works out for me that is easy for me to follow. It's amazing what a difference having something spelled out like a recipe will do for one's fortitude. If I know what to do, what order to do it in, how to lift it and lunge it, and how many times, I can follow along and go hard with it. I still mostly look the same but I'm stronger and I realize that when I'm stronger, I'm less susceptible to listen to the lying liar. I'm sorry, I just lifted my kids' combined bodyweight, so that verse doesn't ring true, anymore. I don't talk much about the enemy that performs on the stage of my mind wearing the costume of generalized anxiety/depression.  When I do, I find that I'm not so alone, though. "You're too fly for that noise," my friend Trish once told me. And she's right. We all are--too fly to believe that the enemy that whispers lies about who we are and how we were made for eternity should be put away for a life sentence.

Let's all ramble around like Banned Books

All the spiders in Tennessee are the size of the Hamburgler and Michelle Obama is still not my best friend but everything else in life is really good right now. I'm really thankful, in fact. Patti Mayonnaise is returning to Nickelodeon and my hubby loves me and my kids aren't yet throwing acid glares at me when I walk into a room. It's a pretty sweet season.

This morning I realized, whilst standing in my underoos, that today was the morning I had signed up to be chaplain in Baby Girl's class. It's amazing how dressed a person can become and how fast a person can drive a scooter when she has 15 minutes to prepare a worship thought for some primary schoolies. I was reminded how completely ape a classroom full of 7 and 8 year-olds can become when they are commissioned to shove their desks back and sit on the floor. Go ahead. Change our seating arrangements? We gon' get totally crunk. It was a good exercise in patience for me, though. Nothing frustrates me more than poor listeners, poor rememberers, poor engagers of people right in front of them. And to God, I am way worse than a second grader at class chapel. I can't sit still to listen to Him, I have to keep learning the same lessons over and over, and I constantly skip off LA LA LA rather than face the music of a well-deserved rebuke.

Thank you, second grade, for chapeling the chaplain.

It's banned book week and it's capturing my heart this year with a vice grip. We're such a nation divided right now, standing with Planned Parenthood or visiting with Kim Davis. Those are your two options, pick a lane. It's terribly easy to curate one's world; to control the narrative so that it doesn't allow for any manner of truth to break through from a disparate viewpoint. Isn't that the spirit that those who ban books want to ignite? That there is no common ground, nothing of worth to learn from radical texts. Rather than invite the germs of truth they may offer, it is easier and perhaps better to pull a book from the shelves, to effectively silence a voice so others in disagreement won't have to suffer it.

I just want to encourage all of us to ramble around like a banned book, focusing less on our disinvintation from the party, believing fervently in the truth of our contents within.

Here are a few of my favorite "banned books:"

Review: Wild in the Hollow by Amber C. Haines

I live in a shoddily-constructed rental home and I'm worse than ashamed about it. I'm irritated with the ground wasps that multiply in August that sting my husband whilst he's trying to cut the grass. I'm annoyed, generally, with the lack of well-configured space and the moody windows that usually don't stay open and the ugly countertops that are forever being stained in my kitchen. I'm full-blown ticked that I'm nearly old enough to run for U.S. President but am so broke as to need to rent property from a colleague. I'm malcontent and it's not okay and author Amber Haines seems to understand me.

Wild in the Hollow: On Chasing Desire and Finding the Broken Way Home is something of a masterpiece.

Truth: this is the best book I have read about spiritual conviction and the spiritual landscape in North America. Truth: I am so jealous of Haines' eloquence for writing about said conviction and landscape.

How can I be both jealous and in awe of a writer at the same time?

I just am. I cannot recommend this book enough. I've marked it up something fierce with my pen of conviction and I've already got it slated to lend to my girl Brandy who also teaches me things about spiritual convictions and landscapes and who reminds me not to be cranky about my rental home because I am a rich woman indeed and good things come to those who wait and hope in the Lord.

Here's the trailer:

Wild in the Hollow: On Chasing Desire and Finding the Broken Way Home from Matthews Media on Vimeo.

Please go read this book if you have ever: - felt a bit too wild for your environment - wondered why you have an ache for something more at the end of each day - known anxiety, depression or some combination thereof and wondered why you couldn't pray it away - desired community but were afraid you had nothing to offer - felt despondent about church or the capital "C" church and didn't know what to do about it