Centered like a bad picture

I re-read my blog post from yesterday, about how the meditation and prayer had helped center me over the past few days, which have been difficult here in Centennial. It's true that the prayer has helped me, but it's not true that I've been centered. Or rather, I am like a picture frame that's not hung quite right; you might push the corner with your index finger and temporarily get a straight line across the top, but a few seconds after you let go the frame slouches to the left and everything gets wonky.

I want to be what Richard Rohr calls a "Kingdom person." He writes: "They are surrendered and trustful people. You sense that their life is okay at the core. They have given control to Another and are at peace, which paradoxically allows them to calmly be in control. " (Richard Rohr, Adapted from Jesus’ Plan for a New World:The Sermon on the Mount, pp. 110-111)

This is my goal, and I am so far from it. On Sunday night I was out with a few friends and my anxiety over the school shooting, a difficult situation at church, and a friend's illness came to a head and I found myself spewing like Mauna Lea, defending the Common Core State Standards in Math and English, which I know fairly little about. My emotions, which I had tamped down all weekend for the sake of Rob and the children, were finally having their way with me. The round eyes across the table and the haste with which the topic was changed, let me know that I was in over my head.

 I am finding that emotions need to be processed rather than suppressed, in order to come out in productive ways rather than seeping out in random conversations with unsuspecting friends! So a few more crying jags may be in order, a few difficult conversations need to be held, and a little self-forgiveness practiced. I have to believe that even Kingdom People have a rough day now and then.