Stream of words: Sylvia and Ruth

I want to write more stream-of-consciousness, but I haven’t done that in so long. Here goes...

Sylvia Plath, an author, a poet, a woman who loved words and wanted to die. How does Sylvia connect to me and my experience? I am a woman who loves words. I am a woman who has been diagnosed with a mental illness. But, I don’t want to die. I love to live and I want to live and I seek eternity in my prayers. My illness is a wonderful though frightening experience, confusing, but mystical. I miss it sometimes and that seems weird to me if this illness is supposed to be so scary or bad. But, I have never suffered from Sylvia lows, only Hemingway highs. The highs are like a whole new world perspective opens up, the heavens open up and I feel connected and as if God is in my very presence. Perhaps I suffer from Joan of Arc madness. Of course, I’ve read that there is a story of three different outcomes when experiencing God. When experiencing the full presence of God, they say, some die, some go mad, and some walk away in peace. Perhaps, I received only a taste of the presence and I went out of my mind.

Mark 3:21 is a comforting text for me because when I was coming out of my illness I read this verse and it touched me. [And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” Mark 3:21] I felt peace and I felt understood. I cried. I felt like this man, Jesus of Nazareth, must be able to understand what I went through with my family. They tried to take me away considering me mad/insane/crazy. They said amongst them-selves, “She is sick again.” And as they wheeled me along I sang aloud, “Crazy person coming through.” They wheeled me in a wheel chair through the halls towards the psych ward at the UM Hospital. “Crazy person coming through,” I sang to them in full awareness of my words.  

The twelve steps are wonderful…

Step 11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

I try daily to improve my conscious contact with God as I understand. My husband wishes I didn’t care about God so much…he says he liked me better when I was spiritual but against religion. But, how can I be against religion when it is the study of the bond between humans and the divine. And sublime nature is a beautiful thing. I am reminded of Frankenstein and the descriptions in that story of the sublime. The weather and the natural setting, the wilderness, the forests, the landscape, the storms raging…and I seek nature, to be in nature, not this concrete jungle, because I find God when I’m in nature. I refuse to be contained away from nature in a hospital ward. Joan of Arc also refused to be contained in a prison cell for life, “Give me freedom or give me death.” And they thought Joan of Arc was a crazy person coming through. Give me freedom or give me death.

What is death? Death is a part of life. Like darkness and light, we have an awareness of it. We can see darkness and the difference between darkness and light. We have awareness. We also have an awareness of the difference between death and life. But, God created the darkness to divide the day (in the poetic, metaphorical story of creation). And we should not be afraid of darkness because it makes no difference to God. God is beyond the darkness and the light. And God is beyond death. I do not fear death (not all the time, anyways). I fear separation from God and love and life. Perhaps, those are not lost when death comes? Sylvia might not know because I’ve heard suicide does not produce the same after death experiences as natural death can cause. But, I don’t want to speculate or think about those things. I’d rather focus on life on earth today, right now. Do you think that there will be an end of days, a time when peace on earth will reign? I hope for that day. I pray for heaven on earth. I believe that promises will be answered especially if they come from God. I’m rooting for the kingdom to come to earth in my generation, and I can only try to be a part of that process.

And Prayer. Prayer is a wonderful thing. Prayer enables the soul to connect to a higher power. The breadth and the depth of mystical experience expand through prayer. Meditative prayer; Charismatic prayer; Petitioning prayer. I think prayer as a way of being – as in prayer that is in and around everything I do, and in and around my being. Sometimes, when I write, I feel as though I am praying. Or when I read, I feel as though I am praying. Because I feel that God is there in the word. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God. All things that have been made were made through Him. And the word became Flesh.

I’m sorry that I write so much about God now. It is my passion, my heart, and my love. I am obsessed because it is real. And it is a way for all that my heart desires. You see, I desire justice and an end to oppression. Women’s studies and feminism are pathways that I chose to follow to find justice and an end to oppression. Through feminism I view the Bible and I see that there is justice streaming through the words in the book and a way to an end to oppression. “I am the way, the truth, and the light,” he said. A professor of mine once told me that Jesus was the first feminist. But, I find that the struggle to end oppression is seething through the words of the scriptures. I find unity in my search for justice and ending oppression with my faith and spirituality. That is why I love to write and think and talk about God – because God shares my interest in ending the oppression that exists on earth. There is no place for oppression in the Kingdom of God. Connecting to something greater than myself is a crucial step in the process of mental health and well-being, in my activism, and in justice.

Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression. In the sentiment of sexist oppression, really all forms of oppression are held. And God is working to end all forms of oppression. So, let your God be my God (I say to the Jewish people, with my middle name – Ruth.) I say this wishing I was Ruth and knowing that the stories of the Bible are living words that can apply even to me – a young woman in the Midwest, U.S., reading stories and being deeply touched.  If I were to choose a woman to admire, a woman to follow, I think I might choose Ruth. I think about Sylvia and Ruth. I think about a woman, like me, who loved words, but who wanted to die. I think about another woman, like me, who loved Naomi’s God, and wanted to live. I love words and I love what I have seen of God. I choose to join in life, to say, “Let your God be my God.” And I choose to live with God – I love life, despite my illness. I am a feminist but I am not Virginia Woolf or Sylvia Plath. Perhaps I am Ruth and Joan.