Category: life

enjoy life, life, religion

Suffering as Service

I don’t know why, but from the time I was a kid, I have had this idea that there is a certain amount of pain and suffering in the world that gets distributed across humanity. Like suffering was an actual thing with quantity that could be measured in cups and miles. Or maybe tears and hours of agony. Some people are dealt a larger portion of this suffering than others. The way to reduce the amount of suffering in the world is to process what comes to you and let it go. Pain and suffering that doesn’t get dealt with, gets passed on to those around us. It can even be multiplied in this process. The ability to suffer without passing it on to those around us is part of how we can serve the world. A person who can endure a lot of suffering without passing it on is performing a real service to humanity.

Like a lot of highly sensitive people, I have spent my share of time crying over people, circumstances and suffering that I do not know, have not encountered and can do nothing about. (I wrote about how I learned to stop doing this so much here.) Even as a kid when I would find myself crying over people and events that affect me not one whit, I would pray, “please let every tear I cry be one less that those going through it have to cry.” It doesn’t make much sense and I have no reason to think that it works that way, but I hope it does. The burden of grief should be shared, not multiplied after all. Continue reading “Suffering as Service”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter4 Comments
culture, life

Top 4 Things I Learned in Juvi ~ Part 4 Most People Are Doing the Best They Can

When I was volunteering in juvi, the kids I spent time with ranged from dumb kids who got picked up carrying drugs for a gang to a few who had committed really heinous acts of violence. But we were never told what crimes the kids we worked with had been convicted of and we never came out and asked. I was warned going in that everyone in prison is innocent (because everyone claims to have been wrongly convicted). However, this wasn’t my experience at all. Maybe because I’m non-threatening and good at encouraging people to talk about themselves, but many times during some one-on-one time a kid would explain the particulars of the crime for which they were convicted. The few times I heard claims of innocence, it was accompanied by, “but I can’t complain too much. I did this other, even worse thing and just didn’t get caught. It’s not like I’m innocent and don’t belong here.” Over the course of a few years listening to their stories, I learned something important: most people are doing the best that they can figure out how to do.

Now, let me just say upfront that there are some evil people in this world. In fact, I met a couple while volunteering in juvi. But only a couple. Continue reading “Top 4 Things I Learned in Juvi ~ Part 4 Most People Are Doing the Best They Can”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter3 Comments
enjoy life, family, life

Imperfectly Perfect Hospitality

Once upon a time before my life became total crap, we used to enjoy entertaining quite a bit. In fact, over the years I have had many people comment on how welcome they always felt when they came into my home. I had the knack for hospitality, they would say. Really, I just have a gift for offering people free food and drink in exchange for hanging out with me.

Now, before you get the wrong idea, I would like to point out my well documented flaws as a housekeeper and the equally well documented excess of children continually spilling things on the carpets in my home. (The other day Olivia put a wad of toilet paper on the floor next to my desk, sat on it and pee’d. True story. There’s a reason the dog walks around licking the carpets.) I mean, I have no chance of getting my 15 minutes of fame by being featured on Hoarders or anything, but suffice it to say that there’s crap on the top of my refridgerator, my carpets are stained and lawn is a mess. I’m not perfect. Continue reading “Imperfectly Perfect Hospitality”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter3 Comments
culture, life

Top 4 Things I Learned in Juvi – Part 2 The Uncle Problem

If you missed the explanation for what I was doing in juvi (serving kids, not time. I’m interesting, but not that interesting!), you should check out Part 1 Johnny Cash Was Right.

Today I want to talk about the uncle problem. Of all the kids I met at juvi, I can hardly think of more than a hand full who had a father in their life. And as everyone thinks they know, the solution to raising a boy without a man around is to find him alternative male role models. Because that’s all a boy needs a father for – to role model, dontchano? (Deep sarcasm here.) So. many of these kids moms had turned to their brothers to fill that role. Problem fixed, right? Yeah, except that over and over and over again as I talked to these boys I heard stories of uncles who helped them join gangs, gave them spending change for running “packages” around the neighborhood for them, given them drugs and alcohol, hooked them up with women – often females seeking intitiation into their gangs. You name it, uncles brought it. I mentioned it in my post about fatherlessness, but one of the worst stories I ever heard came from a boy who had been given drugs starting at age 5 by uncles who thought it was funny to see a little kid stoned. Continue reading “Top 4 Things I Learned in Juvi – Part 2 The Uncle Problem”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter1 Comment
culture, humor, life

The Top 4 Things I Learned in Juvi – Part 1 Johnny Cash Was Right

Some of you may know that back in my college days I volunteered in a juvenile prison outside of Chicago. The group I was involved in put on a weekend retreat three times a year for groups of boys. We also did bible study with them off and on. A lot of the boys were from the various ‘hoods in Chicago with others from various rural communities and trailer parks around the state filling out the lot. It probably sounds bizarre, but I was so excited when I first saw the signs looking for volunteers. My Catholic education, at least as I remembered it, mainly consisted of memorizing things. Like the Our Father and Hail Mary and Beatitude and . . . Works of Mercy! Visiting the imprisoned is one of the works of mercy! So being the good, geeky, God-girl that I am, I jumped at the chance. As you can imagine, it turned out to be quite the experience. One day I should write properly about it, but for now, I’m just going to devote a few posts to the top 4 things I learned about life and people from the kids I worked with in juvi. Today’s lesson is the tritest of the 4, but it’s something I feel must be said: Johnny Cash was right – don’t name your boy Sue. Continue reading “The Top 4 Things I Learned in Juvi – Part 1 Johnny Cash Was Right”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter3 Comments
family, life, religion

Honor Your Father and Your Mother

Recently I asked a dad I know how the teen thing was going for him and his 16 year old step-daughter who lives with him. “She seems to be doing well. But it would be going much better if she’d just do what I told her to do!” he replied. He was quite serious, but I had to laugh. He’d be happy if she did what he said and she’d be in therapy later learning to think for herself after years of misery. Such is life.

I suppose there are dads out there who have actually heard the words, “if only I had listened to you!” But those are probably the fathers of recovering intravenous drug users and people who get into relationships with the psychotically violent. The normal course of things seems to be that we find our own way down paths that nearly put our parents into an early grave and are glad for the experience. Later we complain that our own kids don’t listen to us. (All this is coming from a person about whom her mother’s most bitter complaint has always been, “not that you ever would have listened to us anyways.” Just so we’re clear where my own sympathies lie! LOL) Continue reading “Honor Your Father and Your Mother”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
enjoy life, life, prayer, relationships, religion

Loving Yourself, Loving Your Neighbor

Several years ago, I had an odd experience while in prayer. I don’t remember what I was praying about, and I’m afraid my explanation won’t do it justice, but the essence of it was God showing me what he loves about me. This wasn’t a generic “love of God washed over me” experience. Rather it was quite specific; God was showing me the particulars of how I am “fearfully and wonderfully made”. These were things about me that are precious to him and that he has purposed into me. Not only would I not be me without those things, but God would not be able to use me according to his purposes if I did not possess them. But here’s the rub: all of those things God showed me have caused me a great deal of difficulty and pain. I had often wished I could change or even be rid those things altogether. Or at least have them be less-so. And as he showed me these things, it was the gap between God’s love for how he has made me and how I felt about it that really struck me.

At the time that this happened, I had a spiritual advisor who I met with monthly. When I shared this experience with her she murmured, “the touch which reveals desolation.” Yes. That it was. (I forgot to ask her where the phrase was from and have never been able to find its source. If anyone knows, please do share!) You would think that having God show me these things as what he most loves and finds precious about me would have changed how I felt as well, but it’s never quite that simple. (My infuriating complexity would be one of those things God pointed to, of course. “You have hidden these things from the wise and learned” indeed.) Instead, what that touch did was say, “this is my view of you. I want you to learn to view yourself the same way as well.” Continue reading “Loving Yourself, Loving Your Neighbor”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter5 Comments
life, relationships, religion

Suffering and Stories

“Then it was you who wounded Aravis?”

“It was I.”

“But what for?”

“Child,” said the Voice, “I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.”

~ The Horse and His Boy, C.S. Lewis

This will probably sound absurd, but there have been times that I have found myself seriously affected by the suffering of people I have never met and could do little or nothing to help – sometimes to the point of sitting up at night crying. War crimes victims, tsunami survivors, women in Afghanistan, parents of starving children. Such are the perils of being ridiculously sensitive. What finally helped me to avoid being emotionally overrun by the terrible suffering which plagues this world was the passage above. The Christ character of the Narnia Chronicles, Aslan, is explaining to the young Shasta a series of difficult, frightening and seemingly unfair events that had occurred. When Shasta asks about his friend, Aravis, he is informed that’s part of her story. I love that concept. We all have a story to live. “I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.” Those people who live on the other side of the world and are suffering sometimes unspeakable things? They have stories to live as well. Continue reading “Suffering and Stories”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter3 Comments
being mom, enjoy life, life, thoughts

Sometimes You Just Have To Be Your Own Cheerleader!

Dearest Rebecca,

Hi! I’ve heard that you’ve been having a hard time lately so I thought you could use some encouragement. I know that between being sick and hating housework and wishing you could have just one full child free day and night every couple of years, you feel like you’re drowning and can’t hold things together. Heck, I hear that you even lost your purse last week after leaving it on the top of the car. What a bummer! But, you know, shit happens. Shake it off. No use crying over spilt milk and all that. I mean look at all the things you’re juggling. You’ve got 5 kids. Everyday you make sure people are wearing clean clothes and sleeping on clean sheets and some days your own clothes are even clean. You check backpacks and harass errant students and sometimes even remember girl scout meetings before they start. Continue reading “Sometimes You Just Have To Be Your Own Cheerleader!”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter4 Comments
life, relationships

What do you do with people who just don’t get it?

OK, I’m going to let y’all in on a conundrum I’m currently dealing with: how to stay in relationship with people who “don’t get it”. You know these people – the ones who say the wrong things, judge you, tell you how bad you and your life look from the outside. The people who think that the solution to all that ails ye is a swift kick in the pants delivered by them. You know, the people who just generally make you feel awful about yourself and your situation. What do you do with those people? Continue reading “What do you do with people who just don’t get it?”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments