Dear God,

Thank you for the Pentecost, for the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is a good time for me to read the message of hope in the Gospel of John (20:19-23):

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be with you." When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit."

I'm in great need of the Holy Spirit lately, of the peace that Jesus promises, even if this third person of the trinity seems a bit lame in comparison to one and two. I mean, there's Jesus with all of his miracles and heroic tales. He did free us from our sin. Or so you say, God. There's the Creator, You, who made the oceans and seven continents. That's a tough act to follow. It's no wonder people always forget about the Spirit.

In second grade, a priest explained the concept of the Holy Spirit to us this way. He sat down in one chair. And a second-grader-teacher's-pet-type sat down in the chair across from him.

"Imagine that I'm the father. And this here [pointing to the goody-two-shoes kid] is my son. If we begin to talk to each other, the conversation between us would be the Holy Spirit." I wish my theology professors had explained the Holy Trinity in those terms because my papers in grad school would have been much easier to write.

I was moved by the following quote from Father Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M.Cap, regarding the Holy Spirit:

Every time someone has a genuine, strong experience of the Spirit, the most vivid memory of the moment that the person retains is of an intense perception of the Father's love. Witnessing to this, someone said: "All my life long, I had felt unloved. The next day, that feeling vanished entirely. I felt myself immersed in a new experience of the love of God, and from that day it has never left me."

This is the most beautiful moment of any creature's life: to know that one is loved, personally, by God, and to find oneself in the flood of love that flows between Father and Son, enfolded in their love, sharing their passionate love for the world. And all of this in one instant, without any need to think about it or for words to say it.

As I sit down to write my Mother's Day post, I am filled with both tears and goose bumps.

Yesterday at the park I talked to a fellow preschool mom in length about her father, who left for a loaf of bread when she was one year old, and never came back. He had many breakdowns, was hospitalized about 20 times, and was eventually treated for bipolar disorder. The family has never discussed it. She only knows all this because as a young child she found the divorce papers and read them. Now she worries about the genes that predispose not only herself and her siblings to mental illness, but also her children.

I hugged her, feeling a piece of her pain, and trying to keep from tearing up (it's been awhile since I've cried at the park!), as I looked at David climbing the ladder to the big slide. How I wish I could protect this little boy of mine from the torment of mental illness. I am so afraid for him because he (more than Katherine who luckily got Eric's brain) seems to have inherited my fragile chemistry and acute sensitivity. I want him to be happy more than I want just about anything else in my life.

Then, just a minute ago, I read the very moving message from reader Elemgee on the "If You Can Dream" post, about growing up with a mother who suffered from a severe, clinical depression, but was undiagnosed at the time--and about how she and her siblings would sit in their living room next to the stereo speakers, singing along to the refrain "you are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here!" based on the poem "Desiderata" I posted a few days ago.

Motherhood provides a host of useful lessons on how to live with mental illness, and vice versa. Here are just a few things the two have in common (in my opinion, of course):

1. Five years into both of them, plastic surgery is your only way of looking young again.

2. There's only one boss, and it's best if that's you.

3. In both, you have to handle a lot of crap.

4. Both require deep breathing.

5. Time Outs are encouraged--especially for Mom (psych wards stays count for this).

6. Both feel like you're being pecked to death by a bird.

7. You must learn on the spot--pop quizzes are thrown at you every half-hour.

8. Both drive you insane (of course).

9. Both are full of surprises and force you to tear up any script you may have written (how things were supposed to go).

10. They require a support system, discipline, and a ton of self-control.

11. You have to get out of bed in the morning for both.

12. Bedtime often spells relief.

13. Both take a chunk out your heart but give it back to your soul.

14. You never graduate from or complete your responsibilities.

15. You get used to frozen dinners, canned soup, and spats with your spouse.

STOP MAKING BABIES! Love, Your Husband

In light of Mother's Day this weekend, I thought I'd interview Cooper Munroe, one of the coolest moms out there in cyberspace who, with her friend Emily McKhann, started a website called themotherhood.com, one of the most comprehensive resources out there for moms. And trust me, I've been to a few.

So I'm going to ask Cooper and Emily what they do to stay sane. Because, let's face it, motherhood can drive you mad (even if you're not, you know, mentally ill to begin with), and pick their brains a little about the site they started.

1) Cooper and Emily: I'm so impressed by everything you have going on with the site. Let me try to present the Readers' Digest version to my readers: 1) You have "link list" which is sort of like "Digg.com," where you can post and discuss anything online that has you laughing or crying or thinking. 2) The "blog ticker," where you can find the most recent posts for blogs like Dooce. Com. 3) Conversations much like those we have on our discussion threads in Group Beyond Blue (except that they might not include the word "crazy" so much). 4) Groups, like our Beliefnet groups, except all geared to moms, each having their own link list. Where is a good place to start?

Therese, we are so happy to be here on Beyond Blue today! We are big fans of yours and always find something fantastic on your blog to link to, think about or share.

You did such a good job describing the site - can we use the copy? : )

The Link List is a good place to start because it is a collection of "news of the day" plus some of the hot topics on the web. Also interesting are the conversations and groups. In "Conversations" a couple days ago one of our members wrote to ask for prayers because she found a lump on the back of her neck and was headed to the doctors. All ended up being fine, but the support she found in a couple of the women on our site really helped her through a scary moment. I love when that happens in our little "neighborhood" on the web.

2) I love these guidelines: " Don't judge or be mean. If you don't have anything productive to say, don't say it. We embrace different opinions, and we do not tolerate nastiness of any kind. We are all on our own life path, and we ask you not to criticize others until you have walked a mile in their shoes."

I love that so much. I wish every civic association, support group, parent-teacher association, and so forth would live by that. Man, do I ever. Do you find that your members abide by that and respect each other, or do things get nasty, like they so often do on the web?




On Cooper and Emily's site, themotherhood.com, they post the following as their charter. I think it's fabulous!

We Know. We Believe. It's Time.

We know

Becoming a mother means becoming a wholly new human being
And that transformation can be overwhelming, exhilarating, confusing, wonderful, challenging

We know

When mama ain't happy, nobody's happy

We know

Mothers shoulder so much
Put everyone else first
See the forest through the trees

We know

We bust our tails no matter where the heck we work
When we set our minds to something, nothing stops us

We know

Mothers are the rock
We provide the soft place to fall
And we're the ones who connect the dots





Over the weekend, I e-mailed my friend Priscilla Warner (who moderates the fantastic "The Faith Club" group in Beliefnet's Community, to get to click here) to ask her what she does when she feels sad, when she experiences the emptiness in her heart, the hole in her soul that my writing teacher Laura Oliver talks about in Wednesday's video. She had these suggestions:

1. E-mailing friends

2. Thanking God every morning for returning my soul to my body, for Jimmy,
Max and Jack and the love God planted in our hearts, for making us people capable of feeling the kind of love we feel for each other. Not everyone can experience that feeling. For keeping us healthy, safe and sound and free from serious injury or harm. For helping us to spread love around the world.
YOU DO THAT WITH EVERY HIT ON BEYOND BLUE!!!

3. Exercise

4. Sorry, NO sugar

5. I've been walking for 1 1/2 hrs - I'm so tired that I don't have the energy to be sad! And some endorphins too.

One of my very favorite reflections from Henri Nouwen is "Love Deeply," found in his book "The Inner Voice of Love." This beautiful meditation reminds me to continue to love and to be vulnerable enough to receive love, even if it means rising rejection and hurt, even as I feel an emptiness in my soul, a void in my heart, which makes me want to build barriers to keep everyone out. Here it is:

Do not hesitate to love and to love deeply.

You might be afraid of the pain that deep love can cause. When those you love deeply reject you, leave you, or die, your heart will be broken. But that should not hold you back from loving deeply. The pain that comes from deep love makes your love ever more fruitful. It is like a plow that breaks the ground to allow the seed to take root and grow into a strong plant. Every time you experience the pain of rejection, absence, or death, you are faced with a choice. You can become bitter and decide not to love again, or you can stand straight in your pain and let the soil on which you stand become richer and more able to give life to new seeds.

The more you have loved and have allowed yourself to suffer because of your love, the more you will be able to let your heart grow wider and deeper. When your love is truly giving and receiving, those whom you love will not leave your heart even when they depart from you. They will become part of your self and thus gradually build a community within you.

Those you have deeply loved become part of you. The longer you live, there will always be more people to be loved by you and to become part of your inner community. The wider your inner community becomes, the more easily you will recognize your own brothers and sisters in the strangers around you. Those who are alive within you will recognize those who are alive around you. The wider the community of your heart, the wider the community around you. Thus the pain of rejection, absence, and death can become fruitful. Yes, as you love deeply the ground of your heart will be broken more and more, but you will rejoice in the abundance of the fruit it will bear.

Join the interesting discussion thread, "How Do You Fill the Hole in the Soul?" that I started a few days ago at Group Beyond Blue, which you can get to by clicking here. Lots of interesting suggestions are thrown out, such as this one from Group Beyond Blue member Lapatoso: "Find a tree to lie under, then watch the clouds build and move." And this one from Group Beyond Blue member Seashell Nancy: "I find a lot of 19inch weighted dolls and dress them in a diaper and small baby clothes and wrap them in a blanket."