Hi. I'm Jenna McGuiggan.
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Entries in community (22)

Tuesday
Mar252008

Practical Kindness (update on Jen Ballantyne)

Last month I wrote about Jen Ballantyne, a woman who is living bravely and honestly with stage-four colon cancer and the knowledge that she may have fewer than three years to live. One visit to her blog and you realize that Jen, also known as Jenni, tells it like it is: the fear, the pain, the confusion, and yes, even the joy.

In my last post about Jenni, I wrote about the "doctrine of substituted love" and encouraged us to bear her burdens of fear and pain. I truly believe that such metaphysical efforts translate into physical results. But it's good to go beyond the mystical and into the tangible realm. Several wonderful women, Bella at Beyond the Map,Meg Casey, and Jen Lemen are orgainizing a practical way that you can help Jenni. They are working to set up an eBay auction. A PayPal donations system is already in place. (See the donate button in the sidebar.) The money will be used to help pay for Jenni's treatment and those forms of care and pain management that will not be covered by insurance, such as acupuncture, massage, and naturopathy. The funds will also help to create a trust for her six-year-old son. These are things Jenni desperately needs, but can't afford. This is help she won't ever ask for, because she is too worried about everyone else. Get the full details on how you can help here. Donated items for the auction are being accepted until April 18, 2008. I'll post an update when the auction goes live.

A friend recently asked me how blogging ties in with my business as a freelance writer and editor. I said that this blog is a place for me to write regularly and showcase my writing style to my potential clients. Some posts, like this one, are more personal than others. Then again, even my essay-like posts usually revolve around a personal topic.

In many ways, I'm not very good at separating out the personal and the professional. My husband, who has mastered his emotions in a way that I sometimes envy and sometimes pity, reminds me that certain things are "just business." And while I try to take this to heart, that's just the problem -- I take things to heart.

I work and play with words because I love them. I tell stories -- yours, mine, and others -- because I love them -- the stories and the people in them. When I edit a manuscript for a client, I want that book to be its absolute best. I take it personally. When I write an article for a publication, I want readers to care about the issues. When I post on this blog, I want to connect with you.

Where does the personal end and the professional begin? For me, the line blurs a little more each day.

So if you're new to this blog and wonder why I'm posting about the story of a woman with colon cancer in Australia, it's because I truly believe that we're all interconnected. Our stories matter, because ultimately, they're all part of one larger story. And I always invite you to tell yours in the comments.

photo credit: icy beauty by josef.stuefer

Thursday
Mar132008

Unmasking Ourselves

photo by exfordy

This is determination: Leaving at 4:00am to drive five and a half hours for a weekend with someone you've only met once. That's what my new friend Lisa, the head Nerdy Renegade herself, did last Friday. After planning to arrive on Saturday, we changed plans so Lisa could make it from Dayton to Greensburg without getting stuck in the blizzard that buried Ohio.

Lisa and I found each other last year in the world wide web of blogging. And then last July, on the first day of BlogHer in Chicago, as I was walking from the breakfast buffet to my seat, I heard a woman say, "Nerdy Renegade News." I whipped around, precariously balancing my coffee and mini-muffins, and said: "Nerdy Renegade News?! Are you Lisa from Ohio? I'm Jennifer from The Word Cellar!"

A few moments of squealing and hello-ing ensued, only to be cut short by the start of the morning seminar. A bit later, at a breakout session, I walked into the room and spied Lisa next to an empty seat. I sat down and assured her that I wasn't stalking her. We hit it off immediately, giggling like tweens over our blog crush across the room.

We continued to stay in touch by reading and commenting on each other's blogs and emailing every so often. Finally, Lisa suggested that we arrange a road trip to take our friendship to the next level: from virtual to physical. (And yes, I realize that sounds weird. And no, it wasn't like that. Even though while we were making dinner together one night, I exclaimed: "This must be what it's like to have a wife!" Ask any woman and she'll tell you that she really could use a wife.)

The most surprising part of the weekend was how easy it all was. I've been seeking new opportunities for friendship and community for at least a year, but always had this idea in the back of my head that I'm too old to be making new friends. I felt like it would just be too much work to meet new people and start from scratch.

This weekend I remembered that making new friends doesn't feel like work. Meeting business contacts, networking, and schmoozing -- those can feel like work. Falling into a friendship with a kindred spirit feels more like play.

Another interesting thing about making new friends as an adult is that it frees you from expectations. My friends from my younger years know me like we're family. Those long-term relationships can have a wonderful sense of intimacy and comfort. But there's also an unconscious, self-imposed rule to conform to a specific role. I don't mean that they foist their expectations upon me. I mean that it's easy for me to fall into the familiar patterns of our friendship; to stick to the script; to be the same old person.

But as we grow and evolve, we don't always know how to share these changes with the people who've known us to be this or that. If we're not careful, we stop being ourselves -- our current and up-to-date selves -- around the people who've known us the longest.

And there's a bonus with new friends: They're blank slates! They haven't already heard my favorite stories a dozen times. Which means they don't secretly roll their eyes when I pull out my stock anecdotes. And trust me, I have a lot of them. (Stick around here long enough and you can roll your eyes at me, too!)

I'm grateful for the new friends I'm making through blogging, as well as the ones who've known me for years. Each shows me a different side of myself, and I'm learning to be authentic with both sets.

(And now all you former Girl Scouts, please sing along with me:
Make new friends, but keep the old;
One is silver and the other's gold.
I don't agree with assigning precious metal status to friendships, but gosh it's a catchy tune. Now, let's do it in a round!)

Thursday
Feb212008

For Love of Words


If you know me at all, you know that I love words. And if you're reading this, I suspect you love them at least a little bit, too. So in honor of words -- their beauty, their power -- I share these gems with you today.

I found this little meme floating around some blogs I love. It goes like this: Pick up the nearest book and open it to page 123. Find the fifth sentence. Post the next three sentences. (And tag five people.)

I cheated a little. I chose a book that was behind me on the bookshelf, not one of the books sitting on the desk next to me. But then I was a good girl and followed the directions. Here's what I read:

When night falls, there will be armloads of branches and flowers on the street, all neatly tied with rope, ready for the trash pickup in the morning. The women who are called to the lilacs will arrive to see that the hedges have been chopped to the ground, their glorious flowers nothing but garbage strewn along the gutter and the street. That is the moment when they'll throw their arms around one another and praise simple things and, at long last, consider themselves to be free.
(from Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman)

In the spirit of community, I tag Allyson, Melissa, Lisa, Pink Shoes, Kelly, and anyone else who wants to participate.

also...

because i like lowercase and needed a poetic shot in the arm, i bring you mr. e.e. cummings:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Tuesday
Feb192008

Jen Ballantyne and the Doctrine of Substituted Love


Two nights ago I dreamt that I got a letter from my doctor informing me that I had leukemia and that my prognosis was poor. I tried to wrap my dream-mind around the fact that I was probably going to die soon. I woke with a heavy sadness that stayed with me all day.

Underneath that sadness is another burden I've been meaning to tell you about. Jen Ballantyne, an amazing woman in Australia, is battling bowel cancer. She has been told that she has 12-18 months to live. At age 39 and with two sons, she's not ready to go. Jen has been breathtakingly honest about this journey on her blog, The Comfy Place. Thanks to the efforts of several other amazing bloggers (including Meg, Jen, and Jena), a host of lovely women have gathered around Jen to lift her up. I invite you to do the same.

I've never met Jen in person, have only recently started to read her blog, but think about her multiple times during the day. I fervently want to see her made whole, with no more pain and plenty of good years ahead of her. I wish this so strongly that I feel like she's one of my kin. That naturally leads to thoughts of how we're all connected, how our lives and stories are intertwined beyond what we can see or explain. I don't mean to sound presumptuous, but I feel like I'm carrying around part of Jen's fear, sadness, and pain. In fact, it feels like dozens of people from around the world are carrying her burden.

In his novel Descent into Hell, Charles Williams puts forth his doctrine of substituted love. He claims that we can carry another person's burden, not in a metaphorical sense, but in a real way. He says that I can choose to take on someone else's fear, carrying it as my own, and freeing the other person from it. The other person no longer has to be afraid, because I'm doing that for her. I experience the fear firsthand, but can handle it just fine because it is not my own.

Here's an excerpt from the book. In it, Pauline is terrified of meeting her doppelganger -- her exact double -- face to face. The poet Peter Stanhope tells her that he'll carry her fear for her, so that she doesn't have to be afraid. (I've included a long excerpt. Williams' writing style is rather dense and takes some getting used to. But I hope you'll stick with it to get the full impression of what he's talking about.)

"It's me," she repeated." It comes from a long way off, and it comes up towards me, and I'm terrified--terrified--one day it'll come on and meet me. It hasn't so far; it's turned away or disappeared. But it won't always; it'll come right up to me--and then I shall go mad or die."

"Why?" he asked quickly, and she answered at once, "Because I'm afraid. Dreadfully afraid."

"But," he said, "that I don't quite understand. You have friends; haven't you asked one of them to carry your fear?"

"Carry my fear!" she said, sitting rigid in her chair, so that her arms, which had lain so lightly, pressed now into the basket-work and her long firm hands gripped it as if they strangled her own heart. "How can anyone else carry my fear? Can anyone else see it and have to meet it?"

Still, in that public place, leaning back easily as if they talked of casual things, he said, "You're mixing up two things. Think a moment, and you'll see. The meeting it -- that's one thing, and we can leave it till you're rid of the other. It's the fear we're talking about. Has no one ever relieved you of that? Haven't you ever asked them to?"

She said "You haven't understood, of course.... I was a fool.... Let's forget it."
.....

"Will you tell me whether you've any notion of what I'm talking about? And if not, will you let me do it for you?"

She attended reluctantly, as if to attend were an unhappy duty she owed him, as she had owed others to others and tried to fulfill them. She said politely, "Do it for me?"

"It can be done, you know," he went on. "It's surprisingly simple. And if there's no one else you care to ask, why not use me? I'm here at your disposal, and we could so easily settle it that way. Then you needn't fear it, at least, and then again for the meeting--that might be a very different business if you weren't distressed."

"But how can I not be afraid?" she asked. "It's hellish nonsense to talk like that. I suppose that's rude, but--"

"It's no more nonsense than your own story," he said. "That isn't; very well, this isn't. We all know what fear and trouble are. Very well--when you leave here you'll think of yourself that I've taken this particular trouble over instead of you. You'd do as much for me if I needed it, or for any one. And I will give myself to it. I'll think of what comes to you, and imagine it, and know it, and be afraid of it. And then, you see, you won't."

She looked at him as if she were beginning to understand that at any rate he thought he was talking about a reality, and as she did so something of her feeling for him returned. It was, after all, Peter Stanhope who was talking to her like this. Peter Stanhope was a great poet. Were great poets liars? No. But they might be mistaken. Yes; so might she. She said, very doubtfully: "But I don't understand. It isn't your--you haven't seen it. How can you--"

....

"Listen--when you go from here, when you're alone, when you think you'll be afraid, let me put myself in your place, and be afraid instead of you." He sat up and leaned towards her.

"It's so easy," he went on, "easy for both of us. It needs only the act. For what can be simpler than for you to think to yourself that since I am there to be troubled instead of you, therefore you needn't be troubled? And what can be easier than for me to carry a little while a burden that isn't mine?"

She said, still perplexed at a strange language: "But how can I cease to be troubled? will it leave off coming because I pretend it wants you? Is it your resemblance that hurries up the street?"

"It is not," he said, "and you shall not pretend at all. The thing itself you may one day meet--never mind that now, but you'll be free from all distress because that you can pass on to me. Haven't you heard it said that we ought to bear one another's burdens?"

"But that means--" she began, and stopped.

"I know," Stanhope said. "It means listening sympathetically, and thinking unselfishly, and being anxious about, and so on. Well, I don't say a word against all that; no doubt it helps. But I think when Christ or St. Paul, or whoever said bear, or whatever he Aramaically said instead of bear, he meant something much more like carrying a parcel instead of someone else. To bear a burden is precisely to carry it instead of. If you're still carrying yours, I'm not carrying it for you--however sympathetic I may be. And anyhow there's no need to introduce Christ, unless you wish. It's a fact of experience. If you give a weight to me, you can't be carrying it yourself; all I'm asking you to do is to notice that blazing truth. It doesn't sound very
difficult."

"And if I could," she said. "If I could do--whatever it is you mean, would I? Would I push my burden on to anybody else?"

"Not if you insist on making a universe for yourself," he answered. "If you want to disobey and refuse the laws that are common to us all, if you want to live in pride and division and anger, you can. But if you will be part of the best of us, and live and laugh and be ashamed with us, then you must be content to be helped. You must give your burden up to someone else, and you must carry someone else's burden. I haven't made the universe and it isn't my fault. But I'm sure that this is a law of the universe, and not to give up your parcel is as much to rebel as not to carry another's. You'll find it quite easy if you let yourself do it."

"And what of my self-respect?" she said.

He laughed at her with a tender mockery. "O, if we are of that kind!" he exclaimed. "If you want to respect yourself, if to respect yourself you must go clean against the nature of things, if you must refuse the Omnipotence in order to respect yourself, though why you should want so extremely to respect yourself is more than I can guess, why, go on and respect. Must I apologize for suggesting anything else?"

He mocked her and was silent; for a while she stared back, still irresolute. He held her; presently he held her at command. A long silence had gone by before he spoke again.

"When you are alone," he said, "remember that I am afraid instead of you, and that I have taken over every kind of worry. Think merely that; say to yourself--'he is being worried,' and go on. Remember it is mine. If you do not see it, well; if you do, you will not be afraid. And since you are not afraid. . . ."

She stood up. "I can't imagine not being afraid," she said.

"But you will not be," he answered, also rising, certainty in his voice, "because you will leave all that to me. Will you please me by remembering that absolutely?"

"I am to remember," she said, and almost broke into a little trembling laugh, "that you are being worried and terrified instead of me?"

"That I have taken it all over," he said, "so there is nothing left for you."

"And if I see it after all?" she asked.

"But not 'after all'," he said. "The fact remains--but see how different a fact, if it can't be dreaded! As of course it can't--by you. Go now, if you choose, and keep it in your mind till--shall I see you to-morrow? Or ring me up to-night, say about nine, and tell me you are being obedient to the whole fixed nature of things."

"I'll ring up," she said. "But I ... it sounds so silly."

"It is silly sooth," he answered, "and dallies with the innocence of love. Real sooth, real innocence, real love. Go with God."

They shook hands, and slowly, looking back once, just before she reached the lane, she went out of his sight.

(pp. 96-100. Williams, Charles. Descent into Hell. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1993.)


My friend Allyson and I tried this out once when she had a piano recital. I told her that I'd take her stage fright so she could play unhindered. As soon as she sat down at the piano my stomach turned upside down and inside out with nervousness. Sitting there in the audience, I had a full-blown case of stage fright. And yet, it wasn't overwhelming or unmanageable. I felt the fear completely, and yet it didn't belong to me. That small but significant difference made it fine, made it bearable.

Allyson played the Chopin Nocturne beautifully. Afterward, she said that her fear melted away as soon as she sat down.

An informal piano recital is one thing. Dealing with a life-threatening illness is another. But I believe we can do more than simply sympathize with Jen Ballantyne's burden. I believe we can can collectively carry it for her, taking away the fear so that she can continue on this journey unafraid. It sounds grandiose, crazy, and a little bit naive. But I believe it's already started to happen as strangers take Jen into their hearts and support her in unfathomable ways.

Wednesday
Feb132008

E is for ME! (Excellent Blog Award)


Just in time for Valentine's Day, I'm tickled pink to be the recipient of my very first blog award. A hearty shout out and humble thanks to Lulu at Redefining Sanity for bestowing an E for Excellent upon this blog.

Lulu found my blog because she generously participated in the latest Bloggy Giveaways carnival and I'm a whore hound for quality free stuff and entered her contest for a Juice Beauty Organics To-Go kit. I didn't win, but I'm okay with that. Not because I'm a good loser, but because I won something else from another blog (Hot Diggity!). And more importantly: because Lulu made my day with this award!

All sarcasm and joshing aside, I'm honored to be one of the 10 blogs that Lulu awarded. Go check them all out here and here. And while you're there take a stroll around Redefining Sanity. Lulu has some good stories about her amazingly wise kids and why she needs to return to the Year of Glamour.

Thank you for sharing the good juju, Lulu!