Meet : Marcy From “Becoming Three”

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     Photo of a Hammered Dulcimer strings

   I (DM) first came across Marcy as she was in the midst of posting a list of 100 people from her life.  I was struck by her honest candid observations.   She like many of you is a mom…the hardest job on the planet. She is also a musician, plays the hammered dulcimer.   Here is her guest post:

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> 1. My name is Marcy. I grew up in NJ; went to school, got married, and
> worked in Virginia; did music in upstate NY for several years; am mostly a
> mom in Indiana now (to a very charming toddler girl).
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> 2. I like to think. I majored in linguistics, English, math, and got
> endorsed to teach the latter two. I also studied a bit of philosophy,
> anthropology, Greek, biology, French, and modern dance. I like to read
> fiction, usually perusing the new books shelf at the library or re-reading
> favorites like Vonnegut, Anne Lamott, Terry Brooks. I like reading
> theology textbooks. I like playing word games.
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> 3. I have been a Christian for twenty years. Raised mainline Presbyterian,
> made faith my own / got picked up and turned around in 8th grade, visited
> two non-denominational and one Pentecostal church, discovered the PCA (a
> conservative branch of Presbyterian), and now attend a Church of Christ
> church with a somewhat Emergent flavor, which is really odd, but there is
> no PCA church here and nothing else suited us any better than this one.
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> 4. Sometimes I don’t like Jesus very much. He spoke clearly enough to make
> a lot of people really mad and to really amaze others, but I find a lot of
> what he says rather cryptic. So it’s obvious (right?) he didn’t really
> want people to cut off their hands, feet, and eyes, but it’s not so
> obvious exactly what he wanted people TO do in response to sin. I suspect
> that if I had been there, I would have been so infuriated trying to test
> him, trying to see if he could be Messiah, trying to be a good faithful
> follower of God and neither miss the Big Message nor get taken in by a
> false teacher. I don’t know that I could have become a believer without
> having been one of the top three disciples. One sight of him, one
> encounter, even quite a few encounters — wouldn’t be enough for me. I
> certainly wouldn’t have appreciated him telling me to stop clinging to him
> like he told Mary.
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> 5. I play hammered dulcimer. I have three CDs. One is a mix of music types
> and includes some singing. One is all instrumental Christmas stuff, and I
> think it’s my best work — the most thoughtful, the most beautiful. The
> other is my trio from NY, with guitar and fiddle, mostly Celtic stuff, a
> lot of fun. I haven’t played regularly since mid-pregnancy. I would like
> to get out and play more. I am a terrible salesperson — I hate having to
> drag myself out and beg people to hire me. That kind of effort feels like
> it costs me more than I would get from it.
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> 6. I am terrified of being mean or stepping on toes or hurting feelings or
> being inconsiderate, and yet I sometimes feel like a sharp-edged rock
> lumbering around knocking everyone over. People have told me how demanding
> and judgmental I am.
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> 7. I think it’s hard to want anything without someone feeling I’m being
> demanding. I think it’s hard to believe in some principle or value or
> truth without being judgmental. I’m not sure how to hold onto what I value
> and believe, for real, without hurting other people by doing so.
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> 8. I value living moderately greenly — we compost, use CF bulbs, cloth
> diapers and napkins, turn off appliances… I value good food — I like
> our garden and cooking, would love to buy more local stuff, more humanely
> raised stuff, more healthy stuff, less processed stuff. I wish I liked
> some healthy things more than I do. I sort of value simplicity — not
> caring too much about stuff, about fashion, about spending money.
> Sometimes I feel conflicted when there are things I would like to have but
> don’t need — or the conflict between beauty and function. I value rather
> direct and prompt communication. I value respect and compassion.
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> 9. I am in therapy (again, still) for depression and anxiety. I want to
> know how to be me and how to love me and how to love others, all without
> destroying anyone, myself included. I want to practice radical acceptance
> and fight against reality a little less.
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> 10. I want to know God and be found pleasing to him, as long as it doesn’t
> really mean having to lose my life or deny myself or die to myself.

 

Here’s Marcy’s home page: http://prochaskas.wordpress.com/
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