Feelings and Freedom

No.

I don't say it enough.

No, I really don't.
And it brings freedom.
"No" carries the same power as ofter-praised "yes" to open my life to new possibilities.
New possibilities need space. They need time. I have to take a bit of my life and put it into each new possibility to make it come alive. And because I occupy a fixed space and linear time dimension, I must surround these spaces and times with a wall of "No"s.

This is a painfully obvious truth. This is simply how life works. Surely, everyone know this.

Yet I feel I must apologize profusely for every "No" that I say.
If "No" is a knife, I feel I should cut with a dull blade.
If "No" is a wall, I feel I should build it of blankets and jello.
I only stop apologizing when I get tired and angry.
Henry Cloud claims that anger is the correct, healthy response to a trespassed boundary.
I cut my Nos with rubber and built them with gelatin and I apologize when I am wronged and I am surprised that I am deeply, frighteningly angry?

No.

Rebellion is scary because it is angry.
And anger is scary because it is powerful.
And I worry most of the time that I will do more damage than good with the power that I possess.
I fear my effectiveness. Therefore, I avoid my anger.

But if I say NO to my anger, then I must also say NO to the truth.
And "YES" to the truth is worth "NO" to all other things.
So sometimes, with trembling, I come into my anger.
And it always feels like rebellion.
My emotional signature to an intentional "No" is reckless, daring defiance.
My soft little "I'm-sorry-but-no"s become hearty "HELL NO"s.
I feel like I am being hopelessly difficult. High maintenance. Disagreeable. Non-compliant. 
And I'm so damn bad at this NO saying, that I probably am being a real bitch about it.
(Because if I don't please everyone, I'm obviously a bitch.)

I am stopped in my tracks by the sweet release that this rebellion brings. Like a hot air balloon casting off ballast, I rise a little higher when I exile another Yes and put a No in its place.

I say NO to perfectionism. And I say YES to right where I am now.
I say NO to caring about this or that detail. And I say YES to enjoying the whole.
I say SCREW pleasing everyone! I can't do it and I WON'T. I'm going to please the one who loves me!
I say EFF thin; I would rather be strong.
I say NO to trying to control everything, and whoosh!
Suddenly I've cleared the clouds and I'm floating along in the sun. I've said YES to whatever outcomes God sends, and I'm defying gravity. I'm rebelling against anxiety and the crushing weight of hopeless responsibility. They have no space, no time here. My NO has severed their ties and my Nos have blocked their return. My now empty hands reach out to receive contentment, and my heart swells with a sense of God's pleasure.

Against an objective standard, my rebelliousness might not even turn out to be actual rebellion. My feelings, while they are valid, should not be confused with the truth. Many of these "revolts" are just the mundane confrontations necessary to healthy relationships. My feelings about them are a reflection of how deeply I am a slave to the expectations of others. I am so ready to surrender my identity to how well I have pleased them, that staking my claim to my own identity feels like an act of war. I have rendered authority in my heart to lies and false priorities. I have donned a nice, safe, life-vest and I am floating with the status quo. My No feels like rebellion, because I'm swimming upstream and going against the tide. But mutiny to a false captain is loyalty to the king.

I place one No on top of another. I am building a wall. I am building a door frame. I am not doing it very well, and they often tumble down and must be stacked again. I am, however, growing stronger in both my ability to stack them well and in my confidence that stacking them is exactly what I should be doing. I rebel and say No, that I might say Yes to my Beloved.

First things First.

I think my hair symbolizes it best. Generally easygoing, it is happy to comply with my every wish as long as I satisfy its few needs and play with it regularly . Except for that one tuft, right behind my ear. Stubborn and perverse, it determinedly goes against the majority. Curls? It hangs limp. Straight? It curves itself into a ringlet. Flipped in? It salutes the world like Cindy-Lou Who's eyelashes. It hates to admit the fact, sometimes hiding under layers of wind-dried locks, but it deeply needs to be different. To be unique. Not to be...ordinary. 

And so you must take this all with a grain of salt.

In my beloved Bible there are a lot of verses that warn very strongly against rebellion. I believe it is called a way to destruction, but my copy is upstairs so the reference will have to wait. Here is what I know: the Bible is solid and I am not going to start throwing out bits of it at my convenience; it tells me that God is absolutely smitten with me; and the thing I am built out of most is passion. Stubborn, feisty, ridiculous passion. Passion that is only the smallest reflection of the fervor with which God loves me. Passion that ignites in the face of oppression, lies and complacency. Passion that really doesn't quite know what to do with itself except definitely avoid politics. (Too much fuel, all at once--the explosion could be deadly.) So as I go about my life, heart aflame and tuft a-tufting, there is a world full of systems, people and habits that tell me if I don't go along with their programs, speak their lines and think their thoughts, then I am a rebellious fool and there will be hell to pay. And to my passion, these words are premium gasoline and a lit match.

They are also true. 

When I refuse to comply (slowly, at first, but gaining momentum...) with the pressures of status quo and unquestioned assumptions and instead make intentional choices that reflect a faith wrestled out in awe and trembling with my Maker, I invite the full wrath of thwarted hell upon my head. And this is how I know I am indeed a fool: because I think that is unbelievably bad-ass and I dream of the day when I am so reformed in Christ's likeness that someone actually threatens my life. I am embracing the label that appears in even my own thoughts when I balk at compliance: Hell, yes, I am rebellious. I have been freed from slavery at incredible cost and I'm not effing going back!

Yet, rebellion is not the point. Christ is the point. The Beauty of the Trinitarian God is the point. The fact that He looked like a fool and bore the wrath of thwarted hell for me has become my point. But I am delighted to additionally discover that this part of myself that I thought for so long was wrong or broken or too much, He is choosing to use. I may someday discover that it all is just an authority issue and that He was doing His awesome redemption thing, calling me Beautiful and refusing to give up on me even as I celebrated my sin. Perhaps part of this reforming in Christ's image will eventually soften my stubbornness, revert my perversity and subdue my rebellion. Or maybe instead He will continue to bless it, but give me new understanding and a different name for it. Perhaps one valued instead of censured in scripture, so I won't sound like a heretic when I get excited about how He's using me.

 But for now, when I hear the world hiss, "Rebel!", I hear God's answering whisper, "Beloved!", and I take heart that I am on the right track.