Tag: observations

Food For Thought · Opinions · Uncategorized

It’s been a long time…

Tori Lennox1 Comment

Just a brief update. I hope to start blogging on a regular basis soon. There’s so much going on in my personal life and in our world that I don’t even know where to begin. Writing from the perspective of a young, pushing 60, I see things with a maturity and a clarity I didn’t have in my 20’s or 30’s. I think part of that is because, while I always wanted to belong, I was always hyper aware I was too different. I still am. The difference between now and my younger days is I’m finally comfortable in my own skin. I like who I am instead of wishing I was someone else.

As difficult as it’s made my life in a lot of respects over the years, I’m grateful I was raised with a very definite sense of right and wrong. One that hasn’t changed as culture has. No, I wasn’t raised in a Christian home. We believed in God, and we went to church sometimes, but any real relationship with our Creator was lacking. However, my parents were honest people with clearly defined values they taught me which included personal responsibility and an awareness that right and wrong didn’t change with culture or the fact I wanted them too.

I don’t mind telling you that I made a lot of wrong choices in my life, and I did a lot of things that went against my values. I paid for every one of them in emotional blood. However, as painful as that reality became, I accepted the fact I created the situation, and I had to live with the consequences. I couldn’t blame anyone else or shirk my personal responsibility.

Obviously, there’s no “fluidity” in my world. I’m grateful for that. The “rigidity” of the values my parents taught me saved my life. If I hadn’t had these beliefs so strongly ingrained in me, I wouldn’t have survived the years of pain, depression, and misery. I’m so grateful I was grounded in something real. Grounded enough that I knew what taking my own life would do to the people who loved me. Grounded enough that I knew suicide was wrong on so many levels. Grounded enough to know if I ended my own life, I was letting my demons win. That idea didn’t sit well with me. I’m a fighter to my core.

I am so grateful I chose to live. So grateful I’ve worked through the things I’ve done, the things that were done to me, the people who hurt me – all the baggage that destroyed my self-worth. The past few years have been worth all the mess that came before. I’m pursuing my dreams and I’m content.

This blog isn’t what I meant to write. Nope, I just wanted to share our new dog had back surgery the week after we got her and taking care of Mir and Mom has taken most of my time the past few months. Added to that, I’ve been editing and submitting novels for publication. Oh, and this year we have two baby cardinals instead of one – a boy and a girl. You know, the good stuff. Didn’t happen, did it? The old muse took over instead.

Honestly, I think this blog poured out because I see so many young people who should be happy in their success and in their opportunities and in the excitement of living their day-to-day lives who aren’t. I see a bunch of so-called “influencers” trying on this and that and discarding it in favor of the next fad in a frantic search for self-awareness, identity, and satisfaction. On the surface this “fluidity” sounds good. In reality it means you aren’t grounded in anything. You have no real identity because you haven’t defined your borders.

Humans aren’t emotionally made that way. We need to know who we are. We need to love who we are. We need to take responsibility for ourselves and our choices. We need to know where we draw the line on what we will and will not do. I personally learned to forgive myself, love myself, and appreciate my talents through my faith. No, I don’t go to church; but I do have an intimate relationship with Jesus. Yes, I know that doesn’t work for everyone and I’m not trying to convert anyone. You have to go on your own journey of self-discovery. I’m just saying for me, the depression and suicidal thoughts left when I finally accepted God doesn’t create any mistakes so I wasn’t one and if my Creator can forgive me all the things I’ve done and overlook the things that were done to me, I can do the same.

I guess my bottom line is, in a world where this is immensely unpopular to say, I thank my parents I’m a 58-year-old woman who is proud to be unapologetically female who would have proudly called herself a mother if she’d been privileged enough to bear children. Honestly, to use pronouns and words that take my gender away from me is to rob me of my identity and my sexuality. No, it doesn’t give me more options. I wouldn’t have a clue who I was if I started playing that game. No, I’m not narrow minded, I understand who I am. I love the fact I’m an attractive female approaching 60 who’s finally confident in being a woman. I wouldn’t trade her for the young woman who didn’t think she was pretty enough, or smart enough, or worth anything but being abused and taken advantage of.

Yes, that girl was prettier than I am because she was young; but she was oh-so-lost in so many ways. I can confidently say the woman I am now is far more attractive in the ways that matter.

In closing, everyone’s path is theirs to choose. However, speaking as someone who has lived a much harder life than she should have, life shouldn’t be as difficult as it is and we’re making it more difficult with every passing day. It’s time to simplify our lives, decide who and what we are, and stick with it. Don’t make decisions you’re not willing to live with for the rest of your life. You may do something you’ll regret the rest of your life if you do. I know I did.

Until next time,

Calla

A Story for Another Blog or How a Not-So-Good Southern Baptist Became a True Blue Charismatic (Part I)…
Been There, Done That · emotional healing · Food For Thought · Judeo-Christian Perspective · observations · Opinions · Religious

A Story for Another Blog or How a Not-So-Good Southern Baptist Became a True Blue Charismatic (Part I)…

Tori LennoxLeave a comment

It wasn’t an easy journey and I’m not going to recap the whole sordid tale. You’ve read bits and pieces in past posts. (For anyone interested in the whole story, Been There, Done That…Had the Smashed Up Face to Prove It by Calla MacKenna is on Amazon.) Instead, I will say by the time I ended up in Florida thirteen years ago, I was a tired, bitter woman. My ex-husband’s bad business practices had cost me everything from my house to my savings three years before. I say “my” because this man had nothing to do with the accumulation of those assets and everything to do with losing them. However, that being said, it was my decision to allow this man into my life so I’m equally at fault for my financial losses.

Since I’ve admitted that, I might as well admit my ex-husband wasn’t my husband when all this happened. We were “engaged” when we went into business together and we were successful at first. About six months into the business I started seeing signs of what I later learned was mental illness well-hidden beneath charm, charisma, and well-documented past successes. Unfortunately, I eventually learned that while he had been wildly successful in the past, he’d tanked every one of those past endeavors the same way he tanked our business. None of that came to light until many years later when his family set his cons straight.

While losing everything was bad enough, my ex added insult to injury by cheating on me almost from the start. That’s the reason I didn’t marry him. By the time I suspected he was doing this it was too late to kick him out of my life. The business was thriving and I had too much to lose if I rocked the boat including my pride. None of that mattered in the end. The business failed and I was trapped with no way out or so I thought.

Reality was far different.

In life that’s often the case. Our perception a.k.a. “our reality” often differs greatly from the truth of the situation. I actually wasn’t trapped in anything; but, I lacked the life experience to realize this. I could have kicked this abuser out of my life, ridden the storm out where I was, and started over exactly when the dust settled. It wouldn’t have been pleasant; but, it was doable. I didn’t do that. I chose the “easy” way instead. Right. Nothing about the past sixteen years has been easy. Thanks to my ex I eventually ended up in Florida exactly as God intended instead.

If you’re wondering why, the answer is simple. I had nothing, no-one, and nowhere to go. Or, more accurately, that was my perception of my reality. For a person who’d always paid my debts in full on time, this mess was devastating . I didn’t know what to do or how to handle the nightmare I’d stepped into. In those first desperate moments I decided it was better the devil I knew than the hell I didn’t. Fear will make you do stupid things and I was terrified. Scared enough to stay with a man I practically hated. That’s how I thought things were playing out for several years.

I now know God was slowly turning what was meant for evil to good. He had me even when I didn’t have Him. In the end He was steering me where He wanted me to go even if it took a roundabout journey through eight different states. Near the end of the journey I tried to return home to South Carolina. I had a good job lined up and I was a third of the way home when I felt compelled to turn around and return back to the place I’d just left.

My ex had become deathly ill a couple of months earlier. He’d spent two weeks on life support and he still wasn’t fully functional. However, he was still able to harm me physically and he had which was what led me to finally leave in the first place. The only problem with my bid for freedom is there was no-one but me left to care for him since he’d alienated everyone else. I knew he’d die if I left him. Or I felt that way. Whether it was true or not, I couldn’t take that risk even though I wanted to. I tried to. However, I couldn’t live with myself if I left and something horrible happened to him. So, I did what I had to do. I turned around and changed the course of my life forever.

A few months later, we found ourselves in Florida living with my ex’s stepmother. A few months later, we got married even though we didn’t have any real relationship left by that time. As stupid as this sounds, I agreed to make his stepmother “happy” largely because I’d never lived with anyone and I’d never wanted to. To my crazy way of thinking at the time, getting married would somehow legitimize the nightmare of the last few years and erase the shame of failure. It didn’t do any of that. In fact, all it did was add another divorce to my tally and reinforce the fact otherwise intelligent, sane people do insane things for stupid reasons.

Moving on, my ex’s stepmother finally cracked my hard emotional shell enough to become my “Mom.” My real mother died from cancer back in 1996 so I was more than willing to accept love from anywhere I could get it. I gradually started watching the religious stations with her every chance I got. While I was still in a dark place, I was on my way to rediscovering the faith I’d once abandoned. A few months later I started visiting the Charismatic church Mom attended even though it wasn’t my kind of place. In fact, I found the whole experience unsettling and freaky.

I’d heard my real Mom talk about visiting Charismatic churches back in the ’60’s; but, I’d never visited one myself. The only reassurance I had in those early days that I wasn’t taking the high road to hell was the fact I loved, respected, and trusted my second Mom and I knew she felt the same. I also knew she’d been raised Southern Baptist like me. If she thought the nuttiness was okay, then it had to be. Besides, I was desperate for healing and redemption. Again, any way I could get it. This Church seemed a likely place to accomplish that. You see, I’d been embraced with love and acceptance from the moment I walked through the door. But. I wasn’t comfortable.

Reading this, you might wonder what my problem was. That’s simple. Those people said and did things totally foreign to my background. Things most good Southern Baptists would never do like prophesying, laying on hands, shouting, dancing, and speaking in tongues! I wasn’t sure whether to bolt or make the sign of the cross. I didn’t do either. I stayed instead. Every time I entered that sanctuary, I was saturated in the presence of the Holy Spirit and I knew that was where I belonged. I could feel it in my soul. Besides, I might as well give this whole Word of Faith thing a shot. I’d already tried everything I was willing try and I hadn’t ended up where I wanted to go. At that point, I was as close to rock bottom as I could get so I had nothing left to lose. But, I had everything to gain even if I didn’t know it.

However, it took me quite a few years to get from there to here…

Until Part 2, I remain,

Calla

Uncategorized

I’m dancing on a shaky limb…

Tori LennoxLeave a comment

But I’m fed up with this world around me. Not only that; I’m tired of political correctness. I’m tired of the lies and cruelties perpetrated in the name of not being offensive to anyone. I’m tired of people blindly following causes that look good on social media without investigating the true motivations of the people behind the cause. Today, so much that masquerades as good is unadulterated evil. Not just in my country; but, all over the world. There is a spirit of oppression and fear everywhere. While that’s sad, it’s even sadder that people like me who see what’s really going on aren’t lifting our voices to speak against the insanity around us. We don’t want to rock the boat.

Well, the boat needs rocking.

First, let me say, I’m all for very real social injustices being righted. There’s a lot of that all over the world. However, these injustices have to be righted in an orderly fashion. Not through organized bedlam orchestrated by avowed Marxists. As history has proven time and again, anarchy never ends well. Living in a world void of God and absolute right and wrong never ends well either. I’ve lived long enough to know that.

If you don’t believe me, read a truthful, historically accurate account of the French Revolution. Not a revisionist account that paints a ten year nightmare as a glorious revolution. Choose an account that tells the full story of both the event and the aftermath, warts and all including the nearly year long Reign of Terror. The whole uprising was a blood bath that didn’t just slaughter the Royal family, the aristocracy, and Catholic priests. Many innocents and moderates were guillotined for being voices of reason in an uprising gone mad. Even the leaders couldn’t agree on the path to take. Yes, I’ve oversimplified things greatly; but, this isn’t a history lesson. Revolutions that overthrow governments are complex subjects with more layers than I can address in a blog. Also, I didn’t pick the French Revolution for any reason other than some aspects of the mob mentality so prevalent then is being echoed today in my own country of America.

Moving on, it seems to me that we’re edging ever closer to a very dangerous precipice with worldwide movements that seek to remove statues and anything deemed personally offensive to whomever for whatever reason. That whole mindset is foolish to me because I’ve lived enough to know when you eradicate every memory of what should never have happened, you’re doomed to repeat those same sins again. Sorry kids, if you think slavery only happened in America, you need to study history. It’s been around since the beginning of time in every culture.

It’s still going on today all over the world to the tune of over 40 million people worldwide. It might shock you to discover where most of that slavery is. Again, do your research from reliable sources that have nothing to gain beyond letting the world know people of every race and color are still being trafficked into slavery of every kind including sexual. These people are suffering everywhere and little is being done about it. We’re too busy using anarchy for political and personal gain.

In closing, here’s the point of my whole post. We live in a world where people want no God, no sense of right and wrong, no rules, and no absolutes. People who hold such beliefs tell me I can’t hold my Christian opinions because my values and my absolutes offend them. Those same people would spit on me because I don’t agree with how they live their lives. Don’t deny it, I’ve seen it happen. But, the truth is, I don’t have to agree with how you live your life.

Your values are between you and God.

However, I do have to respect your humanity. To treat you with respect in spite of any difference of opinion. However, that respect doesn’t mean you get to disrespect or try to silence me. More important to me as a Christian, not just a “religious” person, is if I see you’re in need and I don’t help you because of the color of your skin or your sexual orientation or any other real discrimination, I’m in blatant disobedience to Jesus’s command to love everyone. That isn’t acceptable behavior.

However, joyfully helping out of love doesn’t mean I have a politically correct toleration of things that are blatantly wrong. What I “tolerate” I tolerate in the sense of the word as defined by the Oxford Dictionary: to allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference. I wish I was allowed the same courtesy.

Moving on, from my perspective, it’s time to do some deep soul searching and see where we’ve gone wrong as human beings. It’s time to reevaluate what really matters. It’s time to stop being pawns to people who use political office to enrich themselves. It’s time to stop being victimized by the Radical Leftists, Marxists, Socialist, and Communists trying to take over the US and destroy a freedom loving way of life. It’s time to get rid of our Senators and Representatives of both parties who care more about self-enrichment and/or political power than they do about their constituents and this country. I don’t want anything these people have to offer. Bluntly, I don’t want my government taking most of my income to pay for universal healthcare, free college, free vacation, and the like for “everyone”.

Again, I’m not saying we don’t help people in need or that we shouldn’t help them. We do and we should. Just in a sane manner. I’m reasonably sure, middle class American’s won’t continue to work when the government takes fifty percent or more of their income to pay for universal college, healthcare, and so on. I can also tell you by the time that happens the upper class and the truly wealthy will be long gone. They will have moved themselves and their wealth to some country that’s more asset friendly than we are.

You need to understand something else, a hundred million dollar donation to some charity is nothing to a person worth ten billion dollars. It’s like me thinking a $50 dollar gift to some charity is generous when I just received a check for ten thousand dollars. While the wealthy are willing to give what they want when they want and how they want even if it’s most of their declared income, I’m reasonably sure most of these people aren’t willing to transfer 75% of their worth to the federal government to take care of the indigent, pay for universal college, pay for universal healthcare, pay for two weeks of paid vacation for everyone and so on. If they are, they’re either unnaturally generous or there’s something we don’t know. The bottom line is someone has to pay for every government sponsored program and that “someone” is the taxpayer. That someone is me and you. Nothing is ever free. Just food for thought.

Until next time,

Calla

Been There, Done That

In the beginning….

Tori LennoxLeave a comment

I wrote a book. It wasn’t a pretty little book wrapped in a pretty little package with the happy-ever-after ending we all want. That isn’t my story. Not yet; but, the end isn’t written yet. I expect good things so on with my blog. It was an ugly book filled with self-doubt, physical abuse, and degradation. A lot of it. But, it’s a book I hope will help you. I know it helped me. Writing my story forced me to take a long, hard look at myself and take responsibility for my life. For the poor choices I made that put me in the line of fire. It also forced me to let go of the situations I didn’t cause. To release myself from the shame and blame that wasn’t mine. To acknowledge I’m not responsible for someone else’s actions. Being there didn’t give them license to hurt me. That was their choice and they did it. It wasn’t mine.

What I allowed other people’s action to do to me; however, was my choice and I take responsibility for that. That’s one of the first steps to healing those deep wounds that alter the course of our lives and put us in dark places we were never meant to go. Honestly, that’s the most important messages to take away from my book. The one that says we’re responsible for our feelings. I can tell you from experience, whether you own your feelings or your feelings own you is up to you. The moment I went from being owned by my emotions to choosing to own them is moment my life took a turn for the better.

On an aside note, I’m working on Been There, Done That 2. That isn’t the real title. That hasn’t been decided yet. I have decided the book will be about all the years I spent immersed in the Occult trying to control my future and find purpose in my life. That’s about as far as I’ve gotten with the writing. That’s also part of why I’m starting this blog. I want to keep you updated on my progress with both books if you’re interested. I have a message I hope will help heal the wounded hearts and I hope to find that following where I can do the most good.

I’ll also be sharing incidents that didn’t make it into Been There, Done That…Had The Smashed Up Face To Prove It. Some will be helpful and some will be amusing in that twisted I-Know-This-Will-Be-Funny-Some Day way. I’d intended to free hand this blog and make it about anything that caught my fancy. Suddenly that doesn’t feel right. Not in this moment. Instead, the blog will center on my book, life lessons learned, and my journey to find an agent and publisher. That feels like the way to go. Anyways, we’ll see what happens.

Calla