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Posts Tagged ‘wisdom’

Blessed Time in the Waiting Room

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 3, 2014| 3 Comments »

In a gentle way, you can shake the world (Mahatma Gandhi)

Perhaps everyone has heard some variation of the old joke: What’s the difference between major and minor surgery? If you are having it, it’s always major surgery. Someone I know and love is facing something huge in the next few weeks. I pray for her frequently. However my husband is approaching a simpler procedure with an overnight hospital stay now, this last week in January.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature is in a bitter mood. Below zero temperatures and brutal winds have closed schools. My loving mate is concerned for my safety, so I will be staying in a hotel for the duration. The hotel provides shuttle service.

My sister-in-law, Kris, calls and asks if I want company for a while when my husband is in surgery. I’m surprised and pleased. She works long hours at the hospital. Her gift of time is precious. I have this strange sense something special and unexpected will come from accepting her offer. I have no idea how right-on that omen is.

“I’ll meet you in the waiting room around seven,” she says. Then she calls my cell at seven fifteen, the exact moment when I leave the pre-op area to enter the waiting room. She locks my heavy coat, scarf, and backpack in her office. (Before the day has ended I have a suspicion that my coat and backpack would feel as if it had gained 150 pounds, probably more if aggravation could be measured.)

When my shoulders are free she gives me a tour of the hospital. This is significant since the only directions I know with any certainty are up and down. In the cafeteria she pays for my yogurt and coffee, Starbucks, the good stuff.

Somehow Kris has tapped into the spiritual realm of perfect timing. She calls exactly at the moment my husband is being brought to the Recovery Room and then again as he is wheeled into his room. That evening she appears just when I want something from my backpack before I go to the hotel. It’s uncanny! I feel a strange sense that all is well even though my husband’s recovery process hasn’t yet begun.

The next morning I ask at the front desk of the hotel where I can get some coffee. Transportation to the hospital may be free, but coffee isn’t. However, when I tell an employee at the restaurant that all I want is take-out coffee, something about me must bleed not-here-on-vacation. She gives me a complimentary cup of fresh, hot java. And I feel the blessings continue to flow—in the form of caffeine.

More incredibly timed situations occur. And I’m not sure what part my awareness plays on their sacredness. I do suspect that one goodness can touch another and then another, like ripples on a lake that travel from one shore to another.

I also believe that it is important to send those ripples back from the other shore and bless the original giver. Thanks, Kris. I wouldn’t have made it without you.

angels as ordinary people Optimisim Revolution

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Food Gift of $10.51 From the Real Santa

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 29, 2014| 4 Comments »

I want to live life in such a way that if a photograph were taken at random, it would be a cool photograph. (David Nicholls) 

On a January Friday the main roads are clear and there are a few hours before the next arctic blast, so Jay and I run errands. We stop for lunch at a fast-food restaurant, not our first choice, but it works with the time we have.

A man with long white hair, Santa-style beard, and red T-shirt stands looking at the picture menu. We step back to let him enter the line ahead of us.

“No, you go first. I haven’t decided yet.” We talk about the weather as Jay and I wait to order.

“That will be $10.51,” the woman at the register says, sounding terminally bored.

The gentleman with the flowing beard tosses his credit card onto the counter. I turn around, stunned. “Thank you, but…”

“You don’t have to thank me. Thank, Jesus.”

I hold my breath, fearing a lecture on Christianity. It doesn’t happen, and I am grateful. My church has strong Christian roots, but I believe that a person’s spirituality can develop from multiple sources. The proof comes in the individual’s life, in an ability to love. This man makes his statement. Once. Then chooses to live it. He speaks of other matters: retiring in the distant future, current outside temperature, different kinds of chicken sandwiches. He waves to one of the employees working in the back.

His blue eyes sparkle. He definitely gives the impression of an individual who lives outside-of-the-box. But that is the way with geniuses, artists, and saints. “Just pass it on,” he says.

This may be January, almost a month after Christmas. However, I wonder if Santa, or Saint Pass-On-Some-Kindness hasn’t been hanging out at unlikely places lately, waiting to give folks a smile just when they need it.

The sun brightens—for a while, a blinding blue on top of the last coating of white. It won’t last long. No weather pattern in this part of the world ever does. It just feels that way. The result of generosity? Well, it can be a seed that grows into almost anything that is beautiful.

how you treat others

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Under the Ice-Cold Layers

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on January 22, 2014| 2 Comments »

The hard and stiff will be broken, the soft and supple will prevail. (Tao te Ching)

Ice remains in patches along the sidewalk, but since I’m wearing my trusty hiking boots I move to the grass whenever possible. The snow is crunchy, but a maneuverable two-inches deep. Since my destination is downhill this ploy helps.

A thought strikes me as I notice the difference between the sidewalk that has been shoveled and the parts that haven’t been touched, the softer snow on the grass versus the ice on the sidewalk. The precipitation came from the same sky. Any good science student could explain why the snow became ice on the concrete when the temperature lowered, and the grass had an easier time with the transition. Unfortunately, I can’t answer that question beyond a superficial level without extensive research. The science buff’s enlightenment is welcome.

My meanderings step beyond the practical into metaphor—about resentments. Past hurts will never be undone, but they don’t need to continue into the present, rigid, holding onto all that falls on top of them, as if they were priceless treasures, never to be released. The ugly memories of the past can be shoveled away and dumped.

In this section of the Midwest the grass accepts the snow and remains burdened by it—for a while. Then the snow becomes softened by the soil; the earth shares the weight. As the sun warms the ground, snow melts and waters trees and grass. The ground, generally, survives.

Of course eventually, ice and rock salt create pot holes and havoc in roads, hard surfaces that crack under pressure.

I’d like to say I have lived my entire life without hurts or difficult moments. I could, but it would be complete fantasy. Few people can claim that prize. However, some of those awkward paths have led to beautiful, blessed places. Eventually. Somehow. I can’t trace the process, nor do I choose to go back and figure it out.

Today brings enough challenge, like these steps that need to be found again, under another few inches of that lovely, yet annoying white stuff. No sense in arguing with Mother Nature. She is much larger than I am.snowy steps

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Peculiar Gift From a Stranger

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 16, 2014| 1 Comment »

I suspect the most we can hope for, and it’s no small hope, is that we never give up, that we never stop giving ourselves permission to try to love and receive love. (Elizabeth Strout)

I am tossing two-for-one-sale whole-grain tortillas into my cart when a woman behind me speaks.

“Those are really good.” Her musical twang signals more than enthusiasm. She wants to talk. At first she tells me about baking sun-dried tomato tortillas and serving them as snacks. Then she says she is a southern girl with down-home ways and opens the stories of her past.

For a change my agenda doesn’t have the feel of a block of frozen spinach, leaves frozen together so that the pieces can’t be separated from one another. As long as this pause doesn’t turn into a filibuster I can handle it.

She tells me about her health and how she has overcome emphysema sufficiently to function without oxygen. “I’m 76 and a survivor.”

Her mini-memoir includes the story of her ex-husband’s mental abuse. “He told me that as long as he gave me food and a roof over my head he didn’t owe me anything else.” She has family and has given them love, even though their father could not. I nod when she mentions Women Helping Women. They made it possible for her to make her own way. She was in her sixties when she left her husband. I suspect there is more to her tale. Much more.

I want to reach out and touch her arm—but don’t. My nod says that she made the right choice, whatever that involved. A touch could signal the pain that brought her to seek survival. Moreover, I don’t know her. Instead I step back, just a little, not out of avoidance, but respect.

Besides, I am only a stranger in a large grocery store. Did this woman stop other shoppers also? Did they listen, or did they look at her as if she had two heads with three mouths? I have never seen this woman before this moment, and may never see her again. Probably all she wants is the reassurance that she has strength, that it shows in her being. Somehow. She never asks for my name, nor does she offer hers.

“Peace,” I say. “Have a blessed day.”

I pray for her now—days later. May she no longer need to rely on strangers for support. May she have people with her that she can count on. Perhaps I could have done or said more, offered to pray with her—right there. I’m not sure I would have had that much courage. It would have been less embarrassing if she ran away, than if she decided to shout alleluia in the middle of the bakery department. Perhaps I haven’t arrived at perfection in any form just yet.

Thanks to all my friends, the ones with the huge shoulders and the fine-tuned ears. I am grateful for our shared laughter and tears.

feel what I feel

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Hurray For a Younger Sister

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 11, 2014| 1 Comment »

Sisters function as safety nets in a chaotic world simply by being there for each other.   (Carol Saline)

When I was sixteen-years-old my mother gave our family the gift I always had wanted—a sister. Sure, I had great brothers. But I was an all-girl girl, and I didn’t understand the male species.

My brothers would engage in rough play with Dad until they cried. I declared outrage, but seconds later my brothers would be at it again with a grin on their faces I interpreted as lunacy. I soon learned that it made no sense to try to protect them.

I remember telling Mom I wanted an older sister. She never seemed to understand that even at the age of six I’d figured out that was impossible, although I suppose secretly I wanted someone else to guide me through the make-believe and the real world with wisdom. Life didn’t always make sense, and grownups definitely belonged to another galaxy. They knew all the rules and expected kids to know them, too. Most of the time I learned rules by breaking them first.

Of course by the time my sister was born my dolls and childhood belonged to a long-ago past. As a teenager I played the role of built-in-babysitter and big sister.

Claire’s birthday is Monday. She hasn’t been a baby in a long time. She works as a pastor’s wife, which means she has a schedule that requires a wall-sized calendar. She has a married son and a daughter-in-law now.  I could call her my little sister, but she isn’t tall. However, I’ve shrunk, and she is quick to point that out.

I don’t mind. Our relationship has nothing to do with height. I don’t recall when the bond between us developed into something that transcended the difference in our ages. Once, when my sons were still at home, Claire and I got into a deep discussion about our lives. We were standing outside my house by the barbecue grill, white with flaming charcoal. Our mother could see us from the back window. She came outside to see if we were all right. We had shared how we really felt in a way only sisters can understand. Of course we told Mom everything was just great. We told the truth even though we had spoken of sadness and fear as well as hope: we had each other and I knew we always would.

Happy Birthday, Sis! Thanks for being you.

from Positive Energy

best kind of people from Positive Energy

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Snow, Hot Chocolate, and Imagination

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 3, 2014| 3 Comments »

Family is not an important thing, it’s everything. (Michael J. Fox)  

Snow keeps Jay and me indoors today with two of our grandchildren—three of their friends also arrive. Our house is economy-sized. The children’s sound belongs in a gymnasium, or perhaps the great outdoors. Some of it is channeled into the cold as they make a snow man. However, they dry off inside, and then finish two large bowls of popcorn, a pot of homemade hot chocolate and a full can of whipped cream.

The girls may not understand why I insisted on holding their minor feast at the dining room table, but I am grateful later when a broom and a dust pan repair the floor damage in minutes. The rest of the house may be another matter, but more snow will come soon. Time for cleanup will happen then. Perfection is not my mantra. Somehow the noise and confusion don’t matter either; the young people do. The clock tells me it isn’t 11:00 AM yet. Nevertheless, exhaustion leaks everywhere from my forehead through my toes.

Then my oldest granddaughter, Kate, tells me I need to play the part of the principal in their pretend school because they have been fighting for the role. She gives me the name Mrs. Orange. When Mrs. Orange comes into the bedroom and makes a ridiculous mock speech Hannah, one of our guests, smiles. My toes wiggle with a tad more enthusiasm, and so does the rest of me. Amazing how such a simple gesture creates energy. I am going to survive. Perhaps the children tire, too, because they switch to television, a PBS program. Rebe snuggles with me and I borrow some of her youth through her warmth. By dark the house will become quiet again. The temperature outside will plummet, and I will have a choice: I can either remember the times I felt torn in as many directions as there were people in the house, or I can savor the joy and the laughter.

May the New Year bring new cheer. Peace to all!

(the girls’ creation)

snowman Jan 2, 2014

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Funerals and Beginnings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 18, 2013| 2 Comments »

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. (Maria Robinson)

Our family waits for the arrival of my husband’s mother and sister. They live six-hours west of us where nine inches of snow is possible. Jay’s mother, Mary, is 93-years-old. One of her daughters is driving her into town for a funeral. Mary’s sister has died and she is the last living person in her family.

As soon as the travelers arrive I let my sons know. We are concerned; Mary can barely stand. Yet, her heart remains rooted strong in family.

Part of Mary’s agenda includes plans for her own funeral. I’m familiar with the process, although I have never done it with the honoree  present. Mary’s other daughter has material handy for us to view. Whenever my mother-in-law shows emotion I know we are on the right track. When she says, “How do I know? I won’t be there,” I realize the mechanics of planning may be present; however, heart isn’t. She adds that she doesn’t want a eulogy that praises her; it should praise God. She also wants humor.

I suggest asking my older son, Greg, both a stand-up comic and a man active in his church community. The conversation drifts into a discussion of his latest book, “Open Mike,” the tightness of his style. She grins, proud, and laughs with us. A suggestion is made to complete the outline. “So, who do you want to do your eulogy?” But I sense a return to how do I know? I won’t be there.

Let our list of whats, wheres, and whens be sufficient as we return to the moment, to life as it is. Now. More family members arrive, just what Mary needs as an extrovert’s extrovert.

I think about the struggle I’ve had in the past few months with a pesky virus that is only now beginning to subside, even though my soprano has been knocked out by a throat as dry as desert-baked sand. A little alto sneaks out occasionally, but it is weak and inconsistent.  I realize that this is nothing in comparison to the suffering many people experience. No one is invincible, although as a young person I certainly lived as if I were.

Somehow I expected to be in my twenties forever, slender without needing exercise and diet control. Possibilities lay ahead of me—but I rarely chose them. Tomorrow would always be there, or so I thought. Those days will never return. Nevertheless, this moment lives, ready to be seized.

In my last blog I mentioned how three words, consider the source, became valuable advice from my father. My mother-in-law showed me how rich grandparent bonding could become. Since I worked in hospital pharmacy my hours didn’t fit a Monday through Friday schedule. I was off Fridays and asked to watch my first granddaughter on that day even though my son and daughter-in-law already had child care. I have never regretted that choice.

In fact my gift has tripled. I now have three grandchildren. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t think about my granddaughters. Somehow even a Cheerio in the couch cushion isn’t the irritation it could be when I consider the source, a beautiful blonde four-year-old girl with a smile that could light the city.

I have no idea what legacy I will leave my sons and granddaughters, but I’m not sure the spiritual can be weighed anyway. I prefer to live this moment and build upon the next, with as much gratitude as I can manage. Today. Tomorrow isn’t promised.

more beginnings than endings PIQ

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Consider the Source

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 11, 2013| 2 Comments »

Learning is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily. (Chinese proverb)

The anniversary of my father’s death was this week. One of the gifts he gave me is a phrase he repeated during my teens: “Consider the source.” Like most adolescents I didn’t have a clear notion of who I was. Every critical word ate through me as if it were acid. I reveled in J.D. Salinger’s coming of age novels. Romance bored me. I wanted to read about people who saw the world from a unique perspective. I wondered why I was so different, and didn’t realize that my self-questioning probably wasn’t much different than other kids’ thoughts about themselves.

Being one of the popular kids—such a glorious thought—but for me it would have been easier to understand how to make rain fall back into the clouds, fountain style.

“They’re just jealous,” my mother would say. That notion escaped me completely, even though it felt good at the time. Jealous of what? Sure, I’d written a one-act play that won first prize in the Greater Cincinnati area. My grades were better than average. I sang soprano relatively well. But those things never came up in ordinary conversation, especially when the other kids told me I had cooties. I looked in the mirror and wondered what set me apart; it never told me.

I didn’t know that consider the source, three simple words, needed decades to learn. The source of people’s actions and words come from diverse places. Most of the time they tell more about the giver than they do the recipient. The flatterer may want something and the detractor could be jealous, self-involved, or simply unaware.

I can still hear my father’s tone as he spoke to me. It didn’t carry censure, as if one person were right and the other wrong. He asked me to consider the whole. If the taunt came only to make the speaker appear superior, it had no substance. If I chose to be mean-spirited, that would create a win for my adversary—and a loss for my character.

Now, I don’t remember the specific events of three days ago. So, if I decide to live in a past decade most of it will be false memory. Even if I recall every uncomfortable second exactly as it occurred, I would be losing this precious present moment. My skin doesn’t fit as well as it did then, but my spirit has a better notion about who this 67-year-old woman is. Oh, I still have plenty to learn. I misunderstand often enough to need to apologize more often than I would like to admit.

However, I cherish my father’s teaching and I cherish the life he gave me. This day is an opportunity. I pray that I use it well.

only visit the past

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Inside the Long-Ago Dollhouse

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 29, 2013| 2 Comments »

The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been. (Madeleine L’Engle, 1918-2007) 

I made a big mistake when I told my two older grandchildren about the time my brothers climbed into the dollhouse my grandfather made for me. Since the house had been created for thumb-sized dolls, not little boys, the walls collapsed onto them.

Kate and Rebecca were horrified. Two giants had invaded precious pretend space and demolished it. Back then I probably saw the torn walls as slaughtered puppies. Now, I understand the viewpoint of my younger brothers, an exploration into uncharted territory. I really don’t think they planned destruction; it happened as a side-product of their exploration. Somehow, I expected my little girls to see with my adult point of view. They didn’t.

When Kate knew my youngest brother was coming to the house, she asked, “Is he one of the brothers who broke your doll house?”

“Uh, no, he was too little.”

I have a few weeks before my other brothers face my girls’ wrath—for a misdemeanor committed before computers, space travel, cell phones, and flat-screen television sets existed. Any pictures from that era would have been in black-and-white. They couldn’t have been instantly posted on Facebook.

Then again, my granddaughters may forget all about the long-ago dollhouse. Actually it’s likely. The holidays are filled with far more interesting opportunities. If the subject comes up I could ask if they ever made a mistake and then felt sorry about it later. The word, oops, appears early in a child’s vocabulary. I could mention again the story about the time my brothers and I wanted to play Indians in the basement when I was about four-or-five-years old. We needed a campfire. So I gathered some sticks from the front yard, placed them on the cement floor, and then lit them from the pilot on the hot-water heater. Fortunately, my mother had a good sense of smell.

“Did you get a spanking?” Kate asked.

“I don’t remember that part. But you can be pretty sure I did.” I certainly earned one.

The consequences of a fire in the basement didn’t occur to me at preschool age. I had planned to put it out. There was a faucet a few feet away, right next to the wringer washer. As an adult the thought of flames in the house strikes me with intense fear. I’ve apologized to my parents many times over the years.

Yet, somewhere deep inside me is that little adventurer who wondered what-would-happen-if? She learned to respect the parameters of reality, but appreciates the spunk of the kid with just a touch of mischief inside.

Yes, I loved that dollhouse my grandfather crafted for me. He was an incredible, gentle man. I loved my brothers even more. And, I still do.

save the kid in you

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Sound, Words, Imagination

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 22, 2013| 3 Comments »

What a pity every child couldn’t learn to read under a willow tree… (Elizabeth George Speare)

“Book,” Ella says with enthusiasm.

She hasn’t been talking for longer than a few months. However, our four-year-old granddaughter reads.

When she first began vocalizing she chose the alphabet and tried to sound-out such letters as e-x-i-t in stores and libraries. But, most of her communication remained through sign language. Now she reads with me as I turn back to page one of “The Wheels on the Bus” for the five-thousand-four-hundred and sixty-third time. Well, I feel like the doors on the bus have opened and closed at least that many times “all day long.” Ella knows these last three words especially well and repeats them with a joy that is contagious. How can I mind the repetition when she is so excited?

When we get to the last page she turns to the vocabulary words, takes my finger and points to them. She wants to absorb each one, learn, grow—and I want to celebrate that expansion with her.

I decide to see how much more our little girl understands. Down syndrome has limited, but not stopped her. Among the books is a Dora the Explorer coloring book. I ask if she wants the crayons. She answers, “yes,” but then hands them to me. I decide to turn this situation around.

“What color should I use?” I ask.

She gives me green for the grass, and then points out places that I have missed, including hidden background. The walk, as she calls it, close enough for sidewalk, needs to be gray. She chooses red for the barn. Usually when I color with my grandchildren I shade the edges, layer color, blend yellows and oranges, play the artist. Not now. The focus is not on perfection, but on Ella as director. Not many four-year-old kids gets to legitimately play that role. In less than an hour we will need to tell her it is time to get her coat, get in the car, and go to physical therapy. For now she can be the guide for the next move, however simple it may be.

Early in the evening I see a video made by Ella’s maternal grandmother on her phone: Ella and her daddy are in a restaurant. He is printing words on a placemat: up, down, do, cat, and dog. Ella reads them all with a voice so sweet I could listen to her as many times as I have read “The Wheels on the Bus.”

She isn’t performing. She reads for the innate satisfaction of language. Competition from others hasn’t appeared yet. I consider my creative projects and question my motives. Do I approach them seeking success or to live this moment through them?

I love you, Ella, and I hope to become a better me because of you.

flower blooming in adversity

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