A Bear Ate My Lunch

The sun always seemed to shine during that semester at New Mexico State University. The exchange group (national and international students) regularly went on Saturday outings. Hikes in the Organ Mountains are the ones I remember. The sky was so blue, the vistas so different from the ones I grew up with in Pennsylvania.

Returning to New Mexico a couple years later, I joined fellow teachers on short hikes. In cross-country skiing, I learned about cardio and the quiet of a snowy mountain. Downhill skiing, I felt the exhilaration of speed and, initially, the fear of a tumble as I approached the end of a run and didn’t know how to stop. I also met others who enjoyed outdoor… excursions. (One had just backpacked the John Muir Trail, a two hundred miles trek from the Yosemite Valley and to the summit of Mount Whitney.) In addition to hiking mountain and desert, we went spelunking and rock climbing. With a borrowed backpack I joined them on a weekend trip, learning the thrill and exhaustion of carrying all one’s gear.

Soon after, I bought a cheap frame pack, a decent hip belt, and a good sleeping pad. I only used the pack a handful of times but I relished visiting wild places while challenging myself in ways I never had before. Having joined a few trips, one July day I headed to California. My powder blue Escort rebelled at the dry heat of Death Valley. Every twenty minutes I’d pull to the side of the road and let the radiator cool enough to add water before continuing. Finally reaching higher country, I spent the next day waiting as a mechanic procured, then installed, another radiator. With the car again dependable, I toured Devils Pilepost one day, then walked the path up and down Mount Whitney another, jogging the last mile or so before dusk became dark (and me with no flashlight).

After partaking of these and other light romps, I drove to Yosemite, registered at a ranger station, threw the pack on my back, and started walking. If you missed it I was alone, my first, and only, solo backpacking trip. Glorious! I’ve never since been so present in my skin as to recognize by touch whether that brush of contact on the arm or neck was a mosquito, fly or spider’s line.

Being small in stature, I’d opted not to add the weight of a tent to my pack. The second morning, my left eye was swollen shut from an insect bite. On what was to have been the third of four mornings, I awoke to find that I hadn’t slung my food bag high enough up the tree to evade bears. A few grains of rice, two dehydrated peas, and some bright red crumbs on the ground below were all that remained. I’d enjoyed freeze-dried strawberry slices the night before, savoring the sweet-tart zing on my tongue. Wanting the prolong the experience, I had left half the package for the next night’s supper. I wished I’d eaten them all! That day, as the chocolate chip cookies in the car called to me, I hiked twenty miles downhill, arriving at the parking lot around 10:00 p.m.

Until quite recently, that trip marked the end of my great outdoor adventures. Within three years I married, had a child, bought a piano, and got a mortgage. I settled into a traditional life, learning a little about plumbing, paying the bills. The American dream. To say that I failed would be inaccurate. I may have done poorly in marriage (I’m too close to assess) but my kids are amazing and I wouldn’t trade them for a world of adventures. Those years, both the good and bad, made me who I am.

But that was The Box, and not my box. Stepping out of it, I began peeling back layers of assumptions and wrong beliefs, slowly coming to know myself.

Recently I was instructed to ask each morning, “What does Jayneann need?” Sometimes a response comes easily. Other times I have no answer. In those moments I remind myself that re-membering is a process and that as I continue to reclaim who I am, more often I will know.

Gratitude in Everything?!

Thanks & Gratitudes, 1001-1006

What are you thankful for? Are there things for which you’re thankful but not grateful? Maybe, like me. you’ve wondered what the difference is. I tried to explain it in a sermon once but didn’t convince myself. The words mean different things to different people. There’s no consensus.

“What am I grateful for today?” is a regular part of my practice but I don’t usually talk about it until November (and then I feel guilty) so I’m writing this now. For today, thanks is what we express and feel in the moment and gratitude is when we’ve allowed ourselves to be affected, and potentially changed, by someone or something.

I’m regularly thankful for breath, food, drink, sleep, family, friends, health, house, body, clothing… That’s easy. With practice, finding things for which you’re grateful can become equally simple, at least on our better days. During a book study at the Appleton church we were encouraged to keep a gratitude journal, recording five things each day. “The rain” doesn’t really express gratitude but “The rain soothed my frayed nerves” does. Having said that, I admit to using shorthand, only seldom writing complete thoughts. I know what I mean as I write it. And I’ve moved to only recording three things.

Today though, I’d like to explore the idea of being grateful for the hard things because when we allow these experiences to affect and shape us, we become more alive to the moment. We become better versions of ourselves.

If you cannot consider the idea today, I respect that. But I want to examine it for myself, at least. I suppose the idea first took root during an e-book study a few months into my medical leave. Something one of the women said helped me realize that, in at least one way (which I’ve since forgotten) I could view the Lyme disease was a gift. If this is a gift, what else is?

A difficult marriage led me to lean on One greater than myself and, perhaps through that, to accept that I have value just as I am and to cultivate friendships with people who accept me. I learned not to focus on my weaknesses. This might have happened anyway but it came in the context of marriage. And I’m grateful.

While I would not wish my situation on anyone, this time apart has been good for me. I could probably write a small book about the negative aspects of having chronic Lyme disease and having to go on unpaid medical leave. There has been a fair amount of grief. And yet…

I’ve grown. I have time for the inner work. Stress is nearly absent. Only months into the medical leave, Kay* voiced her opinion that my job had been slowly killing me. As I’ve learned more about myself as an autistic person, I’ve come to accept that, for me, pastoral ministry – a job that doesn’t accommodate difference kindly or easily – was a perfect storm. The expectations on every level, the assumptions about how pastors behave, the hours, the people who prefer familiar ways at all costs… My blunt manner, perfectionism, sensory processing issues, need for rest, inability to read non-verbals… Add Lyme disease and it was impossible.

I’m grateful for my life as it is today. While my mind and body slowly heal, I can visit my kids, go on a Boundary Waters adventure, and refinish the 100-year-old front door of the house. I get to tutor Afghan women in English, participate in a tai chi class, and sing weekly with the Lyric Choir – none of which I’d have had the time and energy for if I was pastoring a church.

Through living with chronic illness, I’ve learned compassion at a depth I might never have known. Granted, I’m around fewer people but I’m more patient than I used to be and less likely to challenge their opinions. Believing that people are doing what they can in that moment, kindness comes more easily. My rough edges will always be present but maybe the light shines through me a little clearer now. In the “Better Person” category, I’m most grateful for this.

Yet I feel the hypocrisy. Gratitude is easy when one’s life is as good as mine. If one of my children was to die, I might be grateful for my strength but never for the loss. That a loved one might someday disappear into dementia terrifies me. Easy words fall silent here.

While I recall reading that gratitude leaves us happier, I can offer no promises. I only hope and pray that when we each face the impasse that cannot be borne, we both invite and accept the help of others until we can again smile and sleep and feel grateful.

* My daughter, not her real name

On Coloring or the Spiral of Self-Discovery

A text came, asking, “Do you ever ignore a call, like something the universe is trying to tell you?” Probably, but I do try not to…

Have you ever come to the end of a book and wanted to reread it right away? Maybe it's my choice of reading material lately but it happened again last week as I reread don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements. After describing the agreements, he explains ways to break the old agreements we accepted when we were being “domesticated.” (I love that descriptor!) Not for the first time, I wondered about my most authentic self. Who am I when I stop pretending to be the way I think “they” want me to be?

Years ago, I began this unlearning in part by collecting phrases like “stepping out of the box” and “coloring outside the lines.” Last week while processing Ruiz’s words (and painting the garage), I thought about this way of coloring and realized that I haven’t colored in years and don’t, in fact, enjoy it. 

The previous owner didn't have a tall enough ladder to paint the gable green.
My aesthetic sense suggested I keep it and even add a couple more courses of white.

Friends color. They make beautiful mandalas and other pictures. It’s meditative. They relax as they use purple here and green there. Not me. I could never color in the lines well enough to meet personal expectations – it was stressful to try – but I wasn’t able to intentionally color outside the lines either. I gave up my crayons at the earliest opportunity. I still get out the watercolor pencils occasionally. They set around for a couple months before I put them away again. Whether I keep them to torture myself about inadequacies or out of a hope that someday I’ll be able to enjoy using them, I don’t know.

What this says about me, I can’t say. But I’m guessing you’ve experienced something similar in your life at one time or another. Anyway, I have issues with coloring. Remember that and that I try not to ignore the universe’s calls.

This morning’s church service was led by four women who meet monthly to share their spiritual journeys. (Just seeing them brought a “yes” to my awareness. I missed my covenant group after moving to Wausau five years ago but the feeling faded. I forgot. It’s time to be open to another group’s pull on my heart.) In her story, one of the women mentioned coloring outside the lines and my ears perked up.

When I met with Sister Gabrielle during my retreat in July (I wrote about it here) she was excited to hear that I play piano. “How? … classically-trained … how often … oh, that’s perfect!” Seriously, she was like a kid with a new toy as she assigned me homework. Every day I was to spend fifteen minutes playing like a small child with no experience or training, ignoring the internalized voices that tell me music has to sound a certain way. “Play a note, then another. Try this, then add that. If you follow a melody or find yourself thinking c-minor or harmony, stand up, spin around three times, and start over. Set a timer and just do it.”

We spent a good while discussing this. When I asked why she wanted me to do this, she explained that I need to break myself of the things that have ruled my life for so long. Since piano is where I received my deepest training, I need to start there. She’s a classically-trained painter, she said in passing, and this saved her life.

Huh. Okay. The first time I sat at the piano, I was able to play this way for 6 ½ minutes. Then my head hurt. Through July I gradually extended the time to nine minutes but was astonished again and again at how mentally exhausting it was. I didn’t enjoy the exercise but it was homework so I did it anyway. As I did, a funny thing began to happen. Since returning from the Boundary Waters I haven’t been regular in my practice and am not using the timer, yet I notice that I’m enjoying this odd homework and looking forward to the next session. I find myself wondering what will happen next. (Interesting, since “I wonder what will happen next” is part of my mindfulness practice.) Without meaning to, and while actively working not to imitate anything, I’ve begun hearing structures in this plunking and playing that seem similar to Bartok’s simple piano pieces or to what one hears in contemporary movies.

I’d been talking with this spiritual guide about a yearning to discover who I really am, what I like and need. That’s what led to the assignment. Now it seems that everywhere I turn, I hear that I need to undo the domestication of my early years and the ways I was expected – or thought I was expected – to conform in order to fit in. It’s funny really. I thought I’d done this work. Revisiting it wasn’t part of my plan. I guess it’s like I used to tell Orville and the other 90-somethings I visited. As long as we’re still breathing, God isn’t finished with us.

When we open ourselves to the holy that’s in us and around us, well, Frodo Baggins isn’t the only one to learn that “It's a dangerous business … there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

Do We Take Friendship for Granted?

We stood, facing each other in our black gowns and mortarboards outside Philips Hall, that Gothic-style building whose red-velvet-seated auditorium we knew well.

“Let’s stay in touch,” she said, handing me her address.

Surprised, I took the slip of paper. “Sure.”

Lisa and I had met while waiting to audition for West Chester State College’s School of Music, she on flute, I on clarinet. (I was accepted as a piano major, she as a bassoon major.) We became friends in the way classmates do, through regular interaction in classes and ensembles, in the halls. We each joined Sigma Alpha Iota, a women’s music fraternity (yes, fraternity, to highlight that this was not a social club) and eventually served as officers together. Yet for all that, I never felt that we were close. Still…

I really tried to correspond regularly but my efforts were repressed by an assumption and by another, well-meaning, letter-writer. Grandma McIntosh who wrote me pages and pages would include some version of “I wish you’d write more often” in each of her letters. This undid me. I hadn’t yet realized that we all think our lives are ordinary. No one would want to read about my life. Even when living in New Mexico teaching Navajo youth, a place and a situation completely unfamiliar to most, I’d lament, “I have nothing to say!”

Lisa and I wrote back and forth for six or seven years. Her letters were prompt and full of newsy bits while I struggled to fill a page and a half (again not realizing that what I deemed ordinary would make good stories for someone living in New Jersey with a husband and three daughters). Eventually I received a “Dear Jayneann” letter: She needed a friend who made the effort to connect regularly and she was cutting me off.

As an adult, I’ve had friendships in tae kwon do class or with colleagues but none of them were close. (It’s no one’s fault; this is simply part of how I function. I take a l-o-n-g time to connect.) Not really understanding what close friendship is, I would listen longingly as others spoke of doing things together and about the friends who were always there for them.

This is the backdrop for my question:

Do you realize how truly amazing it is to have a friend?!

Researchers indicate that whatever happens in our lives, however wonderful or terrible the event, we will soon revert to our previous happiness set-point. You could win the lottery, lose the love of your life (or find them), travel the world for a year. In the end you'd be no happier or sadder than you were before it occurred. I have no reason to doubt this so I suspect that those of you with close friends seldom consider how truly blessed you are.

How do I know you’re blessed? Because I have a friend. And when I pause to consider our friendship I am blown away. This friend dropped everything to take me to and sit with me in the emergency room after I broke my foot last year. We hang out, talk and laugh together, hike or snowshoe… My friend tells me when I have food in my teeth and also that this thing that I do, this habit, is annoying. Wow…

Later this month, the two of us will head to the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area. I’ve wanted to visit there since hearing four years ago about endless lakes and meteor showers and old-growth red pines. Blueberries will be ripe. (Hopefully the bears will share.) The BWCWA is a designated Dark Sky Place and I look forward to seeing the night sky well again. The Milky Way. The Perseid meteor shower.

I’ve been lifting baby-weights to strengthen my shoulders. I’m uncertain about my stamina but we have no agenda so when the tick-disease-induced fatigue surfaces we’ll slow down. I’ve been tenting for as long as I can remember. And although I’d done almost no canoeing until recently I really enjoy it. Wild places nourish my spirit.

Soon, we’ll load up the Prius, head out and… the adventure will continue. I intend to return with great memories!

I'm taking a break for a couple weeks but I’ll be back after that. See you then!

Too Much Alone

A mark of shame. That’s the first definition that Merriam-Webster Dictionary assigns to the word stigma. According to the American Psychological Association, a stigma is “a negative social attitude attached to a characteristic of an individual that may be regarded as a mental, physical, or social deficiency.” We’re each aware of personal qualities or ways of being that may lead to being stigmatized. We might wish, or even believe, that such stigmas are a thing of the past but while things may not be as bad as they once were, we still suffer for our perceived shortcomings. And this can affect our ability to lead full and healthy lives.

I’ve worked with a few counselors through the years, usually seeking tools to better navigate interpersonal relationships and the world in general. As recently as two years ago, a psychologist helped me navigate the transitions I was experiencing as I prepared to leave employment to focus on healing. The low-level chronic depression (dysthymia) I live with had seldom troubled me since the divorce. Until this pandemic. February 2021 was terrible – but it was terrible for everyone so I didn’t think about depression. This spring though, for no good reason, I struggled again. I’m doing better now but have begun the process that’ll allow me to check in with someone.

At one time or another, we all benefit from having someone listen to, and assure, us that we’re okay and will make it through this hard place. For many folks, friends or family fill this niche. Others of us prefer, or need, to work with a professional. (Again, no shame, no stigma!)

I recently started paying attention to the silence that would greet my words when I mentioned loneliness. I’d never thought about it before, but then I’ve seldom talked or written about loneliness (beyond journaling). It was my secret shame. I’m talking now. People of all ages and in all situations are lonely. It’s endemic.

In the last year, I’ve read lots of articles about loneliness. I’ve learned that it ages us and decreases our longevity. It weakens our immune response. It even makes us less likely to engage with others when we have a chance to connect. In thinking of widowed acquaintances who sink into isolation as well as my own avoidance of phone calls to family during lonelier weekends, I can affirm this.

In response to a perceived epidemic of loneliness, Britain initiated Loneliness Awareness Week. Additionally, that government has, for the last three years, put together a report, Tackling Loneliness, part of its goal being to reduce the stigma around loneliness and to make it easier for people to seek help.

While loneliness can adversely affect our physical and mental health, it’s not an illness in and of itself. Rather, it’s a state of mind describing the difference between the human contact we desire and the contact we actually experience. Think of it as a math equation.

Desired Connection – Actual Connection = Potential Loneliness

With that definition, we could dismiss our loneliness as simply wanting what we don’t have. And to an extent, it is. Yet humans are social creatures. Nearly everyone needs human contact. A theologian might say that we are made for community. (Yes, I’ve said this.) 

Loneliness was widespread even before the Covid-19 pandemic. Those who have been most cautious about their – or others’ – safety these last two years are probably the most isolated but we’ve all faced the limits of our comfort in solitude.

I never realized there’s a stigma around loneliness, but once I started looking I found the words linked everywhere. (I guess I’m just late to the party.) This is the power of stigma. It keeps us believing that our challenge, whatever it is, is a shameful thing – something to be hidden – and that we’re the only ones for whom it’s a problem.

Knowing this, I’m going to keep talking about it and I encourage you to do the same. While we may not know what to say to that lonely person, just by validating someone's perception we can help. We don’t need to problem-solve (resist, resist). We can simply listen. Helping another person to feel seen and heard is one of the best signs of caring!

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Let the Circle Be Wide

Some of my favorite people are neurodivergent. Most of them actually. I used to joke that if you shook my family tree, mental illness and autoimmune disease would fall out. Little did I know…

When my then-husband and I were in our early forties, he agreed to get tested for attention deficit disorder (ADD) on condition that I be tested too. Growing up with siblings with ADD, I recognized his symptoms yet was surprised when the counselor’s report indicated that I was mildly affected by ADD (but when not under stress I could generally compensate). Twelve years later, I was again surprised when a psychologist indicated that I have Asperger’s Syndrome. Wow! Even as an older adult, this affirmation – that my odd ways are simply the way I’m made, that I’m not defective – has been a game-changer.

Clinicians had long been trained to look for Asperger’s, and autism in general, only in boys. Since it presents differently in girls, half the population that might have benefited from diagnosis was never examined. I can’t say how other women were affected by this oversight but it shaped me. While many people hate injustice, are outspoken and emotionally sensitive, I also struggle to make eye contact when talking and don’t swing my arms when I walk. Social awkwardness though is my greatest challenge. Non-verbal communication – facial expressions, body language – eludes me. I cannot act or lie convincingly if my life depends upon it. Blunt and honest to a fault, I’m often considered rude. And forget small-talk!

When people look past my – or another’s – oddities, they can find a loyal, caring, capable person. But this requires effort. And many people, in the workplace or elsewhere, don’t take the trouble. They see only the difference. This brings me to my second great challenge: the fear and rejection (even just perceived rejection) that comes with living differently. I wrote last winter about making the choice, as a teen, to let myself be vulnerable rather than risk missing out on life. (You can read it here.) The jury is still out on whether this was a wise decision but I don’t think I could have done differently.

I’m gentler on myself these days. Sometimes I’m able to remove the masks that helped me to fit in and be a little more myself. I’m less patient now with the subtle (and not-so-subtle) messages that being myself isn’t enough. And with the people who send them. Someone who would never slight a gay or trans person will not endure a person whose mind works differently than theirs does. This has to stop! Getting past the messes that we are – locally and planet-wide – will require the participation of all of us. Leaving some out would limit the creativity, passion, and stamina that can be put toward finding better ways forward.

May is Autism Awareness Month. And awareness is needed. Acceptance, too.

Being part of the Christian tradition, I’ve often heard about the need for us church insiders to make room at the table for the ones not present. It’s an important reminder. How do our ways make it hard, or impossible, for an outsider to join us? Irish folksinger, Tommy Sands, offers another perspective. I heard him sing by the water one summer day in Minneapolis. In his lyrics, my sense of privilege was laid bare. Is it my table? Our table? (And I’m not speaking about the table of Holy Communion which is Christ’s table.) What if we invert our assumptions about making room? Here’s his refrain:

Let the circle be wide 'round the fireside

And we'll soon make room for you. 

Let your heart have no fear, there are no strangers here, 

Just friends that you never knew.

The circle needs to be wide so that there’s room for me.

tough: adjective and noun

Saturday morning.

Toward the end of last night's Wausau Lyric Choir concert (the first of three this weekend) Carla Dul, the director, paused before “Sing Gently” (which I encourage you to listen to) to dedicate that song to her students from the Mosinee High School choirs. Turning to the members of the concert choir who had joined us in an earlier number, she spoke of the challenges they had borne together these last two years. Among other things, she reminded them that they had been ready to do whatever they had to do in order to sing. When told that they wouldn't be permitted to sing unless they wore masks, they had masked up. (Singing in a mask is not easy.) 

One sentence struck me: “When the going gets tough, the tough keep going.” It’s not a new sentiment. I’ve heard variations through the years, even in a truck commercial years ago. I never liked “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” but never considered why. Since last night, I’ve considered it and I have two issues with the truism, both in the second part.

I don’t like calling someone, myself included, “tough.” Tough is an old hen that has to be stewed for hours in order to be tender. Tough love is sometimes harsh and uncompromising. Tough is an unexpected break-up. A well-done steak. A hard truth.

Then there’s the “get going” part that seems to suggest that up until this point we’ve been doing nothing. I can’t speak for you but if a situation calls for activity, I’m already doing something by the time “…the going gets tough.”

Carla’s choice of words eliminated one of my issues. And given the past couple years, I’m willing to yield on the other. Things have been tough; for many of us they still are. Yet we have kept going. We are tired (oh, are we tired!) but we continue. Though sometimes ploddingly, we keep putting one foot in front of the other. Well done!

I’m not suggesting that you should have to do more or even continue as you have. (I gave up “should-ing” years ago.) You know your capacity; don’t let anyone tell you differently. I think what I mean to do is to encourage you to give yourself credit for the stamina you’ve shown, the perseverence you’ve mustered. Maybe you didn’t do all that you expect of yourself. Maybe you weren’t your better self as much as you’d have liked. (I didn’t and I haven’t.) But we have each been through a storm. As communities – local and worldwide – we have weathered a storm like none we’d yet faced. We still are. But like the willow, we have bent yet not broken. Well, maybe a little but in healthy, or at least understandable, ways. Those breaks are life scars that remind us that we are and continue to live.

Keep living. Fully. Gently. Loudly. In whispers. In whatever way is yours. That’s my message for this week. 

This prayer seems fitting...

a tiny Easter rant

During 10th hour resource on Thursday, the last hour of school for the week, an eighth grader called to me, “What are you doing this weekend?” 

It was a small group, not like the forty-five of the previous hour. No need to maintain order, so I simply responded, “Nothing. What are you doing?” 

“Having Easter.” She turned back toward her friend. 

Oh, yeah, Sunday is Easter.

When I texted Kay a moment ago about topic ideas, she replied: “It is Easter… I’ve been thinking about Lent and celebrating and lack thereof. Particularly how insignificant Easter feels if one doesn’t observe Lent.”

I haven’t been observing Lent. Oh, I got ashes. A palm leaflet is wedged behind the thermostat above the piano. I stuck my hand into the water in the font – "Remember your baptism and be thankful" – after a Holy Thursday service. 

But I gave up giving up things for Lent years ago. Far better, I reasoned, to work on something that might help me better live God’s way. Did that happen?

During Holy Week, the 5 gospels accounts (for me) are:

• Matthew;
• Mark;
• Luke;
• John; and
• Tim Rice & Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar.

They all have good source material, but Rice and Webber have the added advantage of music theater on their side. Saturday afternoon, I listen. The first half is enjoyable – I note the singers’ voices and styles – but somewhere around “Gethsemane” it becomes torturous for a fully attentive listener. I'm sure it was intended to be. (A pastor at a church I once attended preached on Palm Sunday that it’s impossible to fully experience the joy of Easter without first having gone through Holy Thursday and Good Friday. How can we celebrate resurrection if we have not walked through death?)

I didn’t go to church Friday because I couldn't bear to hear anything resembling traditional atonement theory. Atonement. You know, the reasons theologians came up with in the centuries after Jesus’ torture and execution for explaining why it had to happen. The ones that have gained traction in the last couple hundred years propose that:

• God needed a sinless Jesus to die as a sacrifice for our sin, yours and mine;
• Jesus was born for this purpose. To be a bridge, if you will, between us and the Holy;
• God is so good that having sin near God is impossible. Jesus has to wash us clean with his blood.

I won’t go on except to say that these ideas repel me. If this is god, it’s not a god I want to know or follow. Let's try instead that:

• Jesus died because religious leaders felt threatened and conspired to bring him down, working with a vicious Roman oppressor who was only too happy to do their dirty work;
• Jesus died because even though it was clear that powerful people were out to get him, he would not turn from teaching that, and treating every person as if, God loved them just as they were;
• Jesus died because he held up a mirror to people and while many saw God’s acceptance and their inherent worth, others saw that their lives were warped by one thing or another – by hatred or even the Law that they loved – and they could not bear it;
• Jesus died because people are fickle?
  We welcome the wholeness he offers us but depart without so much as a "Thanks!
  We say we'd die for him on Thursday, then deny him.
  We shout “Hosannah” on Sunday but Thursday we join the crowd for safety. We don’t want to die so we say, “Crucify him!” on cue, whether it’s two thousand years ago in Jerusalem or today when someone who looks or lives differently from us gets pulled over, seeks an abortion or escape from their hell, or…

Following Jesus is so easy. Just love everyone and everything. No buts. No exceptions. 

And that’s so hard.

Thankfully, we don’t have to get it perfect. What we need to do, what our “neighbor” needs from us, what the earth needs from us, is to be and do what we can in this moment without skimping (repeat ad infinitum). Some moments will be better than others. But you know what? That’s okay.

God makes us human. That means God makes us imperfect. And God is okay with that, loves it even. The only atonement that’s needed is for us to let God draw us in (that’s the real at-one-ment).

Blessed Easter

Good Grief

“Aren’t you over that yet?” Bob Albers, an instructor while I was at seminary, shared these words from a friend. They were on their way to lunch when Bob explained that he was feeling low about his young adult son who had died six months earlier.

Most people are uncomfortable with illness and death. These realities point to the fragility of life, which unsettles us. So we push sickness and death to the edges of our awareness. We send cards and balloons rather than visiting. We shelter the frail and dying (away from us) with nursing homes and hospice facilities. We deny illnesses with stigmas and poor insurance coverage. And when someone has a personal loss, we expect their grief to be completed quickly in a way that doesn’t discomfort the rest of us.

Grief is a normal part of life. It takes as long as it takes and doesn’t especially follow a pattern (though many stick to Kubler-Ross’s Five Stages idea). When we deny grief, it breaks into our lives in other ways, mind, body or spirit. Better to welcome it, pull up a chair and sit with it for as long as it takes, and in whatever ways it manifests.

Having said all of this, the rest of my words today focus on the losses that are part of our everyday experience. Grief describes our inner healing process after loss. A good cry, like laughter, helps us to process feelings that will otherwise gum up our ability to live fully. Acknowledging our grief allows this healing process to begin. In spite of our preference that it would just go away, grief is healthy and good. Charles Schultz was onto something when he chose “Good Grief” for Charlie Brown’s most uttered phrase. This character was seldom appreciated and often suffered the scorn of “friends.” I’m sure he reflects a grief many of us have felt with the ordinary pains of life.

While some losses are tangible like an empty nest, retirement, a job or relationship loss, bankruptcy, or a tornado-flattened home, we also grieve the intangible. We mourn lost dreams. We grieve losses of familiarity, social position, community, independence. In 1989, Kenneth Doka conceived the phrase disenfranchised grief for the grief we face when a loss cannot be openly acknowledged, publicly mourned or socially supported.

What griefs were you unable to share? Which are not recognized by others? Through years of marriage, I grieved that it wasn’t what I’d hoped for and that I seemed unable to create something different. More recently, I grieved the loss of health. “Care” emojis are easy to come by but who is there to sit with us?

This week, I processed (again) a small disenfranchised grief. It was compounded by newly released climate change reports, a slowed-but-not-ended pandemic, a brutal land-and-resource-grabbing war such as we never thought we’d witness, oh, and a death in the family. When not otherwise occupied, I felt low.

You have a similar list, no doubt. Do you honor it? Do you allow yourself to experience the sorrow? Give yourself time to be still and simply feel what you feel? I wrote “when not otherwise occupied” above, because when we’re busy it’s easier to pretend we’re not suffering. Sometimes we can be fully functional! That doesn’t mean we should be a flurry of activity. You know folks who do this. Please, don’t be one of them. Strange as it may seem, we need to give ourselves permission and opportunity to grieve.

Part of my vocation is to encourage self-care. So hear me, please. Take care of you. Especially when our lives are so full that it’s easy to skip that which leaves us uncomfortable or embarrassed. Especially when national and world news distresses and even terrifies. Especially when society would rather we pretend that grief doesn’t exist beyond our losses of beloved people and pets (and then, only within preconceived boundaries). Especially because the world has become a scary place and we are small and too much alone, please make space in your days to rest and feel. Give yourself permission. Give yourself this gift.

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one little book changed everything

Think of something that, when you were young, shaped your life in a significant way.

When I was a teen, my dad was head usher at our church. As such, he – and we, his family – arrived at church on Sunday well before just about anyone. I spent most of those Sunday morning half-hours in the small, dark-paneled church library. Often I’d flip through a concordance, going down a rabbit hole about whatever term caught my attention. (Bible concordance were huge books that, before the internet, offered alphabetical listings of words and phrases indicating where they occur throughout all the Biblical books.) I wasn’t a Bible nerd. I simply found this information cool in the same way I found the etymology in dictionary entries to be cool.

On days when I wasn’t looking at the concordance, I'd pull down and look at a book that caught my eye. Today’s post is about one such book. 

I was about fifteen when I found it, a small, adult picture book illustrated simply with line drawings. Details – both of the illustrations and the story itself – are lost to memory. They’ve been replaced with what I needed that book to contain. I read it only once perhaps forty-seven years ago...

A young woman, standing outdoors, began to build a wall around herself. One brick each day, sometimes two, she built it. And brick by brick, it grew. At first there were only two courses of bricks in a half circle in front of her, nearly within arms reach of her (and the reader) but slowly the wall grew as day by day she added more bricks – waist high, then higher still until eventually the wall was taller than she was.

It was quiet behind her wall. Peaceful. Safe. There was no pain or anger. No confusion. There was also no wonder or delight but this didn’t trouble her, shielded as she was from those other things. And for no one knows how long, not even the young woman herself, she remained there, content in her solitude.

But one day as she stood in front of her wall, soaking in all the ways that it protected her, she was surprised when a flower landed at her feet. It had dropped from above, from the other side of the wall she had built for her own protection and well-being. A token from someone she could not see and did not know. 

The young woman stood contemplating this gift from the unknown stranger. How long she stood there, I don’t know. Maybe days, months passed as she thought about the flower and what it meant.

And then one morning, the woman began – one brick at a time – to take down her wall. It had taken her many months, maybe years, to erect. It would take at least as long to dismantle.

Earlier, I invited you to think of something that shaped your life. This book is one for me.

I didn’t recognize that the story was a parable. I understood parables only as stories Jesus told to get his point across. That other people might employ the same device didn’t occur to me.

The concept of metaphor also eluded me – well into adulthood – but when I read this story I knew the author was writing about my life. Already, I had begun building a wall to protect myself from the confusions and hurts that were (I later realized) a regular part of growing up. I didn’t know how to cope with them or with the emotions which seemed to be triggered too easily. Describing my reaction to the story in today’s vernacular, I’d say – “OMG, that’s me!”

I’m a loner who craves the company of others – but not too much – and only of a select few.* Still, I need them as much as I need green trees and a piano. Yet connecting is hard. Before learning about my Asperger’s, I’d noticed that innocent remarks could leave people offended. I thought there was something wrong with me

This book presented itself at just the right moment. I’ve never seen another copy. If I had missed it, another learning opportunity might have presented itself. (They have a habit of doing that.) What I know is that my world changed that Sunday. Though it’s still difficult every time I speak to a new person, or ask something new of a familiar one, I risk it, opening myself to possibilities. Another person might look at my thin circle of friends and say that I’ve failed. But I know what my life might have been like if I’d never read that book.

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*  The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) identifies me as a gregarious introvert. I like 16 Personalities for learning more about each of the 32 types – the 16 original types each split into two subtypes. My daughter Kay who has delved deeply into the MBTI for character research in writing her novels tells me that this site’s assessment is the best (free one) she’s found.

“She likes the sound of her own voice.”

When I began posting to this blog again last month, I wondered how my literary voice would have changed – not something I'd think about on my own but daughter Kay is literary. What if I found that I had little to say? Now that I’m away from churches, would my words find people? And if they did, would my thoughts be of value in them?

Observations? At first, creative juices moved sluggishly; topics weren’t coming. Was I going to be able to maintain a presence long enough to find out if it mattered? After a few weeks though, ideas began to flow. I wrote more pieces than needed and had to choose which ones to polish and publish. Readership is small but in rereading (and editing) early posts I was reminded that it had also been slow to grow seven years ago.

I wondered in passing if adding recipes might draw more views. 

Karen copied this recipe from the back of a 15-Bean Soup Mix bag decades ago.

Then Friday night while consulting anonline recipe for the cornbread which is our go-to accompaniment to bean soup, my friend grumbled about having to scroll past so much text before getting to the recipe. I don’t recall his words but they were along the lines of, “She likes the sound of her own voice.” I didn’t bristle but as one who writes, I wanted to defend. To her readers, all those words before the recipes (which I too usually scroll past) are entertaining and/or educational. This post included sections about U.K. terminology and making this GF cornbread dairy-free or egg-free. (Did you realize there are fine, medium, and coarse cornmeals?)

“She likes the sound of her own voice.” 

Three years ago, a church member and their spouse came to my office with a laundry list of complaints, only one of which was not related to my autistic ways: I talked about myself from the pulpit too much. I did. I admitted it. So did, and do, the preachers whose stories have most touched me and those whom I most respect. To prevent this kind of wrong interpretation, every few months I’d say again why I did it. Since this blog follows a similar pattern, today you get to choose whether to read an explanation or to scroll past.

When I’m in performance mode (as pastor or teacher) or with the ones I’m closest to, I talk easily. Yet by nature, I’m quiet, reflective, very introverted. Probably because of the autism, I find it difficult to say the things closest to my heart. Writing them is easier. I’ve long enjoyed the written word, prose and poetry, fiction and non-fiction. I enjoy shaping words to fit thoughts, though until writing a memoir last winter my longest works were those required for seminary classes and ordination interviews.

Do I like the sound of my own voice? Not especially. For too long, it was filled with insecurity, fear, longing, and anger. I didn’t like my life and my voice was a reflection of that. I have no formal training yet in recent years people have told me that I write well or that I should write. And I have things to say.

I write through the hollow places in my heart and the wounds that are yet healing. I write because of the silence I faced when others knew of my struggles yet said nothing. I write for the teenager who didn’t think to tell her parents about the bullying she faced at the bus stop each morning until years later and for the young woman who didn't recognize her own worth. I write because I am no longer that person.

It is in hearing each other's stories that we begin to make sense of our own. I expose my vulnerable places in the hope that my story will lend someone courage or hope. Will encourage us all to laugh at the absurd and to cry for no good reason that others recognize. And will offer those who need it permission to rest or to put themselves first or to say, “no!” 

In assessing these last six weeks, I affirmed with some pleasure that the blog’s subtitle “being real while running after God” still reflects my vocation. Too often, rather than authenticity society expects something more like “Minnesota nice” (a term learned while at seminary in the Twin Cities). Yet our true self is all we really have to offer the world. It’s the gift we are given to share with those around us. 

I don't know what you're facing in your life, what demons haunt you, what sorrow or pain assails you. My goal is to be present with you, to keep showing up as best I can, and to help you to believe, as the character Valerie writes in Alan Moore's V for Vendetta, “that even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you. I love you. With all my heart, I love you."

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Is it really "All about Trust"?

Those with insight find prosperity;

Happy are those who trust in God.

                                Proverbs 16:20

The United Methodist Church is again in the news as The New York Times reports voting fraud at General Conference 2019.

In reading the article, this doesn't seem to be an issue of deliberate malice. As Germain Unda Mupasa, an unauthorized delegate for East Congo expressed, there are often visa issues, so African conferences have many reserves. These people of faith simply want to make sure that they have their assigned number of delegates voting for what they believe is the faithful response to the question.

Still, trust has clearly become an issue for the Church (and in other settings). The Book of Discipline has nothing in it about voting irregularities because in the past it's never been an issue. “The polity of the United Methodist Church presumes trust," explains Laceye Warner, a professor of Methodist studies at Duke Divinity School. But she adds, “The last several years, the ethos of the denomination has been characterized more by mistrust and misunderstanding.”

Have we been naive? Or is this legitimately a new and modern challenge?

Where do you find yourself in this conundrum? And I don't mean on which side of the divide do you stand regarding the right of clergy persons to marry GLBTQIA+ persons and of the acceptance of these previously, and again, discriminated-against persons to be ordained and to serve as pastors. 

No, what I am asking is:

• Where is trust in all of this? Is trust truly being violated or are people still acting in what they believe is “good faith”?
• In whom are we to trust? Of whom shall we be slow or hesitant to trust?
• Is this voting issue really an issue, as the media has made it out to be? Or does this reporting merely muddy the waters, serving to keep the UMC debacle in the public eye?
• What are your criteria for trusting someone?

I ask this last with all sincerity. A year ago, I found myself trusting someone... unreservedly. For a period of months, all was good. Yet things have changed. I defend them be reminding myself that we are not static creatures. We change with our experiences – our opinions, our feelings, evolve.

Still, the trust that once seems like an easy choice, I now question. Would I do the same today? I don't know...

Yes, I do. I can blame it on the AS[1], if I like – for good or ill – but I've always been recklessly trusting. This'll never change and I’m not sure I’d want it to.

I choose to trust – and to love – with equal abandon. Individuals and institutions may break my heart (and have) yet I will go on.

(Knowing who you are is a good thing. How would your three-sentence self-definition read?)

    

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[1] Asperger’s Syndrome

A Week Later

“If you want to know about wolves and their feeding habits, you have to ask the deer.”[1]

Friday afternoon, I turned to the first page of my (now) gratitude journal to a collection of thoughts and quotes from my first year of seminary, almost 12 years ago. This one – a remnant from Bob Alber’s “Intro to Pastoral Care” class hadn’t particularly touched me since I’d written it, until today, until this week when The United Methodist Church upheld its 1972 ruling that the practice of homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.” The Church I grew up in, the Church that is in my bones, did this!

Rhaynen[2] can talk about it at least somewhat dispassionately since she doesn’t value church. But what about Amy, J, D, B, J, B & K, D, R, and all the rest? 

Actually, as Rhaynen discovered, the Book of Discipline (so far) says nothing about transgender persons. Only sexuality is addressed. Guess it wasn’t on the denomination's radar in 1972. Maybe those who’re quite anti-gay don’t realize that gender and sexuality are not on the same spectrum. 

How could they do this?! I mean, I get it. I can easily understand that many faithful people aren’t there yet. But we’d hoped that the One Church plan would allay their fears about anyone trying to change “their” church while also affirming the acceptance and full inclusion that many others practice, or long to practice. 

I truly hadn’t realized that the One Church plan would be so distasteful to them. As a friend asked Tuesday evening, “Were we so naive?” I hadn’t thought so.

I grew up in a bubble and it pretty much lasted until I began my seminary experience twelve years ago. “How do I view GLBT?” is the question that became real during seminary. It was easily resolved as I sat in classes with and learned from fabulous, faith-filled, Spirit-led gay and lesbian persons. The question (now with a few more initials) became personal eighteen months ago. I love Rhaynen. I don’t know her well but her welfare, her fears and sorrows matter to me as much as my other three kids. I marvel at her courage in choosing the path that will, I pray, lead her to wholeness. 

I pray for all of us, but particularly for those wounded yet again by the Church. When someone says this isn’t a big deal, I think of the deer. I’m a wolf. It’s easy for me and my fellow wolves to think this isn’t important. But we’re not deer. We haven’t been chewed up by the institution that is supposed to represent God in the world.

Bishops and other leaders within the Connection counsel us to practice caution and patience. Yes, don’t decide anything rash. We humans tend not to think rationally when we’re grieving. Wait. Allow yourself to feel what you feel. Wait also for the Judicial Council which gathers April 23-25 to decide the constitutionality of the Conservative plan.

Still, I wonder, with many of you, “What will I do?”

God knows, but I do not. I’ll take one day at a time. I’ll listen. I’ll pray. I’ll offer people safe space to share their feelings. And one day when I’m feeling more prepared and less fragile, I trust I’ll know what to do. 

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[1] I can find no validation for the reference I was given in 2007. Then we were told: Ruben Alvarez, 1979, Faith, Science, Future, World Council of Churches.
[2] Not her real name.

Communing (guest post)

Shiva

I'm vacating this week this week – taking a staycation (or cottage days). Jennifer Johnson, from First Church, shared this story with me last month, then graciously gave me permission to include it in this blog as a vacation post. Thank you, Jen!

My curly hair boy and I deliver communion for people who are not able to come to church. We have an elderly woman with whom we meet. She lives in a memory care facility with her cat. Pearl (not her real name) always remembers us—especially my son. They have such a sweet friendship. The facility where she lives also has a cat that lives on the premises and he often visits Pearl and her kitty. It was a sunny afternoon that we found Pearl sitting in her chair, with the building kitty snuggled down in her lap sleeping. Her own cat sleeping soundly on her bed. In her small room we pulled chairs around her. The sun was shining through the window as we all sat close together.

The communion kit was all ready for us. Bread and grape juice that had been blessed by our minister the previous Sunday. A small communion reading and a prayer written out on a card. My son was eager to lead in the communion and with Pearl’s permission he began. I could see the seriousness on his face as he read what was written on the card. Stumbling over some words he didn’t recognize as I helped him out. Pearl patiently waited and smiled at him in a way that encouraged him to continue. He then served us the bread and juice and I served him. Afterward, we prayed together and then sang some Country Western songs. The kitty on her lap sleeping through it all.

In those moments, our chairs smashed in the small area around Pearl, with sleeping kitties, and a 10-year-old curly hair boy so seriously reading the card and serving us the elements I felt such a deep connection with our Creator. We were there caring for her by providing communion and friendship. She was there caring for us by patiently listening to my son read and encouraging him with her smile. Helping him to grow in his faith and understanding of connectedness. Helping me as well. I grew up believing that God is Love. That Jesus is the great teacher of this love. In that sunny room, draped with sleeping kitties, in that small circle that we formed, listening to the curly hair boy reading the words of our faith, Love was indeed present. We were indeed in communion with the Almighty.

I think about ways that God is in communion with us as we go about life. If I have enough mindfulness as I go through the day, I find Him in many places. My husband, son and I recently went to a Willie Nelson concert. There were various other bands before him and it was going to be a great show. I looked around the packed auditorium and marveled at all the different people there. Young people and elderly. People with all types of beliefs, ideas, and hopes. And then the music started. A whole group of strangers connected through music. There wasn’t any negativity. People were not fighting. Singing and joy could be heard. And I thought about how God is present in such a moment. Teaching us through the music of the artists. Showing us how we are more alike than different. Even with our differences there are things we agree on. We have common ground.

And then I look around and God can be found everywhere and in communion with us. In the budding tree of spring time. In the old dog happily groaning in his sleep. In the sink full of dirty dishes. In sadness and tears that are shed and the fight for justice. In the sing-song voice of a boy calling me “mom”. In the echo of voices that will never be heard again. And at the beginning of a new day with birds singing their ancient songs. As Mies van de Rohe says, “God is in the details”. Albert Einstein says “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle”. God is in the miracle of the ordinary. He is the Love in the room that communes us together.

Radical

Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:7-8 (NLT) 

Living in love is a radical concept. It was radical when Jesus practiced it two thousand years ago; it’s radical when we do it today.

I’ve been a practicing Christian all my life (expect maybe for a few young adult years when I was inactive). So living into last month's commitment to “live in love” should have been easy, right?

Babies love. They don’t know any better. They receive love and they return it. They're accepted and they accept. Only as they grow and face the hard reality that not everyone accepts them and that even the loving ones in their lives don’t accept everyone do these children learn to withhold love.

I like to think of myself as a loving person yet I was not always loving to my ex-husband. Nor have I always treated family or strangers with love. I could blame it on the ways we’re brought up but at some point we’re each responsible for how we live – now. I haven't always been loving. I want to change that. I don’t believe that old dogs can’t learn new tricks. New tricks are what keep us alive.

I’ve been working on this goal for a month, when I remember. Like most new practices, I’ve had successes and missed opportunities. Successes, like when young Fran asked one Sunday morning who my favorite person at church is. "I don't really have a favorite, Fran, but I really like you!"

Missed, like when a man was driving through the park last week calling out, “Happy Mothers Day” to random females. I just nodded and focused on locating the trailhead. Later I remembered seeing someone in the passenger seat. My imagination suggests that maybe the driver was being strangely friendly in order to bring joy to that other person. Is her family too far away? Are they estranged? Is she sick and he was hoping to lift her spirits as the people he greeted shared greetings in return? I’ll never know. But I’d rather err on the side of love next time.

Things like this didn’t used to concern me. If someone gave dreadful service at a restaurant or store, I was bothered. I expected better. I still expect better, but now I expect it of myself. Does she have a sick child? Did his girlfriend just dump him? When I meet each person as a child of God, I don’t need to know their story; I just need to love them.

I’ve been surprised at how easy it is. Sometimes. I hadn’t expected this. I mean I’d been working on Mercy practices as part of my Covenant Discipleship (CD) for three years – finding ways to practice compassion and justice. That was very much a work-in-progress but going okay. Yet I'm finding more success with this “living in love.” What gives? 

The one difference I come up with is motivation. I worked on acts of mercy because I was committed to the CD group idea. Practicing compassion and justice is important – for the ones I practiced on and for my own spiritual growth. While I was in the group, others helped me hold myself accountable. And during our weekly meeting, I could usually come up with a story to describe how I'd practiced each.

No one is helping me to live in love. Well, no one except the Holy. And yet I feel I’m doing ... well. Is it only because I’m being loving simply to be loving, simply to reflect the love God shares with me?

I don’t have answers today but I thought I'd let you know where I was.

The Big Reveal

I’ve been waiting since July to bring up this topic. Waiting until the people at my church had gotten to know me and (hopefully) trust me enough to hear it with compassion.

In February I came up with a plan for when and how to break my news. I'd do it from the pulpit so many would hear it all at once with no one left out, on the first Sunday of the month because attendance is usually better on "Communion Sundays." I actually created a sermon series around this one event. For weeks, I'd write out in my mind what I wanted to say, alway when I was supposed to be doing something else – until finally, just after Easter, I wrote a draft. After that, I could work on what I needed to do in that moment.

The message came together surprisingly easily. I hadn’t expected that. And I believe it had some impact even though attendance was low. (It was the first lovely weekend weather of the season.) I usually print 15 copies of the sermon. This week I’ve had to reprint twice; we’re into the third dozen. (Maybe someone’s just swooping them up and tossing them, though. Who knows?)

The message is about acceptance, something I’ve too often felt was absent in my own story. Here’s part of what I presented:

Jill never realized she was different. It didn’t show like it does when someone’s accompanied by a guide dog or has trouble walking or speaking.

Jill grew up doing all the things children did. She didn’t have many friends but as she grew older she chalked it up to being a quiet person. After graduating from college, she got a job and started a family. Jill was a fairly well adjusted person, so she expected to have a good life.

But there were snags along the way that made it harder than she expected. Little things, like laughing at the story only to find the others around her looking at her curiously. Or having to look at the floor or out the window when she talked about something close to her. Big things, too, like missing all the nonverbal stuff in any conversation. And without ever meaning to, regularly offend people with her words. She misinterpreted friendliness for true friendship or romantic interest, and, because of this, she was, as one person put it, the frequent victim of other people’s social weaknesses.

Jill followed rules, but by studying other people, she learned that there are many shades of gray. Only newspapers or Dalmatians are black and white.

She came to accept that she was odd. She acted as if it didn’t matter. But her friendless state was her secret shame. Jill longed for close connections, but as she looked back, even in school, her closest friends always had other best friends.

God makes us for relationship. We are hard-wired to be in connection with not only the Holy, but with each other and our world. We deny this at our own peril.

Jill’s story is my story. It was simply easier to tell it in the third person. Three years ago, I found out that I have Asperger’s Syndrome.

I have no doubt that God loves me, as God loves you and the man who lives under the bridge. We all need to work on accepting whoever's hard for us to accept. April was Autism Awareness Month. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. This seemed like a good time for a reminder.

Gratitude . . . Let Me Count the Ways

A couple years ago I was privileged to share in a study at church with a group of women (that I didn’t have to lead myself!) Although I couldn’t connect with the theology of the woman on the video – or her style of speaking – her key idea stayed with me.

She spoke about noticing the gifts all around us and of her own journey as she committedly began to journal about them each day. Would you commit to recording five things each day that you’re grateful for? I’m all for gratitude. And being an on-and-off-again journaling person I had a few notebooks laying around. So I took the challenge.

Now right away I’ll admit that I’m only on number three-hundred-something and, like I said, the study was two years ago. So clearly this doesn’t happen every day.

Since moving to Wausau my practice suffered even more. But a couple months ago I found my little spiral notebook in a stack of journals – some full, others not so much. I set it on the kitchen table along with my pens – I alternate colors, which is about as artsy as I get – and on my weekends, however many mornings that is, I sit and record gratitudes as my Sabbath station plays on the Sonos.

The next monkey wrench is that now that I’m getting back into my practice, I miss it during those weekends when I stay over in Wausau. (My notebook is in Appleton.) This should be an easy fix, I know, but I don’t want to start in one of the beat-up theme books that litter my little house and I haven’t yet gotten one I can love. (I’ll work on this.) So until I find a notebook, I collect thankful moments in my mind before sleep. That helps me remember that my life is full and rich.

How do you celebrate thankfulness? Or remind yourself that, even in the midst of the crummy stuff, God is still present and active and that life is still good?

After playing society’s game of chasing shadow wealth, Laura Tong writes about her discovery of true wealth:

... with no idea where to go from there, I found an empty journal and started a record of the True Riches In My Life. For each year of my adult life, I jotted down every experience, achievement, adventure, friendship won or lost, and every decision I could remember making.

What an epiphany!

I realized my life had been full of riches long before I started chasing financial wealth and material gain. I realized most of the truest riches in my life actually came when I didn't have all that much money.

Laura then writes about some of these real riches. Acceptance, curiosity, forgiveness aren’t surprising but I was intrigued to see vulnerability on the list. I’m going to think about that one. You might want to check out her blog and notice what catches your attention.

Just recently I had an epiphany of sorts myself. It’s still too close to me to speak of in any depth, but after being reminded about how many people’s lives are shaped by fear, and how easily my own can sometimes dive that direction, I decided that I was going to live in love – with everyone and everything I encountered. If this brought me to where I wanted to be, fabulous! Wonderful! If not, well, I would still be in a better place than if I didn’t do it.

Okay, no big surprise there, but somehow, sometimes, when we face ourselves in the mirror for the tenth or ten-thousandth time, we find that we notice things we’ve known all along in totally new ways. And as we continue our journey, our lives become fuller and richer for having paused enough to notice.

What words speak to you about the preciousness of this life? Here are a couple more that resonate with me: