Thank you for waking me up this morning. My friends were kind of surprised to see me up and moving so early this morning. I try to get up by 8 am every morning so I have a routine and stick to it, but sometimes I give myself a sleep in morning as a way of nurturing my body, mind, and soul. I take this as quiet time to just rest, cuddle with my wife, and allow you to speak to me in my dreams.
There is something about cuddling that is so nurturing for me. When I was younger I used to cuddle with my stuffed animals or with my dog Puggy. As I grew up I found that I enjoyed cuddling with my partner of the time. There is nothing like cuddling and being held.
Read moreSo here we are at the end of August and it is amazing to me how much I have thought about meaning lately. It is interesting how I have been thinking about why I have been led to sources of wisdom and revelation at certain times. For example, I was looking for a book a few months ago and was drawn to a book by Mark Nepo, which I thought would be awesome for our book club, called Inside the Miracle. It is a gathering of his writings which draw on his experience and transformation because of his battle with cancer. Most of the people in our book club have had cancer and so I thought this was a book that would really speak to them.
Little did I know that I was drawn to this book for another reason. One of my dearest friends was diagnosed with brain cancer. Reading this book while journeying with her helped me to enter into the miracle that was to happen in her life. It gave me new understandings of my own health challenges and the journey to wholeness which was coming as a result of this opportunity.
Read moreDear God,
Honestly, sometimes it is so easy to see the meaning in what is happening, but sometimes life seems so busy it is hard to hear you speaking. So right now I am working on slowing down and being intentional about having the time to listen.
What I have learned is that taking the time to listen is like taking a pilgrimage to the Holy Land where I have to enter life and lean in and listen.
This past week I have been reminded that life is unpredictable. By listening to you and your guidance I have found what I needed to lift me up and been able to find new ways of thinking about things. Even what initially felt like the worst of situations became transformative and life giving because you challenged me to enter into the situation, sit with you, and grow.
Read moreSo most of last week I was thinking about listening and what I wanted to talk to you about in terms of listening and to be honest I was not sure what I wanted to write about. I had been working on more actively listening to others, listening to my body, listening to the sounds around me and was feeling pretty good about how well I was listening to the Universe. Then it hit me, you were listening to me. So I want to thank you for listening to my prayers and the meditations of my heart.
I always tell you talk to me like I am five. Make it plain. Make it simple. Make it clear. I need answers that are so visible that it is unmistakable. So here I am praying about whether I should be thinking and working on repromoting to Director status with Pampered Chef. I wanted to make sure this was what I was supposed to do and not just what I would like to do because of the benefits.
Read moreSo many people in my life have inspired me with their ability to be kind. Tristine Rainer was write when he said that writing about these people help me to internalize and possess the very qualities that intrigued me the most. I have been doing this for a while and realized as I sat down today that I have internalized some of the qualities of someone who showed me intense kindness when I was in graduate school.
Her name is Dr Diane M Samdahl and she is one of those people who has left her name inscribed on my heart. She taught me so much about life, not just recreation and leisure studies. When I look back on my relationship and journey with her, there is one moment in particular that I will remember forever.
Read moreBeing kind is such an important practice to me. I have experienced so many random acts of kindness in my life and am mindful of how it made me feel. I am also mindful of how I feel when I am able to perform acts of kindness with others. So many people in my life have inspired me with their ability to be kind. It is not that I was jealous of their ability to practice kindness. Rather, they inspired me to possess and develop those same qualities within myself. One of the things I have learned to do is write about those people who intrigue me. As Tristine Rainer suggests, in The New Diary, in doing so I begin to internalize and possess those very qualities.
There have been so many amazingly kind people in my life. The one who taught me the most about kindness is the one who opened her heart and soul to me, my mother.
Read moreThe universe has a sense of humor. I had been thinking about kindness and praying for inspiration about what to write about. I am pretty good at practicing kindness and look for opportunities each day to be kind to others. I so often have focused on how I feel when I am doing something for others. I had not taken time to think about how I feel when someone does something kind for me. Yesterday, however, a friend of mine surprised me with an act of kindness that touched my heart.
It was one of those totally unexpected kind of things. My friend Venetia Carey is a Pink Zebra consultant. We met last December at a vending event we did together.
Read moreOver the last week, I have been listening to what others say as a way of avoiding responsibility for the injustice and inhumanity in the world. One thing I have heard people do is to call it something else. Rather than name the injustice behind what is happening in a situation, people will search for alternate explanations as to why a situation exists. I have heard people argue it is actually better this way or that the oppressed group actually prefers it this way. I have heard people mask their inhumanity behind humor or claims of innocence, saying I didn’t mean it. There is this belief that by saying that, that it wipes away the injustice and inhumanity of what is said or done. I have heard other say that the reason bad things happen to people is that they are just bad people. Whether intentional or not, each of these patterns and ways of thinking contributes to the inhumanity and injustice in the world.
Read moreSince I started this personal reflection justice, why we engage and why we don’t, I have come to realize there are no easy answers. One of the things I have come to realize is that in some respects we do not even realize that we are being inhumane. Several years ago, I was at a meeting and overheard two philosophers talking about slavery. One philosopher said that the perfect form of slavery was when one enjoyed being a slave. The other philosopher disagreed and said that the perfect form of slavery was when you no longer realized that you were even enslaved. The ironic part is that when we think of the word slavery we do not think of ourselves, but in some respect, each of us is enslaved in a system that trains us to be inhumane, conditions us throughout our lives to contribute to the inhumanity of others. Whether one is part of a dominant or subordinate group in our culture, the enslavement exists and often times we are not even aware of our role in the system or of the system itself.
Read moreWhen I was in seminary, I took a course on advocacy and organizing. One of the questions we were asked to think about was what we felt was the most pressing social issue in contemporary society. Then and now, it is hard for me to pick just one, as there are so many issues that seem important for different reasons. I could talk about the global exploitation of people in developing countries or the trafficking of women as sexual slaves and prostitutes or violence against women or poverty or hate crimes or systemic injustice. My list of issues has grown over the last over the last 10 years. Trying to pick one over the other makes me feel as if I am saying one issue is more pressing than the other, as if I am trying to prioritize them. This is hard for me to do because I think they are all important for different reasons and to different groups of people. At the root of all these issues is a common thread which contributed to their existence. Ultimately, I have come to realize that the most pressing social issue in contemporary society is our inhumanity for and towards each other.
Read moreIt has been a challenging few weeks and I know there is more to come. The awesome thing for me is that I know that even when it may feel like you are not there for me, you really are. Over the course of my journey with you, I have learned a few key lessons for which I am truly grateful. Maybe the first is about where I put my focus. It is easy when I am going through to focus on what is going wrong and what you are not doing for me.
The reality is that even when I am going through, you are doing things for me.
Read moreDear God,
I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you for giving me so many things in my life that give me joy. Sometimes I do not realize how joy filled my life is until I talk with someone who has forgotten how to have joy in their lives. Life for me is not about just enduring, but about enjoying. Maybe it is because I have come close to dying a few times in my life, that I am able to find joy in just about everything, even going to the bathroom. Having experienced what it is like to not be able to perform a function we take for granted, I find joy in being able to do so multiple times a day. Whoo hoo!
Read moreSo here is the thing I have been thinking about so much lately, the relationship between joy and jealousy. It seems that when I am feeling jealous of someone, it is because I have lost the joy and the ability to celebrate my own life for what it is. I become jealous because I am comparing myself to them and not being happy that we are not both exactly what we are supposed to be at this point in our journeys. I have been talking a lot about this with my friend Eileen and how there is this fine line between joy and jealousy.
When I feel jealousy it is because I am not practicing joy for myself and others.
Read moreThis past month I have done so much thinking about imagination. I thought I had reflected on it from so many perspectives, but this week I have come to realize that I had yet to imagine the amazing people who would come into my life and touch me in ways that I could not even imagine.
So often, we hear about all the hate, violence and fear in this world. We hear about people who do things to others that cause our hearts to be heavy. It is so easy to allow the news to help us envision a world that is negative, hate filled, and beyond repair. This week, however, has served as a living testimony of the world I think you imagined when you first created us. I have experienced unconditional love and support from people I know as well as people I have never met or barely know.
Read moreI want to thank you for the gift of imagination. It comes in handy when I face a situation that is not working or not working as well as I would like it to. It is at those moments that I remember my former supervisor telling me “if you come to me with a problem, then also come to me with a solution.” Identifying the problem did not call on me to have an imagination, but coming up with a solution often times did. It meant I thought through all the logical responses and solutions to the problem and then it meant that I thought outside the box and came up with innovative ways to make something work.
My friend Eileen tells me this is one of my gifts, the ability to think outside the box. I am not sure I even realize when I am doing this, the ideas just flow out.
Read moreSo I woke up this morning hearing The Temptations singing Just my Imagination, at least the chorus in my head. I can’t remember the rest of the song, just the chorus. Oh how my imagination has always run away with me. Since I was a little girl I have had an imagination. Maybe that is why I like Anabelle, a 4 year old I met at a vending event I met a week or so ago. Her father kept telling me she had an overactive imagination and that it got her into trouble.
My imagination did as well. I remember the first time I got into trouble for my imagination. I was 6 and I remember feeling like what I had to bring to show and tell was nothing compared to what other people were bringing to show and tell. Then one day something awesome happened.
Read moreSo all this month I have been reflecting on hospitality, reading about it, writing, about it, starting conversations about it, and practicing it to the best of my ability. Others have told me I am very hospitable and that they feel the welcome and the love the minute they walk in our door. I am so grateful they feel that way. Zoe and I are so intentional about trying to create that space. We both know what it is like to not feel welcomed, to not be wanted, to be excluded, and to be told there is no room at the inn. As a result, we have been intentional about doing all we can to create an environment of love and welcoming.
Yet for whatever reason when I have sat down to journal about hospitality as it applies to my own life, what I remembered were those moments when people did something to make me feel welcomed and those times when I was not.
Read moreSo I have had to laugh at this whole notion of hospitality. I have been intentional about creating a space here at Inspiritual and in our home where all feel welcome. We have done this in part because we have all know what it felt like when we were not enough of something or too much of something to feel welcome and accepted by a movement, community, or other group. Years ago, I wrote a poem called I am enough where I spoke out about all the areas of my life I had allowed myself to feel marginalized and excluded by others words and behaviors.
I knew I was never excluded by the one who created me and has loved me my entire existence, however, there have been times when other humans have reminded me that I am on earth and not in heaven. Sometimes the rejection, the inhospitality has come in the most unexpected of places.
Read moreToday I want to give thanks for the box from my brother and his wife. I have been sitting there staring at this box for about a week now, wanting to open it, but really just wanting to sit and be with my feelings about receiving this box. See the reality is that I really do not care what is in the box; it is just that I have the box. It is that he stopped and sent me a gift. It is that he took the time to think about me and let me know I was in his thoughts. I honestly could not care about what is inside the box, I am just enjoying sitting here looking at the box.
Here I am 59 years old and my brother is 57 ½ and he and I are exchanging gifts for the first time ever. I don’t ever remember getting a gift from him as a child and I know I never got one as an adult
Read moreThank you for the gift of memory. I remember years ago reading something in Sarah Ban Breathnach’s book Simple Abundance about how one should write down five things one is grateful for before going to bed each night. She talked about how as time passes and we fill our journal with blessings, we will experience an inner shift in our reality. I am generally so tired when I go to bed that I do not do this, but it is the first thing that I do in the morning and it is an awesome way for me to begin my morning. There is nothing like starting off the morning by thanking you for all you do for me and have done in my life. It just starts my morning off with the right mindset for the rest of the day.
The funny thing is that I have been writing in my gratitude journal for so long now that I could not remember how long it has been. So this morning I checked and found out I started on December 31, 2012. So it has almost been three years. I have kept them on and off before, but this time I have managed to keep it going for three years now. I have to agree with Sarah doing so has contributed to an inner shift in my reality. Not only do I begin my day by giving thanks, but I end my day by telling my wife at least one thing she did that day which made me feel loved or for which I am grateful.
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