Growing Wisdom Teeth – Take it From Me

One of the daily prompts this week was: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve given someone that you failed to take yourself?

One of the most worthy pieces of advice that I try to dispense to myself to follow is this:

Never follow another’s advice if that individual hasn’t tried this suggestion out on/for him/herself first. Then assure that individual is trustworthy when you ask how things worked out. 

Case in point.  My youngest son is in the unfortunate position of having two older and seemingly more life-experienced brothers who enjoy doling out unsolicited advice to him about “women.” He’s found that some of this advice hasn’t served him so well, though. For instance, recently, when young friends of the female persuasion asked him and other male counterparts to go to a middle school dance, he and his friends quickly came to learn that, “I’ll get back to you – I’m keeping my options open” didn’t have the mundane explanatory effect they had anticipated from the advice that had been given.

Here’s what I do consider to be a worthy piece of advice that I wish I’d followed in younger years:

Recently, my friend’s beautiful, thin teenage daughter was distraught because her boyfriend told her she probably needed to run some extra laps. As my friend and I were commiserating about why women allow themselves to be torn down in this way, I dispensed the following advice to the daughter (that I wish I’d taken for myself when I was her age and dealing with jerks who felt it necessary to tear down others’ self-esteem to make themselves feel better):  I told her to thank her ‘self-declared gift to women’ for his suggestion and then make one of her own that, while she was out running extra laps, he should think about going and swimming a few – and he should be sure to keep his mouth open while giving out his advice – preferably while his head was under the water. (I can now – later in life – defer to my opening statement on this one, as I learned to become fairly proficient at telling suck-the-life-out-of-you suitors to ‘go take a hike’ at an exponentially faster rate throughout the years.)

And here’s a piece of advice that I haven’t yet tried, but think it’s worth a shot. This is for women who find they have been designated as the official ‘Changer of the TP’ in the household:

Ladies, the reason your men don’t change out the empty toilet paper rolls is because they perceive them as too soft and safe to be categorized as a manly project. Here’s your helpful hint to get the job done: Simply adjust your dispenser so the inner spring comes flying out at a ridiculously high velocity and indeterminate angle, whereas personal protective equipment would be required to minimize the chance of injuries. If your man perceives this challenge to be dangerous enough to take out an eye (or perhaps even a testicle), then he’ll deem the t.p. roll worthy of being changed.

Let me know how these work out for you…

For more pieces of advice (good, bad or otherwise), visit the Daily Prompt here.

Success! A Life Well Lived

I’ve taken note that, when someone dies, the first question often asked by others is

How did this [tragic thing] happen?

There was a point in my life (until not too long ago, as a matter of fact) when I thought this was a very rude form of public inquisition. I can recall being prodded by new friends, as a young girl, to go ask my mother if I could spend the night. At first, there was a slight twinge of pain that would travel through my heart before I could bring myself to answer them – to say I couldn’t ask my mom because she was dead. (I soon learned I could confuse them with the big word I heard my dad say to adults – DECEASED – and confuse me, because it seemed more sterile, as though it couldn’t contaminate my heart in quite the same way.) Over the years, that twinge of pain that came on in those “let’s take this friendship to a new overnight level” moments simply became a twinge of dread that made me shy away from too many new friends. I decided the regulars would suffice, since they already knew my secret. Friends who had suffered some kind of loss were even better. In that, we could share a bond.

I became very proficient at being publicly social without ever allowing anyone into my inner sanctuary of space. I was tired of the looks that ranged from horror in my new friends’ eyes as if I was an alien when I spoke the words, “My mom is dead,” to the looks of pity and sorrow their mothers would give me when my dad would deliver me to their full-familied houses that always felt warmer and cozier than my own. I began to sense that, in some instances, I was looked upon like a disease, as if having me around could create some bad omen for their family. Many times, my new friend and I would have the best time together, but I’d never be invited back. Other times, I was no longer invited back because of an innocent social faux pas (such as the time I lost my ride to cheer practice because I questioned my 12-year-old friend about playing with dolls – a sincere question of intrigue that my dad-raised mind couldn’t fathom, which was taken by her mother as being irritatingly menacing on my part and a reasonable excuse to excuse me from further rides). My friends’ parents always had a plentiful variety of excuses of why they couldn’t spend the night at our house either. Apparently, one dad wasn’t considered to be a sufficient chaperone of two girls.

So I learned not to mention my mom; sometimes just saying “I asked my dad; he said it was okay.” I then learned that being part of a single parent family wasn’t even the issue – some of my friends came from those (living with their single moms who then were eager to meet my single dad, of course, prodding me for information such as what he did for a living, his age, perhaps I could arrange a date…). A few moms much younger than my dad assured me how attracted they were to older men, and I grew up learning from these arm-candy, narcissistic gold-diggers why that was. I also quickly learned I’d had enough of that sort of education and simply avoided making friends who had those kind of moms at all costs.

Later in life, whether losing a child during birth, losing another parent and a husband to tragedies, losing many other loved ones to illnesses, I learned that key question always remains. Even in the midst of mourning, people can’t help but ask, “How did this person die?” I see this question, time and time again, pop up on social networking alumni sites, even directly on a deceased person’s Facebook page. I hear it whispered around in every funeral home, as though it’s some warped game of Telephone. Each time, that familiar twinge of pain that’s so well-rehearsed in my heart drives through, even when I didn’t know the person well. I think of the family members or close friends that will read, hear, or feel compelled to answer this question and will wonder the same thing: How did this [tragic thing] happen?

Yes, there was a point in my life when I (much like my cheer friend’s mother) mistakenly thought this question had a rude or malicious intent – until I came to understand the answer actually being sought:

Could this [tragic thing] happen to me?

.

In this realization, I’ve also come to a reasonable conclusion that it would likely be a prideful, pompous gesture – the greatest tragedy of all in humankind – to believe that any one of us is above such possibility.

As a matter of fact, I’ve considered how life might feel if I couldn’t grasp the right perspective about death. Death is an absolute part of life. And it’s only at one’s death when others truly have the capability to grasp that person’s measure of success in whether it was a life well-lived. Like it or not, that’s generally the point at which a legacy is determined.

 The man of safety may never live for his fear to
die.

The man of danger may never live to hear his grandchild
cry.

The man of balance journeys on throughout each lifelong
day,

carrying neither such concern as he travels on his
way.

©2012 jody love

Because of this, one day, when I am laid to rest, I truly hope people don’t waste their time talking about how I died. Rather, I’d like to think the better question will surround how I lived.

And I can only hope, above all else, the answer will be…

FULLY.

***

What is a life well-lived to you?

To view others’ personal responses to “What is a life well-lived to you?” you can follow the Daily Prompt on Success here.

Lessons at the Dinner Table: Perception

After sitting to share a meal the other night with my son at one of our favorite Italian restaurants, I left with a fresh perspective on some of the important lessons to remember in life. They’re such good reminders, in fact, I’d be remiss not to share them.

At the most base level, your Perception Prerequisite Lesson would have to be:

Make a point to eat where you’re allowed to draw in crayon on the table! 
Were it not for this fact alone, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

You see, my son is taking an Art elective in school.
His choice was based on careful considerations, such as:

• for some reason still foreign to us, he couldn’t get into a foreign language class this school year;
• he felt like his middle school years carried enough drama with them without taking it as a formal course;
• his school’s music teacher didn’t consider his drum or guitar to be sufficient for her class without the addition of his changing voice;
• which, essentially, left Art as the lesser of the evils in his young, forming teenage mind. (Don’t knock the reasoning, as many U.S. voters went to the polls last week with this same attitude.)

The server brought some bread to our table and we began to break off pieces and dip it into olive oil.  Being the good mother that I am (my son might substitute the word ‘good’ for ‘nagging’ or ‘nosy’ sometimes, but his perception is often clouded by the added irritant of flourishing hormones), I asked him how his school experiences were going and what he’d learned that day. In response, he smiled, picked up the brown crayon our server had left behind after writing her name on our table, and stated,

“We’re learning about Perception in art class.”

He proceeded by taking this one, ugly brown crayon and placing its dull, worn-down tip on the paper-covered table to draw. (I’ll admit, I was skeptical. Even in the short-supply box of crayons, there’s only so much that I’ve ever been able to do with a brown crayon.)

***

This is what he brought to the dinner table as his offering:

Don’t miss the bread crumbs hanging out on our table.

They serve as an important reminder of:

Lesson Number 1.

As we sat there breaking bread together, it dawned on me the importance of this lesson, which is to Live in Community. Regardless of friction that may sometimes get created when we rub elbows with one another, how much potential do we miss in our own lives when we don’t take time to have our Perceptions broadened by others? Sitting there in front of me, after an arduous work day, was a warm and inviting mug, quickly and beautifully created with nothing more than a singular brown crayon and an enthusiastic response to an invitation to communicate that perception.

Lesson Number 2.

Going back to that singular, brown crayon, I’m reminded to be content in the concept to Live Simply. My son didn’t complain that he didn’t have the right resources to share his new perceptual knowledge with me. He didn’t bemoan that sometimes brown was the color of ‘yuk’, that it couldn’t measure up to the other rainbow-colored desires in this world. He didn’t make excuses that he didn’t have charcoals or tissue paper for smudging. He joyfully ‘made do’ with the resource he was given. How much more often I need to adopt this Perception.

Lesson Number 3.

Our server brought us a carafe of water for refills, as we waited for our main course.  My son decided we needed some musical entertainment, so we grabbed our wine glasses (as they weren’t otherwise being used) and added some water. We held the stems tightly with one hand while dipping our other fingers in and sliding them over the glass rims. We giggled in one another’s company as we orchestrated a musical symphony (by our Perception!) with the notes and rhythms we created together. What a beautiful reminder of how we’re called to Live in Harmony.

Lesson Number 4.

I glanced at that little cup on the table as we were preparing to leave. I understood that gift to me had been temporal; its time was fleeting. I wondered if our server would get a second of enjoyment from it when she cleared our table, as I’d watched her do time and time again that evening with other, less decorated ones surrounding us. I thought of how I’d conversed with her earlier and how she’d shared her concerns of being a single mom. I thought of how tough single motherhood is on so many levels. Though my work day had been long, it was ended. While I had the privilege of supping with my own child, hers did not have her presence for dinner that same evening. I leaned over and added an additional amount to our tip that brought it well over the expected percentage. (Why not, I thought? We’d come with a coupon plus she’d brought us another – and had allowed us to use them both together! What a generous surprise that had been.) As my son had shared his little cup with me at that table, I had received a strong Perception reminder – my cup runs over in so many ways in which I’ve been blessed in my life. When we share our gifts openly and freely with others, we encompass this final lesson – to Live Generously.

Filling our cups to overflowing with these four Perceptions can improve overall life satisfaction.
Go ahead.
Test me on it!
I’ll guarantee it!

#mysonisimpressedbythispost

My son just finished reading this post a few moments ago and liked it so well, he made the following suggestions:

First, he wanted me to give it a category of its own, entitled after the post itself – “Lessons at the Dinner Table” – because he thought there were a lot of good lessons that came (or should come) from encouraging family interaction and conversation (despite what the evil teen hormonal voices sometimes try to say).

Secondly, we agreed that others should have the opportunity to contribute, since you all probably have some great words of wisdom that have cropped up when breaking bread with others at one time or another.

So, I’m going to try to include a “Lesson at the Dinner Table Post: Subject Title” every week or so as an ongoing theme, to honor my son’s creative idea.  And I hope you’ll join us by including your own post for this challenge!

#mysondoesntthinkImaloser

Community, Simplicity, Harmony & Generosity,

-jody

Weekly Photo Challenge: Renewal

For the past two Spring seasons, the area in which I live has been faced with a series of rare (get it? can a series be rare?) occurrences for us –

Tornadoes

You see, we live in a valley beautifully encapsulated by mountainous ranges. Essentially, we live in a bowl. Now we’re rather used to being attacked by a plentiful platitude of pollen for this very reason; but our mountains and foothills ordinarily serve as protective barricades to thwart off too much damage when ominously dark clouds begin to twist and turn. If the mountains themselves can’t do the job, then our hills and curves are apparently designed to confuse the path of any would-be windy assassination attempt.

Nevertheless, we’ve found ourselves in the predicament of seeking shelter in work stairwells, neighbors’ basements and on side road ditch excursions more often in these past two years than in the entirety of my life – which encompasses the amount of time I’ve lived in this area and have been previously told, “We don’t get tornadoes around here.” (I’m suddenly suspect of a lot of other past assurances I’ve been given and claims that have been made by my elders. Perhaps I can actually swim in the same pool as boys without becoming pregnant.)

Here I am during the last rare circumstance. As you can see, I now possess my very own Tornado Protective Gear. (Apparently I felt it was necessary to point it out, as you might have otherwise missed it.)

I even know exactly when to go to the basement and put it on – now that our little town has installed an emergency siren system with loudspeaker since the ‘massive’ EF1 (remember that we’re new at this) ripped across my prior deck and through our neighborhood the previous year, yanking up a tree that towered over my house and two others and, most fortunately, bringing it down ‘smack-dab’ (that’s a Southern expression) in the middle of all three. As I stood there with my neighbors, staring up at the root ball and looking back and forth between our houses, we did manage a gulp or two between us.

I might mention that the gear isn’t that comfortable to wear while trying to sleep on a concrete basement floor. But if we keep having these rare events, perhaps I’ll get used to it.

So there’s the set-up to this Theme of Renewal.

In April 2011, we had an entire day full of tornado warnings and work lock-downs, in which I became familiar with being stuck in the back of our parking garage, two stairwells, a hallway, a restroom and a room in the middle of our building. At one point late in the afternoon, I sat in a small inner room with three or four of my co-workers, as we waited it out to catch a break in the weather to head home before the next round of rotating air masses were scheduled to hit. One of our male co-workers joked that he didn’t understand why people always said a tornado sounded like a “freight train” (as compared, maybe, to a passenger train).

Finally, around 6:00 p.m., we all made a break for home. Not long after, I was faced with a darkening sky and no power, but I did have my cell phone. My friend/co-worker still had power at her house, so she was texting me with updates as I camped out in my basement. The house she had recently moved into didn’t have a basement, so she was thankful to still have her power to get the weather updates.

At approximately 9:00 p.m., the final string of storms was moving through our area. No sooner had I assured my friend, who lived slightly north of me, that I was okay (via text), than my cell phone died. (My power wouldn’t be restored where I could charge it for another 15 hours or so. I would also find I was trapped in my neighborhood due to trees being down across our roads.)

The first thing I did when the power was restored via temporary lines (as the trees were still across the main lines that were still down on the main roads) was to recharge my phone, so I could begin checking on friends and family. As the first cell lit up on my phone, so came the following text from my co-worker/friend (within minutes of our final communication the night before):

“House is gone. We are safe.”

Here is a picture of my friend’s “dream home” – the one in which she and her family had resided for only a few months – flattened to the ground.

Just before the tornado hit, she heard the meteorologist say it was headed in their specific direction and they should seek cover. As the television went out, she, her husband and her daughter ran for their lives to the hallway in the middle of their house. She threw her daughter on the ground and threw her body over her; her husband threw himself over them both. Though she later told me that a tornado most certainly does sound like a freight train (hers was an EF4 as compared to my EF1), she also remembers praying fervently and loudly above it! As the entire house crashed in around them, the chimney fell into the wall, which scooted the dryer into a space that caught the opposite wall as it caved in (forming a tented, triangular space over them). Though the night was pitch-black as they crawled out from under their house and walked barefoot through pieces of shattered glass, they were able to later see that where the three of their bodies lay crumpled together in a wad in that downstairs hallway was the only place in their house that wasn’t completely flattened on that first floor story within.

Oh, the Irony! For months following these tornadoes, people would find items that belonged to others – sometimes other people’s clothing, sometimes mail from other states that had also been hit. While cleaning her yard, my friend found the spine to someone else’s copy of Gone with the Wind.

Here’s a picture of Lori with her family. It’s the most recent one she has of them all together – and it, again ironically, was taken on the front porch of her dream home just 1 day before an EF4 tornado flattened it to the ground, with them in it.

The renewal started well before the rebuilding of the house.

My friend, Lori (whose spirit is as bright and beautiful as that blouse she’s wearing in her picture), later testified,

“I am blessed. I have a Savior who gave his life for mine, and I have a husband who I now know is willing to do the same.”

She also had friends and neighbors and church members and co-workers – and the Red Cross – who were there for her during her regrouping and rebuilding process.
Her home will never be the same. (For one, her new home has a basement with reinforced concrete.) She still gets nervous when a storm brews up. But that’s to be expected.

My friend, Lori, is a living, walking, breathing testimony of Renewal.

So, not to disappoint – let me share a picture of her new home in its (I mean, her) rebuilding process.

***

To view more concepts of the Renewal Theme,

be sure to visit this week’s photo challenge.

Ahead of My Time? Or Behind the Times?

I always hate saying goodbye to daylight savings time. I know, I know, I gained an hour, so some of you will say. Trust me, I didn’t gain it. I didn’t even spend it wisely. I’m certain I foolishly squandered it one way or another. At least I thought that’s how I was being taunted by my digital clock as I rolled it back the night before and snarled my nose in response to it.

Did I mention I might even despise that clock? The thing about digital clocks is that you never hear the time actually ticking away. You glance over and blink only to find its pristine, blocked number has somehow simply flashed upward in sequence without warning, as though the last 59 seconds mysteriously disintegrated rather than that they actually meticulously clicked away along the metronome of an analog clock face. It’s quite disconcerting that time can do that even when you’re giving direct attention to its passing. I mean, in truth, the majority of the time I’m not giving much thought to it, busying myself with hardy work or mundane tasks or rigorous sleep. But there are still those rare occasions when time demands I pay it the respect it seeks out from me throughout the entirety of my life – and I respond by giving in, most often out of boredom because perhaps my life seems to be getting nowhere; or else out of anxiety over some outlandish upcoming event that I consider could be life-altering. On this particular day, it’s neither of the two. It’s simply a compelling interest in how time manages to be so obtrusively sneaky in grasping tiny chunks of my life with the intent of me not noticing. In essence, I’m biding my time.

Time is surely a commodity. We acknowledge it in our expressions, when we talk about spending time with others, time well spent, buying time, having a good time. We also understand there are, from time to time, appointed times to keep.

Jim Croce sang about Time in a Bottle, pointing out:

There never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do once you find them.

Croce was lamenting at how often we feel pressed for time.
Maybe that’s the ticker (the heart) of the problem – what causes our unnecessary perception of wasted time. Perhaps we spend too much time wishing how we might store up each precious second to later spend doing what we’d want to do — without ever considering that we wouldn’t know what to spend those seconds on if we hadn’t already used them while out living our lives.

We need to learn to better celebrate time well spent – and acknowledge that our experiences carry time-valuable lessons with them. Sometimes, we may be having the time of our lives; other times, we may find we’re living on borrowed time. In either scenario, we might enjoy life a bit more if we just allowed things to happen – all in good time…

Be sure and take a moment to enjoy Johnny & Baby having the time of their lives in Dirty Dancing: http://youtu.be/WpmILPAcRQo

…and if you want to see what a real clock looks like, take a second to link here: http://thepalladiantraveler.com/2012/11/06/weekly-photo-challenge-geometryla-torre-bissara/

Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – My Wilderness ESCAPE

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Whenever I hear the word Escape, the first thing that pops in my mind is a song by Rupert Holmes with that same name (when it’s not being referred to as ‘The Pina Colada Song’, of course).

“If you like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain…

then write to me and escape.”

Those lines instantly evoke a sense of joyfulness and of being carefree –

a feeling we all desire.

(Or maybe they evoke in you a desire to write about your own planned escape – if so, I’d love to hear about it.)

Just like in this song, we may get to various points in our lives when we feel as if we need to plan an escape from “reality.” (Just like just then, when I wrote we because, in reality, I needed some backup and didn’t want to admit that it translated to I in that sentence.) Well, I am still betting you can relate to our escape plan.

Some days, admittedly and incredibly, I find escape in my work, simply running from one form of reality to seeking solace in another. Other days, I find my escape as I get caught up in reading a fantastically fictional story where I wish I could play the protagonist’s part. Ironically, I find that my most pleasurable times of escape, though, aren’t really when I’m trying to get away from life; but when I’m working on a life adventure of my own, either through engagement with nature and others, or engagement among my characters or the words in my mind as I write.

Throw in a little pina colada and some dancing in the rain, and I guess I’m in business.

Sometimes, our life escapades come out differently than how we’ve anticipated.

(At least mine do.)

Truthfully, without sounding dramatic or even getting into the details, I can honestly say I’ve escaped death a time or two in my life – but those instances were direct consequences of poor decisions either I made or someone else made on my behalf (or, in one instance, didn’t make in time).

That thought brings me around to my response for the Let’s Be Wild Weekly Challenge on Escape.

When I was in the Holy Land, out wandering a little myself down the Wadi Qelt in the Judean wilderness,

I had some time to think about a couple of the famous escapes associated with this place.

When the Hebrews escaped their bondage from Egypt under the leadership of their prophet, Moses, they wandered through the wilderness for 40 years, according to the Torah. As Moses stood on Mount Nebo (aka Pisgah), he looked down into the Promised Land, the area we distantly view here that includes Jericho. As I stood there, in that same place (or close to it, anyway) thinking on this, I came to the conclusion that

Sometimes we have to be patient and persistent for our escape to come to fruition.

Other times, our escape may be very different than anything we’ve planned for ourselves,

as it was with Moses.

Deuteronomy 34:1-5
Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho….
Then the LORD said to him, “This is the land I promised….I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.” And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab…but to this day no one knows where his grave is.

Another thought as I looked upon a Bedouin herd, finding grass where I might have said there was none to be had:

When it comes to making an escape, perhaps one person’s deserted path is another’s prime pasture.

I was also reminded on this pathway that I traveled, along the Wadi al Qelt was where the Story of the Good Samaritan took place in scripture. Don’t let my high elevation shot fool you here. When walking the Wadi Qelt, it becomes easy to see how readily bandits can hide in the surrounding area and surprise someone along the path unexpectedly.

Luke 10:25-37
“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers…” (vs. 30).

That man was left for dead by the robbers and by two others that couldn’t be bothered to help him. But because of the least likely person that would’ve been expected to help him along the way (the Samaritan), the robbed and beaten man was cared for and escaped death.

Sometimes the people we would least expect might be the ones to assist us in making our escape.

Sometimes, like the dry places in my life, the Wadi Qelt looks a lot like death, void of much of anything living, until a little spring of life sneaks in and obscurely announces itself. That was the case with this area of green growth, boldly announcing where Herod’s aqueduct came through, supplying water for life along its path.

At other times in life, I might be moving along on high ground and can’t even fathom what surprises might await me in the deep recesses if I’ll just take time to escape to them and explore around there.

In this case, I did, and was welcomed in by priests serving lemonade and cookies. This monastery was built around an expanse of caves, one in which Elijah resided while hiding out from King Ahab and the ill-tempered Queen Jezebel. The bible story says ravens came and fed Elijah, and I’d never dispute that birds could very well have done just that. However, it’s also rumored that the cave-dwellers who lived along the sides of those ridges were called a named that translates to sound very similar to ‘raven.’

To tell you the truth, I enjoy escaping into the possibility of either of those story versions.

Here’s a modern-day look on the inside of Elijah’s cave, if you’re interested in seeing the place of his escape:

The final escape story with which I was faced during my own wilderness experience was when I stood upon the Mount of Olives, looking over the Garden of Gethsemane. This was the place where Jesus went to pray, just before he was arrested and later crucified. A portion of his prayer was, if there was any other way for salvation of the people to take place, for that cup to be taken from him. After that, he ended his prayer obediently, saying, ‘Not my will, but yours be done, Father.’

I wonder how often I’ve worked to escape from uttering those words in my life when the price wasn’t nearly so high for me?

It wasn’t until I stood above that very spot, overlooking that garden, when I came to realize the physical choice Jesus had made there. If this had been a modern-day movie, for instance, things would’ve looked very despondent for the hero; then, just before the worst possible outcome, he would have turned the other way – and escaped. By our standards, that would’ve made for the perfect ending. And let me assure you, he could’ve done just that – escape would’ve come all too easily. On one side of this garden lay Jerusalem (which you can see, now in modern-day, in the background of this photo).

But when you’re standing up on that mount, if you turn and look out to the other side, you’ll find there is an entire wilderness into which Jesus could’ve chosen to escape – the same wilderness into which Elijah escaped quite easily from King Ahad and Queen Jezebel.

Instead, Jesus chose to do his Father’s will and stay right where he was in that garden, awaiting his capture. He chose to accept the sentence for those deeds that really belong on my head. Standing there, as a Christian, I had to acknowledge in my belief and in that place that He had chosen to stay there and take a punishment to allow me to be the one to escape it.

He became my emergency escape hatch.

What better escape could I ever ask for or plan than that?

In this realization, more than anywhere on my walk,

My wilderness experience surely taught me to always look for the unexpected Escape Hatches & Doors to explore, regardless of where I am in life.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t take time to wish this same joyful and carefree escape route for you, my friends.

***

Just for kicks,

I’m participating in the LetsBeWild.com Wild Weekly Photo Challenge

This week’s Challenge is: Escape

Make Your Own Escape to see the winning entries here!

***

What, Where, How (or maybe Who) is your Favorite Escape?

I’d love to hear about it, if you dare to share…

Our Affinities to Our Infirmities

Infirmities.

We all have them or have experienced at least one in our lives – something that ails us or takes away our strength or vitality. An infirmity is often defined as a medical illness, and for some, it may be. But our vitality, our strength, is encapsulated in our very being, which expands far beyond physical boundaries.

As a matter of fact, many folks walking around with some of the most self-damning infirmities appear to be healthy in the physical sense.

We might run across others whose bodies are working overtime to betray them, but their sense of well-being is extraordinarily uplifting.

When Jesus saw [the man with the infirmity] and knew he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”  -John 5:6 (RSV)

Image located at: http://www.fireonyourhead.org/2011/01/26/what-are-you-receiving/

 

Do you get the idea, from this Gospel reading, that perhaps the man mentioned here had become a little too attached to his infirmity?

 Refuse to be defined by your infirmity.

There is an elderly woman who I dearly love; yet, without fail, whenever I ask how she is doing, she goes into a diagnostic list of all of her aches and pains. Granted, I know her body is wearing down and was not designed to be eternal. But I also suspect her spirit is crying out, in need of attention for a lifetime of emotional aches and pains that were never soothed away.

Somehow, it’s more socially acceptable to define herself by her physical ailments.  Or is it?

I know another woman who never complains about physical ailments. Instead, when asked how she is doing, she goes into a tirade of how terrible life is, how awful her children and grandchildren treat her, how her ex-husband of many decades ago is a horrible person, and how nothing ever satisfies her. She has no problem expressing all of the emotional turmoil that she’s held onto – and even nursed – for the majority of her life. Unfortunately, her social acceptance rides a fine line – simply because she refuses to live a current life and accept others around her based on trying to form new relationships.

Her infirmity of bitterness has defined her.
On some level, she even tries to become an infirmity to others.

I know a man who was diagnosed with lung cancer years ago and given a prognosis that should have placed him in the grave years ago. Granted, he has undergone many rounds of chemotherapy and experimental treatments – and he is open and honest about his concerns of leaving behind his family, or sometimes of going through another treatment. Yet, he has never let this infirmity define him. As soon as he is over being ill from treatments, he moves on with his life just as he would have otherwise. He doesn’t dwell on the cancer. He goes to work; he is active in his church; he gets in touch with friends to go biking; and he gets involved in other people’s lives when he becomes aware of a need.

You see, living defines who he is – regardless of which side of heaven he is on.

If you’ve ever dealt with a developing child, you’ll readily understand the importance of this philosophy. A little one is running along. He loses his balance because his desire to be as swift as lightening is only moderately matched by the budding development of his leg muscles. He slides across the gravelly ground, the flesh of his palms revealing faint bloody traces of the path his hands took when they tried to get his body back under control.

He looks down at his infirmity, but his first instinct is not to cry.

If you watch closely, his first glance is at the supervising adult into whose care he has been entrusted during this outing. If mom (let’s say, for example) gasps loudly and frantically runs to assist as though an ambulance should be alerted, Niagara Falls is soon to follow. If she, however, responds (more commonly like…let’s just say a dad, for argument’s sake) by calmly walking over, setting Junior back into an upright position, and lovingly brushing him off with a casual, “Ouch, bet that stung” (okay, a quick kiss of the damaged area could be called for here), 9 out of 10 times, the incident will pass quickly with the child’s thoughts traveling back to his original intent of flying like the wind.

Granted, life does become different. We are forever changed.

This example I gave doesn’t say the child’s needs aren’t attended to. Perhaps a squirt of Bactine or a Band-aid might be in order. But even these are momentary fixes. What the child needs, more than anything, is an assurance that this temporary infirmity doesn’t define his ability to move forward with intended activities – with life. Even stitches are impermanent, requiring a trip to the clinic, a few days of water protection, and a little clip-clip. In the end, a parent who would forbid the child from ever running again because of a few scrapes or a little scar would only serve to further damage that child’s sense of well-being.

When we allow every injury, every insult, every infirmity that has ever been cast upon us to rule the hours we’ve been given in each and every day, we have to accept responsibility for the damage that is being cast upon our own well-being.

Refuse to become your infirmity.

Refuse to allow it to have dominion over you.
Refuse to allow others to cast you in that role.
Refuse to allow your vitality to be robbed when your life – here and beyond – can serve to be a well from which others can draw their being without ever taking from yours.

***

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[Author’s Note: I think it’s imperative that I stress here that many deal with their infirmities publicly and positively, not only to personally take some level of control over them, but to encourage others with similar struggles. That is NOT allowing an infirmity to define such an individual; rather, that is the individual working to define the infirmity and to take charge of it for the sake of well-being. Peace & blessings to all who face such struggles head on – in that, you are already victorious!]

Hope Be -Dam’ed

Without hope, life is meaningless.

Whenever I read these words out loud, they always sound like this to me:

“Without hope, life is mean and less.”

When I was growing up, I can remember my best friend’s mom saying, “Put hope in one hand and spit in the other and see which one gets filled the fastest.”  So hope was something that wasn’t going to be fulfilled by her definition (and the process of trying was fairly disgusting).

Hope requires vision.

My friend’s mom was missing the vision. With many of us, hope is often a vague wish or a best case scenario when things aren’t looking so good or we’re after something better than what we’ve got (with little to no chance of getting it). Vision gets lost (or spit on by others) with that kind of hope.

I have a vivid story on this subject of hope that stands out in my mind.

I was once heading into the Netherlands on KLM, finding myself getting dizzy from circling the Amsterdam airport, over and over again. (At least we thought we were circling somewhere in the vicinity of the airport. We had to take the pilot’s word of the navigator’s instrumentation’s word because the fog surrounding us was as thick as pea soup — not that it was green or anything, but you get the idea of the simile).  Eventually, the pilot informed us we had to head to Rotterdam for any landing attempt because we were running low on fuel. Okay, standard operating procedure, right? It was still good…until we had to do the same sort of maneuvering over Rotterdam in the same thick fog – over and over and over (you get the idea) again. I kept imagining how I cringe at the thought of the fuel gauge on my compact car causing its little bell to ding. (In truth, I’ve never heard that little bell ding. I’m not brave enough to test how far it can make it after that happens.) I wondered if any dinging would take place on this huge jet before we heard the dreadful sputtering and then the disastrous plummeting sound. (I figured it would probably be more than a tiny ding, since those seem to be reserved for less urgent seatbelt-like matters.)

Our pilot must’ve heard the ding…

because, finally, in a tone of resignation, his voice came across the speaker and, as I had become accustomed, first explained the situation in his native Dutch, then repeated it as translated English. He explained that due to the fuel situation, we obviously had no choice but to attempt a landing, despite the fact that he had no visualization of the runway. Our captain’s final accented words to us were, “I am going to hope for the best.” My first response to those sitting around to me was, “Well, I am going to hope that his words sounded more assuring in Dutch than they did in English.” (In truth, I was concerned our captain might be a little like my friend’s mom when it came to hope.) When I got no response from my travel companions, I added my own final thought: “Our captain can keep hoping for the best all he wants. I’m going to start praying for it.”

In this case, hope didn’t come with much vision.

As a matter of fact, we missed the runway — but we did make it onto the ground.
Once we all got finished climbing out of the plane and kissing that ground (when we were able to locate it through the fog), hope cast its vision. After we were issued our emergency layover kits, we were to be double-dam’d — shuttled from Rotterdam to Amsterdam. The fog lifted enough somewhere along the way where we were able to enjoy a shuttled tour of the countryside, complete with the fattest field-grazing mutton at which I’ve ever gawked. (I was getting hungry and hoping for dinner.)

Without this experience, I would have missed out on some great “stuff” (aka, experiences)!

Besides being able to tell you this story without the necessity of additional dramatization…I would’ve never envisioned the spread of food or hoped for the awesomeness of the room (or shower) I was given at the Schiphol hotel. I would never have known the delight of having a server fly through six languages (twice) to ask to take my order before I admitted which was mine because it was so intriguingly impressive. And I would have never gotten the opportunity to say “Goede morgen” and to have been smirked at – over and over again – because of my obvious southern states accent. (My online tutors, Mirjana & Jarno, who had worked with me on my Dutch had prepared me for this – they always laughed too.)

The truth is…Hope doesn’t spring from pretty places.

Romans 5:3-4 tells us: “…we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

Hope starts from a seed of suffering.

In reality, my suffering was minimal. It makes for a one-upsmanship travel story, at best. In contrast, I visited Anne Frank’s Huis while in Amsterdam, being greatly reminded of how even a young girl who left behind a poignant diary of her suffering has ultimately assisted in bringing hope to others. Her experience continues to cast seeds into others’ soil.

 Look at what can spring forth from a planted seed:

Proverbs 13:12 – “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

Mulan says it like this: “The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all.” 

Have you envisioned some hope for yourself lately? Have you planted a seed for someone else?

It’s time to stop deferring hope and to tap into its power!

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A Mean and Less Life

Happy Out of O’Hare

EXCERPT FROM At the Water’s Edge:

After sipping on some iced tea (which didn’t come sweetened here) and thinking over the name of the Chicago airport – nearly the same as that of the heroine in ‘Gone with the Wind,’ another Southern Belle with Irish roots – Danielle began to relax and even feel especially confident. It was as though the airport, itself, was giving her a wink and a nod that she was headed in the right direction, and the luck o’ the Irish was with her.

I penned those words over 3 years ago about my book’s young protagonist who was setting out for the first time on her own to travel to Ireland. My words came rushing back to mind this week as I excitedly worked away on this same project, polishing my final edits. Call me strange, but I’ve always held an affinity for Chicago’s O’Hare airport; and just between us, I think it feels the same way about me. I connected through O’Hare twice this week and, on both occasions, I had extraordinary experiences (by my standards – and I am the one judging here) in which I felt I was getting that same wink and nod (telling me I was headed in the right direction with my writing).

During my first time through, I rushed to pack up my laptop after using every possible second I had before it would have to be stowed away for awhile. (Let’s face it, I was in the last group to be called for boarding, so it wasn’t like I had a prime spot on the plane anyway.) As I jumped to the back of the line, my ear keyed in on a beautiful sound. A young woman a few feet ahead of me was “t’inkin’ ‘bout t’ings” (with her “udder” friend who was accompanying her) in a sing-song lilt that only the Emerald Isle can magically bestow upon its residents’ tongues. She reminded me so much of one of my supporting characters, Keeley, who I had just ‘folded away in my laptop,’ that I couldn’t help but try to wedge myself into the crowd for a closer listen. I squeezed in so tightly to keep up with her that I probably landed myself on an airport stalker list…

Fortunately, my self-designed craic didn’t seem to stop them from letting me through on the return trip. We were all packed in like sardines on my flight from Seattle to O’Hare. Because of the length and the close quarters of the trip, I did a lot of sharing of snacks and space (and bathroom scheduling) with my two companions on either side of me. I was using hard copies for edits (because opening the overhead compartment to get to my laptop would’ve created an airline disaster) while the gentleman next to me was using his tray to perform programming tasks on his laptop and a corner of mine to hold his drink. Upon completing her movie, my travel companion at the window decided she needed a restroom break. I began gathering drink cups off my tray to place it upright, as my aisle-seated counterpart lifted his laptop and tray. He had forgotten that he had a cup resting in his lap for a spare wine he had on hand; so as he went to stand, the cup began to spill over. This is one of those moments in life when reactionary response overtakes sensible thoughts. My hand reflexively reached for the falling object, as fortunately did his. (I did mention the cup was in this stranger’s lap, right?) His catch was a success – not just of the cup, mind you, but of catching the embarrassed blush on my face over what I’d nearly done. He gave me a wide grin with a shrug and said, “Happy out” in his accented voice.

After that, you couldn’t have wiped the smile from my face all the way into O’Hare airport. At that point, it wasn’t surprising to me that this man’s next flight would be taking him into Dublin; and though few Dubliners use that expression, I’ve been told it’s well recognized within other regions of Ireland. That’s not the best part of this story though – not where the best ‘wink and nod’ originate. As we pulled into our terminal at O’Hare, I closed down the manuscript I’d been editing. At the front of my active edits, on the title page of Chapter 25, sat the gloriously bold-printed, typed words: “Happy Out.” 

Devo: Who Paves the Road to Good Intentions, Anyway?

I’ve spent the past several years of my life living a hundred miles north of Atlanta. I can never recall a visit there when I didn’t witness miles and miles of road construction. Atlanta apparently kept expanding our way, as I now can’t travel anywhere around my own city that I’m not passing dented orange barrels threatening to cause claustrophobia in yet another lane. You’d be hard-pressed to convince me it’s true, but I’m told that civil engineers spend a significant amount of time in the detour planning process, considering traffic flow patterns for devising alternative routes during the various phases of road de- and re-construction.

When one has to travel the same way, directly through a construction zone, day after dusty day, the trip can become arduous on the nerves – especially on the days when progress appears non-existent. 
The impatience of waiting and the unanticipated detours become distracting and may cause wrecks, ill tempers, or even cause some commuters to get off-course, vowing never to travel that way again. Those who are forced to traverse the ‘de-construction zone’ each day often become quite adept at the role of long-suffering commuter, even capitalizing on tragic tales of woe at work, each morning’s description becoming increasingly worse as the audience becomes increasingly sympathetic. Many get so accustomed to arriving late to their destination each day that they begin to become complacent, expecting others to simply understand their detoured excuses. As a matter of fact, the excuse of tardiness may become so long-understood that it even works on days in which road construction wasn’t even a factor. Despite such benefits, eventually a dread begins to settle in, casting a mood on the traveler’s day before it ever begins – simply from reflecting on the trip that lies ahead.

Months and years can progress when a large road project has become an on-going event. By the time the paving crew arrives, in reality, the motorist should be rejoicing! No more dusty, uneven, grated roads that make your car (and your entire body) vibrate and hum. The end is in sight. That’s not how it works though. Everyone – and I mean everyone – dreads the paving crew most of all! They’re the ones who bring in all the gooey, messy materials slopped out by huge, cumbersome pieces of equipment that leave tar build-up and loose gravels stuck on passing vehicles. Though the paving crew is laying out the finishing touches of a soon-to-be enjoyed product, by the time they arrive to prepare permanent passage of a greatly improved road system, the attitudes of the commuters are not so joyful and thankful. Instead, attitudes are, more often, the expression of the road’s prior condition – filled with grated nerves and increased agitation. The travelers, you see, have lost the vision of greater things to come. The promise of open passageway no longer seems to be a reality. This paving process seems, instead, only to serve as yet another portion of the torture that has bombarded the senses for the past couple of years. And speaking of senses, is that tar smell offensive or what?!

I have to wonder how many of you began emphatically nodding your heads in agreement to some of these descriptions as you read them. I also have to wonder how many of you were able to begin relating these events to your own spiritual lives and how you may have the ability to envision where and how God has called you to make your journey. Have the offenses of annoyed commuters, unreasonable detours, excessive delays, irritating excuses, and life’s foul smells bombarded you to the point that you’ve decided to travel in a totally different direction? Can you no longer sense that God is allowing these delays and distractions to come into your life so that you may travel down a clearer course in the near future? Have you, instead, become impatient because the Engineer hasn’t shared His plan with you? And have you even shaken your fist or loudly proclaimed that this spiritual re-construction is a big fiasco, with no one giving proper consideration as to how it was going to affect your life?

I’ve traveled in that spiritual construction zone for a large portion of my life, not understanding many of the detours and, as a result, getting myself into worse messes when I attempted to follow my own routes. On occasion, my choices took me off-road because they seemed thrilling (but caused irreparable damage to my vehicle). I’ve likely caused many (emotional) wrecks along the way, too, that didn’t just include my own vehicle. I also let myself become the victim of others’ poor choices in detours. In short, I lost faith that there truly was a plan meant to route me around the construction zones and get me safely to where I was journeying, even if it meant perceived delays in my life. I also came to points of complacency and readily used excuses for  my own delays. By the time the paving was taking place to smooth out those rough spots, I would have argued that the workers on my roadway were paving it straight to hell.

Then, by the grace of God, I was reminded that there was a master road plan, and I simply needed to stick out the journey.

The road would soon be made clear for safe and productive passageway. Even if Hell’s very own paving crew was delaying my journey, and even if I had to smell their stench, God was allowing that to happen in my life. I had to learn to trust in Him and the plans He had laid for my journey. Amazingly enough, I found it much more comforting to learn to sit still in life’s traffic jams and sing praises to Him, rather than rush around looking for my own poorly planned (dead-end) detours. Since that time, I’ve only been able to become excited about the journey that lies ahead!

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  -Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

God’s intentions for our lives truly are good ones. It’s our own intentions that might send us seemingly traveling down the pathway to hell; and there may be spiritual forces who strive quite diligently to pave our path in that direction for us. But that has never been – and will never be – God’s desire for our lives. If His intentions were anything other than good ones, He wouldn’t have provided us with a direct pathway to Him through Jesus Christ. Our Heavenly Father’s intentions are, in fact, such good ones that He’ll use every road block, wreck and detour in our lives to place us back on track towards our journey with Him. Yet He’ll never restrain us from going a different direction of our own choosing. That very fact has humbled me to watch for His road signs much more carefully in my own life and to rejoice in the paving!