Saturday, September 30, 2017

Being in the Present and Not the Past...

                        If you must
                                       look back,
                              Do so forgivingly.
                              
                              If you must
                                        look forward,
                              Do so prayerfully.

                       However, the wisest thing
                                        you can do
                                        is be present
                                        in the present
                                         Gratefully.
                                         -Maya Angelou

The leaves are turning. Everywhere the dark and chartreuse and subtle green leaves are taking on a vibrant life of their own. New hues of flaming red and orange and yellow.

Like it or not, fall is here and nature's wardrobe is changing and turning with the cooling weather.

While I love autumn, and the changing colors and crisp temperatures, truthfully a part of my heart still longs for summer. Just a few more weeks, please? I almost wish I could shove autumn back so I could cherish more fully the warmth of summer days and nights.

And for sure, I long for summer's more relaxed schedule. 

I wish that I could turn back the clock to the blessings of the 
"there and then" of summer instead of embarking on the present... "here and now" of autumn.

And I can, if I'm completely honest, confess that I am looking ahead to the future with a bit of nervousness. Oh my gosh, how will we survive the freezing winter days here in Spokane? Will we have another ice storm? I know those cold, cold snowy days aren't even here yet, but I can feel them on the horizon.

It's hard to stay in the here and now and just be grateful for the present, at least for me it is.

The same is true at work. The new year started off with such optimism, and then, out of nowhere, a rough spot came back
up again. I wasn't prepared for it at all. I thought after last spring, we were off to a fresh start.

The "rough spot" came in the form of an unexpected email
and I felt so sad and shocked. Almost as if someone had slapped me across the face.

It was hard to stay in the present when this happened.
I found myself drifting back to the good old days, the days when a co-worker would never have thought to send an email that hurtful. I also wanted to quickly look to the future when things might be better. It was so, so uncomfortable to embrace the present when it felt full of pain.

In any situation, when my mind and heart are melancholy about the past and skipping to the future, I  know a deeper truth.
          
          I will never know true joy and true peace and 
          true contentment until I embrace the present 
          with a grateful heart.  

Yet how do I get from here to there? From glancing back to the past or skipping ahead to the future? How can I stay in the present when it may have situations that are full of discomfort and pain?             

What I know for sure is that, on my own, I can't always feel grateful about the present. 

In this struggle to stay in the here and now, God's grace is what can make all the difference. When I focus on His love for me, my heart can move from fear and anxiety to love and gratitude. 

His soft whisper, "It's not about you, Linda" brings me back to empathy and thanksgiving. His presence and His word help me to focus on caring and on taking the high road.

Truthfully, I can get stuck in the past and on who did what to whom. I can replay and replay moments that were hard to bare. I can focus so hard on the there-and-then that I miss the lessons of the here-and-now.

This pattern seems to echo itself as I look at the once vibrant green leaves in our backyard. I may not feel ready for fall, the leaves turning and falling. Yet I know with complete certainty that to everything there is a season, and if I can trust God's plan, I can find gratitude in this moment. 

That's when I can truly say... "It is well with my soul."

Today I want to take Maya Angelou's words to heart...

I  want to see the past through forgiving eyes.
I want to anticipate the future with a prayerful attitude.
And I want to gratefully embrace the present as the best gift ever.

God Bless!
Love,
Linda




Thursday, September 07, 2017

A Reminder of What Matters...

                   "We are all just walking 
                     each other home."
                                                             -Ram Dass

It's hard to see the news these days. It seems as if much of my beloved America is in distress. Here, in Washington state, forest fires rage from every corner. The air quality registers as hazardous and children and adults are warned not to be outside without a mask on. The smoke is so thick that a house down the street seems engulfed in fog. School has started, yet the usual hustle and bustle of children outside is replaced with playgrounds that are absolutely quiet. 

While the fires haven't touched Spokane, they are eating up Montana and Oregon, our dear neighbors. Friends and students who are fire fighters and helpers are headed out of Spokane to lend a hand. 

These neighbors we do not know personally, mean something to us.

We are all part of the same neighborhood.

God's neighborhood.

Somehow it doesn't matter, in the midst of this crisis, if we are Republican, Democrat or Independent.

Somehow it doesn't matter if we are black or white, brown or yellow, or a beautiful mix of all the colors God designed for His children.

Somehow, in the midst of the tragedies, fire or water or wind,
what church or synagogue you attend, doesn't matter any more. 

Somehow it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, your children are my children too.

Somehow, in the midst of all that is wrong and scary and hard,
God's message of "love one another as I have loved you" rings a bit more true.

Maybe not for everyone, but for many of us who were even a bit polarized in our deepest heart-of hearts. Maybe now what really matters becomes a bit more clear.

As I was watching the news about Houston, Texas, already tears streaming down my face, I saw a news clip that said it all.

Shameka Carter, an African-American, single-mom in Houston, had lost her home and all of her possessions. She went to a grocery store to get food for her three children and while in front of the cashier, ready to pay, realized that her wallet had also been lost. It was sort of like the last straw to her already ravaged spirit.

The gentleman standing next to her in line, without any fanfare, took out his credit card and payed for her groceries, all $300.00 dollars of them. She was shocked and overwhelmed with gratitude.

While she couldn't give back money, the next day she stood outside that same grocery store, the gentleman's generosity fresh in her mind, and she made a homemade sign. It said, "Hugs given out here." She stood there for hours hugging
old people, young people, children, blacks, whites, hispanics, 
police officers, pastors, everyone going into the grocery store.

Yet what was the most startling to me, is that she had her eyes covered with a blindfold. She couldn't see who she was hugging. She said that this would remind her, no matter who people were, that they were God's children.

And she said three words to each person. Words that matter.
Words that heal in the midst of a hurricane. With her house gone and life in tatters she said...

"God bless you!"

Powerful words that broke through race and economics and politics.

"God bless you!"

And people who didn't even know each other found comfort.
They knew, if just for a moment, that we are all part of the same neighborhood. God's neighborhood.

In closing, I am reminded this morning of a television show my children  saw when they were little, Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.
In that neighborhood everyone was welcome. Everyone was helped, everyone was at home.

"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, It's a beautiful day to be neighbors. Won't you be mine? Won't you be mine?"

A simple lesson, yet in the midst of all of this heartache, smoke and fire and wind and buckets of rain, I am clinging to God's love and His powerful message.

No matter what, "Love one another as I have loved you!"
After all, we are all just walking each other home. We are all neighbors.

God Bless!
Love,
Linda






Saturday, September 02, 2017

If I Had Only Known...


                     
      If I had only known, 
      it was the last walk in the rain,
      I'd keep you out for hours in the storm.
      I would hold your hand,
      like a life-line to my heart,
      underneath the thunder we'd be warm.
      If I had only known.
      it was the last walk in the rain.
                               Song sung by Reba McEntire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgNIKabg_fE


My Mama once told me that this day would come, the day when I was older and started to lose my friends. She reassured me that it happened to everyone. I remember the conversation as if it was yesterday. "You'll go to lots of memorial services," she almost whispered. "You may wish you could stay home, but always go and say goodbye."

She was right, you know. Both that we'd go to lots of services and that it matters, when you can, to say goodbye.

Bert and I are of the age where we are losing some dear friends, and we always want to "show up" to honor them and to love on their families.

Yet some services, totally a surprise, are harder than others.

Carolyn Wall's death was one of those services.

Bert and I have known both Don and Carolyn in different contexts. Don, Carolyn's husband, had been in a poetry class
with Bert. Two guys with humor in their hearts, and hearts as big as all outdoors, egging each other on. With poems that brought laughter and poems that brought tears.

We had already been to Don's memorial service.

I had taught with Carolyn at SCC for over 30 years. She taught English, and I teach Communication classes there. 
We were in the same division and saw each other daily...in the hall and at meetings. She was an amazing teacher who loved the written word and loved her students. She was my colleague and my dear friend. We both loved to kibitz about our husbands at that poetry class, how warm and wonderful and funny they were. I light up she I talk about Bert and similarly Carolyn always lit up when she talked about Don.

In fact the words Don and Carolyn almost seemed like one word.

No matter how long they had been married, Don looked at Carolyn with his heart wide open, as if she was the very best thing that had ever happened to him. All of those years of marriage and that look had never changed. He adored her.

And in her more quiet and unassuming way, Carolyn was always his "bride" and she looked right back at him as if he was the only person in the room.

Three adult children later, lots of grandkids, careers as English teachers...they walked through life together. 

"Devoted to each other,"  that's what my Bert used to say about them.

And when Don died, Carolyn knew she'd go it alone and be there for the kids and grandkids and family and friends, but there was never quite the same look in her eyes. They were dimmer without her Don.

And now it was her turn to go.
After a stroke and a recovery and then another stroke.
In a heartbeat... she was gone too.

The picture of the two of them was on the table at the memorial service.

Their children knew that Don was going so they had time to say all they wanted to say to their dad.

However, they had no idea that their Mom wasn't going to beat this thing. After all, Carolyn was from Vermont, a tough gal and an overcomer. They just knew that she would overcome this too.

But just like that, in a whisper, she was gone.

There were lots and lots of tears at Carolyn's memorial service, but we all "lost it"  when her youngest son played Reba McEntire's song..."If I Had Only Known."

You could hear the muffled sobs all over the church. We, none of us there, had known that Carolyn was leaving. If we had, we might have visited more often or said our goodbyes or told her more often that we loved her.

Yet I think most of us were crying so hard that we couldn't speak for another reason. As we heard the words to the song, our own "someone" came to mind. 

If they were gone in a heartbeat, would we have regrets that we didn't  really appreciate them more while they were here?

I clutched my beloved Bert's hand through the whole song.
He held my hand tightly and his fingers caressed mine.

He knew that I couldn't fathom losing him.
I knew he couldn't fathom his life without me.

We realized, as the song played and the pictures of Carolyn and Don filled the screen, that their children couldn't fathom losing their Daddy or their Mama.

Jeffery, their youngest son who put together the slideshow that ran with Reba's voice, was a burly tough cop in Seattle.
Yet as the tears cascaded down his cheeks, I realized that under that tough exterior he was still the little boy who loved and missed his Mama.

If he had only known she was going, he might have done things differently. He might have called her more or told her that he loved her. He might have thanked her more often for all she did for him.

As Bert and I left the service and headed home, we talked about how important it is to live every day as if it was your last. How important it is to tell those you love that you love them.

Tell them now.
Do it now.
Don't leave the words unsaid.

So I want to live that way right here, right now and thank all of you who read the words from my heart on this blog. I want you to know that every comment you have ever made has touched me deeply. Your encouragement to write my story
matters to me, more than you could ever know.

I started this blog as a way to process life and share my heart with my family, especially my children and grand babies (some of whom are all grown up now.) I wanted them to know who I am and what has been on my heart.  I wanted to share my life-lessons with them, thoughts that might guide them in their journeys. I wanted them to know that I love God with all my heart and I love them just that same way. 

I wanted them, if they ever read these words, to know how much they matter to me.

I felt ten years ago, and I feel today, like God has led me to do this blog. Usually the verbal one, usually the talker, perhaps writing, instead of talking, would teach me new lessons. And it has.

And if along the way, any of my life-lessons have mattered to you or helped you, then it was worth the risk of putting them "out there." 

In closing, may God bless you and keep you and hold you in the palm of His almighty hand. May you know His love each and every day. May you cherish those you love and may you tell them how much they matter to you. May you do it now, while there is still time for them to hear your words and hold your hand.

And Carolyn, my dear friend, I will miss you forever. 

Love, 
Linda


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