Confidence, Knowledge, Compassion

A friend’s blog entry discusses her vision for 2015 in terms of three goals: confidence, knowledge, and compassion. Because of these three things, she believes she can keep going and encourage others to keep going as well. In her words, “Fear seems to be an apt concept to consider as one year ends and another begins…(but) because of confidence, knowledge and compassion…it has fewer teeth and claws.  It becomes just another item on the shelf, just another crayon in the box.” She recognizes that there will be daunting unknowns and challenges in the coming year, but believes they need not define it.  In fact, she says, “They cannot.  They must not.  That is letting fear decide not just our future, but also our present.  That is not okay.  We cannot ever let it be okay.”

When this woman speaks, I pay attention. Her credibility runs high with me. These are the words of my 45-year-old friend, a seasoned English teacher in a public high school who has been awarded the honorable position of State Teacher of the Year for 2015.  She also happens to be blind.

Living Life, or Life Living Us

The kids and grandkids began piling in today from faraway lands like Texas and Mexico.  Tomorrow we will all be together, and walk through the hours of the last day of 2014 together.  Time will be the topic du jour as we wait for the ball to fall and another New Year to begin.

Dr. Albert Rossi, clinical psychologist and teacher of pastoral theology at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, has some interesting perspectives on the topic of time.  I share a few of his quotes below:

Time manages us because the Lord lives within the time He gives us. So, it is He, through the reality we call measured time, Who manages, leads, nourishes and strengthens us. We don’t live life. Life lives us…

One handy suggestion is to push pause as often as we can. We can pause between the stimulus and our response, thereby gaining perspective. The pause itself is usually sufficient to break the reactivity cycle…

Time is our friend, not our burden to endure. We need only remember that we are in the holy presence of God. We can pause and say the Name of Jesus, thereby bringing us into His very life within us. While on earth we have an opportunity to “sanctify time.”

The Granny Report

Here’s the evening report: another day in the life of This Old Granny.

It has been productive here in the Land of Preparation.  Our entire family (9 adults and 11 grandkids) plus a couple of dear long-standing friends (2 more adults) are getting together on Wednesday at our son’s house.  For some obscure reason known only to shrewd mindreading gurus, I volunteered to bring a lot of the food, and quite a wide variety as well.  Maybe it is because of the Granny Syndrome that I learned from my own granny years ago: you can always rely on home-cooked food to touch those you love deeply. As a result I have been planning and shopping and baking for the last couple of days, and today was slated to be Emiril-inspired.  

The day actually started with a trip to the gym.  I know that sounds like a bad move: run yourself out of gas before you even read the to-do list, let alone tackle it. Oddly, I’ve learned that exercise can actually kick-start my energy levels and get the engines revved into high gear.  At least some of the time this works. Other times it (honestly) backfires. I was banking on this to be one of the good days.

After the workout I felt perky, so my strategy evidently worked.  Although figuratively drumming my fingers because I was eager to get home to my overflowing refrigerator (surely it was screaming at me), I accompanied my husband to the sporting goods store.  There he purchased ammo, clay pigeons, and enticing gopher targets – gun-related play items for the boys/men on Wednesday.   Although I had no interest in any of these things (the gophers were cute, though), my willingness to sweetly accompany my man on his man-errand paid off.  I found a $60 long-sleeved fleece top on sale for $29.  A very good buy.

At noon my workday finally began in earnest.  Before heading to the kitchen to bury myself in food, I spit-shined the house until it met what I call my “minimum standard” of surface neat-and-clean.  Then I dove into the world of shrimp and vegetables and turkey meatballs and quinoa and chicken wings and dare I say more vegetables, and didn’t come up for air until evening.  I think at one point I was literally swimming in Jambalaya. The prep necessitated stalwart veggie chopping - thankfully I solicited knife-wielding help from the resident scullion, I mean husband.  I also got a good start on a variety of side dishes that will hopefully be finished tomorrow before we pick up our son at the airport at 4:30.  I said hopefully.

Sometimes I think I’m nuts to commit to big cooking projects like this – an old granny pushing the envelope, just asking for something to break down.  Other times I’m grateful for the energy and stamina to keep doing what I’ve always done, knowing that some day in the not-too-distant future (maybe next year at this time?) I will say enough is enough, play my granny card, and pass the food-torch to someone else.

Belonging

I decided to organize a couple of shelves in our big upright freezer this afternoon.  Even though I’m usually careful to keep a close inventory so the freezer's contents don’t become outdated, I managed to discover several hidden, grizzly fossils.  Dried-up English muffins that could pass for desiccated round bricks.  Freezer-burned ground pork predating the anti-inflammatory diet (hoary with a coating of deadly gray - yuck). A large bag of melded-together ice left from making ice cream in some other era when we wore shorts and t-shirts.

The bread went to the platform birdfeeder, the meat to the dumpster where it will hopefully stay frozen until pick-up next Wednesday.  The ice?  Well, rather than fill my kitchen sink for hours or leave white chunks in the yard indefinitely, I opened the door, hauled the bag down to the lake, and dumped its frozen contents into the water next to the seawall. It just seemed the reasonable thing to do.

In that moment with the wind flipping dried ornamental grasses against my bare arms, the busyness of the day’s events melted away.  I was immersed in something much bigger than myself.  Shivering in the cold without a coat, I clasped my arms across my chest for warmth and looked out over the steely blue water while the wintry wind ruffled my hair.  How unexpected to be reminded that I belong, I am rightly placed and living out a specific story unique to me alone.

Parallels

Temperate weather recently melted the lake’s thin cloak of ice, re-exposing jumpy waves not long after their quiet hibernation beneath the frozen glaze had begun.

Today arctic gusts swelled countless legions of breakers and pushed their snapping white caps toward our shore with greater intensity as the hours rolled along.  The teeming water seemed invigorated, but also exhausted as it churned in response to the wind’s nagging insistence.  Perhaps it accepted and gloried in the adventure, unexpected as it was.  Perhaps it also wondered why the ice melted; why it was subjected to the raw wind even while expectantly awaiting another freeze on some other calm, cold night.

Sometimes human experience parallels days like this when we are roused and energized, but also stimulated to weariness. Perhaps we forget human beings are both spirit and matter, and as such subject to vast potentials of dynamic experience.  Perhaps it is helpful to remember that earthly life makes the most sense in the context of childlike acceptance and expectancy.