Insights

It's late.  Near midnight.  Hearing issues have the upper hand; my tolerances are shot. But before I crawl between the sheets, I’m reminding myself to pay attention in the present moment while owning my unique challenges, to experience real life.  To recognize beauty in the midst of shadowy corridors and digest just a few of the countless etchings of others who have passed before me...

“He who carries God in his heart, bears heaven with him wherever he goes.” – St. Ignatius of Antioch (1^st century)

“The truly intelligent man pursues one sole objective: to obey and to conform to the God of all. With this single aim in view, he disciplines his soul, and whatever he may encounter in the course of his life, he gives thanks to God for the compass and depth of His providential ordering of all things." – St. Anthony the Great (251-356)

“Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues...” –Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

“For I tell you this: one loving, blind desire for God alone is more valuable in itself, more pleasing to God and to the saints, more beneficial to your own growth, and more helpful to your friends, both living and dead, than anything else you could do.” – The Cloud of Unknowing (14^th century)

“Let nothing perturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change.” - Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

“Patience, prayer, and silence – these are what give strength to the soul.”  -St. Faustina (1905-1938)

Goodwill is Awesome

Our daughter stopped at Goodwill today with two of her four daughters “just to look around.” Unexpectedly, the girls fell head-over-heels in love with colorful, uniquely-styled backpacks “just right” for school. Hurray!  A happy find!

Her text message explained further: “And since we spent only $6 each on backpacks, I let them each pick out a new church dress. We also found shoes. Goodwill is awesome.”

But there’s more to this story, another layer.  The kindergartener-to-be had been dazzled many weeks before by a cheaply-made, over-priced, Disney-advertising backpack she’d seen at Target. Marketers know to display the bang-up stuff well ahead of time, and she was absolutely certain she could not survive kindergarten without THAT particular backpack.  However, her mom (a wise woman by anyone's standards) thought it a less-than-desirable choice for a variety of reasons.  Backback selection was becoming an issue.  So with that additional piece of the story in mind, finding the alternative “just right” option at a bargain price was just…well…exceptional.  Goodwill IS awesome.

Brownie Points

On our wedding day 44 years ago, I didn’t know I was joining up with a do-it-yourself remodeler who would revolutionize the way I thought about making a house a home. I was vaguely acquainted with the idea of home maintenance and interior decorating, but had never lived in a structure with disabled plumbing or demolished walls.  One where construction grit lurked in every crack and the sound of power tools wailed until midnight and beyond.

It didn’t take long for that to change, and now I’m the veteran of two major extended do-it-yourself overhauls. I’m more informed and experienced. Wiser. It's interesting to note that those sometimes-grueling remodel experiences reshaped and expanded me in positive ways I could never have predicted.

Not long ago my hubby said, “I’m tearing out the picture window – it has a rotten spot that’s beyond repair - and I’m replacing it myself.  No point in paying someone else to do what I can do myself.”  I knew what that would involve, also what it could involve should there be unforeseen challenges (not uncommon in remodel).  It wasn’t just about old and new windows, but the process involved - the procedural aspect of the undertaking with its potential chaos and mess, its inevitable surprises.

As I type this, we’re once again in the thick of remodel (although replacing a window is a relatively small project), and I am blessed.  In his younger years, my spouse-gone-remodeler could be quite impetuous and focused on the task at hand to the exclusion of everything else.  But presently he’s very carefully double-checking every step of the way without hurrying the agenda, and also entertaining my interests. He’s taking extra precaution to alleviate unnecessary dirt in the house, and even initiated the use of the vacuum hose to catch drywall dust.  He boarded up the gaping hole in the wall in-between tear-out of the old window (yesterday) and replacement with the new window (tomorrow). 

Brownie points, I told him.  You’re earning brownie points with me this time. 

Dish Garden Demo

In early June, I purchased a dish garden planted with various succulents, hoping it might serve as an attractive centerpiece on our outdoor picnic table throughout the summer months.   By the end of the second week, tendrils had far outgrown the confines of the dish.  I moved it to the other side of the deck to sway in lake breezes from an old macramé hanger, one I knotted in the 1970’s as a young bride and, for some unknown reason, still had in my possession.

The plants have continued to flourish in their dangling dish, redefining my original vision.  They’ve demonstrated courage and spaciousness, reminding me that epic growth can blow away any constriction wrought by limited expectation. That living well often involves radical change and unfolding layers rather than crimped, rational boundaries. That life is more mysterious than we think.  That transformation, filling up, and overflowing are happening everywhere, if we only have eyes to see it through the appropriate lens.

They’ve reminded me that wonder - such a precious childlike perspective – loves an object.  And we don’t need to look far.

Day-by-day, even in the midst of our busy lakeside playfulness, this family of succulent plants (such a common, ordinary thing) has encouraged me to view life with a sort of sophisticated innocence.  To celebrate each present moment as a theatrical stage with imperfect-and-maybe-broken props, one with characters who can choose to act out revolutionary hope in the midst of almost mythical change.  To expect eye-openers to surprise and stamina to swell, and active, living hope to redefine any stripped-bare, compacted plan. To live with full presence and liberated assumptions; to radiate out from home base fearlessly.

Left Behind

A collection of tiny treasures (shells from the lake and an acorn cap) forms a compact centerpiece in the center of my coffee table.  Gentle little-girl hands placed them there last Friday - cupped them oh-so-carefully into a tiny mosaic of fragile beauty. 

Those hands have returned home (1,200 miles from here) after an extended summer visit, while the lakeside valuables remain exactly as deposited to remind me of the precious, delicate fingers that placed them.

I scoop up the shells with my own coarse, age-wrinkled hands and transfer them to a miniature cup on my desk where they will linger awhile.  Perhaps they will remind me to remember the many divine mercies so richly shared under the summer sun, and to value their lingering glow.

Thanks, Aaron!

Last January my husband and I met to consult with Aaron, a personal trainer, as part of my husband's ongoing heart rehabilitation.  I tagged along thinking I would also plan to do a little exercising on the side - a way to show support to the hubby while stirring my own blood a little.

During that initial session Aaron asked both of us to define our personal goals.  My husband, the always-playful one, wanted to golf, fish, ski, and recreate (think horseplay) in the lake with the grandkids. With tongue in cheek, I timidly confessed my dream: to water ski on my old 1964 Joe Cash slalom.   

Silly me! Surely this was unrealistic at my age! I’d torn my right hamstring when getting up on that ski in 2010, a painful reminder that old ladies can be crippled if they try to act like teenagers.  I’d wisely stayed off the ski ever since. Still, when Aaron challenged me to target an objective, that’s what surfaced. 

His response to both of us was the same. “You can do it!  Let’s get started!” In that moment a little light switched on to illumine an expectation I never would have considered on my own.  I was skeptical and doubtful.  I was also inspired to try.

Since that day I’ve been exercising with weights and resistance bands several times a week, and feeling noticeably stronger all the time. A couple of days ago when the visiting granddaughters were knee-boarding and tubing behind the boat, I announced it was time.  My time.  Nana’s spur-of-the-moment-ski-time.

Grampa hurried back to the shed to retrieve the old scarred, cobweb-covered ski before I changed my mind. When he returned, I snapped the ski vest's buckles and posed on the end of the pier for a pre-ski picture.  Ta-da!  The 66-year-old Cypress Gardens skier holding her antique wooden ski!  “I’m worried about you, Nana,” a seven-year-old grand-girl chirped.  She’d never seen such a spectacle, and couldn’t imagine me actually riding that ski over the water.

The rest of the story is rather boring.  I got up easily, skied back-and-forth over the wake numerous times as the boat circled in a big loop, and returned to the pier with a gentle landing. 

Typically my back leg aches and even cramps while skiing (the slalom has a way of requiring awkward balance), but this time there was no tension, no lock-up.  Also, it’s been the norm for the last 20 years or so to be uncomfortably sore the next day (or maybe several days), but that didn’t happen this time.  I felt great.

It’s astonishing, really, not to mention encouraging. If someone hadn’t come along and challenged me to set a new goal, and then work toward it, I could have unnecessarily retreated into old-lady frailty as a matter of course.

Thanks, Aaron.  You made it happen.