Archive for the The Journey Category

“Double, double, toil and trouble.”

This incantation seems to haunt my days. In the morning I wake at odd hours. When it’s dark. When its silent. My thoughts are like ghosts whispering. I am tired but cannot rest.

Can you relate?

Everyone has trouble. Be it work or home, we all struggle with something. Arthritis. Insomnia. Unbridled anger. Chaos in the workplace. Hurt feelings. So, we try to rest and find it elusive.  Worse, we go searching for rest…and get lost.

We manage as best we can in a world filled with cruelty or worse–apathy and disregard for others. People are doing evil things to us and so we end up perpetuating evil in return. I have found it so in the past few weeks that my workplace has become a place of torment. I rise and put on my “good attitude with positive intent” hat but by the end of the day I am filled with disgust and rage. I drive home praying and trying to forgive but resentment has taken room. I am exhausted trying to be rid of it.

Saturdays have become a day of decompression. I clean. I listen to music. I cry. I grieve this world and its hardships. I grieve injustice and selfishness and greed. I long for simple things but sometimes they are hard to find.

This morning I woke earlier than I wanted and there was a thunderstorm of thoughts happening in my head. Sometimes I wish I had earmuffs for my brain. Is there something, anything that will calm the storm? Storms have a way of disorienting us to our place in this world. We grasp at branches trying to steady ourselves and get sucked deeper into the madness. When the storm settles, we find ourselves in a place we are unfamiliar with and have to find our way back.

I found a map this morning by way of Psalm 103.

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” 

It’s hard to remember “the benefits of God” while being pelted with hail. When the car is getting dinged and the shingles are blowing off the roof, I begin to question what He is doing. But so often when I am just disgusted with God and sick to death of being smacked in the face with another piece of ice, there is a moment of beauty and grace so sublime, I unintentionally catch my breath.

I’ve had several of those moments this week.

My son and I were on the way home from an appointment when a bald eagle swooped down in front of my car, circled around and flew over us again. It was uncanny. Simple. Stupendous. I slowed down to take in the moment (thanking God no one was driving behind me). It was as if all of the clouds parted, and a bright ray of sunshine broke through on our faces. We were in the heart of the city, but this moment transported us to another world.

The second moment was when I walked out of work and a solitary robin was singing its heart out from a little tree in the landscaping. I stopped to listen and even whistled back. I wondered how a little bird could bring so much cheer to my world-weary heart. But that song–that music from nature–was like an eraser to the evil of the day.

Another day I walked out of work and a flock of Canadian geese were honking at each other. Again, I stopped to watch and listen. The flock were together but in pairs. They were sort of walking around together in pairs with their necks stretched out in front of them. I wondered what they were saying to each other during that show of vocal athletics. The people from work were exiting the building while I stood there and I felt the pressure to move along, but I decided to stay. For a few minutes I just stayed in that moment of beauty of grace.

I’ve been thinking about these moments this morning as I watch the birds from my kitchen window. The mockingbird delights in the walnuts and peanut butter I put out. As does the wren. The titmouse, nuthatch and red-headed woodpecker come for peanuts. And the goldfinches are sorting out thistle seeds. And here I sit crying because they are so beautiful and yet their lives are so fleeting. They eat, and sing, and fly. They build a nest to raise their young. Their life is only a moment. And they are wholly dependent on finding food every day to sustain themselves. One would ask why they even exist if only to be born and to die. It seems a terrible injustice. But God created them, and they are wonderful. I am so grateful for all of them. They make my heart so happy!

And suddenly I am finding my way back. I see the path. It’s becoming more clear the troubles the world throws at me are just raindrops. I see the sun. I see the corner of a rainbow.

“As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children.” Psalm 103:15-17

Jesus said, “in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.”

Because we don’t only have trouble in this world, you see. We have beauty. Kindness. Grace and mercy. We have doves cooing and woodpeckers banging their heads on dead wood. We have people with no earthly reason to show us love who embrace us while we weep. It’s time to stop staring into the darkness and to set our minds and hearts on the light. That is how we get unlost.

We are all dying. We are really no different than the birds. But while we live, we must keep trying to sing. When we sing, we give others hope to help find their way back to the path.

I hope you enjoyed this song. Now go! Fly and sing!

“Christmas means carnage!” – Babe (the pig)

I’m old. I know I’m old because I’m sitting in my kitchen the day after Christmas–ignoring the carnage in my living room–and watching a fat, ugly squirrel steal the peanut butter and walnut suet from my kitchen window. I should be in bed asleep, but I have arthritis and gas. The first wakes me up and the second wakes my husband, so there’s no point hiding under the covers. (No one ever tells a young bride about the agonies of undercover farts–but they really should! Instead of rice at weddings, we should throw gas-x, but I digress.)

I need coffee. I need coffee like a gazelle needs to run. I puttered to the kitchen this morning, stared lovingly at my coffee maker and then boiled water for green tea. You see, coffee gives me anxiety and insomnia–as if I don’t have enough trouble sleeping already. So, I poured a delicate little cup of Jasmine tea with stevia instead, and Friends, it’s just not the same.

But I survived Christmas.

I cleaned the house, bought the presents, baked the cookies, cooked the feast—and everyone left happy. There were no family fights, no eye gouging, no hair pulling and only minimal dog anxiety. And that was because one of my son’s asked me to dog-sit his giant blue tick coonhound puppy while he went with his girlfriend to their family celebration. His poor pup thought he had moved to Alaska to hunt Moby Dick and was never coming back so he ran around the basement peeing all day. Or barking. he also thought he was a Bumpass Hound (see A Christmas Story) and kept trying to steal the turkey off the kitchen counter. So, when we sat down to eat dinner, I locked him in the basement with my boxers and he lost his ever-loving mind. Best Christmas memory, my 14-year-old blessing the meal while the dog barked and bellowed loud enough to shatter our eardrums. My son later told me this is why they own a shock collar. Funny how he left that at home. (For all you animal lovers out there, I’m not saying I would have USED it. At least, I don’t think I would have.)

Right now, there are some folks thinking I’m a stinky Christian because I should probably be expounding the merits of Jesus incarnation but I’m sitting here nursing a sinus headache while bellyaching about greedy starlings. These damnable birds are destroying my feeders and what they don’t steal, the squirrels get. That might be why my son and I enjoyed watching the Cooper’s Hawk pluck and devour one unfortunate speckled varmint a few days ago. Serves it right for existing. If you don’t have a bird feeder–think of starlings as the avian playground bullies that steal your lunch money every single day. Everybody is happy when they get their comeuppance.

The thing is, I love Christmas. I love it the way I love running–it feels awesome when it’s over. I just lay there panting and nursing my hip. Wait, my hip didn’t hurt before Christmas! Am I really old enough for an aching hip? Good grief.

I did enjoy watching my granddaughter open her jammies and hat. I didn’t even bother to get her toys this year. The parents always go all out for a first child, and she is no exception. She could swim laps in all the gadgets and gizmos she has at her house and I don’t feel the need to compete. But I did have a philosophical moment amid the frenzy of wrapping paper and cosmic exclamations; we sure do know how to ruin the future Christmases of every child in the world. How, you ask? By making everything so stinking wonderful. It’s all downhill from here, folks. After a person reaches ten or twelve, it’s all over. Like my Uncle Dan said (in a well-timed Christmas text), “Santa’s not real. It’s your parents.”

How’s that for Christmas spirit?

Right about now there is somebody reading this thinking, “There goes that privileged white girl prattling on about the luxuries of sitting in a warm house with plenty of food and presents while some unhoused person is shivering in the cold with a hungry belly.” Send him to my bird feeder. He or she or THEM (after all, I want to be sensitive to those whose pronouns don’t match my own) can fight the starlings for the peanut butter and walnuts outside my sliding glass doors. They can stand on the warming mat I put out for the possums. If they’re really stinky, I’ll let them in for a bath–but don’t try to use the bathroom sink, my husband won’t hook up the vanity (in my only bathroom) because it doesn’t match the new tile he installed four months ago. That’s probably why I’m sick. I have to walk all the way to the kitchen in my house to wash my hands–with no water pressure. Did I mention my husband is a handman? He promised he’d hook it up for the holidays but…he got sick and stayed in bed for two weeks. See, this is the difference between women and men; when men get sick, they lay in bed and moan for days and years while women take some Advil and decongestant and do what needs to be done. Sorry, digressing again.

Not that I don’t believe in “the Christmas spirit”. I still get that “magical feeling” when the tree lights up for the first time. I truly love when I don’t have to make a trip to K-Mart to buy new Christmas lights (yes, I am miserly enough to keep fixing old strands of lights). I even got three whole ornaments on the tree this year and two of those were ones I forgot to put away last Christmas. The third was a gift from my mother. (Thanks, Mom!) As much as I hate shopping, I enjoyed foraging through aisle after aisle of crafts shows over the past few months for those special things ‘hand made with love’ by some other old ladies because I work for a living. My personal favorite was the goat milk soap. I was so excited about that I asked the Goat Lady how she makes it. She replied with glee, “First, you milk the goats.” I’m still chuckling over that one. And nothing puts one in the Christmas spirit like baking Christmas cookies. Every year I say I’m not baking cookies because I can’t eat them and then I bake them and eat all of them between December 26th and New Year’s Eve. Did I mention Christmas mean carnage…? Carnage on my waistline, that is. But maybe I’ll do better this year. Maybe I’ll learn discipline this year–after all, I’ve got a whole week left. If that doesn’t work, that’s what New Years Resolutions are for.

I did do a lot of praying over the holidays. These were truly reverent prayers, “God, please help me not to murder my son or my husband this year. Help me to forgive as I’ve been forgiven.” This was especially reverent as I gave my son the gift “not throwing away every single Lego on the floor of every single room in the house.” One would think the floor was made of metal and Legos were magnets.

And that, my friends, is how I survived Christmas. Prayer. Advil. Green tea. And while I know I will soon find myself in a luxuriously hot Epsom salt bath with an old boxer dog slurping up bath water while I listen to a Voddie Baucham sermon, I will cherish the gifts this Christmas is still giving to me; mom’s homemade fudge, the memory of my son grinning over the new shelving unit I spent hours shopping for on Christmas Eve, and my friendly little neighborhood wren. He reminds me that no matter how many starlings steal the peanut butter and walnut suet, he just keeps singing. And so will I!

“The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.” Mark Twain

When I was little, I used to dream I could move things with my mind. You see, I fell in love with Charlie McGhee, the girl from Stephen King’s novel, Firestarter. She was special. She could start or control fire with her mind. She was so special, in fact, that the government would do anything to get their hands on her. She was the product of a special project meant to enhance human abilities and (while I don’t remember all the details of the movie) I assume they wanted to replicate that “gift” by creating super soldiers so they could burn Russia to the ground and end the Cold War. Or not. Either way, Charlie was super cool. I wanted to be like Charlie. And not just because I liked to burn things. She ignited within me the hope that I could be, well, more than just a boring little girl.

I also wanted to be like the Bionic Woman. Lindsay Wagner could run super-fast, had a fabulous figure, and was highly desired by men. After all, isn’t that a woman’s purpose? (That’s what I got from the 1980’s.) When I grew up, I wanted to be that.

As an adult, science fiction has erupted around me like a Mogwai in water. The superheroes of yesterday’s comic books are now the movie stars of block buster action flicks. It seems I’m not the only person alive who wants to be something “more”. We’ve got Thor and Captain America and even Wolverine (one of my personal favorites but only because—Hugh Jackman! But I digress).

I don’t think adults are helping the situation. They often put tremendous pressure on children by asking them, “What do you want to be when you grow up? A fireman? A ballet dancer? An insurance salesman? Oh wait, no one ever asks about that last one. How about a used car salesman? So, when children do grow up and land a career in law enforcement—for example—they quickly discover the pay is lousy. And while the elected officials are always asking for tax increases to give our LEO’s a raise or better equipment, the budget somehow always falls short (even if there is moolah for a super fancy new greenway for bike traffic).

Shoot. I accidentally put on my Cynical Sally hat. Sorry about that. Where was I?

Why did I think there was something wrong with being “just a little girl”? I didn’t even grow up in the era of contouring. (Look it up if you don’t know what I’m talking about. The Tick Tock videos are fascinating). Worse, try taking your tween daughter to an event without her beauty ritual. It might be easier to wrestle an anaconda.

I’m not even thinking about women’s equality or gender fluidity or any of that. I’m talking about my existence as a person who felt somehow “less than” because I didn’t have that “something special” that made me somehow more interesting. I couldn’t do backflips (thought I longed to do gymnastics) or memorize vast swatches of poetry, or win blue ribbons for running fast. Shoot, I couldn’t even make the final round at the spelling bee–even though I read circles around my peers. Gee whiz. What a loser.

Social media has exacerbated this phenomenon. Parents laud their super star kid whose soccer team took home the trophy, ran a triathlon, or baked a world-class cake. I’m over here like, “My kid didn’t burn the house down today” and I’m trying to be all cheery about it because my patio has the black burn marks to prove he got the fire gene from me.

So, what do I mean by asking such a silly question like, what is your superpower? It’s not like we can actually be Superman or Cyclops. Shoot, I’d even settle for being able to breathe under water but that’s not going to happen. The thing is, I think the basic human condition is one of restless wandering until we discover why we exist. Knowing our superpowers is helpful in this regard.

For some people, their superpower is charity. I know a lot of people who have money and like to give it away to help others in need. This is a beautiful thing. And while some people would abuse the caring nature of others, I consider this one of the more blessed powers one can harness.

Some people have a superpower of positivity. They have a ‘sunny side up’ disposition that enables them to see good where others see only negative. They are the motivational speakers of the age and they wield their sword accordingly.

I could likely make a very long list of good things that people do to help others, but I would like to ask a question that goes a level deeper. What would be your superpower if you had no special ability in yourself at all outside of existing? May you feel like a plain Jane or John and you sell used car insurance. Maybe you have no perceived gift at all other than the ability to drive responsibility. Does you even count? What if your only superpower is never missing a day of work? (Remember when one got a certificate for perfect attendance in school? Funny how when we grow up all our focus is on vacation. Wait—was this a tactic taught in grade school to engender drones who never call in sick?)

The question that used to bother me was: am I special even though I don’t have a special ability?

In the workplace they call people like me a “worker bee”. I’m not a boss. I don’t have an awesome intellectual ability to crunch numbers or retain cool facts. I don’t have the best clothes or shoes. Sure, I could make up a superpower for my coffee mug that reads, “My superpower is not killing people who ask what my superpower is.” I try to show up on time and do my job and then I go home and make dinner that nobody likes to eat. One would think after all these years of cooking, someone would say thank you. Alas, saying ‘thank you’ is not my husband’s superpower. Does that make me a terrible spouse? Does falling asleep in front of the television make me a terrible mother? (I should have been reading a book to my child). I’d like to (at least) say I’m a perfect neighbor but someone got offended that my house needs to be painted and reported me to the city. I get to go to court in December.

This weekend I discovered my superpower and it made me very happy. I discovered it quite by accident. I was sitting on the back patio while my husband rambled on about something random when I heard a high twitter in the top of my tulip tree. (Say that five times fast!) It was the brown creeper! I know it because I looked it up after observing it scale the tree from bottom to top in search of bugs. So, when I heard it tweet, I said, “There you are. I hear you.” Then I started to mimic its whistle.

My husband said, “What on earth are you doing?”

I said, “I’m talking to the birdie.”

He said, “But I was saying something important.”

I said, “I know you. But you were talking when the bird starting tweeting so I couldn’t hear anything else you said.”

To which he rolled his eyes.

I told him, “I am so in tune with nature that when the creatures make a sound, I can’t simply ignore it. I have to make the sound back.” Mostly this applies to birds, but I’m not immune to mimicking other beasts. Therefore, my superpower must be “Bird Mimic.” Bet you didn’t even know such a superpower existed.

Sadly enough, I was ridiculed online by an owl expert when I bragged about calling in the great horned owl in my neighborhood. The owl and I exchanged hoots until he finally flew into the Sweet Gum Maple tree in my backyard in search of his new friend. Mr. Expert Owl Man said, “It’s very dangerous to hoot at owls because you might give them a false sense of security.”

The thing is, this superpower gives me great joy. I may be overstating it, but I feel it gives my life meaning and purpose. Certainly, God wouldn’t give me this superpower if he didn’t intend for me to use it. Even if all it does it lift my spirits, certainly that is enough. When the birds tweet, it makes my heart sing. Shouldn’t I somehow thank them by tweeting in return?

I bet you didn’t think this is where the blog was going.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that we all have unique talents (superpowers). It may take us nearly 48 years to figure them out. They may not be what is popular on the television. They may even invite rebuke from family members who don’t want to hear bird noises at 6am coming from the other side of the bed. (I’m totally kidding, I would never do that!) The point is, we don’t have to be what others expect or even like to enjoy our superpower. We can wield it at any given moment. And when we do, there is a resonance that thrums through our being that somehow helps us know “this is the reason for which I was created. This is why I exist!

Finally, just to round this story out, I would like the dear reader to know I have another superpower. I have officially achieved Firestarter status. I may not be able to light or control fires with my mind, but I have mastered the art of making brilliant bonfires that warm the soul. They go especially well with marshmallows, chocolate bars and graham crackers.

So, I’ll ask one last time. What is your superpower?