Archive for the 'Uniquely Me' Category
June 24, 2010 @ 7:35 am | Filed under: Soul Food,Uniquely Me
We’re on the brink of another sacred weekend, those all-too-precious 48 hours of togetherness, and it’s always a lovely feeling. On Friday nights, an aura enters our home – and although I’ve never quite been able to put a name to it, I think it’s just an extra dose of love.
We hoard our weekends like little treasures, and while sometimes I think we should be making efforts to visit interesting places or socialize more with friends, the truth is that home is our favorite place to spend time. And when we’re both there…it’s pure perfection.
I have all these dreams of making home the best place possible on this earth. Like citrusy-smelling candles and open windows in the springtime and soft music, dim lights, and living room picnics on long winter evenings.
Home is where you hang your heart. Where it goes to seek refuge from the beating it may take from the outside world during the week. Where it finds solace from the winds of adversity.
And where it recharges so that – when it emerges from the walls of home again – it is able to operate at full capacity, giving and caring for all the duties and responsibilites that make up a productive life.
So home is not confined to a house, to a building with four walls and a roof. Instead home is where the heart is. With the people we love and the ones who love us back.
I’m not “at home” this week, nor will I be this weekend.
And yet my heart is preparing for another sacred weekend anyway. Because it doesn’t matter where we are, or who we’re with, my heart is most at home when the work week comes to an end and MJ’s week on the road comes to a close.
We won’t be in the place we’ve lovingly turned into a home that we adore this weekend, and instead he’ll join me here at my parents’. Where he’ll help me prepare meals, spend long amounts of time in conversation with my grandfather, and more than likely feel less than comfortable sleeping in a bed that is not his own. And yet…
…our hearts will be at home.
June 16, 2010 @ 9:26 am | Filed under: Uniquely Me
“I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance,
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Livin’ might mean takin’ chances, but they’re worth takin’,
Lovin’ might be a mistake but it’s worth makin’” ~ Lee Ann Womack
When you love someone you want to wrap them up, protect them, keep them safe from all the junk life has a way of throwing at them.
Deep, fierce love is like that.
That’s the kind of love I have for this girl.
She’s the child who – overnight – turned me into an aunt, a role accompanied by a whole new capacity to love and care than what I’d ever anticpated possible from me.
Madie is growing up.
No longer the “little” girl, she is now a lanky little willow of a ten-year-old who is giving us glimpses into the remarkable young lady she will one day be.
But growing up has its share of hurdles, challenges, and – let’s face it – hurts.
It’s the way we face those roadblocks that determines our future path. Sometimes people run headfirst, unsuspecting, into one of these challenges and then spend months, if not years, in hiding.
Because to love - to care, to give of yourself – almost always means that at some point you will hurt.
And then sometimes, when we see someone we love with this kind of fierceness face this kind of hurt, we want nothing more than to cocoon them from future harm. We want to wisk them away to a place of safety, a place where we can watch them, feel them, know they are okay.
But who can dance when stifled?
And isn’t life really all about dancing your way through it? Through the laughter, the fun, the glorious. And then finding ways to dance away from fears, bad dreams, and burst bubbles.
Heroes come in many shapes, sizes, and ages.
This past week we had a glimpse of a little ten-year-old heroine.
She was a friend in a scary situation. She exhibited love, care, and forgiveness.
She’s a dancer.
I pray she always finds the dance.
June 12, 2010 @ 9:40 pm | Filed under: Pure Sunshine,Soul Food,The Solid Rock,Uniquely Me
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” ~Dr. Seuss
It was Tuesday night and my deadline was today at noon.
I’d already typed in a zillion-and-one different thoughts over the course of the day, only to go back later and delete them all. I stared a blank computer screen and tried to focus.
No, this wasn’t for a story idea. Or an article for a magazine. Or even a blog post for Faith Lifts.
What held me in the throes of agony was a speech.
In just four short days I would stand before the 2010 graduating class of NCCA and tell them -
Tell them what?
It wasn’t that I didn’t have ideas. Oh no! It was more like I had too many.
How do you stand before a group of excited kids and try to impart a bit of the knowledge and wisdom you’ve gleaned along the way? Can that kind of advice/revelation/sharing really be done in a fifteen minute speech?
I finally decided that I wasn’t going to find the answer that day. So I went to bed.
And, as I do every night before I drift off, I deliberately shut out all the other things in my head and on my heart. I turned them all over to Him and began to relax as the stresses of the day slipped off my shoulders.
My last thought as I went to sleep was that I wished I could share this with the graduates.
The next day I knew what to say.
Life is either simply complex or complexly simple. I like to think it’s the latter.
And so this afternoon I stood behind the podium, looked into the eyes of the graduates, and said this:
“ I would ask of you today that you always listen for One certain voice. As you move forward into your college years, your careers, or your ministries, you’ll hear a lot of different voices.
Voices that will vie for your time, your energy, and your loyalty. At the end of the day – as your head touches your pillow and your eyes close in exhaustion – there is only ONE voice that truly matters.
If you can keep the voice of God as your focus in the big middle of everything else you have going on, your life will be a very simple, very happy, very productive one.”
It’s a lesson well learned.
It really is that simple.
commencement speech, graduation, life lessons
March 10, 2010 @ 7:09 am | Filed under: Uniquely Me
Funny thing about letting go.
Saying that you’re letting go is assuming you had a hold of it in the first place. In truth, you once had it…but had it because it wanted to be there. Slowly…Surely…. we lose focus of what made us want it in the first place and our grip begins to tighten. Fear stiffens our fingers and we grab at it, corner it, hold it down, poke it back into place, tear it apart into smaller, more ’manageable’ pieces…or simply break it down, thus destroying the beauty that began it. Believe me, I know.
I’ve done this… and will not do it again. Something precious was in my hands and fear gripped my heart, and in a typical reflex reaction, my hands became a vise. And now, my hands are tied, and my head is speaking to my heart. Non-action brings action – not your actions or reactions – but it allows other actions take their proper place.
Quiet hands, open heart, observant head…all watching for the moment I can trust my hands again. Trust them to stay open…and next time I am blessed to have them filled…keep them open and let it be.
September 23, 2009 @ 6:22 am | Filed under: Family,Uniquely Me
So here’s the deal.
I had to write a food memoir for the Advanced Non-Fiction writing class I’m taking. As a self-proclaimed, card-carrying, exuberant foodie, there were about a zillion-and-one things that immediately popped into my head after receiving this assignment.
Long, laughter-filled dinner parties with friends, the way mom always made spaghetti and cherry pie for me on each and every birthday, Deviled eggs at Easter, patterning my own meatloaf recipe after my grandmother’s (secret ingredient is brown sugar!)
I could go on and on…
The long and short of it is that food is more than just an energy source. Mealtimes are a bonding experience and whether it’s as a family or amongst friends, a good meal paired with laughter and sharing is just about as good as it gets.
Maybe that’s why I have such a passion for cooking for those I love…
Maybe that’s why I want to run a B&B one day and have my guests return home with a happy tummy, happy heart, happy memories…
And because I am writing this post instead of doing homework, I am totally digressing…and let’s face it, folks, the homework’s not doing itself.
The following is the food memoir I finally decided on. This memory holds a special place all its own in my heart. I love how its the smallest moments, filled with the most insignificant of things, that are what we remember with the most clarity from our childhood.
Plus, I know that Kevin and our respective spouses will totally get a kick outta this one!
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The mid-summer Texas afternoon was near perfect: cloudless blue sky, sprawling green lawns, and all up and down Bayshore Drive, the squeals and laughter of neighborhood kids as we ran with abandon through whirling water sprinklers. The morning lay like a long, winding ribbon behind us, lazy yet loud, and we didn’t know any better than to expect the hours until dusk to be exactly the same. Then and only then, when mothers, one by one, would stand on front porches and call loudly for their respective kids, would we begrudgingly turn for home. Turning to yell an occasional promise of “Tomorrow! We’ll do it again tomorrow!” to our friends, we’d trudge home with bare, dirty feet, smudged grins, and a tummy rolling with hunger. This was a scene that was repeated more times than I can even count. Only one thing ever marred those priceless dinner hour memories. But that one thing…was big enough, horrid enough, smelly enough…that my brother, Kevin, and I—much to the horror of our mother—still talk about it today.
Homemade pickles.
If you’ve experienced pickle-making of the homemade variety, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you haven’t…let me explain. Pickles come from cucumbers and did we ever have some cucumbers growing in our backyard. I was a child of the seventies and it was not uncommon for a middle-class suburban family to grow their own vegetables in neat little rows against the back fence in those days. We were no different. Neat green clumps of lettuce, juicy red tomatoes, and the most prickly okra you’ve ever felt in your life found their way up through the earth in our backyard. Unfortunately for Kevin and me, cucumbers also grew in vast amounts. Sometimes they would grow so fast and multiply in number so quickly that my mother would carry brown paper bags full to eager neighbors.
Other times, she’d make…pickles.
There are no words to describe running up your driveway, tired and hungry from the hours spent outside, and being assaulted in the garage by the smell of vinegar and cucumbers! It is unique, to say the least, and the acidity and sourness blend in such a way that—truly—it can only be described as a stench. One whiff and I no longer had that boisterous eight-year-old appetite. Instead my tummy whirled and spun inside of my skinny little self and I’d beg to go to bed, gagging all the while. In hindsight, my brother and I kind of wonder if the pickle-making process was just Mom’s way of needing a quiet night with the kids tucked away early! I’d hold my nose during a quick shower while the warm, soapy water washed away the day’s grime but did absolutely nothing to dilute the smell that had such a talent for wafting its way from the kitchen into the farthest parts of our home. Scarcely dry, I’d jump into pajamas and make a run for my bed. Once there, it didn’t matter that it was ninety-five degrees outside or that the sun had yet to disappear completely behind the horizon. I’d go as far down in the bed as I could, pulling every stitch of covers up over my head, burrowing my face in the pillow. Praying for sleep to quickly deliver me from the smell, I’d almost always fall asleep wondering one simple thing. Why on earth did Mom go and ruin a perfectly wonderful summer day with a pot full of silly old cucumbers?
I still don’t eat pickles.
The memories of those pickle-making summers, however, have turned out to be something I wouldn’t trade for any amount of money. The richness of shared family recollections, no matter how smelly, provide endless hours of laughter and reminiscing. Our spouses shake their heads every time Kevin or I bring up the subject of pickles, but even they are wiping away tears of laughter by the time the story has been told…one more time.
Not the pickles again!
Family, summertime memories, writing
September 14, 2009 @ 2:21 pm | Filed under: Uniquely Me
“Openness serves as a bridge to the world of others. It enables us to get involved with others, to understand the thoughts of others, to feel what others are feeling. In other words, if we’re open, we’re able to enter the existential world of others even if at times we can’t identify with someone’s particular world.” –Brennan Manning, The Wisdom of Tenderness
_______________________
There are so many days lately that I find myself craving more time. I fight resentment over the fact that – though writing is my calling – I have so little precious time to devote to it.
I know I am where I am supposed to be right now. I am truly thankful each and every day that I have no doubt about that. But my heart very often leans toward the words that seem to always lie in the recesses of my heart and mind, just waiting for me to mine them and spin them into gold threads for a future story.
Always the stories are there.
Always they call to me in the deep of the night and in the first whispers of morning.
I pray that they not lose patience with me, that these words will find a nest within my soul and cradle there until there moment in the sun.
Openness.
That’s what I endeavor to achieve right now.
September 3, 2009 @ 6:49 am | Filed under: Family,Uniquely Me,he said she said
“The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.” - Frederick Beuchner
_____________________________
(journal entry from mid-May)
Tonight was a quiet evening. We sat in our (now) small living area – Mike in his chair, with his computer (doing sales call reports) and me in my spot on the sofa, with my computer (doing homework.) It was just a few minutes before nine when there was a knock on the door.
I think it startled us both. In the couple of weeks we’ve been here, we’ve not seen many people, let alone knocking on our door.
Mike set his computer aside and went to the door. Even though he was less than twenty feet away, I could neither see nor hear our visitor. I could only hear Mike’s side of the conversation.
“No, thanks, we don’t really need any this time.” He closed the door and locked it. “That was a local high school girl selling cookie dough for—”
He stopped mid-sentence and I can only guess it was because I had sprung up from my seat and was at his side when he turned around.
I opened my mouth and tried to find a voice for the overwhelming pull that had propelled me upward in the first place. I spit and sputtered, uttering words that seemed to come from out of nowhere. I’m pretty sure that ‘community’ and ‘witness’ and ‘part of the plan’ all came out of my mouth in that brief twenty second period, but I don’t know that it made any kind of sense at all.
Mike unlocked the door and stepped out into the breezeway outside our door, looking down the hallway for the girl. She was at the next apartment.
“Hey, I think my wife wants to buy some after all.” Mike beckoned her back.
I spent the next five minutes introducing myself to Kenesha, a striking African-American teen with the most beautiful blue eyes I think I’ve ever seen, and buying the white chocolate-macadamia cookie dough that – truly – we did not need. Even as we chatted, I was almost mesmerized by her personality, and I even had the briefest of seconds when I thought – again - how unlike me this was, to be so involved in an animated conversation with a complete stranger.
But there was an unspeakable pull toward this teen that began while I still sat on the sofa, before I’d even laid eyes on her, or heard her voice.
After I handed her the fourteen dollars for the cookie dough and then shut and locked the door, Mike chuckled from his chair. “Think we’ll ever see that cookie dough?”
I was silent, still kind of in awe at what had pulled me from my spot on the sofa in the first place. Somehow I knew it wasn’t really about the cookie dough at all. We sat in total silence for about five minutes. And then Mike spoke.
“Do you ever get the feeling that we’re here for more than just the reasons we think we’re here?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
September 2, 2009 @ 6:35 am | Filed under: The Solid Rock,Uniquely Me
One of the great mind destroyers of college education is the belief that if it’s very complex, it’s very profound.” - Dennis Prager
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(originally journaled in early April 2009.)
The past few weeks have been surreal.
I can scarcely believe we are actually doing this. I keep waiting for the REAL me to rise up and say something along the lines of “what the…?” But there is nothing except certainty that is flowing smooth and easy inside of me.
Even as I pack the house in the late night hours when I’m all alone, moving through the rooms and hallways, I have no qualms about this decision. It’s the nighttime that is usually the breeding ground for fear and trepidation and – some nights – I keep waiting on it. But it’s a visitor that never knocks.
My logic tells me that surely I must have been konked on the head and awakened with some other woman’s rationale and emotions. This is NOT me. I worry. I fret. I resist change.
I’m emotional.
But the reality is that I’m calm and certain, in a way that I just can’t explain. In less than two weeks I will walk out of this house – this style of living – and I will walk into an apartment over an hour away. We will know no one. I will stay many, many nights by myself while Mike is on the road. I am leaving behind the concept that “bigger is better” and the theory that as I get older, my “things” should become bigger, nicer, finer…
I sit here tonight and wonder what happened to the woman I was. When I look in the mirror as I brush my teeth, I look the same. But I no longer recognize the inner woman. I don’t know her. I think I should be afraid.
But I’m not.
I go to bed with peace and awaken with a quiet excitement.
I don’t know what to expect, but I do know that I should be expectant.
(Two weeks later…)
Tomorrow the movers will come.
By this time tomorrow night, I will be preparing to spend my first night in Commerce. In an apartment. In a community that is so unlike any I’ve lived in before.
Boxes are packed and labeled. Many will go with us into our new home, but even more will go into storage. We are losing over 1400 square feet of living space with this move, so – in ways even we had not anticipated – simplicity is truly finding us.
It’s a funny thing. Sometimes the very thing we ask for, pray for, finds us and takes us by surprise. Very seldom is it packaged the way we’d imagined, or presented in a way we’d recognize.
But it is a gift, nonetheless, presented by Him, simply because we requested it.
There have been so many mini-miracles (is there such a thing? are they all huge, and that is why they are miracles…?) to transpire over the past couple of weeks that we have almost been amused. I’m pretty certain that I have both, laughed out loud and broken down and cried, because it further solidifies that this move is the one thing that needs to be done.
Even in the moments when my logic kicks in and I run through the mental list of just why this is a crazy move, and just who probably now thinks we’ve lost our minds, and where I’m headed…even in those moments I can’t ignore the obvious.
Too many things have aligned in short order. Too many people have unknowingly been a part of this plan. Too many past prayers and nights and days spent in restlessness -knowing that I was in the big middle of the deep, learning to swim and tread water, and yet not being able to see the other shore. In a crazy, crazy, definitely unforeseen way, I’ve reached the banks and I’m crawling ashore. It’s certainly not where I’d pictured myself washing up. The beach is not white and sandy like I prefer. The water is not crystal clear and cool to the touch. It’s not paradise. It’s not my dream.
But for some reason that I am still helpless to explain, it has become…home.
Tomorrow I go there.
life lessons, living simply, walk with God
August 31, 2009 @ 6:36 am | Filed under: Family,Soul Food,Uniquely Me
I’ve been the quietest I’ve been in years…maybe ever…these past several months.
As an aside – I’m sure if you were to ask Mike, he’d beg to differ with that last statement! I’ve been talking, for sure, as we’ve been planning, implementing those plans, and making various adjustments these past few months. But, other than journaling it and talking it out within our four walls, I’ve not been too vocal on much except surface…stuff.
When I shut out the noise around me, good or bad, I can truly focus. Regain some clarity, perspective. There is a tranquility of spirit these days and – while it is something new for me – it is definitely something I hope to keep.
There is one area though that I am resolving to bolster even more. It is one of my weaknesses: time management. I want so much to do well in so many different areas that I find I am constantly tending to the urgent and – in the process – often ignoring the important.
Putting out fires is necessary, goodness knows, but what I so often perceive as being a burning forest usually turns out to be nothing more than smoldering embers. And sometimes when I get back to the important, the passion, the energy and the drive has already been spent.
My heartbeat lately has been to find God and then join Him in what He is doing. In this protected, tender space that is my life right now, I feel a real need to maximize the time. To not only be productive in my work, school, church and family life, but to really be cognizant as I go through my day of the people around me. What they are facing. Decisions they are making. Hurts they have.
My life has slowed, for sure. I don’t know that I will ever truly understand the scope of what this time is about for me. I feel almost certain that, at the very least, I won’t glimpse the meaning until I’ve faithfully trodded this path until I come to the next leg of the journey.
The last thing I want to do is to fill this time with busyness instead of progress. There are some things – some people – that I can do nothing about, nothing for. Some things just need to be left alone. I’m trying to learn that, accept it.
Only then can I cultivate the important. I want to grow a garden during this time, and nourish it with time spent with Him, time spent in reflection, time shared with loved ones, and time in knowledge and understanding.
Today begins the new fall term and, with it, I am starting a new book. I’m excited about both…and also nervous about both. Beginnings – as fresh and fun and exciting as they can be – aren’t really my forte. But they are crucial and I know that these first days will set the stage for the next weeks and months. I want those months to be productive ones. And I know what it will take for that productivity to even have a fighting chance.
This morning I lay it all down, all the components that make up ME.
I ask for eyes to see the realities.
Ears to hear His voice.
A heart to love without borders.
And arms strong enough to cradle it all.
Family, living simply, school stories
August 27, 2009 @ 7:08 am | Filed under: Uniquely Me
“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.” - John Pierpont Morgan
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It was the Friday after the New Year. 2009.
We drove east on I-30, headed towards TAMU-Commerce. I had a two-o’clock with my new advisor, and Mike tagged along just for the ride. For several months I had kept a running list of pros and cons for switching schools. There was a huge part of me that resisted. Probably the part of me that normally can’t stand change. But it had become all too clear that I had two choices: change schools or settle for the major that I didn’t really want.
Sometimes I question my decision to even go back to school. As much as I enjoy it, the time and energy it takes sometimes exhaust me. I miss the massive amounts of writing time that I used to take for granted. I miss spending lots of time with friends. I could live the rest of my life without finishing school, without teaching…and my life would still be full, vibrant and happy. It’s not as though I need to do this.
Yet…I do need to.
I’m not sure when or where I knew it, I only know that somewhere along the way I intuitively knew that this was something I was meant to do. As the first couple of years slid by, I have alternatively loved/despised school, but I’ve not wavered about the fact that it was something I needed to do.
So on this Friday I was scheduled to meet with Dr. Bolin and chart the remainder of my school career. Even as we drove, I commented several times that – really – the drive is not bad. Already I was assimilating myself to the realization that I would be on this very road a lot as I commuted back and forth.
Looking back, we have no clue who made the first move, spoke that first word…For someone who marks milestones by emotions and feelings, I have no memory of this particular milestone. It’s very odd. I only know that something happened along the drive that day. I looked out the window as we passed a certain section of town and I felt a pull. A sense of somehow belonging. Of somehow having a sense of purpose there.
I couldn’t identify what it was that I was experiencing and it never occurred to me then to voice it. I simply attended my meeting, made academic plans and then we drove home.
It was much later – back home – that the surreal began to take place. We looked at one another and it was Mike who spoke first.
“I…I felt something today.”
I didn’t question his words or the tone with which they were spoken.
I knew.
