Category Archives: hope
Revolution American Style
Growing up in my own family of birth, the worst mortal sin was stupidity. In raising our own somewhat precocious children, if they called each other stupid, my husband would ask the offending child, “Who’s stupid?” And the child had to say six times, “I am stupid.” Frankly, I was never really comfortable with that, because I would rather be beaten that told I was stupid, so I probably would have taken a beating rather than having to say,”I am stupid.” And yes, I have often thought that people, who do not see the world the same way I do, are stupid…….or to be politically correct, mentally challenged. Two things have challenged me on this: One, I was told after extensive testing in a two year program for preparation for ministry that I had two personal areas problematic for ministry. One: I test high enough on IQ tests that I probably always thought I was right in differences of opinions and the reality is that no one is right all the time, no matter how smart they are. Two: I over react defensively and emotionally to people, ie. I was oversensitive.
To be honest, I still struggle with both of these tendencies, but at least now, I struggle with them.
I still consider calling people “stupid” violence. And when, in spite of knowing I could be wrong, I think people are stupid, I try hard to: one, take into consideration that their personalities and life experience may be very different from mine and within those limits their responses may make sense. Ignorance is not stupidity. Stupidity is not curable, but ignorance is. But many people have to learn the hard way, by personal experience, not theory. In many ways, our educational system does not provide learning approaches that are effective for many, maybe even most, people. And our political system is so dependent on having access to huge amounts of money, that they don’t feel represented. Then along came “Jones”, Trump. Someone, who shares their fears that are less scary when expressed as anger, with huge amounts of money and the indifference to the establishment’s opinion that money can buy.
Read Michael Moore’s suggestions of how Democrats should respond to this challenge. It’s an eye opener and a call to change.
Tattoo for an Old Lady
I’m seriously thinking of getting a tattoo. The problem is that it would have to go either on my back side or my stomach to have enough space. That would defeat the purpose, because I couldn’t see it well in either place. And the whole point would be to have it as a permanent and visible reminder. Here it is:
Tips for Mental Health
Feelings are not facts!
Seven important things we need to develop:
1. The will to bear both physical and emotional discomfort (and only whine on Monday).
2. The courage to make mistakes, admit them, take responsibility for them, learn from them, ask and accept forgiveness, and then for goodness sake, MOVE ON!
3. Patience with small gains.
4. The will to do what down deep, we know we should.
5. The determination to stop digging up the past. (If necessary, write it down, cremate it and let the wind carry it away.)
6. The energy and caring to help others. (Look around: we are surrounded by invisible lonely people. We don’t have to fix them, just let them know we see them.)
7. The wisdom to not let the perfect defeat the good.
Bucket List
- 1. Help the next years be as good as possible for my husband.
2. Be there for grands and great-grands when they need me.
3. Become more loving in both my mind and actions.
4. Reach the people that my insights can help whether by speaking, teaching, writing, or just conversing. 5. Help my nineteen year old granddaughter, who suffers with Autism, find both purpose and friendships in life. 6. Paint some more paintings that I like enough to hang. 7.Get a better computer that’s easy to learn. 8.Take a trip to Quebec. 9. Laugh more every year and literally die laughing. 10. Recognize God and grace in everything and give up whining. (Even on Mondays!)
Information and Advice Needed
We live in a small rural Southern town near a major East/West Interstate that connects with a North-South one. So, we have a growing homeless population, particularly as cold weather hits North of us.
We have a wonderful Help Center literally in the center of our downtown. But it is far away from the Interstate. Some of our churches, even small ones, are attempting to address the needs of the homeless. One larger one is considering starting a Room at the Inn program to give shelter as we too begin to have colder nights. This hasn’t come to fruition yet. Meanwhile they take a van around town with sandwiches and bottled water. Several other smaller churches have chosen different days to have free lunch programs each week. And another church had a coat/hat/ gloves/shoes and blanket give away just last weekend.
The problem right now is that the homeless living in wooded areas near the interstates are chased off pretty regularly, so it is a transient population without actual transportation. 1: They don’t know about what help is being offered. 2: They have no way to get to the help. None of the groups now offering help is actually reaching most of the homeless near our area.
One woman has begun an organization called House of Hope for New Beginnings which has attempted to purchase several different buildings to house, feed, clothe, enroll children in school and train the adults of homeless families for jobs. Their plan includes checking backgrounds and testing for drugs. But so far, they have been defeated by code conflicts and the city council. As they persevere in their search for an appropriate building, they are taking food and toiletry items to people living in a cheap motel on the edge of town that takes pretty much all their social security or disability money just for rent. Some of the younger people living there walk miles to work in fast food restaurants. Volunteers also take the people to medical care, enroll children in school, get mothers needing it into rehab, find foster parents for their children, and look for better cheap housing for families of as many as six living in one room.
A couple of our smaller churches of different denominations are considering the possibility of pooling our resources to buy a food trailer capable of cooking soups and stews for cold months and just fixing cold sandwiches in the warm weather for lunches. We wouldn’t try anything complicated or requiring deep frying. But we would need refrigeration and some sort of large electric cooking pots, and of course, a clean water tank, waste water tank, sinks, counter space and a generator. We may be able to get extras like french bread, chips, some fruit, disposable dishes and silverware donated here.
I think most of the other churches currently attempting to feed the homeless would probably join in this effort. If we post flyers near the Interstate access roads, it shouldn’t take long to get the word out about the times and places the food trailer would be near more easily accessible areas.
What we need is advice and information from anyone with experience in this area of food trailers, permits needed, liability insurance, cooking equipment, size of generators needed for this size operation. And what we need to ask when searching for a used trailer online. We know that air conditioning and heating would be needed normally, but the short hours of operation for probably just two sites near two Highway/Interstate intersections and tailoring our food to the temperatures hopefully will make this a luxury, rather than a necessity. Plus, having heat and air, while the homeless have neither, seems inappropriate.
If you know anything helpful for this project or can pass on sources of information, we would be very grateful. And all prayers greatly appreciated.
Eileen
I Pray for Grace
to get it right now that I am old.
to give love and joy, never heartbreak.
to hold all lightly, free to let go.
to seek God’s hand when I suffer.
to forgive others and be forgiven.
to have faith there is some great purpose,
an after- life better than this one.
to while still in dark, believe in light.
and to go with hope into the night.
“Warning! It’s Monday. Pity Party Ahead
And then comes the morning, yesterday’s sorrows behind? Maybe, maybe not.
I thought my faith would grow stronger and it would be easier in old age with less needs, children grown, more wisdom. Well, it ain’t necessarily so. Many days it’s a struggle to just stay physically functional. Wisdom seems to have only come about seeing how I screwed up in the past. Too soon old, too late smart sums it up. Grown children have troubles I can’t fix and that I worry that I caused somehow. I have more dead friends than alive ones and the ones I still have are also struggling. I find myself facing the probability of living alone for the first time in my seventy-nine years of life. I love my grandchildren more than life itself, but have no say about what happens to them. And physically can’t do things for and with them like I used to enjoy so much. And people, that I have grown to love, leave and don’t look back. And while I know these are necessary losses and part of my journey with God, on the days when I can’t see His footprints, it’s a struggle to stay emotionally functional. I quit crying some seventeen or eighteen years ago, when dealing with heartbreak over grandchildren born facing incredibly hard problems, because I thought if I ever let myself cry, I’d never stop. I was right. I’ve cried so much lately, I should be dehydrated.
I never was very good at persevering through things. I usually was good at finding a way around or out of them. About thirty years ago, I felt that God was challenging me by giving me a new name, “Perseverance.” I did realize even then, that this wasn’t necessarily good news about my future years. But, I have learned with grace, to persevere. I have even learned to laugh while gritting my teeth. (Not easy on any level 🙂 ) But sometimes, I just don’t want to. Today is one of those times
But, I will. I will grit my teeth, hang on with my fingernails, and be thankful for all the beauty, love, and joy God has given me in my life. And with Her grace, I will dig for that damn pony in all this manure. 🙂
Addendum added four hours later:
OKay, in an attempt to look on the brighter side of things today: Getting into pain from vacuuming means I can only manage one room’s floor before sitting down a while to get out of pain. This is good not only because a rest does get me out of pain, it also gives me a time out to go on-line.
And in my time spent today preparing for my women’s scripture class tomorrow, I read the funny little story about Jesus needing two tries to heal the blind man, because after Jesus tried once by putting saliva on his eyes, the man still couldn’t see other people as being like himself. It helps to know that people who don’t have natural empathy for others, may eventually be healed and acquire it. But, I haven’t figured out the significance of using saliva yet! Unless it means that spitting in someone’s eye doesn’t do much good. 🙂
So, this Monday has had goodies to balance the baddies. Thanks be to God!!!
The Commandments: Humanity’s Keys for Survival/The Beatitudes: Our Handbook for Freedom to Love
I’m pretty sure that law and the concept of sin and consequences were created to try to help us live in the groups we need to survive and prosper. Society is a two edged sword. It keeps us from having to do everything for ourselves from fighting off wildlife, planting, harvesting, to creating clothes and shelter, thus giving us time to think, create, explore, and ask questions about the why, not just the how. But, since humanity is a work in progress…..the old adage, that there’s both a goody and a baddy to everything, holds true for society. Society helps us survive physically, but it also challenges us to learn to love.
The commandments were first of all, simply practical. The laws were aimed at keeping us alive, both as individuals and humanity, long enough to become loving. Whatever the Intelligence called God is, that created and nourishes life, it lives within each of us. It is a source of grace to become more loving, than competitive and combative. And we are like cells in a body. Each of us not only affects those closest to us, we affect the whole for better or worse, even the generations following us.
Self-honesty and understanding, rather than guilt, are the beginning of learning to love. And those take courage and grace. The divorce rate makes it obvious we haven’t become enough like Jesus to even love those closest to us, never-the-less those different from us or even “against” us. The commandments are the basic tools of survival for society. But, Jesus showed us the next level through teaching and living the spirituality of the Beatitudes. They call us beyond the fundamentals of the Commandments and just survival. They call us to freedom, the freedom to love others.
Caring is prayer. Prayer is in the intention, whether expressed in words, thoughts, feelings, candles, symbols, acts of kindness, or forgiveness. There is power in prayer. But both wisdom and love are needed to use the power for others, to understand that all creation, without exception, is one.
Jesus is a turning point in humanity’s journey. He fleshed out a love that sacrifices for not only the weakest physically, but the weakest spiritually. This is not survival of the fittest.
His resurrection also illustrated that this life span isn’t all there is. Jesus is the living example of the potential of God’s grace even within our own humanity.
His resurrection shows us death is simply a door to eternity. When we believe this, it gives us a very different value system than death as the finish line. And His openness and love for all show us the way to overcome the finality of death.
Wildlife Encounters: Part Three, The Sad and Challenging Kind
My first sad wildlife encounter up close and personal in our Hundred Acre Wood was a baby rabbit our cat brought in. It had a broken leg, so I took it to a much amused local vet, who made it a splint out of a tongue depressor. But as the vet had warned me, in spite of my tender loving care for two days, the tiny bunny finally gave a loud cry and died. This was not an auspicious beginning for a Saint Francis wanna be. It was made even sadder and more disturbing by the timing of the bunny’s death; three o’clock in the afternoon on Good Friday. Honestly! I almost dug up its little box coffin to make sure it was still there.
It got worse.
A few months later I was just starting into town with my two year old in our truck. I had to stop suddenly, because there was a pitiful looking old fox standing right in the middle of the road. He wouldn’t move even when I honked my horn. He was trembling and obviously sick, so I backed up and went to consult with our nearest for “real” country neighbor. He informed me that according to country protocol, I needed to take the fox to the Health Department to be checked for rabies. When I looked at him like he had lost his mind, he explained that he would put the fox out of its misery and put it in a garbage bag in the back of my truck. So my two year old and I waited in the house while the neighbor shot the fox. When I got to the Health Department and told them what I had in the truck, the woman informed me that they would only accept the fox’s head. When I just stared at her speechless, I guess she pegged me as a city slicker. Because she finally explained in a tone that made it obvious she thought she was talking to a ding bat, that I needed to take the fox to the vet to get the head cut off. So, back to the vet I went once more. When he recognized me, the vet smirked a little as he inquired about the health of the baby rabbit. However, he obligingly delivered the fox head to me in a coffee can. He also gave me the rest of the fox back in its garbage bag, while informing me that he had no disposal facilities. As I drove back to the Health Department, I now noticed a very horrible and strong odor coming from the back of my truck. I tried to bring a little humor into what seemed to me a rather grizzly situation by imitating Salome doing her Dance of the Seven Veils as I delivered the fox head. They were not amused. In fact, they then informed me (I suspect secretly with glee) that it was up to me to get rid of the rest of the fox safely. It could not be buried in a shallow grave in case it had rabies and other animals might dig it up. So, sadly the rest of the fox and I finished my second country wildlife death without ritual or honors at the County Landfill. The Health Department eventually notified me that the fox had definitely been dying, but fortunately for us and our neighborhood wildlife, from distemper, not rabies.
No amount of cleaning agents could get the smell out of the back of my truck. It took almost a month of fresh air and rain.
Coming Next- Wildlife Encounters: Part Four, The Funny and Delightful Kind
Sex and Jelly Doughnuts or the Face and Voice of God? That is the Question.
It’s easy to lose sight of God in our lives and when we do, we become vulnerable to idols. These days an idol isn’t a golden calf, it’s anything we become dependent on, other than God. In the book of Jeremiah, God warns that not only will we suffer if we choose worldly idols, but so will our children and even our grandchildren. That part about grandchildren really gets me where I live. Though I don’t hear this as punishment, but rather as a natural consequence. So, let’s consider some modern worldly idols.
A very popular idol is pleasure, which isn’t bad in itself, only when we turn to it instead of God. Pleasures we turn to when feeling insecure or unhappy can vary from sex to jelly doughnuts, but if they become a dependency they lead to adultery or diabetes or other equally bad consequences.
Another potential idol is financial affluence and while there’s nothing wrong with being successful, it can grow into a need that becomes the focus of our lives to the point of destroying our relationships.
An even sneakier idol is an attachment to social acceptance that leads us to surround ourselves only with people just like ourselves, which not only gives us a warped view of the world, but isolates us from those in greater need.
How can we protect ourselves from idols? It’s a discombobulating world and sometimes I feel like the child of Christian friends, who when told to wash his hands muttered: “Germs and Jesus, germs and Jesus! That’s all I hear about around here and I can’t see either one!”
One thing that helps me, I call putting on “God Glasses.” That means consciously working to see God in everything. Surprisingly, the beginning step can even come through finding God in the hard things.
When heart break or pain has kept me awake all night, the first glimpse of morning light coming through the window often brought relief. Recently, after finally getting over several weeks of insomnia from the pain of a broken shoulder, I would wake up momentarily at sunrise each morning remembering that feeling of relief and thanking God with quiet joy that morning had come again and yesterday’s sorrows were behind.
Ever since an ice storm left us without hot water for eighteen days some twenty years ago, whenever I feel that first marvelous spray of a hot shower, I treasure it for a few moments while thanking God profusely.
Some months ago, our hearts were heavy when a beloved grandchild stopped chatting and smiling because she sensed family conflict. Last weekend, she kept me awake once again cheerfully chatting about her favorite books and beamed with glee at trouncing Granddad at UNO. Now, as I go to sleep each night, I cup those memories in my heart with tears of joy and thank God.
Please, while you can still hear birdsong, stop and listen with your heart and thank God for it. Thank God not only for flowers, but the strength to water them and even to cut the grass. Thank God for the joy of that first taste of morning coffee or tea. Age can take all these away from you. Enjoy them now and let them bring you to God. Thank God for faith to pray. What a wondrous gift that is. And definitely thank God for laughter, which will be your saving grace in old age.
Watch, listen and thank. All these small things are the face and voice of God. And more and more you will experience the deep joy of finding Him in each moment. Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God. And joy trumps idols every time.
The day of my Spiritual Awakening was the day I saw, and I knew I saw, all things in God and God in all things. A quote from an unknown Author:
Heartbreak and Joy
Heartbreak and joy are the two sides of loving.
I woke up this morning heartbroken over my husband’s suffering. The last week has been much worse for him physically and emotionally. There is some hope that a procedure he has scheduled will give him a respite from the worst of his physical symptoms right now. But his symptoms may indicate that the end is nearer than we had hoped.
Intellectual denial and emotional denial are two separate stages of grieving. In the first you cling to the belief that medical treatment will relieve the worst of a condition. In the second you recognize intellectually that suffering and loss are inevitable, but do not let that knowledge set off an emotional response. Once you respond emotionally, there are times of deep sorrow and heartbreak. But also recognizing that while God may not take away this suffering, God is in it with you. And in the midst of heart break there are moments of joy.
I have several small daily devotional books I read most mornings. But with the stress now, my memory is getting even worse and I find I can’t keep the helpful thoughts in mind. So, this morning I decided to just randomly chose one book and repeat that teaching over and over to keep it in my heart and mind all day. This morning I chose “The Upper Room.”
Today’s writing was by a woman from Nigeria about her husband dying though she had prayed to God to save him. At the end she takes comfort from 2 Cor. 12:9:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
I don’t believe my choice of what to read today was a coincidence. God is with us in this.
This weekend I drove an hour away to pick up a grandchild that we have not been able to spend much time with since the first of the year. She gets carsick and was pretty miserable during the trip. She had also been exploring the woods all day and it had set her allergies off. I was afraid that I had chosen a bad time to bring her to visit. Her parents are divorcing and she has become a very solemn and quiet child. My husband has been heartbroken that she never smiles anymore and I have missed the long conversations we used to have. She and I were sharing a bed and for the first time in a long time, she was very talkative. It was a lovely blessing and a sign that she is recovering from her world being shaken. But after sleeping a couple of hours her allergies became so severe, she was having trouble breathing. She hadn’t brought her medicines, but fortunately I found some Benadryl for children and it gave her relief and allowed her to sleep. The next day she and my husband renewed their long competition at cards. And after trouncing him thoroughly, she rewarded him with one of her brilliant smiles. His smile matched hers.
When you love deeply, you are vulnerable to heart break, but that love also brings great joy in seemingly small events. And when you have reached the end of your strength there is God.
