Looking back on 2021

Good-bye,  2021.

Good Riddance maybe…

I’m not so sure.

Much was hard ’tis true.

Uncertainty, sadness, anxiety

Too much bad news…

COVID rages.

Our city makes national news once again.

A house exploded.

People died.

Children wonder “How does a house explode?” with fear in their eyes.

We all wonder; we make assumptions.

Another school shooting… 

This time in our state, one county over.

Too much death and loss.

Cancer and COVID and other awful things.

Classmates, cousins, co-workers from days gone by...

Our dear neighbor...

My sweet sister-in-love...

Gone too soon. 

...

Was there anything good?

Gotta’ watch for something good…

Small things?

Momentous things?

PorchFest and GOODSTOCK return to our hood.  Those are good things. Fun things.

Claressa Shields (World Champion boxer, Olympic Gold Medalist, GWOAT) is the Grand Marshall of the Juneteenth parade. I walk down to the corner to see her… then talk to her in the Walmart check-out line a few days later.  That’s fun and good.

Zoom meetings with daughters and other friends.  Maybe a small thing, but definitely in the good category.

Celebrate 50 years married to my amazing man.

Golden.

That’s a good thing.  

It’s big. 

Momentous even.

So very grateful.

Camping trips with the kids and the grandkids.  Great fun to be together after so much isolation!

I published my book!

Seems like a good thing.  

A huge project. 

Complicated. 

Anxiety-inducing. 

An emotional roller-coaster. 

It was also a gift...

…to myself.

A fun focus during a difficult year.

To revisit that story. 

The Journey of a Decade. 

Those years. 

Those memories.

To lament the hard times.

To celebrate that we survived.  

Thrived.

To bask in the beautiful moments.

To celebrate the fun and the transformation.

...

Maybe it’s not unusual for the hard stuff to be mingled with the good times.

Difficulty and disappointment and drudgery blended together with fun and fulfillment and happiness.

All the ingredients mixed and simmered.

The bitter and the sweet.

Why would we expect one without the other?

We take the good and the not-so-great.

All the parts…

Of a decade.

A year.

Dark stories

Frodo:  I can't do this, Sam.

Sam:  I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo:  What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam:  That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for. 

    - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers 

Amazing Day #22: Positivity - Part Two

Sometimes I "worry" about the things I post.

I worry that they may seem braggy. 

I worry that I might be making my life sound way more exciting than it is... 

But then isn't that what we all do on social media?!?

We're supposed to do that; right?

But I do want to be honest.

I do want to give an accurate picture.

After all, not everything is fine and dandy.

It's not all beauty and wonder.

I don't want to be always gushing about how AMAZING everything is.

There is loss.

There is sadness.

There is fear.

There is yuckiness.

There is hard stuff.  

All kinds of hard stuff.

I guess I could write about those.

But wait; I DO write about those some of the time.

I do my share of grumping and moaning and groaning.

And downright complaining.

I don't think I'm in denial - at least not most of the time.

I do take time to mourn my losses. 

I want to grieve with those who grieve.

I want to give others time to mourn their losses. 

I don't expect others to be happy all the time.

 

Yes, I will face the not-fun stuff and deal with it when I need to.

And yes, I will write about that stuff.

However I don't want them to be my focus.

...

Here's the thing.

It is easy for me to be negative.

To get stressed out.

To feel overwhelmed.

To be frightened.

To panic about worst case scenarios.

Yep, worrying comes quite naturally for me.

Irritability and grumpiness often seem to be my default settings.

It takes effort and intentionality for me to focus on the good stuff.

The first step in that process is to find it.  

To look for it.

To notice it.

Then I guess the second step is to celebrate it.

To appreciate it.

I discovered that I need to practice.

To start searching and noticing and celebrating.

One year I decided to celebrate Thanks-giving EVERY DAY during November rather than just on one day.  I decided to look for one thing that I was thankful for every day that month.  And then one year I decided to continue my Thanks-giving by setting aside every Thursday as a day to be thankful - for something.  

Then there was the year that I accepted the 31 Amazing Days challenge - seeing if I could find something amazing every day during the month of October and to write about it.  Or maybe I could make something amazing happen!  And here I am doing that challenge again this year.

These are things I choose to do in order to build a habit of gratitude.  

To be more positive.

To focus on the good stuff more than the bad - or at least more often than if I didn't try.

To lift my eyes from the bad news and look for good news.

...

In summary...
Some people are naturally positive.
Some work at being positive. 
Then again some people are naturally positive, but they also work at being positive.

Yes, positivity and negativity are often personality traits.  

But...  

I believe that there is something we can do about our natural tendencies.  

I think that we can build good habits.  

I think that we can practice noticing good stuff.  

I think that we can choose our focus - at least more often than we might realize

Will it be easy?  

Will we always succeed?  

Nope.  But we can keep practicing.

Keep searching for the good stuff.

Start noticing and celebrating.

...

Cultivate gratitude.

That's what I want to do.

That makes sense to this farm girl.

Clouds and rainbows and perspective

I think about perspective a lot.

Good days and bad

Thorns and roses

Bad news and good news

Sun and rain

Clouds and rainbows

I seem to realize that I need to remind myself to keep perspective when things start to feel one-sided.

So that’s what I do. 

I remind myself that roses come with thorns.

(Or that thorns come with roses!)

That there will be good days and bad.

That life is fleeting and I can choose to cherish the moments.

That we will hear both good and bad news

And now I am also reminded of yet another perspective by one of the most inspiring people in the world, Maya Angelou. She reminds me that there will be clouds but there are also rainbows.  Her words challenge me once again:

  

“The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so that you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud.  Somebody that may not look like you…  or speak your language…  but be a blessing to somebody.  That’s what I think.”

...

This.
This is what I want to be about.
Yep.

NEWS

Sometimes I participate in the Five-Minute Friday event - where they give us a word and we write about that word for five minutes. No editing nor back-tracking. Just set the timer and write for five minutes.

Well, I tried to do that this morning, but it didn’t go so well.

The words is: NEWS.

My mind immediately added the adjective “bad” before the word.

I couldn’t help but think of some of the bad news we’ve heard this week.

And no, I’m not referring to the horrific divisive political circus that is constantly flooding the airways. That’s certainly bad news and it seems that nearly everyone is concerned and sick and tired of it.

But I was thinking specifically of cancer news that a couple friends are dealing with.

The kind of news that we fear but then it surprises us when it rears its ugly head - and terrifies us yet again.

The kind of news that we don’t want to hear.

The kind of news that leaves us wondering how to respond.

The kind of news that makes us cry tears of anger and tears of sadness all mingled together.

The kind of news that affects us more personally than any political primary or debate ever will.

…

So I tried to write.

I did write for five minutes.

I did crank out a few words, but I couldn’t publish them.

They were too careless.
Too frivolous. Too inconsequential.
Unthinking, unfeeling

There was no resolution.

No conclusion.

No tying up the loose ends to turn it into a nice inspirational piece.

Nope.

There was just the news and the reality that news isn’t always good.

The reminder that we are not in control as much as we wish.

That there are things we simply can’t fix. We can’t make it all better.

I don’t like that.

I don’t like it one bit.

I want answers.

I want resolution.

I want happy endings - or maybe an exciting “to be continued.”

But what are we to do with bad news?

The kind we can’t fix - no matter how hard we try? Or how hard we cry…

I can’t seem to come up with answers. 

I guess there will always be bad news and good news and some days it seems like the bad news far outweighs the good. Just not fair!

The only teeny thing I can think of is to maybe find ways to be the good news for somebody somewhere. 

I don’t have a nice numbered list of ways to do that. 

Of creative suggestions to offer.

I can't seem to think of any.

But I bet you can.

I bet most of you who read this will be able to think of at least one thing you could do.
Maybe just a small thing, but some way to be good news where it is desperately needed.

And maybe you could tell about your idea in the comments below where it could inspire someone else.
Probably we can't save the world but maybe we can tip the scales at least a teeny bit.

How about it?

Who’s in?

Good news, anyone?

Water stories and THE water story

I suppose that most people who have visited or lived in this country have a water story. For many, it is a first experience in taking care not to drink the water. For some it is about the pump not working - because the power is off. Most of us have more than one story about using a public restroom where there was no water available for flushing - NOR for hand-washing - and would probably rather forget some of those experiences. Problems with the water or with plumbing are abundant; indeed they are part of normal life here.

Even in these first few days since we arrived, we are already collecting new water stories.

On our first day we walked into town, but just around the first corner we had to find our way around a flood that completely engulfed the street. We were fortunate to find the sidewalk on the high side and a couple well-placed chunks of concrete to ford the stream. Workmen were standing around a huge hole they had dug in the corner of the street. The pool of water was across the street for at least two days and the big hole was open for over a week.

Then there were the two days in a row when we had no water for much of the day - at least one of those probably connected to the noisy process down there at the big hole on the corner.

There was the morning when our host came outside his house and began pounding on the walkway between our two buildings. At first he was hammering with a small pick to break through the surface of the concrete and then began digging through the dirt. Sure enough they had a water leak somewhere in their house. He has been working on that for days now and apologizes for the noise.

...

We had been noticing that our bottle of purified water was getting lower and lower so we began asking questions about how to get another.  This morning the young Dominican gardener climbed the stairs to our place carrying a new water bottle on his shoulder. He was kind enough to install it in the “pedestal” for us - because neither of us knew that procedure yet. 

I smiled to remember that there was no such thing in the apartment we rented three years ago. We simply had to pour from the huge bottle whenever we needed water. That task was more than a handful for me so we quickly came up with methods to get smaller portions of water out when both of us were available to pour it as a team - usually into pitchers. 

Thinking about THAT experience brought back fond memories of our “bottle tipper” in Santiago all those years ago. I don’t know know who made it or where they got it, but it was a nifty gadget formed out of aluminum straps or some other metal. It sat on the floor with the full bottle fitting in a suspended basket of sorts. Pretty simple, but it lived up to its name. When you needed water, you simply tipped the bottle on its axis to pour the water out into your container.

…

After being reminded of frequent water woes in a place like this, I simply must share my hubby’s favorite water story from when we lived in Santiago. Be sure to click over to his blog because it is worth reading. You could even say it was a miracle.

500 miles, a new baby and being too busy

Yesterday was a big day. I reached a pretty big goal. AND I got a brand-new grand-daughter!!! Big day indeed.

And tomorrow starts a new chapter in our lives - living and working at a lighthouse - so today is not only a big day, but a transitional day. A day when I find myself feeling too busy.

...

Most of my life is pretty simple these days and I don't often find myself being over-busy. I like the fact that I have taken steps to simplify my life and my schedule. I'm grateful that I am able to do so.

Because, you see, for a lot of years I let myself get over-committed and then reaped the results of that. Most people understand the negative results of being too busy - namely stress and irritability as well as the danger of important stuff and people getting neglected. Other effects aren't so obviously negative; in fact, they can seem like positives - at least for someone like me. Maybe I'm not typical, but I have discovered that I was feeding my ego by my busyness. In some twisted way, my busy schedule seemed to equate importance. Value. Worth. The busier I was, the more important I must be; right? If I was "normally" busy, then I was important, but if I was super-busy, then I must be really something. Bah! What a crock!

So anyway, things have changed. I've gradually been learning that my self-worth is not measured by my busyness. And I've learned to love a simpler, quieter schedule.

But..........

This week things have converged to make me feel super-busy for the moment.

Things like a brand-new grandbaby born yesterday!!! Now there's a positive!!!

And tomorrow we start our two-week commitment working at a lighthouse! Yes, that's another positive, but we wouldn't have picked this time frame if we had known about the new baby when we made the commitment a year ago.

...

Here's the thing. This is the first time in a really long time that I have had to pack up to live anywhere other than in our little rig. I may have forgotten how to pack. I'm so spoiled by having everything in its place - no matter where we park. When we pull into a new site and unhitch, my shampoo and toothbrush and underwear and PJs are exactly where I need them. Not so for this coming week. Nope. Instead, I have to try to figure out what in the world I might need and try not to forget anything important. This week I have to live like a "normal" traveler - "out of a suitcase" - which means packing it first.

In fact, that's what I should be doing instead of writing. And so I will. If for no other reason, I want to get that stuff done so that I have more time to hold that little baby and to help her momma. Because that's the important stuff.

Oh, and there is also this...

At the beginning of the year, I committed to walking 500 miles and yesterday I made it to that goal!!! There's another positive. Something simple that I work on every day. And something to be proud of.

Two lives, two stories

Life A was my life as an insider.
A life of always striving...
To do right and to be right.
Of needing to impress.
A life of rules.
A life of effort.
A life of diligence and discipline.
A life of restriction.

...

Life B is my life outside the walls.
A life where it's okay to ask questions.
Where it is safe to express doubt.
Or wonderings.
A life where I don't have to always be right - nor have all the answers.
A life where people make mistakes and aren't afraid to admit them - even the leaders.
A life of grace.
A life of adventure.
A life of trust.
A life of freedom.

...

I never want to go back to Life A.
Unfortunately I catch myself once in awhile...
Still clinging to that life.
Still fearing condemnation.
Still following the rules.
Still needing to be right.
Still wanting to impress.
Still pretending to have all the answers.


Fortunately that happens only rarely.
Most of the time I am thrilled to be breathing the air of freedom.
Most of the time I can't imagine going back inside.

How in the world...?

How did we get from there to here? Sometimes I just shake my head in amazement at the huge changes in our lives in the last few years. What a journey it has been. What an adventure.

Some of the changes are obvious and have been rather dramatic. We have let go of the Christmas tree farm and the house we built and lived in for four decades. The home where we raised our kids and a whole bunch of other kids, too. Somehow we have walked away from that safe, secure, comfortable life and find ourselves out here on the road on a wild and crazy adventure.

Some of the changes have been more subtle or less visible or something, but have still been huge and dramatic in their own way. After six decades of being entrenched in church ministry, we have been catapulted from inside the walls of the institution and have landed somewhere outside of organized religion. What a journey that has been - leaving a life of over-commitment where my identity was wrapped up in my leadership role and now finding the courage to discover who I am as a person. To be willing to ask honest questions and begin to figure out which things really matter (like what did Jesus really say?) and to let go of the man-made stuff of religion. To get free from the legalistic striving for God's approval and the accompanying fear and condemnation and to finally begin to understand grace. ... Oh, what a wonderful thing. So amazing. To be set free. To be healed and restored.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~ 

How in the world did we get here? Here we are - out here on the road living the dream. We are portable. We are free to go where we wish. We get to see new places and do some exciting stuff. We get to walk on the beach every day instead of on icy roads. We get to meet people from all over the world. We get to taste different foods. I get to live my dream of being a writer - except for making an income from it. And I get to do all of this with my best friend and favorite person in the world. And we are healthy and happy. What a boatload of blessings! How in the world did we get here?

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~ 

At the same time I am painfully aware of friends and loved ones who don't have it so good. There have been too many moments when we were celebrating a momentous occasion even while dear friends were dealing with pain and fear and heartache. That's just life. There will always be good news and bad news intermingled in our lives and the lives of those around us.

It's tricky to celebrate your own good news in the presence of so much bad news going on. It can feel weird being one of the lucky ones when those around us are not so lucky. After dealing with my own cancer diagnosis and treatment and then recurrence and more treatment, I came through as one of the survivors - acutely aware that not everyone does. Friends were on a similar calendar to ours. We (their son and I) were diagnosed with cancer about the same time. We went through chemo during the same months. We were both bald that summer. But then I survived and he didn't - so it was weird to see his parents. I didn't know what to say to them. How to act. It felt like my presence could seem like a slap in the face - that here I was, but he was gone.

Similar feelings surface when we head out on an adventure at the very moment that someone else is dealing with sickness or death or heartache. We know that they don't want us to hide our excitement or our plans from them, but at the same time we don't want to flaunt our good fortune in the midst of their grief and pain.

In our spiritual journey as well, when we speak about how grateful we are for the circumstances that set us free and when we rejoice about grace and about being able to live without fear of condemnation, we are aware of those who have been deeply wounded or are still stuck inside the legalistic system. I certainly don't want to make anyone feel worse about their own bondage - except as it might help them encounter grace.

 So I want to be careful. To be considerate and compassionate. To be sensitive to the pain of others. At the same time, there is much to celebrate in our lives and I know that it doesn't do anybody any good for us to refuse to enjoy our blessings.

And so we do enjoy the good things that have come our way. And we do celebrate. And we do talk about them and write about them rather than trying to hide them or keep them to ourselves.

But still we shake our heads and wonder...

How in the world did we get here?

Why do we get to be among the lucky ones?

Why have we been given good news while others receive bad news?

 

...
 
    Continue with the next post... 
           ...or see the entire series here.  

 

Bad news or good news?

There's bad news and there's good news; which do you want first?

We can easily find an abundance of bad news - which may elicit responses of sadness or anger or fear of impending doom. Some people might try to find something positive in the bad news they hear, while other people seem to revel in finding bad news and redistributing it to everyone who will listen.


There is also good news to be found - if we look hard enough. Recently some of the networks have been deliberately doing "good news" features on their nightly news broadcasts - stories of good will to balance out the negative ones. I appreciate that.

By the way, I am referring to "news" in both a specific and a general sense - both the national and world news on TV or the internet as well as the tidbits of news we encounter throughout the day - like hearing about the latest cancer diagnosis or neighborhood tragedy.

At times it can seem like there is more bad news than good news - and I suppose that might be true - but I think it also has much to do with perspective.

Perspective is a funny thing. Perspective can be influenced by several factors. Factors like temperament, values, and the source of the news. There are probably several others as well but in my attempt to simplify this process for myself, I'm looking at these three.

Temperament
Do I tend to be generally optimistic or more of a downer?

We naturally tend to lean one way or another on the optimist/pessimist range - and perhaps we can't change that natural tendency. But maybe, just maybe, we can tweak it a bit by training ourselves to look at the opposite perspective or at least a different one. Now I happen to like good news better than bad news. I feel happier, safer and more secure when I can hear the news with some kind of positive spin - so I tend to choose to try to see the rose among the thorns. Yes, I might be a Pollyanna, but I'd rather be her than Debbie Downer - which could quite naturally become a default role for me.

Values
Where do I stand on issues?
What things really matter to me?
What are the things I value most highly?

Obviously, things that seem like bad news to me may sound like good news to someone who values different things than I do. And conversely, the things that I hail as good news may sound scary to you if you have landed on the opposite side of an issue. So it makes sense that different people will have differing viewpoints of any given news item. Conservatives may rejoice while liberals mourn the decision of the day - and vice-versa.

In the political realm, I was always a bit confused when my conservative friends would try to make an election strictly about values - and maybe about only one specific value. Be a values voter, they would say. That seemed strange to me because... Well, isn't everyone a values voter? Don't we all vote our values? Don't liberals also vote for people who they think will work for the things they value - like basic human rights, like caring for the poor and for the planet and the environment?

Source 
Where do I get my news?

As I already mentioned, yes, I am referring to which news program I watch every night, but also to the people who I allow to speak into my life about the latest development - whether global or local.

Given the choice, most of us will tune our TV or computer to the channel that aligns with our own values. We want to get our news from someone we can trust - which can't help but include being someone who agrees with me/us. Someone we consider to be telling the truth - because none of us wants to be misinformed.

...

Philip Yancey, one of my favorite authors, spoke of this topic as he looked back over the past year. Obviously there was much bad news in 2014 and he mentioned many of the items: Ebola, missing planes, racial tension, and violence on so many fronts.

But he also included a list of good news from the year - and I appreciate this perspective and the balance he offers by presenting this list.

• Abortions in the US are at their lowest rate since 1976.
• Violent crime has hit a 20-year low, with overall crime falling for fifteen straight years.
• Globally, absolute poverty (what’s necessary to afford minimal standards of food, clothing, health care and shelter) has reached the lowest level in recorded history.
• Deaths from wars in this century are fewer than at any comparable period in the twentieth century.
• Life expectancy continues to rise, reaching 78 in the US and 71 worldwide (up from 59 in 1970).
• Child mortality rates have dropped dramatically in the last forty years while education and literacy rates have soared. 

As for me, certainly I prefer getting my news from someone I can trust, someone who shares my values, but I also want to stretch myself a bit by hearing from those with a different perspective. I just might be able to learn more from someone on the opposite side of the table than from those nearest me.

But I also remind myself of the temperament and personality factors. If I am going to be alert to my own inner battle between optimism and pessimism... If I am going to work hard at having a fair and balanced perspective in my reaction to other people's news... Well, then I also might want to judge my source on the basis of their temperament and personality as well.

Whether referring to my choice of nightly news anchor or my favorite blogger or the sweet old neighbor lady who knows and shares the latest gossip - whoever might be the "source" I listen to for news, maybe I need to consider her record. Is she consistently correct? Is he always angry about something? Does he tend to rant about things? Is she always wringing her hands with worry? Does this source offer an abundance of bad news or do they provide some balance? Do they present a reasonable approach to what is happening?

When someone is always ranting about the awful news in the world, I will likely take their opinion with a grain of salt. If someone can see only one side of an issue with no acknowledgment that there may be other valid opinions, I'm likely to be wary.


~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~   

How about you?

There is good news and there is bad news.

Which do you want first?

Or perhaps more aptly, how will you find a balanced and wise perspective?

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~   


...and now I begin to think of an alternate title: Is it bad news or good news?

That's actually what I feel like asking sometimes when someone breathlessly tells me some juicy morsel and I can't tell if they think it is terrible or wonderful. Or maybe it's obvious which label they would use but it doesn't seem quite so obvious to me.

Then again it might actually be a good question to ask myself about any given tidbit of news. Like maybe if instead of immediately judging the information by my own particular prejudices and preparing my personal rant, if maybe I would pause to think about those to whom this is good news or to whom this is bad news, I might be a bit more compassionate.

Maybe.

Maybe it's not always easy to tell if something is good news or bad news.