In My Heart On...Friday

A day late, but worth sharing a thought that's inspiring me...

“When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in.” 


                                                                                                                         – D. H. Lawrence

Obligatory New Year's Blah-Blah-Blah

A few weeks ago I read an article explaining that time does not stop or change at the New Year, only humans do.  At the time I thought to myself, "Who cares?  Resolving to make myself a better person isn't a bad thing."  Now, though, I've lived through another New Year's and I'm understanding more clearly what the article's writer had been imbibing.

The truth is, I am not a better person than I was three days ago and I don't feel the motivation or desire to be so.  This New Year's Eve found me more mad at the world than I can remember ever being and that mood hasn't left me.  I know we're individually responsible for making our own happiness, but I haven't made it work before and the dead cold dark of January isn't really the time I see myself finding motivation to make this time successful.  So, with an apology to my husband and my kids who take the brunt of my self-imposed misery, let me say that one day I will try again to quit making your life miserable.

In the meantime, here are a few of the activities I'm looking forward to planning, experiencing, and writing about in 2011.

1.  A year of Thai food cooking.
2.  List and review of books I read in 2010
3.  Finding a way to make sure 2012 finds us somewhere more exotic than we are now.
4.  Rediscovering the feeling of true faith.

Best wishes to you if you're hyped up for a finger-tingling year.  Hopefully I'll find you there in a little while!

The Way Life Turns Out To Be

A professor once asked the students of her marriage preparation course, "What are the most important values you are looking for in a spouse?" The lists were long: sense of humour, intelligence, faith, steady job, good family, similar interests, education, sense of adventure, loyalty, stability... The professor then asked, "What one of those values is your top priority?" Without much pause, students responded: sense of humour, intelligence, faith, steady job, good family, similar interests, education, sense of adventure, loyalty, stability... They, like most of modern society, wanted it all. *

We are fortunate to live in an age when any dream can be realized or obtained. What a marvelous thing! We should never take it for granted; we should also never let it cloud our vision. The fact of the matter is, "having it all" only comes after we've obtained important things individually. Very few people win the lottery and see all of their dreams fulfilled in one lump sum. We have to prioritize or instead of achieving all our goals we'll find ourselves many years down the road living with none of them.

 Let's use relationships as an example. Every one of the attributes listed above is noble and desirable. It is natural to judge new acquaintances in accordance with the characteristics we value. The key is not letting the entire list keep us from getting to know a person better. We would remain friendless and alone for eternity. Allowing ourselves to be pulled towards what is good enables us to explore what more could be good. It is here, unfortunately, where we begin to see another sort of problem. Instead of negating all people because they don't match every standard, some people throw common sense out the window and choose instead to naively accept all people. In the end, neither scenario is going to bring us closer to achieving our goals. 

I think every person can benefit from setting down to re-evaluate the areas of life where they've had goals and dreams-work, community involvement, diet, etc. Think back to a time when these ideas were new. What made you smile and feel happy? What ideas did you have about where life was heading? What was most important and have you held onto that as you've moved forward towards achieving your goals? If not, there is still time to pause and reconsider how to redirection your life so that those important attributes surround you. And, then, here's the kicker: What were your dealbreakers? What were the things that you absolutely would not accept? If you ever find yourself questioning why life has turned out so differently than you'd imagined or if there is an aspect of life that continually (or confusedly) makes you unhappy, take a moment to also reconsider these things. 

We are blessed to live in a time where we can achieve every single thing our hearts and minds set out to do. Let us work towards those goals by making sure we stand steadfast on the individual attributes that will make us the person we want to be. (*Thank you to Jacque DeGaston for relating this story)

Thanks for allowing me the liberty to re-post this entry from my first year of writing.  Feeling uninspired in life right now, I'm grateful to the Lord for leading me back to my own enlightened guidance...

Be As Little Children

At the end of what has seemed to be an unending week full of twists and turns, I feel impressed to write about a simple thing that I've noticed in my son Beck. At eight months old he has the faculties to be in control of his life. What's greater is that he uses them. What am I talking about? Of course, he will for a long long time depend on his parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and numerous other adults to help him through life. But each day as I watch him I am amazed at what he has already learned. Beyond amazement, I marvel at how so many of the natural controls a baby exercises in his life each day are in large part forgotten by the age of adulthood. To give an example, let me describe mealtime. Beck certainly has not learned manners yet. He sets with his mouth hinged wide open and his arms flailing waiting for the coming spoonful of food to be shoveled in his mouth, and if it does not get there quick enough he surely lets me know. As his belly begins to get full, however, the open cavern gets smaller and smaller until he's content enough to get distracted with what's going on around him and his mouth just quits opening. His body tells him when it has had enough and he listens and obeys. (The trick is for me to also be paying attention and stop when he shows me he is full.) How simple it is for him to eat and stop eating according to his body's natural ability to regulate itself! It's not to say I can't get another bite into him-I can. But, in addition to looking out for his nutritional well-being, my role is to help him recognize moderation and restraint. I can do that by listening when he tells me he is full. So, why can't I do that with my own belly? I'm positive my parents were not shoving unwanted food down my throat all through my childhood (french-cut green beans and Spanish rice, aside). It hardly seems useful to try and pinpoint a moment in life where I decided I would start eating to the point of overindulgence. Why do any us of need to do that? Isn't it interesting, though, that so many of us do push past that point that our bellies tell us not to? I know, of course, that a large problem now is that we're eating faster and before our stomachs can say, "Enough," we're out the door and onto the day's next event. But, even in those cherished long and leisurely social gatherings when the body has ample time to give us warnings, we tell it, "Shhh," and keep on eating. The focus in my mind is not to specifically pick out eating and overeating. It is to realize that as babies grow into children and children into adults there are simple and natural behaviors that are often left to fade away. Only eating until we're full, getting sleep and rest when we become tired, squirming around kicking our legs and batting our arms because we have energy and know we need to use it-I think these are some of the child-like attributes we are often counseled to express.