Puppy Love

It was a clear-cut case of love at first sight. And it couldn't have happened at a more opportune time. 

My brother had just passed away unexpectedly. He had been doing so well, and then, he wasn't. Just like that. And I never got a chance to say goodbye. And it was so sudden, so wrenching, so ... raw. 

I'd been initially planning to get a puppy at the end of 2020. But here it was, end of February, and I was scrolling through the 'puppies for adoption' page at a site I frequent. And there it was. Someone not 30 minutes' drive from me was selling puppies, of the breed I was looking for. I clicked on the ad. The mother dog had given birth to five puppies and they pretty much all looked alike - except one. I clicked on his picture. And he was standing there so pretty, so proud, so sure of himself, and showing so much personality and yet gentleness that my heart almost skipped a beat. 

After talking it over with my family, and given the current restrictions of Covid-19, I decided to send the breeder a note and see if I could set up a time to visit the litter (this was before the isolation rules started.) She said sure, and before long I and my daughter were knee deep in little dogs. All of them Pomeranians!! Some looked like the standard image I had in my mind: orange with big floofs around the face and a plume-like tail. But these were different. They were white with brown and black markings. Only this little guy was white with black markings, and just a touch of brown. 

I left holding him to the last... wanting to give the others a chance. But it was no use. He had stolen my heart from the first click. And when I picked him up, and saw how curious, interested, and confident he was, even though he did let me roll him over on his back - when I saw him not once ask to get back in the pen with his siblings - he sealed the deal for me. And I was absolutely, 100 per cent smitten. 

I reserved him with the breeder and waited for him to be old enough to come home with me. That would not be until another few weeks, after we had completed our 14-day self-imposed isolation. 

Bullet - born Feb 7, 2020, age 9.4 weeks

We picked him up last Friday. And it seems now like he has always been here. What a ray of sunshine in otherwise dark times! What a reminder that there is still some sweetness, light, and humour in this crazy climate of rules and distancing and fear! He's melted the hearts of all who have seen his pictures or met him in person (like the vet, earlier today). I've filled an album already on Facebook with photos and videos of him. 

He loves his harness. He loves his kibble. He loves his pen and his crate. He loves pleasing us and learning new things (like going potty outside). 

He loves his bully sticks. He loves his Miss Kitty, a soft plush kitty with a heart-beat inserted into her (which we can control off and on through a button on the unit). He loves me and my husband and my daughter. Plain and simple, it's a terminal case of puppy love, which is whole-hearted, unreserved, unadulterated, super-intense and highly focused, unconditional positive regard, for which there is no cure. He loves the way I want to love. With the passionate love of a puppy for everything and everyone in his world. 

And at this point in my life, I needed a daily, constant reminder of that kind of love. Perhaps it is no coincidence that d-o-g is G-o-d spelled backward. I'd like to think so. Because if any being on this earth can show the kind of love God does, it's a little, 2.2-pound ball of fluff who is right now chewing on his bully stick at my feet. He's happy to be with me, happy to be doing what he loves, and confident in my love for him. 

What a lesson. What a beautiful, soft, gentle, fun-loving, joy-bringing lesson to my heart. Live in the moment, love with all your heart, and keep doing that. What a gift! I am so very blessed.



 

FEEL what you feel

2016.  Wow. 

As the year dawns, I've been reflecting on what I could do to improve myself, to improve my life, resolutions to make.  Since I am in a process of continual growth, I am sure some things will come to me.  However, the one thing I keep coming back to - because I am reminded of it over and over - is the importance of feeling what I feel. 

It sounds ludicrous when you say it like that, doesn't it?  But I am serious!  

I saw this poster someone put on a social media site recently.  It talked about how worry hurts the stomach, fear hurts the kidneys, and so forth.  Let me be clear on this: emotions are a gift - even the "bad" ones!!

The only time that emotions are bad for us is when we hold them back, or hold onto them for a long time.  The act of keeping that grip on them is harmful, yes.  But they are not the culprit.  We are.

The brain has several parts, and people talk about their frontal lobes and occipital lobes and so forth, they talk about their IQ, and may even boast about it.  But few people think about how at the very base of the brain, under all those cognitive processes (like memory, decision-making, logic, reasoning, and so on) are a whole network of what look like nodules - this is what neuroscientists call 'the limbic system' and it is responsible for the emotions that we feel.  

Now, I figure if those things are there and protected by the skull, so deep down that even skull penetration with a foreign object is not likely to strike it, they must be pretty important.  

The limbic system (connected chemically to the brain stem at the base of our skull) is where we get such important chemicals as adrenaline - which helps in fight-or-flight situations!  Our emotions do have a purpose, and it is best to deal with our emotions the way the designer intended.  

I look at it this way.  Our feelings are the nervous system of the soul.  We need nerves in our body to tell us what is hot, cold, pleasurable, painful, and tasty (or not).  When we touch something hot, our nerves carry that message to the brain and in fractions of a second, the brain reacts and tells our body part to get out of there! Pain - and pleasure - show us what is safe and what is not.  Just so with our feelings.  Listening to them will tell us what is safe and what (or who) is not.  Experiencing them can bring us great reward, and suppressing them for a long time not only cuts off the painful emotions, but prevents us from feeling the pleasurable ones too.  

Photo "Silhouette Of A Man On The Rocks At Sunset" 
courtesy of satit_srihin at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

I would rather experience some pain than not have the capacity to feel it at all, and eventually end up hurting myself (and those who love me) by not being able to have compassion.  And I would rather be sad or angry or afraid (even though those emotions are not pleasant!) than not be able to feel them when it would be right to do so.  What kind of person would I be (for example) not to feel angry, even enraged, when someone (and that someone also might include me just as well as it could another person) is being treated unfairly?  

A healthy person experiences the whole gamut of emotions (not usually all at once!), listens to them and expresses them in safe ways, and does whatever is necessary to deal with the causes of those feelings - whether it's looking after the self, or comforting another, or even fighting passionately for what's right.

Once feelings have served their purpose in making us aware of something, and once we have expressed them and acted on them in appropriate ways, it is okay to let them go ... they will come again when they are needed.  It's how we are built.  It's what we do.  And it's how we can really live. 

Huh. I guess that's it, isn't it!  If I had to choose a theme for this year (for myself), I guess I would choose the line to a Bon Jovi song:  "... I just wanna live while I'm alive."  (It's My Life, 2000, emphasis mine).

The View from Here

A dear friend of mine called me yesterday morning to ask a favour - which I gladly granted - and we got to talking (as we usually do) about everything and anything, sharing the things on our hearts, and so forth.

It got me to thinking about how many (easy and hard) things I have experienced in my life, and wondering how much more there is to experience.  Ten years ago, if you had told me that I would be doing the things I am today, holding the opinions I have today, feeling as blessed as I am today, and planning the career I am planning today, I would have laughed SO hard.  Never would I have believed you.  

And yet, as I look around me, I have a sober and fully present soul-mate: my husband has been returned to me and we have enjoyed to the full his last six-plus years of sobriety.  I have his love and the love of my children (one here, one in Heaven).  I have the loving care of my dearest friends who are like family to me.  I have a job that is fulfilling and that pays me enough money to pay the bills and go to school at the same time.  I have a second career planned in connection with that schooling, and I have a renewed sense of self-respect and self-care that has allowed me to rid myself of excess baggage and stress in my life. Or, maybe, getting rid of the baggage and stress has allowed me to have more self-respect and self-care; I don't know.  

Photo "Monarch Butterfly" courtesy of
Liz Noffsinger at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

I have been in this chrysalis (cocoon) for a long time.  It feels as though who I was ten years ago has been slowly liquefied and another being has been forming, irrevocably changed at a fundamental level.  I cannot go back to who I was.  It is unthinkable; I am not her anymore.  I am "becoming a person" as Carl Rogers would say.

That catches me off-guard occasionally.  In a way, I don't recognize myself sometimes anymore; I do and say things now that I never would have done or said back then. Some of them are not as "polite" or "nice" as before, but then again, back then I was terrified of people not liking me, so I held back.  Not so much anymore. My fears are vaporizing, one by one.  I know that I do feel freer, more comfortable in my own skin. 

I miss certain things, certain people.  However, in some cases, the need for some of those people and things has served its purpose and it has passed, and I can do nothing except move on.  (I can hardly believe my ears as I say that. It's such a radical difference, coming from the "hang-on-for-dear-life" queen!)  I am growing and developing as a person.  Mind you, I have quite a ways to go yet, but I am improving.  

I don't think I am quite as self-righteously judgmental as I used to be (I still have some distance to cover on that at times).  I talk with people I would have crossed the street to avoid ten years ago.  Some people that I was drawn to back then (specifically the super-religious and super-ambitious types), I am repulsed by now because ... I guess ... their attitudes and speech remind me of where I used to be and what I thought was "right" - the problem was, I was more interested in being "right" and being seen favourably than I ever was about caring about people. That is changing ... thank God.  When I hear people being racist, or fat-ist (prejudiced against fat people), or elitist (prejudiced against someone based on their bank account or their bloodlines), or able-ist (prejudiced against someone for having [or not having] a visible disability) or homophobic, I am far more likely to speak out against it, rather than stay silent (or worse yet, laugh along with it.) 

I realize with some surprise that I have slowly allowed myself to take up space, and to have a voice, in the world.  Before, I wanted to disappear, to blend into my surroundings: I was a chameleon. It is a perfectly good skill to have if you are in an abusive relationship from which you cannot escape.  But ... I don't live in that atmosphere any more, so I am learning new skills. I still have those old skills if I need to use them, but I am seeing less and less of a need to do so.  I have learned that - as an adult - I have the choice to walk away from a relationship if it is abusive.  Or I can expose the abuse, since it tends to crouch in dark corners and avoid detection (that is how it survives.  Why not shine a bright light on it?). I - who avoided confrontation at all cost - can stand up to something that hurts me or hurts someone I love.  Huh.  Who knew?  

The view where I started, at the base of this mountain, was pretty daunting. It was littered with random boulders and strewn with debris and the occasional shrub.  I could only see in my own immediate vicinity, my own little irritations and pet peeves, my own futile attempts to climb. Overhead, dark clouds loomed, and the sun seemed very far away. 

I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but I do know when:  about six or seven years ago, I started shedding the chameleon skin (in therapy) and it was like someone from above threw me a rope that was anchored into solid rock, and attached to that rope was some climbing gear - it was a mess for a while until I figured out (mostly) how it worked and started climbing.  I am nowhere near the top now, but occasionally, I am able to put a knot in my rappelling line and turn around... and the dark clouds don't seem so ominous anymore.  I can even see a few rays of light ... and more square mileage than just my own little corner.  The things that previously seemed so random look more like a great mosaic, pieces of things put together that when you get far enough away from them, look like a work of art. 

I see others in the distance, other would-be climbers who are stuck in their own little corners, and I know that eventually I will be able to throw them a rope and some gear, too. I find myself looking forward to being able to do that, to trust my own gear enough to be able to help them use theirs.

That's a good feeling.  For now, though, I think I see the next foothold. And above that, a ledge ...

Progressively unwrapped

In one of my previous posts, I talked about personal guidelines that I have established, over the course of the last five years, for my own reactions to life and to people's (including my) behavior.

Lately it seems as though I've been having to reinforce some of these, especially the last one, where I walk away from relationships with people who consistently make me feel "less than." 

Some of these folks are persistent, and apparently will stop at nothing - including recruiting other people into their campaigns - to draw me back into the place where they are controlling and manipulating me again. (Fortunately, now I see what they're doing well in advance, which gives me a chance to regroup.) So, I've had to re-draw some boundaries. Again. (It happens; some folks just don't take no for an answer until right around the hundredth time, LOL) 

When I speak of graveclothes, (and I frequently do speak of them on this blog) I mean those things that others - by their reactions to my existence or to my behavior - have wrapped around me so tightly that I internalized them, made them a part of who I was and the way I thought about life. These were / are things over which I have had no control and which then gained the power to control me - things like "what will people think" and "if only" and "what if" and "nobody likes me" and so forth.

The more often I refuse to be bound up again by the old smelly graveclothes of being victimized or of trying to make everyone like me, the easier it becomes and the more free I am, free from being that chameleon that turns into whatever someone else wants me to be ... or of blending into the surroundings so that nobody notices me and therefore won't hurt me...again.

I'm more free to be me. To have my own thoughts. To hold my own opinions. To occupy space in the world. To be visible. To exist. 

Photo "Happy Jumping
Child" by chrisroll at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

For you see, for the longest time I didn't believe that I had the right to exist - not like other people who could get away with saying or thinking whatever they wanted and not getting slapped down for it. I'd been treated that way for such a long time - as far back as I can remember - that I thought it was normal. 

It wasn't. 

And when I got into recovery from that wilting-flower "don't-hurt-me" mind-set, I started to learn that who I was, and what I thought and believed and said as a result, was okay. Part of the reason I started this blog was because I had started to believe that I had something worthwhile to say, that I could actually contribute to the world, and make a positive difference if given the chance.  I also learned that if I made a mistake, it wasn't the end of the world and I could actually learn from it. (I know, duhhh...) 

This kind of thinking was alien to me before. I lived according to the rules of the chameleon: hide, blend in, disappear, change to fit the circumstances, and when all else fails, freeze and hope they don't notice you. I lived not in the present but either regretting the past or being afraid of the future. 

These are powerful forces. 

Until they're not. 

That process took some time ... and I'm still running up against hangers-on in my life where the graveclothes cling to me.

But for the most part, today, I live in the freedom of being who I am and of not caring what this one or that one thinks or believes or says. And this new lifestyle is so important and precious to me that it is well worth defending, well worth looking back once in a while to see how far I've come and remembering that "old me" enough to re-affirm that I never want to go back to that. 

Not ever. 

For, as my post title indicates, I'm more and more free as time goes on, as those things drop off me, as I learn to live in the now and to be who I am. 

Freedom might be something that a few people take for granted because it's all they've ever known - they have no idea how fortunate they are - but there used to be a huge bull's-eye on my back and now that it's fading away, I don't ever want it to reappear.

Worth it

“If you had asked me, before this happened, what the worst thing in my life would be, it would be to lose a child. To lose Sarah. I now know that there is one thing worse and that would be never to have had her at all. Right. So what that tells me is to look at all these wonderful things she did accomplish and to enjoy them, let them bring you happiness.”
- Jan Phelan, Sarah Burke's mom.
Quote retrieved from the video at:  http://olympics.cbc.ca/blogs/author/nick-purdon/article/sarah-burke-legacy-lives-sochi-olympics.html

I forgot an appointment today. I missed my reminder on my email because I was away from my desk when it popped up on my computer. So fifteen minutes later I got a call from the person with whom I was to have met. "You coming?" Apologies and ten minutes later I was meeting with her. The meeting took less than the hour we had budgeted, but it did go over the time we were supposed to be finished (she had to see another person right after me). 

So I was late leaving her office. What that meant was that I took short-cuts through stores and a coffee shop on the way back to work. And in the coffee shop ... I saw her. It was someone I used to work with a couple of years previous and who hadn't seen me since my daughter passed away last October. 

She'd heard. It seems most everyone has. And she conveyed her condolences. We chatted for a bit as her to-go order came up and that's when she told me about the interview with Jan Phelan and the quote (above) that struck her and was so powerful that it made her cry. 

It was so powerful that it made me cry too. Which is as it should be. 

It was moving - the tremendous attitude of this mother whose daughter's life was cut short on a snowboarding slope as she trained for a lead-up to the first-ever half-pipe competition in a winter Olympics. It was inspiring. 

It was just what I needed to hear. 

There were times in my youngest daughter's life that I wasn't so sure if it had been a good idea to have another child. Times when I was fighting with schoolteachers and the mental health care system and even wondering why she would deliberately pick friends that made me uncomfortable... It wasn't easy parenting this kid who was so unbelievably the opposite from me. Sometimes I messed up royally! Most times I wondered if she was stringing me a line. 

And ... were it not for the last 35 days of her life, I would have said that it wasn't worth the trouble. All the nights I cried myself to sleep wondering if she was alive and safe. All the times I checked the weather forecast in Edmonton, Alberta to see if she might have frozen to death in her car the night before. All the money I poured into her bank account hoping that she'd find a place to live, thinking that all she needed was a chance to prove herself. There were people who told me that I was letting her take advantage of me.  I had given until there was nothing left to give and still I gave some more, going into debt to do it. And by rights, I should have given up and let her fend for herself. It wasn't worth the anguish and the sleepless nights. By rights.

But then ... there were those last 35 days. Those last, priceless, 35 days.

Summer 2012 at Victoria Park

Don't misunderstand me. She wasn't a saint and (we are learning now) she still pulled the wool over my eyes again and again about where and how she was spending the money I sent to her.  However, something fundamental ... something wonderful ... happened inside of her on September 17, 2013 that turned her life around ... and made the bad times seem more worth it. We connected on a deep, spiritual level. I remember her saying to me, nearly awestruck, in early October or thereabouts, "I just can't believe that you and I are talking about God. Of all things." It's all I ever wanted for her. It was my finest prayer, my finest hope for her to be able to experience Him in a real way like she did that night in September.

And no, I'm not some sort of masochist (someone who enjoys pain) when I say that it was worth it. And I'm not about to say that I'd do it all over again. Once was quite enough ... thank you. I'd rather crawl on my hands and knees over broken glass than go through that again. But ... I can see that there was a purpose in it all being allowed.  

Family relationships have been mended. New friendships have been forged. Existing friendships have been deepened. Some people have had their lives transformed by her legacy. Many other people all over North America, and even as far away as Australia, have been deeply touched by her story (link to that story here) and I believe firmly that it needs to be told, again and again. 

I also believe that it was no accident that I was running late today, that it was so cold that I was cutting through buildings to get where I was going. It was no coincidence that my old acquaintance was there or that she had watched the highlights reel of the Olympic coverage and caught that snippet of an interview with the mom of one of our would-be athletes. No, I don't believe in coincidences. As Albert Einstein said, coincidences are just God's way of remaining anonymous. 

Let her story touch you. That's what it is for. That's what makes the tragedy of her death worth it.

More

For a long time now, I've likened my own recovery to a journey. I still believe that it is a journey ... only not in the way one might think.

A journey metaphor implies a beginning, a middle and an end. It's a place of departure and a destination at which one arrives triumphant. But recovery, I'm discovering, is not like that. 

It's a journey all right. But it doesn't go in a straight line. And you NEVER arrive. NEVER. 

The journey I mean is not one toward a goal that can be measured, some sort of award you can place on your wall and point to and say, "There. I did that."  Rather, it's an excursion into the self, drilling and chipping past layer upon layer of sediment: hard-packed rock built up over years and years of pain, trying to find that elusive commodity that got buried all those years ago - the true self that dares not show itself lest it be trampled. Again. 

Photo "Whole And Halved Onion" courtesy of
bplanet at the site
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Sometimes, after getting through one layer and seeing some progress, the tendency is to think that I've arrived ... to want to share that knowledge with the rest of the world ... and all that succeeds in doing is that it alienates those who care about me. And it isolates me. 

Getting past those layers (which have to be handled one at a time) is like peeling an onion. Each layer involves ripping ... pain ... and tears. Lots of tears shed.

The missing ingredient to all this - is the other entity that tries to escape detection: the person I had to become very early in my life in order to survive, the person in me that I hate. That is the monster that disguises itself as the victim, the martyr, the watchdog, the warrior, and any number of other things that SEEM to be justified. It's there just beneath the surface, seething in anger, trembling in fear, waiting for an opportunity to rise up and take over my life and regain control over others. It's the old me, the one who wraps herself in graveclothes and then puts on a mantle of respectability. 

Until it's exposed. Until someone pins it down and calls it what it is. 

Someone I care about a lot, someone who was very hurt by that monster as recently as yesterday (and for many years prior), finally decided to stand up to it. And that person exposed it for what it was, in all of the stench of decomposition that clung to it. That old me didn't like being exposed. It fought. It lashed out. It squirmed. But the new me - the one who is just barely beginning to be made known - along with the help of this loved one, realized that this whole thing was another manifestation, another mask, for that monster. And that it was something that needed to be addressed ... and NOW.  

So I had to do a few things that were very uncomfortable. 

1. I had to admit that I was wrong, that the monster existed and had hurt my loved ones. 
2. I had to root out the source of the underlying attitudes that were wrong.
3. I had to reject those attitudes and agree not to adopt them anymore.
4. I had to admit them to myself, to God and to the person I had wronged, as well as to those who were witnesses to that behavior and who were affected by it.
5. I had to ask those people to keep me honest with myself.

Before I go any further, let me first say that it is totally impossible for me to do all of that on my own. I need to be empowered to do those things; I usually find such empowerment from my reliance on and relationship with God. 

I am grateful to that loved one for pushing past the fear and confronting the monster in me. At the time, it was (shall we say) NOT pleasant. AT ALL. But it needed to be confronted.

I'm not as cock-sure as I was before; my arrogance about "recovery" was pretty off-putting to a lot of people, I'm sure. I know that this angry, fearful Thing is likely to resurface in another area; that is the major take-away from this experience. There is always going to be more. More layers, more hiding, more excavation to do. It's very humbling ... and that's likely a good sign. 

And as I go through more layers - painful as that process is - there is one more side-effect. A positive one. I get closer and closer to the real me - that one who's trapped beneath the surface. At least now I can hear her voice ... even through the bedrock.

The Comfort Zone

By definition, a person's "comfort zone" is that realm of living in the everyday that feels comfortable, right.  At ease.  It's a combination of social circles, circumstances, individual relationships, job duties, and other miscellaneous expectations, routines, and habits to which a person has become accustomed.  It's the place in life where one feels safe.  

That makes a major assumption.  It assumes that the person has an inner comfort zone.  Such is not always the case.

The comfort zone I mean is the one where one feels comfortable inside - at peace with one's self.  The French call it "être à l'aise dans sa peau" - or "being at ease inside one's skin" - and it involves one very difficult - but essential - relationship. 

It's the relationship with oneself. For, as I understand the two most essential commandments of the Jewish law, identified by Jesus, it is necessary to have three relationships in life - and in this particular order of importance: with God, with oneself, and with others.

LINK for this photo

I've said a lot about relationship with God on this blog, so I'll leave that one alone in this post. Besides, I think that most people would agree that it's necessary to have a friendship with the Creator.  But I've seen a lot of people skip over that relationship with the self ... thinking it's somehow selfish ... and focus on other people exclusively.  Then they wonder why their caring for other people seems difficult, or forced, or why they are continually burning out and becoming resentful of the people they are nurturing.  I did that - for years.  I still fight the tendency to do it.  There seems to be a collective / cultural guilt surrounding the idea of being a friend to oneself. Perhaps it's that whole religious thing - the idea that paying attention to the self is egotistical, arrogant, and selfish. (Absolutely not the case. Just saying.) But as I keep telling my friends, "You're the only YOU that you have. Look after YOU ... please." I guess I need to keep reminding myself of the same thing, too.  Self-care fills my emotional tank and allows me not to get burned out as quickly (if at all) when I need to show compassion and caring to someone else.

Notice I said to show caring.  That doesn't mean that I rush in without permission into someone's life and start dispensing advice or (worse yet) barking orders - something I need to keep reminding myself about because that's what I used to do --- and on a regular basis.  It means that if someone needs a little help getting their bearings, I give them a soft place to land, to rest, to get their feet under them, to believe in themselves, and to learn to fly on their own.  It doesn't mean I create in them a dependency on me, on my advice or whatever else I think they might need. If I do that, then the relationship with the other person becomes about me.  That's not healthy.

But showing compassion and caring is the end result.  It will naturally flow out of relationship with God and then relationship with the self.  Many people focus on the end result of caring for others and showing compassion to them, - give, give, and give some more - and end up frustrated over time because ... well, there are any number of reasons but they all stem from a desire to have some sort of acknowledgement from the other person for their self-sacrifice.  It's been my experience that if I am looking after myself, I don't NEED that acknowledgement (I won't turn it away or be unthankful if it happens, but that's not my motivation or my goal) because I'm operating out of a place of fulness rather than running on empty all the time. 

As a matter of fact, when I actually DO start feeling edgy or resentful of someone else, that's my warning sign that I haven't been looking after myself. That's the time for some "me time" - to look after myself and be at ease inside my own skin - to find my own "comfort zone."

Get a good grip

You probably would not guess by looking at me, but I love to golf.  I'm not very good at it, but I love to do it.  (I haven't been able to lately for two reasons: my health and my finances). 

One of the first things you learn to do is how to hold the golf club so that the ball will fly straight and long.  It's a delicate balance - you want to hold it tight enough so it doesn't slip, but loose enough so that you don't throw off your whole swing (and sacrifice both distance and accuracy) by tightening up your muscles.  Once the club is pointed in the right direction, a perfectly great golf swing can be ruined by a poor grip.  Too tight and you hook or slice the ball... or you lean back and try to give'er - as the saying goes - and end up "topping" it so it only dribbles off the tee and bouncing about thirty feet ahead.  Not good.  Too loose, and the ball might go a long way, but the club will turn at the point of impact and send the ball in the wrong direction!

I will never forget what the person who taught me said about this. "Balance. Relax your core and keep your shoulders square, your feet lined up to where you want the ball to go.  Your stance should be natural, not contrived. Keep your eye on the ball at all times through the swing.  And remember above all things: it's golf, not baseball. It's not going to go farther if you lean back and put yourself out of balance. Finesse is more important than power."  

Here's the link for this photo!

Great life lessons!  

So is this one - courtesy of my husband.  "Don't compare yourself to the other player(s).  Golf is a contest but not with them ... it's with yourself. If you flub a shot, learn from it, let it go, and move on.  You're here to have fun, not to beat up on yourself."

But of all the things that I had to learn, the grip - I believe - was by far the most important, because it would complement or throw off everything else about my game.  Knowing how to handle that club was key for me to not lose my ball in the rough or miss hitting it altogether.  The reward for a good grip was that satisfying "sssnICK!" as the club face hit that ball right on the sweet spot... and my gaze would follow that ball straight down the fairway. Usually with my mouth open in amazement.

And at first - it felt so incredibly unnatural.  Grip it tight with these fingers but let those fingers flex with the shot.  Hook this finger around that one. No, not like that, like this.  (It was easy to tense up by this point).  Keep your wrists cocked until you get to the bottom of the swing and then straighten them out for impact and let them go again as you follow through.  Confusing?  OH yeah!

It was that way in my own journey of inner healing too.  I had to learn new skills I never had before.  Yes, keep holding on to this but let go of that.  Put this priority over that one, keep it there, no, now it's too far - tighten up this a little, loosen that, adjust your sights, now practice a bit.  See how that feels... (it felt ruddy awkward!!) Ah, you see? that's a good grip! (Really? how do people live like this?)

Eventually though, after a few successful swings at life - seeing the far-reaching results of even my own feeble efforts to live life without trying to beat it (or me) to death, I got a bit more used to the new normal.  And my life-game started to improve.

By no means have I broken a hundred yet.  But at least I'm getting a good grip.  I just need more practice.

Sharing one's Story

It's astounding how powerful the simple act of sharing one's own experience can be.   

Recently I was somewhere where a bunch of people were sharing their stories of how they had learned to develop a relationship with God.  There was one person who was really struggling, trying to figure it all out and getting more and more frustrated and angry that nothing was working.  This person freely admitted not having a personal relationship with God.  In the next breath the person talked about trying to dredge up the past and deal with it, yet the tone this person used was so resentful, hurt and bewildered that family members did not seem to understand and sympathize.  

I could relate.  Not long ago I had those very same reactions, flailing around in my own cesspool of long-standing resentments, grudges, and all the while wanting someone else to fix me.  Yet in trying to unearth the past without giving the whole process over to God first, all I ended up doing was digging dirt all over myself; there was nowhere else to put it because the more I tried to put it on my family members, the more I got all over myself!!  I wanted to speak up and say that without God in the picture - all that introspection and reliving old memories was for nothing. 

But as I listened, I decided to unhook, to give even this uncomfortable experience over to God. 

When the person was finished speaking, another person spoke up - and told a story of years of struggling to deal with all kinds of baggage without God and how that did NOT work, then how in desperation that willingness to consider that God might be part of the solution came to be - how there was now a growing relationship and reliance on Him, and how a transformation has slowly taken place ever since.  The story was so powerful as we listened - some drinking it in because they'd never heard it, and some marveling in the miracle because we'd seen the 'before picture' and we've watched in gratitude and wonder as the transformation has taken place.  All of us knew that God was present.  The sense of His presence was almost tangible.  It was a tremendously powerful moment.  

I remember, many years ago when I first started going to the church I go to now, how my whole family thought I was such a traitor for leaving their denomination.  One family member expressed her genuine concern that I was "seeking after experience."  She said it like it was a bad thing.  I remember being baffled by that.  "Isn't that what the Christian life is?" I asked.  "An experience with the living God?"  And I watched her struggle for words ... words that never came.  For, I realized shortly afterward, a person can dismiss advice, can argue belief, can disagree with opinion.  But experience is irrefutable.  

I've seen it happen over and over again.  Just like the blind man Jesus healed (the one who was born blind) discovered, there is no defense against experience. "I was blind.  Now I see."   

It is what it is.  And it is powerful.

Long after the effects of sermons, motivational talks and the like have worn off, someone's story will be remembered, looked to as an example of what God can do in a life.  This kind of honesty has helped rescue more people simply by them coming to the conclusion that if God did this much for that person... maybe He'll do it for me.  Another's experience can give strength and hope to those who have none; it must never be underestimated.

Normal - NOT!

"As long as we believe that someone else has the power to make us happy then we are setting ourselves up to be victims"- Robert Burney  

I grew up thinking that my relationships, my upbringing, my siblings, my parents, my relatives... were just like everyone else - or rather, that everyone was like us. That everyone's parents acted like mine did.  That everyone got "wailed."   That everyone went to bed scared to death that they wouldn't wake up in the morning.  That it was all normal. 

It wasn't normal at all.  It was extremely dysfunctional, in fact - so much so that it took a year of therapy for me to even begin to be free of it... and the insidious lies I was told and shown while I was growing up still resurface and need to be put to death with truth. 

I encounter this all the time.  Usually it's from those in my family or my old circle of friends, most of whom are still living in dysfunction.  I heard it again tonight.  I'd told someone that I could not be around them anymore if they were going to be pushy.  And the answer eventually came back... "Everyone's bossy in one way or the other."  

Hm.  

Well, that doesn't sound like an apology; that sounds like an excuse to keep trying to run people's lives and then judge them for resenting it.  It's a red flag to me - perhaps because I used to be all about fixing other people's problems - that some people have this incredible need to be bound up in someone else's life and bully them into doing what they want them to do, justify it in the name of "fun" and then judge those who don't want to toe their line.  They think that by saying that everyone does it, that it makes it acceptable, that it makes it normal.  

The truth is - it's not normal.  By normal I mean healthy; but then again, perhaps it's not normal to think of normal as being healthy  ;)  Oh well - then I will use the word healthy. 

Healthy people don't need to be needed or to be in charge in order to feel happy or worthy or useful.  They don't look down on anybody or put anybody up on a pedestal.  They know what they want and need, and are able to say that in a way that is respectful of others while still holding their ground and looking after themselves.  

And I've noticed something as I go along in my healing process.  Unhealthy people, dysfunctional people, tend to blame the healthy person for setting boundaries.  They call it "holding on to things" (actually, we're letting go of what is not healthy for us) or "being too sensitive." (In reality we're looking after ourselves for the first time and they're just uncomfortable with it.) I'm sure there are other labels.  The bottom line is that they do not want to see or admit to their own dysfunction - and FORGET about changing!

My role in all of this, as a person who's becoming normal (as if one can EVER become fully normal...) is to resist the temptation to justify myself, to just focus on my own recovery ... even if it means receiving and using The Gift of Goodbye.  (click on the bolded link to read my post from last fall...) and not try to fix their problems for them.  

It's not my place to do that.  It's theirs.

Blown Away

I love to watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. There's something amazing to me about how someone can be in such a desperate situation and then they get something they never expected and could barely dream about. The first thing that happens after the family is safely away on vacation is that what is old has to come down. And come down it does. It seems they're always finding new ways to bring down the old house.

The old house represents stress, limitations, worry, fear, anger, and a whole host of other nasty things that the family experiences. In the following clip, those emotions are demolished in a moment of time and leave room for the above house to be built.
 
There's something though, about this type of show that sort of bothers me. I could never really put my finger on it until just recently, and then it all became clear as I heard our pastor talk about what Jesus did for us while we were still in our darkness, when we were still rejecting Him.

What about the person who ISN'T taking in handicapped kids and adopting them, but is just working faithfully to pay the bills for the spouse and kids he/she has? What about the one who ISN'T fund-raising for Multiple Sclerosis or the Heart Foundation, or who DOESN'T have terminal cancer and up to their eyeballs in medical debt, or who ISN'T making a huge impact on their community in some way, but just slogs away, day after day, dealing with all kinds of insults and ingratitude even from people in their families, and keeps on because it's the right thing to do? It appears that the TV show only has the budget to help those who "deserve" the help. I know that ABC only has so much money and that they are looking for a good story. It's good television. And I do like the show for a lot more reasons than just the family getting a new home.

What I'm trying to do is use this as a springboard to talk about something even more important than a nice home.

The Bible tells us that we might hesitate to die for a righteous man, and that some of us would even dare to die for a good man. But Jesus went way above and beyond.

He died for us when we were still spitting in His face.

In His great love, He did it anyway, without regard to how we would take it, whether we would accept it, or whether we even deserved it. He knew we didn't deserve it.

And yet the Great Carpenter offers a new life, a totally radical makeover - complete with demolition, design, construction ... and a final Reveal that's out of this world.

That's Extreme.

Take a breath

Every once in a while, after a series of emotional body-blows, it's like God calls a "time-out" in my life. The storm clears, the wind dies down, and He invites me to "take a breath." Stop. Breathe. Re-orient. Rest.

About 8 years ago I stumbled on something that King David said when he talked about how well God knew him. I read it in the New Living Translation. "You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment You know where I am." (Psalm 139:3)

The tacit permission that gave my spirit - to be where I was, to feel what I felt, and to take the time I needed to rest - has come to my aid so many times in my recovery.

This week I've needed to do that again. It's been very comforting to know that even when I think that my life is spinning out of control, He has gone ahead of me and will give me a rest stop, a place to pause and take a breath before going on. And that no matter where I am, He knows where I am and ... He's not nervous about it; He knows what's ahead.

I can trust - and rest - in Him.

What's in it for me?

Every once in a while, a pastor or minister will preach a sermon on something that believers "ought" to be doing. Praying, reading the Bible, tithing, and so forth.

Let's use tithing - a largely misunderstood concept - for the sake of argument. It's commanded in Malachi 3:10 - give a tenth of the income to God, right off the top. After exposing their heart attitudes of "giving God the leftovers", God actually dares the people to test the principle of "tithing off the top of the pile" and see for themselves the blessing He will pour into their lives because they put Him first.

Face value is face value; the principle of tithing does work. But fear value is fear value too. Jesus is about the heart. He is about generosity out of a sense of gratitude, not out of a sense of obligation or of fear of what will happen if we don't "toe the line."

I believe in tithing; I tithe because He gave everything for me, and to remind myself that He gets first place, my best, not leftovers. Time after time God has provided for me as I have given Him not only my money but also every area of my life. I'm not disputing that tithing "works"; I have experienced it in my life. But to hear some of these preachers talk, you'd think that God is into retribution if you don't tithe, that the church isn't in revival because not everyone in the whole church tithes, that the reason why the Lord's return isn't happening is because somehow we are preventing it by not doing what we are supposed to do. The rules and regulations start coming out of the woodwork, and always and ever, the "promise" of blessing (or the withholding of it) is held out like a club over your head.

That wasn't God's intent. He wanted people to give their money, not because He needs it (because He doesn't!!) but as a symbol, a reminder that He made the first move by making it possible for us to even approach Him in the first place. We give out of gratitude for what He has given, not out of a desire to get more (even if we DO intend to bless others with it!) Focusing on the blessing in store - is bribing (see the drawing above) and it misses the whole point. It puts the focus on our performance, not on Him. The whole idea of 'blessing' (and the crafty ones say it's not just financial blessing but miracles, revival, etc.) in return for tithing, just panders to the idea that we can help God do His work, that we can hinder His plan by not doing what we are "supposed" to do, that we can make His kingdom appear on earth just because we open our pocketbooks or our wallets. Another term for all that is "the pride of life." The "reward" aspect of it appeals to the lust of the eyes (it looks/sounds good, appeals to our sense of equity) and the lust of the flesh (we can get more stuff if we give more). The enemy perpetrates this kind of "gimme" heresy by mixing it with the truth that putting God first in everything is its own reward.

The missing ingredient (as with all religion-based heresy) is the heart-attitude. It's out of a profound sense of thankfulness that we give... not to get a blessing.

Jesus started a kingdom of the heart without money. Not without personal cost to Him - but without money. He Himself said that His kingdom is not of this world because if it were, His servants would fight. He was the One who took the initiative. Humans had nothing to do with this. Humans didn't choose the time of His coming; God did. Humans didn't even believe He was who He said He was. He came anyway. Even if NOBODY ever accepted His free gift, He STILL would have gone to the cross. That's love. That's heart. That's giving.

That's the point.

Walking Together

One of my favorite things to do is to take a walk in the woods, preferably hand in hand with my hubby. We used to do that a lot before the demands of family pulled us away from those simple pleasures. Now, whenever it happens, we appreciate it even more and make every moment count.

On walks in the woods we've seen squirrels, rabbits, jays, even a woodpecker once. When we talked, we spoke about important things of the heart, planned for the future, celebrated the present, reminisced over delicious memories.

Always the trees bore silent witness to our trysting.

Looking out the living room window this morning and seeing the sun filter through the maple branches, I found my thoughts drifting to those sweet moments, captured amid the heady fragrance of pine needles and autumn leaves, with no sound other than our own breathing, the crunch and occasional twig-snap of our footsteps, and the voices of the animals and birds with whom we shared our ramblings. That's a picture of close communion, one which needs no words. Sometimes, we would use words - but often we would just enjoy each other's company and bask together in the beauty all around us.

I like to think that fellowship with God is like that. Carving out time - just to be together. Just because He loves us, and we love Him back. Time spent exclusively with Him - no agendas, no demands, no posturing. Just Him. Just enjoying His presence, listening to His heart, learning to recognize His voice, appreciating all He is, all He does. And making plans to do it again.

Grace upon Grace

It's mesmerizing, watching the waves come in at the shore. I remember a few times as a child on rare outings to the beach, losing myself in their hypnotic rhythm, allowing myself to be almost dizzy with the motion of a constantly moving landscape while I stood still, almost ankle deep as wave after wave lapped up nearly to my knees and back down. Then I'd feel the wave suck a little of the sand out from between my toes on its way back to the ocean - and within seconds it would all happen all over again. One after another - they never stopped. Rough, smooth, sunny, windy, rainy ... it never mattered. The speed and intensity might vary, but they never ceased rolling in. There was something comforting about the constancy and dependability of it all.

So when I first heard Gordon Jensen's song, Grace upon Grace, it touched something deep in the recesses of my spirit.

The concept of grace is not new to Christianity. But it is often sold short because all the preaching and the usual talk on grace talks about the forgiveness we have from the sins of the past. But let's think about it for a while. When Jesus died on the cross, you and I had not even been born yet. All our sins were in the future at that point in time - and so were all the sins of our children, and grandchildren, born or not even conceived yet!

In fact, when Jesus said, "It is finished!" He was talking about paying in full for every sin, past, present, and future - forever - for every person, past, present, and future. Nothing we have ever done and nothing we will ever do is too much for God, will not take Him by surprise, or cause Him to love us any less. Once we give Him our will and our lives to take care of, He will never leave us - never! His intense passion for relationship with us is faithful, persistent - even when we aren't. The deposit, the down-payment of His Spirit that He has placed in each of us will not let us go; He is faithful and persistent to complete what He has started and He has guaranteed that completion. That grace keeps on coming and coming, pouring over us, never-ending, above and beyond what we could ever imagine. Such lavish and loyal love - coming from the most pure heart in the universe - can only produce one reaction in the life of one so loved: a life lived from gratitude.

Consider these words:

Like the ocean in waves ever seeking the shore
To His children comes the grace of the Lord -
And like a mighty sea so deep and so wide
His grace to us is an endless supply....

Grace upon grace like the waves on the shore, always enough, always more -
Grace upon grace like the waves on the shore - all that we need is ours from the Lord.

In daylight or midnight the waves touch the shore,
One on another they faithfully pour!
Summer or winter they never subside
And so our gracious Father provides
Grace upon grace like the waves on the shore, always enough, always more -
Grace upon grace like the waves on the shore - all that we need is ours from the Lord.

Thank You SO much, Lord Jesus!!

The Rear View

There are a few schools of thought about the past. One school of thought says, "Let's get back to the good old days!" The other says, "Let's forget the past and move forward! It's in the past, we shouldn't give it another thought!"

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. While living in the past and yearning for the way things used to be is tempting and can even sometimes inspire, it limits us from envisioning what the future can hold to what the past has already been. And while the future is still before us, unwritten, many of the past's unpleasant pages might be repeated if we don't remember it and learn its lessons. The past, even the awful parts, can be a truly powerful thing if we determine not to repeat our mistakes and to use our own journeys out of the darkness of the past to help those who are still in their dark place....right now.

There's a quote from a very old book that I like to remind myself of, frequently. It's phrased like a promise, or a series of promises, made to those who follow a lifestyle of rigorous honesty before God, within ourselves, and in front of others - and of healing from past hurts, forgiveness of resentments, and making restitution for past wrongs wherever possible. "We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word 'Serenity.' We will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. Those feelings of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things, and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves." (The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous)

I liken the past to what's in the rear view mirror. Some folks don't use their rear view (they ignore their pasts). And it's true that the windshield (the present and the immediate future) is much larger, intended to be used much more than the rear view mirror. Figuratively as well. But if a person doesn't know that something is creeping up behind him or her by using the mirror and either speeding up or pulling over, there could be a nasty rear-end accident, which could have been avoided with a glance every so often backward in the rear view to see what's going on where he or she came from. So with us in our spiritual lives. Once in a while it's good to remember where we've been, if only to encourage ourselves as to how far we've come and to Whom we need to be grateful - because we couldn't have gotten this far without His great love, guidance, and patience with us. And we can also be encouraged from His faithfulness in the past, that He will never give up on us. Never.

That's worth a look back once in a while.