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Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

I am a noticer

Posted in Life, Transparency, Words, tagged , , on October 27, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I am a noticer that has been trying not to see, feel or acknowledge myself. It is easier to scroll endlessly through social media or tweak my lesson plans for the coming week or weeks. Staying busy and giving into exhaustion as a badge or sign of accomplishment or enoughness, is sometimes easier on the front end. In reality it’s a vicious cycle that demands more and more energy and sucks the life out of me.

I absolutely love fall and the change of seasons but October is a challenging month for me. My body knows this and reminds me of grief that I store inside. I never quite know when my body will say enough is enough, take time to feel, but today was the day.

I thought I had been allowing myself to hold space for my grief. I have cried more over the past month watching my home state of North Carolina literally be washed away. Both the coast and the mountains have seen unprecedented destruction from rain.

Grief, I know is a part of life. I’ve had a baby die, a marriage die, parents die, friends and other family die, community die, church die, a life I thought I’d live til I die, die.

Yet, I live. I hope. I look to the future. I love the life I have helped create with the one I love. I know in my inner most being joy. Joy of hope. Joy of being loved. Joy of knowing I have birthed children that make a difference in this world. Joy of bonus children, grandchildren and now a daughter and son in law. I never knew I could love like I do and know joy.

Even in the knowing of the coming weight of grief, it was different this year. I have been able to name it. I’ve been able to share with my love. I’ve allowed him to hold me and comfort me. I’ve gotten into nature. I’ve moved my body. I’ve written words.

It is possible to hold grief and joy at the same time and in the same space. It’s possible to know and not know, all in the same moment. It’s possible to know I am enough and still feel my “not enoughness”.

I am a noticer. I am enough.

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In the beginning…

Posted in Life, Uncategorized, Words on January 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »

The word ‘in’ has me intrigued.

I looked the word up on my Dictionary.com app and did a quick search. Here are a few of my findings.

In-as a preposition, it is used to indicate inclusion within, indicate limitation or qualification, situation or condition, relation, means, direction, motion or purpose.

So, what does inclusion mean? According to the dictionary app: the act of including, state of including.

Include/including: to be made up of, contain. 

What does ‘indicate’ mean? As a verb it means to be a sign of, to point to or out, to show, to state or express. When used as a verb, to be or give a sign, to point out or show.

When I put these together I can rephrase Genesis 1:1 as to point to the beginning, or included in the beginning, a sign that is included in the beginning. The act or state of pointing out, showing. What about ‘point out the purpose’ of the beginning. 

So much nuance in a little word. Why does it matter? I am a word geek at times. I don’t know why certain words grab my attention. When I am intrigued I try to pause and consider the what, the why and maybe even the how.

The picture I have in my mind when I hear the word “in” is being surrounded by something. Whether it be me being ‘in my shirt’, or when baking I put flour ‘in the recipe’, or maybe placing something ‘in the cabinet’. There are so many pictures that come to mind when I try to picture the word ‘in’. Using this word as the very first word in the Bible must be important. 

Some questions that come to mind are:

What or who is in?

What or who is in where?

Could the wording just as easily be “God, in the beginning”, or “God, the beginning in”? Does it matter? Why am I so intrigued by these questions? 

Maybe the new year has me thinking of new beginnings and what they mean in my life. I know I won’t figure them out today, or any day soon. I do know thinking stretches my mind and heart.

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Road-tripping joys

Posted in Life, tagged on July 2, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Buttercups, daisies and lupine stretching miles along edges of roadside swaying effortlessly in greeting

Cherry and apple trees along with grapevines inviting us into quieter times

Lake shores lapping gently, lulling me into peaceful summer slumbers

Cities, towns, and villages telling stories from long ago

Sunsets showing off brilliant colors titillating my imagination

Succulent, sweet strawberries and cherries freshly picked that morning melting in our mouths

Summer road-tripping with my love bubbles joy from deep within

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Words

Posted in Life, tagged , on June 15, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Have escaped me these long months

Many thoughts

Many opinions

Sitting quietly on the outside but often a raging torrent of emotion twisting, rushing, moving through crevices of my mind

Often disjointed but moving forward

Finding thoughts and voice to match

Not wanting to add to chaos but desiring to be peace in an unsettling world

So much pain…I want to say needless…but maybe, not.

Pain tells us something is not as it should be. Today I speak peace to pain. Today I speak “I see you” to pain.

Words are important. May I use mine wisely and with deepest of gracious intention.

Peace…

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Struggle

Posted in Healing, Life, tagged on April 24, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Messy and exhausting

Dying to the old ways

Not yet seeing the new

Sometimes falling, a tumbling that feels out of control

Balance elusive, clarity absent

Unwilling to surrender the victory

Generating new life through unseen advances

Vanishing struggle

New life

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An Invitation

Posted in Life, Uncategorized on July 12, 2020| 1 Comment »

I would like to invite you to have a conversation. I true heart to heart conversation about the “state of your heart”. A dialogue with yourself or those you feel safe to expose your own insecurities.

I would like to invite you to empty your hands and pockets of the stones you want to throw. You’ve heard the saying, “those who live in glass houses should not throw stones”.

This is a response or reaction, I’m honestly not sure which one, to events, people’s responses and reactions to what is going on in the world around me. I’ll start with a confession…

I’m not Black

I’m not a police officer

I’m not a doctor

I’m not a scientist

I’m not a lot of other “categories” that we use to label and distinguish one from another.

I am, however, someone who has had a change of heart. If you had asked me a few years ago, “Do you believe people really are doing the best they can?” My emphatic answer would have been, “Hell no!” You see, I believed people, and especially myself, could always be doing something to be better, think better, smarter, creativer (yes, I know that’s not a word), etc. The drive for perfection, or at least the illusion of perfection, is hard wired in me. There was no room for failure or disappointment in myself.

I’ve had a change of heart. I’ve changed my “perfection” lens to a “doing the best I can” lens. Perfection leaves little to no room for change. It leaves no room to pivot. Perfection leaves no room to learn or unlearn. There is only one Perfect One, and it’s not me.

I’ve done some deep soul searching work over the past few years. It’s been brutal. It’s been beautiful. I continue to do the work. I continue to lean into the discomfort of learning and unlearning about the world at work around me. I continue to get curious about who I am and continue to explore my beliefs and why I believe the way I do. I push myself to learn. I examine when I need to unlearn something. I read. I listen. I write.

I am doing the best I can. I am enough.

 

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Hope

Posted in Life, Uncategorized on February 10, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Hope, teeming with possibility

Helping launch out into discovery

Wandering purposefully to engage my whole being

It may look reckless, my intent on becoming

It is not a destination to conquer, but

An awakening of Presence

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Known

Posted in Life, Uncategorized on January 13, 2019| Leave a Comment »

When your “knower” knows The Knower, you are fully KNOWN!

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The gift of grief

Posted in Healing, Life, Transparency, Uncategorized on February 4, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Really? How is grief a gift? What does grief do or not do that causes it to be a gift? I wrestled until I was willing to put pen to paper and explore the possibilities.

Grief floods me with memories. It takes me by surprise and transports me in time. An avalanche of memories cascade upon me threatening to take my breath away. Sometimes good. Sometimes painful. A flooding nonetheless.

Grief stings. I want to shrink back and pull the painful nettles out of my heart. I want to feel nothing. The loss overwhelms. It is empty.

Grief provides me space to feel. To feel the loss of a dream, a child, a marriage, a parent, a friend, a pet, and many heart aches yet unexplored. The space feels wide and vast, with no map or roads to travel. At other times it feels like a suffocating closet with no air to breath.

Grief looks like a torrent of tears that will never cease. Is there really that much fluid in my body to cause these many tears? I may just drown. At other times one tear escapes, slides down my cheek and neck, leaving a trail of salty memories.

A belly laugh of memories escapes through grief. It may start as a smile and ruptures into a cleansing release of happiness and joy.

Grief is the before and after. A defining moment and yet an eternal emptiness filled with intention. Still there is laundry to be done. Dishes waiting to be washed. Food to be prepared. A going on with life…

A gift, an invitation to feel. An invitation to explore my heart. A timeless gift not many are willing to open.

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Embrace the AND

Posted in Life, Uncategorized on February 3, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s not ALL about that bass… (you’re welcome, now the song will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day). Life is cyclical. I need to be reminded during these cold winter days that this world holds balance. Cold AND heat. Life AND death. Joy AND sorrow. Sickness AND health. I simple can not know or appreciate one without the other. Even the days, months and years are marked in cycles. Sun AND moon. Day AND night. Summer AND winter. Spring AND fall.

Life is “AND”.

How can we know peace without experiencing the war within us? Only in pain can we experience comfort.  There are moments, days and weeks I want to numb out and not feel either one. Even now as snow spreads itself across the world outside my window, I sit back, close my eyes and can feel the sun beating on my face as I sit on the beach listening to the waves lap upon the shore.

The “AND” I have experienced allows me to appreciate both.

Let’s embrace the cycle of life.

Embrace the “AND”.

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