Thursday, December 27, 2007

Little things

I’m often amazed at how slight an event or word it can take to change the entire tone of a day. Maybe I’m just the moody sort but I can be grinding along with my mind digging mental trenches of a certain length and depth, when I open an email or leaf through a book or someone speaks a word, and suddenly there’s a new light about me. I realize again that life is good, bad things are never all bad and don’t last forever, and there’s hope for my sorry person yet. Conversely, a “discouraging word” has the power to accelerate my mental ditch digging until I find myself wiping the sweat of hell’s heat from my furrowed brow as I bewail the damnable difficulties of life and wonder how I’ll ever make it through. Maybe in my case it is simply temperamental moodiness, but it is an internal reality I have to deal with and I’m sure I’m not the only one who struggles in this way. I know all too well how far the ripples spread from a small stone skipped across a lake. If I’m producing ripples, I’d like them to be of the encouraging, inspiring, and comforting variety, not readily evoked perhaps as a great event in the recipient's life or likely to win me any medals for heroism but still, of the nature that I won’t have to look back upon my way in this world with regret. We moody types often wrestle with this regret thing as a matter of course. I try hard to mind what I say and how I treat people and the Golden Rule. I’m not always successful and there are days when I’m painfully aware of the bleed-through of my moods and attitudes into my behavior toward others. I don’t like this at all. I’ve made some degree of progress over the years. The aging process alone does mellow an individual, whetting a more patient tolerance with the stone of experience, but I’d like to become proactive in the process, to seek out ways to bring more light to the worlds of others and to spread some of that Christmas joy everyone at least talks about for those fleeting three or four weeks during the year. I’d like to learn to more consistently do this during the ordinary, tedious, mundane times of my life when it seems to count for more and is more difficult to maintain.


So that’s one New Year’s resolution for my list, one I know I’ll need huge helpings of grace to be able to keep. Fortunately, we have a secure promise of grace for such things. God knew better than to leave us to our own devices on that one.

Peace on earth and good will to you all.

Carol


Thursday, December 20, 2007

Judgment or Love?

In 1985, on Christmas Eve, my father lapsed into a coma. He’d been ill off and on for a period of time, having lost a leg a couple years earlier to arteriosclerosis, the result of too many years of hard drinking and smoking and other sins against his body. Now there were other problems that had landed him in the Veteran’s hospital for what was supposed to be a routine exploratory procedure. Something didn’t go right and he suffered a stroke and then the coma. We were notified Christmas Eve day and so I spent my evening beside his bed, listening to him breathe and wishing he would open his eyes. He never did, although there were a couple of precious moments when he managed to squeeze my hand, letting me know he heard the words of love I murmured in his ear. He died New Years Eve. I was thankful that he died peacefully, in a bed, and not mangled in some car accident, something we’d feared would be his fate for years when I was young. Dad was an alcoholic and eventually did lose his license because of a DWI accident. He didn’t drive again until in his 60’s, after he’d stopped drinking.

I had thought at the time of his death that things were reasonably okay between us but recently as I was writing an essay about this event for our memoir group, I realized that in actuality, I had been in a state of deep emotional detachment from my father for some time before his death. A resentful kind of pride had crept into my heart about the past and the poverty and trauma we’d endured as a result of his drinking and now that my situation was considerably more comfortable, I’d become full of judgment toward my father, and a hardness and lack of concern had settled over me. In place of the childish infatuation and adoration I had for my father throughout my childhood and adolescence, now as an adult, I was judging him as inferior, as a failure as a person, and especially as a parent. Because of my judgments, I found myself unable to truly forgive him the way I wish now I had, and to love him in the lavish manner he deserved at this point in his life and that would have freed me from the lingering regret I tried to justify for years. I realize now that it was the judgment I was passing on my father that truly hurt my soul far more than my father’s actual past behavior and the judgments that made forgiveness necessary at all.

I guess I wanted to tell this story and the conclusions I reached because I know that many people struggle with their relationships at this time of the year and the past rises up with a vengeance for some, not allowing them to enjoy holiday events or to connect lovingly with family members. Maybe, like me, they can’t let go of the hurts and resentments, but have become numb to the fact, because of subtle judgments they have made and continue to hold against others. Let’s face it, my Dad had his problems and they affected my life, but he was just a man, doing the best he could and learning along the way. When I became a parent myself, I discovered how difficult it is to not make mistakes, sometimes big ones, sometimes repeating the very mistakes your parents made that you swore as a child you’d never commit. I’m so thankful when my now-grown children tell me that they don’t even remember some of the things I bring up in my fits of regret. What they do remember, I’m told, is that when I realized I’d messed up, I acknowledged it and apologized and that they always knew I loved them, even if I was acting like an idiot. I would hate to think they were withholding their affections from me now, even unconsciously, because of old judgments and that our brief time together on planet Earth was being sabotaged by these old ghosts.

I miss my father deeply and I’d give anything to have him back with me so I could spoil him and enjoy him and tell him how much I appreciate all the good he made possible in my life. I can’t redo this, not with my father anyhow, but there are others with whom it’s not too late. Maybe you have someone too. Let’s face it, the only thing we’re going to take with us when we leave this place is our relationships so let’s make them worthy of an afterlife.
Blessings.
Carol

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Oh Holy Night

For me this “holiday season” is about Christmas. It always has been, both as an inherent aspect of my culture and my religious faith. I don’t resent anyone else having their own set of observances and celebrations although it’s difficult for me to keep all that straight, when to say Merry Christmas, which acquaintances or co-worker to give a card to and which not, etc. so I decided I wouldn’t and don’t plan to worry about it. I think those of us who are truly celebrating the birth of Christ should be content to do so with our friends and family who share our beliefs and with spreading our cheer and good-will primarily amongst ourselves, not self-righteously expecting that others defer themselves to our dogma . Once upon a time our society was predominantly Christian-oriented but not anymore. This holiday (as well as several others) has been hijacked by the mercantile segment of the population for its own profits and gains and we have contributed to this happening. If I had my way, much about the season would change and my hard-earned dollars would find their way into more fitting coffers. Of course, I do have my own way and am gradually making necessary adjustments. Bucking long-held traditions isn’t easy. But I’m getting older, crankier, and I hope wiser. I’m not as easily swayed by Hallmark sentiment or the strains of Joy to the World over the loudspeaker in Walmart. This no longer incites me to spend money I don’t have. It does remind me, however, that I’m immensely fortunate to live in a nation where I have the freedom to practice my faith as I see fit and to spend the few dollars I have left over after taxes on whatever I desire. There’s no doubt in my mind that things were better in our nation when God was welcome in more places and prayer was an acceptable form of public speech but the fact that not everyone realizes this does not faze me. And if I, in a momentary fit of general good will find myself wishing someone a “Merry Christmas” and realize that they’re not receiving my words in the spirit intended, well, I’m not going to worry about that either. As I said, for me, this holiday season is about Christmas, about Christ and His birth and life and death and all that it means. I’d say I’m sorry for being so traditional and politically incorrect, but I’m not. I couldn't possibly be. Blessings to all.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Launching

Every so often someone will say, oh I read your blog, and ....whatever response they had to it...and it reminds me that I haven't posted in a while. I write all the time because I journal daily, I'm part of a memoir writing group and I participate in a monthly online forum called Book-in-a-Week where members sets daily page goals that they will write during a one-week period. It's so easy to drift away from writing because it is hard work and can be mentally and emotionally draining as anyone who writes knows all too well. I've started several projects to post here but for one reason or another, I don't finish them up and post until I get the I-read-your-blog reminder. One reason I wanted to begin a blog at all is to get some exposure for and feedback to my writing because I do aspire to publish but lacked confidence. The feedback I've received has been motivating and helpful, so, thanks and blessings to those of you who have taken the time to read and comment.

Last time I wrote that I was beginning an association with a group called Ladies Who Launch. I attended a four-week session with four of five other ladies, some with established businesses and others in the incubation or launching stages of their business ideas. It was both productive and nurturing as I find it generally to be when a group of likeminded women get together to accomplish something. I learned some interesting things about myself, my ideas, and how differently the process of business building happens for women than it generally occurs for men. This is a main premise of the Ladies Who Launch network, that for women, these ventures don't necessarily get off the ground as the result of careful and purposefully structured planning but more organically, often as the result of some twist of fate or tribulation that sets the person onto a new life path long before they thought they were ready for such a change. This can be the loss of a job, a spouse's job loss or relocation, a child's illness, or any number of encounters with the unexpected. Life comes at you fast, the insurance company ad tells us. How women respond to these alterations in the cosmic fabric is often to design and tailor a new fashion line, something they've wanted to do since forever but never had the opportunity The furnace of adversity just becomes a better place to bake that great bread recipe they found, and hey, while we're at it, let's open a deli. I started a successful business once and it was just that way, organic, absolutely macrobiotic. It had a life of its own from the beginning and was the pinnacle experience of my life, bearing me on angels wings over fifteen of the most trying years of that same life. When the thought first came, it seemed impossible; I had so little to work with, yet somehow those crumbs were enough. I want to do it again. By the grace of God, I will. I feel it pressing through the soil and ready to emerge into the sunlight.

If you are interested in incubating some long-dormant dream and desire and want to network with others who are in all stages of the process, log onto the Ladies Who Launch website - www.ladieswholaunch.com. Women working together - there's no limit on what can be done. Let's face it, we've been bringing new things to the world since the beginning.

Until the next time.
Carol