Don't Sit Next to an Uncomfortable Chair

I just read a book about abundance and reciprocity, and I believe in it. 

As such, I think recent lessons learned should be shared. 

Coming in hot... Don't Sit Next to an Uncomfortable Chair. 

Please allow a clarification.

Don't sit next to an uncomfortable chair if your goal isn't to sit alone. 

If you are one who desires connection (cue the age-old "I enjoy long walks on the beach"), you are at the beach (for the first time in two years), and you're with someone who isn't inclined to sit with you anyway...

Don't sit next to an uncomfortable chair. Your aloneness hardly deserves an explanation. You chose it.

May God be with all who are alone when they would rather not be, despite the seat they chose, and how content they seem in it. Amen.

Top 5 . Thanks, 2025.

Feeling less reflective than most years, my thoughts land on a very-zoomed-out version of 2025. If you're interested, they are as follows:

• My Mom died in February but I'm not leaving her there. I'm bringing her with me.

• A puzzle can be your best friend when your son is a Marine at the same table, going through bins from his whole life at home, and on the brink of leaving again. The perfect tool when you're trying to be present, but not too, and distracted from all of those feelings, but not too...

Probably the hardest year of marriage, yet. (The competition is tough when it spans over decades.) We were closer to divorcing than ever before. Spending our 23rd wedding anniversary apart when we could have spent it together was a pretty good sign of the times. Probably not ideal, but still best. 

And guess what? I think we're closer than ever before. (I say I think because I'm still a little afraid to ask him, so we're going with it.) Anyway, didn't see that coming!

That's the thing, isn't it? We can't see the good coming around the corner. Even when we're well into the turn. 

Another BIG lesson. Which reminds me - in case I haven't said it, and I know I haven't, Thanks, 2025. 

Top 5 Takeaways from 2025 

1. Don't run away just because you don't know how to stay. 

2. What is best is often a long way away from what is ideal. But that makes a lot of sense when you are way past ideal in the first place.

3. It bears repeating...We can't see the good coming around the corner. Even when we're well into the turn. 

4. Use yourself as an untapped resource. We can feel as if we're actually dying if someone else doesn't meet our needs. We're literally wired this way in infancy! In adulthood, we must learn that we won't actually die, we have what we need (or can get it) and we can always help/comfort ourselves. 

5. Prayer for Generosity: Dear Lord, teach me to be generous. Teach me to serve you as You deserve; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labor and not ask for reward, save that of knowing I am doing your will. Amen.

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As for new beginnings, I propose thoughtful consideration of "Thus far..." or "This again?" 2025 saw me out with timely inspiration between my morning devotional and a Ricky Gervais comedy special. We run the gamut over here. 

2026 started similarly with mumbled conversation across rooms with our teenage son.

.... ... ... ... _______________10:00.

Did you say it's' only 10:00 or it's already 10:00? He answered "already" when pressed (but only because he didn't want to hear another lecture about wishing time away.)

Reminds me of a line in a book I read recently. Something like... Time - Nothing is more valuable nor regarded more cheaply. Preparation for Death by St. Ignatius, I think. Now that I think of it, I just might put that on my headstone.

Is 2026 going to be a thus far, this again, only, or already year? Probably D. All of the above.

God be with you and yours in 2026. Don't run away. We have what we need and there is endless good ahead...

Goulash and Abandoned Tables

I'm standing in the kitchen, making my Mom's goulash recipe (in the same old pan she made it in) for the first time since she died, and in years actually. 

My husband doesn't care for it, but he is on his second week out of town, supporting search efforts for flood victims. My job is to keep things going here and to be grateful, which I am. And I am.

I realize how "white" this recipe is and cook the noodles in beef broth for an attempt at flavor. The miracle of this recipe is twofold. I remember it as delicious AND it doesn't have the staple of staples - cream of mushroom soup. 

My teenage son swoops in and out, shirtless, farting, and making animal sounds in a newly-empty-paper-towel-tube. 

Over my music playing, he shout-sings random lyrics that accompany a melody only he can hear in his solo earbud. 

I laugh and chase him off, but know I don't need to because he'll be gone soon enough. If he's anything like his big brothers, he'll have a girlfriend making steak on Saturday night or living another dream states away, in no time at all.

Just a few weeks ago, I took their kindergarten artwork down and hung up my Mom's in its place. Seasons are strange, but similar in brevity.

Last month, this same teen and I went kayaking. While he was fishing, I gravitated to our old stomping grounds. 

Once, there were swim diapers, mud fights, and free boats with plywood floors that had an excellent chance of needing to be towed back to shore. But that didn't discourage anyone enough to stay on the shore in the first place. 

It's closed to the public now and as I sat there alone, I remembered how often I wished I were alone when my kids were little. Being alone certainly comes, and my encouragement to all with littles, is try not to wish it away. The picnic table will not always be noisy and crowded.

Chick Fil A-nniversary

Today is our 21st wedding anniversary. If our marriage wanted to publicly consume alcohol, it may legally do so now. And I think it may.

But not today. Today our marriage wants to celebrate by staying in and eating this. Pictured together, but eaten separately.

My husband of 21 years is sick with one of those bugs going around. But I dressed up for work just in case he was feeling better and wanted to go to dinner when I got home. He was willing but common sense prevailed. 

I gave him his gift in the plastic bag I brought it home in, changed into my sweats, and thought about what I would make of this anniversary with no flowers, dressing up, or dinner out. After shrugging off disappointment and completing a quick mental review of other disappointments (because we do that, don’t we?), I will tell you my conclusion is different than ever before. 

It’s different because yesterday my grief support group for spouses learned that one of our newest members took her life. She missed her husband so desperately and could not imagine living even one more day without him. She received ongoing and tireless love and support from our members: Phone calls, texts, visits at her house and theirs, lunches, dinners, and walks with people who have been there and are there—and yet we could not take away the one choice she chose.

Today, we grieve together and ask ourselves all of the same questions. What a comfort we receive in one another as we face the limits of our power but never, ever our love.

Marriage is not Hallmark movies and walks on the beach. At least not always or even most of the time.

Sometimes it is being left behind and losing yourself afterward. Sometimes it is weeks (months?) of ships-passing-in-the-night dotted by fleeting moments of profound connection. Sometimes it is caregiving or being disappointed. Sometimes it is splitting up so you can cart kids to different places at different times on different planets. Sometimes it is being grateful for Alzheimer’s disease because it gave you the opportunity to be together 24/7 for 15 years, along with the realization that without it you would still have been working (and apart). Sometimes it is years of living together followed by years of living alone. And sometimes it is eating chicken noodle soup by yourself from a cardboard bowl on your 21st anniversary. 

When you do life with married people who have been left behind by their spouse, you’re grateful for however you can get it. You know how profoundly interwoven two lives can become and you know how separation leaves every thread bare and aching. 

And because you know this, you can be content on a rainy anniversary—knowing that not grieving the one you love is gift enough. Except when you’re wishing for a little bit more, at which time you can remember he de-bones the chicken every time without being asked and a hundred other things just like it, because he loves you every day and not just on the special ones.

Don’t Let an Aisle Be an Ocean

Posting a little late due to travel, but I captured a few thoughts on New Year’s Eve for myself and anyone else who cares to read them…

It’s the last day of 2022.  I’m with the fam, heading to Steamboat Springs for our first family ski trip – Senior graduation/20^th anniversary/Because we’ve-been-talking-about-it-for-years ski trip.  We’re on the second flight of the day and I have fresh inspiration for 2023.  

We’re flying Southwest, so seats are catch as catch can.  I sat between my youngest, who called dibs on the window seat, and a man who was sitting across the aisle from his entire family.  

 

But, the aisle may as well have been an ocean.  His wife, across the aisle/ocean had a kindergartner on her left (by the window), an autistic son who kept hitting her on her right, and a newly-walking, very antsy toddler on her lap.  And this man literally got his book out (Letters from the Stoics) and put his headphones on.  

 

I learned the husband’s name fairly early on, but heard it more often than he did.  I even got to help her get his attention once…After he didn’t hear her saying his name or see her waving her arms.  But, he did put the book down after awhile.  To watch a movie on his phone.  

A couple of us offered to hold the little one, and she took the lady behind me up on it, when things just got to be too much. 

 

The edge in the woman’s voice would have made my ears bleed, but my heart was already bleeding from imagining the rest of her life – when she’s not vacationing (Ha!) She was doing it by herself, just like she said (when he seemed annoyed that things weren’t being handled better over there).  I was afraid the only departure from normal was us going on a ski trip.  

 

I read and I colored, wondering what I could do without a hot poker and a good dose of courage.  I did nothing, but smile at the Mom whenever I could catch her eye, and silently loathe her beloved. 

 

I thought about writing her a little note, too.  But, LEAVE HIM! isn’t exactly in line with my beliefs about marriage.  And HANG IN THERE didn’t seem very helpful.  And ENJOY IT, IT GOES QUICKLY downright ridiculous, and unbelievably insensitive.  Perhaps the most validating, but still unwritten… I SEE YOU.  YOU ARE JUSTIFIED IN YOUR FEELINGS. P.S. I’m going to be a marriage and family therapist in two years.  Call me if you can’t find anyone between now and then.

Well over halfway into the 2-hour flight, he came around, and offered to cross the aisle to help.  She eagerly accepted.  

Hallelujah.  Lord, have mercy.  Maybe I should have given him the benefit of the doubt.  He certainly provided a lot of timely inspiration for 2023…

 

Take your headphones off.  Hold a kid.  Make eye contact.  Be a partner and a friend.  Anticipate the needs of people you love.  Don’t make them beg or plead.  Look at your spouse and your kids- Many are wishing they could do that very thing.  If you can’t do your share, be appreciative of the one(s) who are.  Express your gratitude, and don’t let an aisle be an ocean.   

In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, Don’t “miss your appointment with life.” Happy New Year!  Thank you for flying with Southwest.  

 

A Case For Marriage

Today is our 20th wedding anniversary.  Yes, we can believe it.  And no, we can’t believe it!  

Once upon a time, a ranch foreman who had given up on women and a horse trainer with a boyfriend back in Kansas, met on Valentine’s Day in the Hill Country…

“Your boyfriend let you come to Texas without a ring on your finger?!  Your boyfriend is a fool.”

We were engaged a month later and married eight months after that.  St. Isidore’s Catholic Church.  K-State campus.  November 9, 2002.  A fall wedding in Kansas is a bit of a gamble, but it was 70-something and sunny.  Because, why wouldn’t it be?  It was a game day and there were a lot of happy Wildcats honking and cheering us on as we crossed the threshold as husband and wife.

20 years later, we have three teenage boys, good jobs, and all we need.  I just finished my second class in my graduate program, and my husband has been unbelievably supportive.  Not only like not complaining when I’m holed up on the computer, or saying “You’ve got this!”, but also like…

Plate delivered, meat cut up, potato mashed and buttered with salt and pepper, and salad with just the right amount of the right kind of dressing.  I mean, freaking amazing.  

I could go on and on and on about all of the reasons I love my husband and why he is the best and why I am so glad I married him.  But, you might think your husband is better than mine and then we might have to fight, or you might think your husband is a loser compared to mine and then I would have to console you, so I’m going to switch tracks, because as much as I want to celebrate our 20 years, which I will, with him, tonight, I want to encourage you in your marriage, right now. 

Marriage is one of the best and hardest things there is.  I have talked to three different people this week who may or may not have used the “D” word, but are wondering if their marriages are going to survive, or if they’re going to die trying to make it work.  I’ve never forgotten what my married friends said, both having been married twice before…

“We could have made our first marriage work, if we had just known how much work marriage is.”  Yesterday, she lived through the date of his death for the fourth time.  It’s hard to call it an anniversary.  

I no longer have the privilege of celebrating an anniversary without thinking about a time when celebrating them might end, and dreading them might begin.  Grieving spouses are great teachers.  They help me believe in the depth of my husband’s love for me.

Two years after her death, a grieving husband told me on Monday, “I still look for her.”

“I know she’s not there, but I still look for her.”

This helps me to know that if I should die, I will not be dead to my husband.  Even after a long time.  It also reminds me that he is looking for me, now.  

And this is a really good thing to see and know and be reminded of.  Because sometimes my husband is bringing me a plate of bite-sized meat and buttered potatoes, and sometimes he’s gone for two weeks, and I feel like an acquaintance on a good day and a beggar on a bad one.  Please, sir, can you spare just a little bit of time?  Under the right circumstances, I can convince myself that I am destined for leftovers, and it’s embarrassingly easy to despair.

As much I would like to say this is old news, I just about blew it again this weekend.  More time away for him, a big paper due for me, and patience, charity, and anything that feels like love at all seems to fly right out the window.  We were supposed to overnight in San Antonio to watch a boy and a band march at the Alamodome and go for a hike the next day.  Storms were coming in, I was on the fence, and he didn’t want to spend the trip in silence, so…

So, after 20 years, I realized something.  I realized that I was withholding my love because in my wounded and selfish heart, I didn’t think he deserved it.  When I actually admitted this to myself, I was ashamed.  I was ashamed because that is not who I am.  I believe in giving my love to everyone, especially to those who don’t deserve it.  And he does deserve it.  Every bit of it. 

I assured him the weekend wouldn’t pass in silence.  We went, and had a wonderful time.  

I cringe at the thought that I almost bagged the whole thing.  Over seven miles, we walked and talked about the meaning of life and happiness and the two times in our 20 years of marriage I told him to go-fly-a-kite with fewer words and no kite.  He’s forgiven me, but he still remembers how many times it happened.  Twice…

I was reading a book about parenting teenagers yesterday because it’s so easy and I love reading about how easy it is.  (HA.Ha.ha)  Anyway, I came across this great quote.  I think it fits nicely here, as we own our mistakes, and let the good and bad all go together somehow, like they do…

One of the most widespread superstitions is that every man has his own special, definite qualities:  That a man is kind, cruel, wise, stupid, energetic, apathetic, etc.  Men are not like that…men are like rivers…every river narrows here, is more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm.  It is the same with men.  Every man carries in himself the germs of every human quality, and sometimes one manifests itself, sometimes another, and the man often becomes unlike himself, while still remaining the same man.      -Tolstoy

The only thing harder than living with someone in marriage, is living without them.  Yes, it is normal for it to be “this hard.” Keep fighting for what is worth fighting for.  Find the good and circle around it.  Forgive the rest and begin again.  

Happy 20th Anniversary to Us, and Love and Encouragement to all… 

Thanksgiving Ramblings

A friend asked last week about why I hadn’t written lately, and was hoping everything was okay.  Everything is okay.  I do a weekly video for my work, now, so all of my thoughts and creative energy have been funneled into that.  I showed her the link on our Facebook page, in case she was interested.  

This friend is also Native American and a caregiver for one of our patients.  I asked if she celebrated Thanksgiving, as I asked our patient about their Thanksgiving traditions.  She said she cooks the food, but doesn’t participate.  For her, and her ancestors, our Thanksgiving is a day of mourning.  There were no pilgrims and no Squanto.  Just death and injustice.  

I was not surprised that she didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but have never had the opportunity to hear this perspective firsthand.  Have you?

I’m pretty sure I wore a pilgrim hat made out of construction paper when I was in elementary school and I am also pretty sure I have pictures of my children wearing the same.  

I wanted to say I’m sorry, but it seemed too little and too hollow.

It is a little disorienting to lay an idea held for a lifetime on a kitchen table, out of which are borne many, many wonderful gatherings and memories, next to another idea to which it is diametrically opposed and feels instinctively “truer” than the one you’ve been espousing.

I continued to think on this the rest of the day and brought it to my own dinner table that night for discussion.  My husband replied without hesitation.  “History is written by the victors.”  

Ugh.  I really am sorry.

It is mind boggling how these things co-exist.  Or not.  If you are a Native American, “Thanksgiving” is built on a lie.  If you are like me, Thanksgiving just is, and you are grateful for it, just like the name implies, and it is not (or has not been until now) mixed with a tincture of sadness for another version of how it came to be.   

And yet, things that don’t go together at all, occupy the same space at the same time, all of the time.  Like singing a prayer of Thanksgiving to a host of friends missing their spouses, listening to old voice recordings of boys learning to speak while they tower over you and watch you cry at the memory of it, and hearing your husband’s deceased grandmother's voice, wish her daughter a Happy Thanksgiving “wherever you are”.  And that was just yesterday. 

But time just keeps moving forward, and mornings come and little boys lay on your lap and you want to freeze time, but you know you can’t.  So, you just admire the complexity of veins running through his growing body and look at your new Christmas cactus blooming days before Thanksgiving, and realize that life is simple and complicated and time can be a friend if you make good use of it. 

At Your Window

I’m sorry in advance that this is depressing.  But, the reality is stark.  I wrote this poem on my way home from work after doing another window visit today.  

I understand that nursing homes are trying to keep their residents safe, intentions are good, they have to follow the rules that other people make, and the heroes who work there are working very, very hard...

But, they are suffering trying to be all things to all people, and the people they are working so hard to serve are suffering more still.  I don’t know how to change laws or rules, but I know how to write.  And I know how to hope to be a voice for the voiceless as people languish in the silence...

At Your Window

I am standing outside your window

And you can see me there

But I cannot hold your hand 

And I cannot stroke your hair.

I yell through the glass that I miss you

And I fill your bird feeder

You yell back from your bed

That you feel bad everywhere.

I say that I am sorry

I say “This is the pits”

You lay there untouched and seen

Hoping this is it.

But it’s not and you grow tired

You’re angry they like to say

So the overworked few who can come in

No longer want to stay.

I tell you that I love you

But through the window I cannot climb

So, I turn around and walk away

And again leave you behind.

I hope that some little birds

Will come and stay awhile

Though they innocently flaunt their freedom

May they also bring a smile...

While you lay in endless wait 

For things to open up

You will not die from Covid

You will die from lack of love.

Stained Notebooks

I’m sitting at my desk in my bedroom.  Feeling contemplative after talking with children who can’t be with their mother who is dying in a facility, and looking at graduation pictures of other children I used to watch play on the floor.

The notebooks I use for work sit quietly by.  Some are used up and some are brand new.  Side by side, I notice the difference between them.  The used ones seem to have thicker pages, wrinkles, rips, and coffee stains.  The new ones are crisp.  Simply blank and available for use, having no more of an idea what will fill their pages than I do.

I imagine what each of our books looks like.  Not a bunch of little books with lots of names.  But, a big book with only one name.  Yours.  Mine.

I purchased the printed version of this blog last November.  It is printed on 8.5 x 11 paper, weighs about seven pounds, and is over an inch thick.  When it arrived, I marveled at its substance.  Did writing periodically over seven years really amount to something that I could hold?  Something that would feel heavy in my hands?  

Can you imagine if the story of each one of our lives were actually written down on paper?  The number and weight of the pages?  

In the physical life, they are written in our bodies, our hearts, and on our faces.  Grandma Bert is the perfect example, and my favorite, as well.

Her birthday was May 16th.  She would have been a spicy 93.  Her story was written on her face.  Her beautiful face.  Her lack of education and finances, her abusive husband, a murdered sister, losing three of her five sons to traumatic deaths, including the Vietnam War, and all of the long years in between.  And she smiled in spite of it all.  Man, I love (and miss) her.  

I imagine the weight of her book, containing all of the stuff of her 86 years.  I would love to read it in its entirety.  

Actually, I would rather she read it to me.  

I believe she is in Heaven and I hope to see her again there one day.  Should that happen, I may ask her.  But, maybe it isn’t as important there as it is here.  Or maybe it is.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them...     Psalm 139:16

COVID-19: Another Perspective

We are on day two of schools being closed and all other activities limited or stopped completely to slow the spread of COVID-19, a novel coronavirus.  People are hoarding groceries and toilet paper, facing extreme illness and mortality, unemployment or crazy overtime, decreased personal interaction, no childcare, and no idea when or where it will end.  Fears for our personal health and for those we love abound.

But, I just keep coming back to what Naomi said.

“I’ve survived the worst thing of my life.”

Naomi is a newly bereaved wife with four young children to raise.  She was one of the ones that didn’t stock up and knows this will pass, as most things do.  She recognizes her outlook on everything has changed, and in this case, that is a good thing.

Naomi inspires me and makes me think about the beatitudes.  Matthew 5:4 to be exact.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

When normalcy, pleasure, fantasies, and distractions melt away because of a worldwide pandemic, a terminal illness, or the death of someone you love, maybe part of the comfort promised in these mystifying verses is that the fear of anything worse ceases to exist.  Your worst fear is behind you and you’ve survived it.  And you know this.   

This gives me hope for those who have faced unimaginable loss and who persevere in living, as well as hope for the rest of us.  Especially now. 

As I ponder the most likely impact of COVID-19 on my immediate family, my thoughts turn to food. It is embarrassing even to admit this considering the threat to life itself, but the shortages tell the truth.  It is on everyone’s mind.  The canned food aisle won the most-ransacked-award when I went shopping a few days ago.  Except for canned peas.  There were plenty of those.  (Who knew?!)

Canned peas aside, we eat well. We could pare down a lot and be just fine.  But, it makes me think about the divide between what we have and what we actually need to live.  This divide is what makes us panic over empty shelves and stocking delays.  We are used to having way more than we need.  We don’t know what we can get by with, and we don’t want to know. 

But, there is a group of people who do know what they need because that is all they have, and all they are used to having.  There is no surplus and no division between have and need,  and yet, an entire kingdom seems to have their name on it.  They are called the poor in spirit.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 

   Matt 5:3

Being poor and poor in spirit are not necessarily, nor always the same thing.  But, our poor are often poor in spirit, and I am thinking about them.  They are used to limited supply.  Not because the shelves are empty, but because their wallets are.  Food stamps and food banks routinely remind them they are beneficiaries.  People at the mercy of other people.  Making room for blessings not earned is mandatory.  Going without, a way of life.

Mother Teresa said, “Even God Himself cannot fill what is already full.”  Well, guess what?  We are making room.  Our circumstances demand it.  As we tackle the uncertainties of living day-to-day in a scenario we never could have imagined, our shelves and calendars have emptied, but our capacity to survive, serve, bless, love, and receive is growing (if we let it).

Amidst all of the unknowing, my hope is that those who can recognize themselves in the beatitudes will find the comfort and the kingdom they have been promised — and that the rest of us can learn something from their hard-won perspective secured along the way.

 God be with us.

Hanging Chickens and Hope

There is a day left of 2017 and I'm thinking about hope.  Mainly, because a few days ago, a well-bundled woman approached me as I sat in my very warm car in a parking lot, finishing some last-minute mascara application.  As she walked by, I couldn't escape her searching eyes, nor overlook her hood and bulky scarf, which indicated her plans to be out much longer than I.  I wondered if she was going to circle back to my car.  And she did. 

"I have to walk a long way to get my bike and I just wondered if you had any money or change for snacks or something to eat."

While I was looking in my wallet I heard her say, "I don't know your name, but God knows."  And I was thinking to myself, "Yeah, God knows."  He also knows that I gave her most, but not all of my money.  Maybe enough for a couple of value meals.  Maybe.  And lest you think I was having a "widow's mite" moment, I wasn't.  Embarassingly,  I kept my last two dollars. 

She thanked me enthusiastically and said things were looking up...She just got a new job hanging chickens for $12.43 an hour!

I congratulated her, walked into my work, and have thought about her every day since. 

I am in awe that her hope lies in a job that I could only cry at the thought of, much less do.

The apparent ease with which she asked for what she needed reminded me that blessed are the poor in spirit - probably aware of every blessing because receiving so often necesitates asking.

How many catastrophes I would have to endure to be so humble!

After long awaiting and receiving the Christ child in the temple, Simeon said, "Lord, now let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled..."

And I wonder to myself, "Will I ever be at a similar place in my life?  A place where all promises have been fulfilled and my only earthly desire is to leave it?"  I hope so.  It seems like death by contentment.

Interestingly, I read Simeon's passage to a small group of nursing home residents during our weekly communion service.  I asked them if they ever imagined they would still be alive in the year 2018.  They all said no.

I wonder what it feels like to live longer than you ever thought you would?  As one widow with Stage 4 cancer said, "I believe if I had an On/Off button, I would push it now."  But, in her hard-earned wisdom, she admits that it is good we don't have such a button,.  We would all push it way too soon.

Hope is that invisible force that keeps pulling us through life, when we'd just rather not.  For a long time, I wondered what it was that kept people going after unspeakable tragedies and horrific losses.  I figured it was something other than great advice, although Winston Churchill ranks highly in my book, with his "When you're going through hell, just keep going."

I've often imagined what I now know to be hope, as a little God-fueled motor propelling us forward, in spite of any desire to move in such a direction.  Or any direction, for that matter.  I've seen it in the poor, sick and very sick, grieving and dying.  I've seen it in all who labor in the skin of humanity, and most recently, in the well-bundled and newly employed.

If you have labored your fair share, it is good to know that hope can be forged.

...knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.   Romans 5:3-5

We can have a hope for a particular experience or outcome, a moment or a day, a lifetime or an eternity.  And we can have them all at the same time.

Simeon's earthly hope rested in the fulfillment of God's promise that "he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord."  My hope lies in this same God Who has brought me to where I am - in a town, far away from my birthplace and from where I met the man I would spend the rest of my life with, holding a job I couldn't have dreamed of, sharing a couch with children whose existence was dependent upon the meeting of those two strangers in the hill country, surrounded by a persevering people that keep me circling back, wondering what keeps them going.  I certainly couldn't have stumbled this far on my own, groping in the dark.

Let us not move one inch from our position of hope, be it hanging chickens, a happy death, or any place in between.

The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.  

1 Thessalonians 5:24

Meet Mr. Griffin

Meet Mr. Robert Griffin.

Mr. Griffin is retired from the United States Navy and has been inspiring me for two and a half years.  I had the pleasure of visiting with him today, and a few sentences into our conversation it dawned on me... I wish you could be there.  To see what I see.  To hear what I hear.  To reap what he sows.  

So, I proposed the idea, and he agreed to meet you, too.

Mr. Griffin was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1987, which was probably 5-10 years after the onset of his initial symptoms.  He has been a nursing home resident for "a little over nine years".  He relinquished his driver's license on his 63rd birthday, and he lives as gracefully and gratefully as anyone I've ever known.

When I asked how he was getting along, he replied that things were the same, and God is good.  And then he said, I mean...

I wish... I could still walk...

 I wish...I could roll over in bed on my side, like I used to...

I wish... I could still go to my church.  I always feel loved, but there, it was something special.  They were my extended family.

And as he talked, I realized I have his wishes in spades.  I carry out his top three wishes hourly and daily and weekly and monthly and yearly and am rarely even conscious that I'm doing them, much less grateful for this same fact.  

I park as close as I can to wherever I'm going, so I have to walk less.  I'm annoyed if I'm rolling over in bed because it means I'm uncomfortable and awake enough to make a decision of any kind.  I enjoy going to church, but that doesn't mean I don't grumble about changing clothes or routinely explain to my precious offspring that they don't "have" to go to church, they "get" to.  

Mr. Griffin doesn't chastise me for my cluelessness or ingratitude.  He doesn't have to.  I'm immediately and painfully aware in his presence.  It is one of his many gifts to me.  

I asked him if there was anything else he wanted you to know and I wrote it down as he was saying it...

God is good, every day.

He is the same yesterday as He will be tomorrow.   

He has never given up on me, so I will never give up on Him.

I feel blessed, in a way, for how long it took from my initial diagnosis to going to a nursing home, because I know people who went from being diagnosed to becoming a quadriplegic in 2.5-3 months.  Everybody with MS is different.  I'm not sure why that is, but if it wasn't for my belief in God, I probably wouldn't be here now.  

Because if you don't have something to pin your hopes to, you'll give up...

And hope is what we've got.

Hope, that when we leave this earth, there is a God who will take care of us and restore our bodies.  

One day, I will be able to walk, and maybe run, 

jump, clap my hands, and praise God.  

Like in Amazing Grace, when we've been there for 10,000 years, it will be like an instant.  Because there is never enough time to praise God.

And to all of this, I say...Thank you, Mr. Griffin.  Thank you for being you.  Thank you for having your perspective and sharing it.  Thank you for being the face of perseverance, gratitude, and hope, as I (and now we) count our blessings this Thanksgiving.  May God continue to bless you and yours in abundance, as He blesses us through you.  Amen.

In It To Win It

We made it!  

Today is our 15th wedding anniversary!  Where are the stickers and t-shirts?!  My runner friends call it swag.  Seriously, where can I find a 15.0 sticker?  I want one.

Not being a runner in the well-understood sense, I know marriage will be the longest race I will ever run.  I'm pretty sure it is a marathon on steroids.  You know the particulars of your own marriage and you know the particulars of mine, because I've shared them with the you.

I want to apologize if I have burdened you with the nuances of my emotional landscape.  As one who lives and works in the world of feelings and as a writer, it is my pleasure, privilege, and duty to attach words to things that can be difficult to explain and more difficult to admit.  The intention behind my transparency is always to instruct, encourage, accompany, and glorify God in the reality and dailiness of it all.   

Since writing last, I've heard from many people who are concerned for me and my marriage.  A sincere thank you.  You have been a great comfort and remind me of this...

2 Corinthians 1:3-5, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort, too.

I would like to comfort you, as well.  Brett and I have been married for 15 years.  What feels fleeting is not.  What feels irreparable is not.  What feels like loss is gain.  This month in the deep, in the desert, in the woods, or whatever you want to call it, has produced more fruit for me (and hopefully, us) than years combined.  I know my husband and myself better now than ever before.

I am in awe of that.  When you're a human being and married, life always comes one day at a time.  It is easy to believe that everything we believe, feel, and understand comes gradually.  This is simply not true.  Things can change in an instant, and they do all of the time.  The drop of a name, an eyeroll, a hint of ingratitude or contempt, a new baby,  a terminal diagnosis, a death, an unexpected gift or word of praise.  You name it...

All of my writings have been "blessed and approved" by my husband.  I love this about him.  It takes enviable confidence and incredible trust to give blanket permission to  another person, who knows you better than anyone else, to disclose whatever seems relevant to the thought for the day.  He can do this because he knows "we" are not going anywhere.  And I can write freely about all of the ups and downs, devastations and joys, because I know "we" are not going anywhere, either.

In the past month, I've watched a young couple make their vows and start their life together.  I've stumbled  around somewhere in the middle of  winning, losing, surviving, and thriving.  I've met people in the "sickness" part of their promise, where their own need becomes exclusively that of meeting the needs of their other.  All other needs, which once held a place of high regard and importance for them are left behind, and they do not see anything heroic about this.  I've attended a grief group for my work, where a dozen women shared the trials of continuing to live after their spouse has died, and how burning a candle in their place at the table might be a comfort to them this Thanksgiving.

I realize flames of hope come in as many ways as people, places, and times.  I am grateful for the journey of being married, for my fearless husband, and all of the people who walk with us in the adventure called life.  My new favorite quote, as shared with me by a dear friend, reminds me of the goal of it all.  Intimacy.

"Intimacy requires a clear self, relentless self-focus, open communication, and a profound respect for differences."                                  -Harriet Lerner

What's Real in a World of Illusion

I’m at a Disney World Resort, sitting on a patio on a “boardwalk”, eating lunch by myself in the same place I ate lunch by myself yesterday.  I’m here because I tagged along with my husband and five other women for a work conference.  If you read my post yesterday, you have permission to laugh.  In light of a series of recent conversations, it seems that this was intended to be the backdrop for Heidi’s 2017 Brokenness Retreat.  First, last, and only.  Hopefully.

This seems so ironic, because the last time I was here was 23 years ago.  I arrived with my high school show choir, the day after the accident which claimed my mom’s mobility.  I didn’t want to go, but everyone convinced me it was best.  Disney is known as a magical place.  I know it as a world other than my own, but maybe not quite magical.  Not at first. 

I have to admit, I have felt a surprisingly strong resistance to the “unrealness” of the place I’m staying, The Boardwalk Inn.  The buildings are real, the water is real, and the wood that makes up the “boardwalk” is real.  But, the “boardwalk” goes in a circle around a manmade lagoon, has a lighthouse, and a beach with a concrete beginning and end.

And I think to myself, “Hey.  You’re not tricking me.”  This is an approximation, a fabrication, and a manipulation.  I’m not settling into this fictitiousness.  I have a passion for real (nevermind I believe my fears with no basis in reality, without a second thought).  But, I work to shed pretense, not live in it.  This is not what I’m about.  Not that I can’t relax here, but don’t think I’m buying it for a minute.

And then, beginning with this little lunch spot, real things started to happen. 

Yesterday, it was the guy proposing to his girlfriend thirty feet from where I was sitting, and a couple from the North of England, who are on their fourth generation of making memories here, in a place that is magical for them.  Then, my aunt came to visit, whom I haven’t seen for years, and we connected in ways heretofore unimagined.  

Here, in this place that is made to look like someplace else.

Today, when I came back to my new favorite spot, my waitress greeted me with, “How’s your retreat going?  Unsweet iced tea, again?”  And I felt seen and known, at least a little.  The couple sitting next to me were from Atlantic City, where the real boardwalk is, and they told me the funniest thing.  They prefer this one!  Hahaha!  And the fake “boardwalk” grew a little more real. 

I thank Cathy, my waitress, and my lunch neighbors, Roger and Iva, for making that happen.  I thank 35-year Disney employee, Kennedy from the Bronx, who remembered seeing his first clean street here, for answering that he’s “magical” every time he’s asked, welcoming everyone home, and handing out stickers until the tendons in his wrist beg him to stop.  

And, thank you to my real lunch date, the very real grackle coveting my very real tortilla chips, as the most likely source for his next very real meal.  

Thank you all for being the magic in my Disney experience.

Walt Disney said, “I don’t want the public to see the world they live in while they’re in the park.  I want them to feel they’re in another world.”  I can see that he’s succeeded.  But, I can also see that the magic in my world will always come from the people in it.  

Like Superheroes in Heaven

I meet a lot of amazing people with equally amazing stories, but I rarely cry.  Yesterday, I was only on my second visit of the day and knew it was going to be a tear-jerker, pretty soon after walking through the door.

I want to share this visit with you, not because I cried, but because he said I could, and you should know this man, and the wisdom he embodies.  I suspect, a man rarely seen, and less often appreciated.

A man in his 60s, lying alone in his hospital room, turned his head toward me as I entered.

It was apparent that he was "handicapped", as he called it.  He said he was born prematurely, one leg was bigger than the other, and what happened to all of the light wheelchairs?

Within minutes, I learned that his brother died on November 1, and "50% of me died that day, too". The floodgates opened.  He used to live with his brother and attend the church where he preached, but then he died, and now he lives in a nursing home.  "Nursing homes are freezing."

Ugh.  I hate being cold and I certainly can't imagine living in a place where I could never get warm. Pretty much my definition of hell, actually.  More tears.

He had multiple medical issues going on, recounted the numerous falls out of his wheelchair, including the one when he hit his head on a table leg and everyone thought he was dead.  But, he said he looked up and waved and said, "I'm here."

Saint Teresa of Avila once said something like, "Even if you have a life full of nothing but suffering, when you look back on it from heaven, it will seem like but one night in an inconvenient hotel."  I sure hope she's right.

I knew I was in the presence of a saint in this man's room.  But, the following confirmed it.

The surrounding circumstances were unclear, but once he was a spirit, floating above his body and the grass.  Do you think you were in heaven?  "I know I was.  The colors are much brighter there than they are here!"  (I hear that a lot)  "Did you know that when you're handicapped and you go to heaven, you're re-done all over?  Like a superhero."

No, I didn't know that.  Not for sure.  I mean, not like you.  Can I share your story with people?  I think they'd really like to know that.

"I'm looking forward to my funeral!  Don't be sad.  I'll be with my brother and the Lord will be at his side.  People will be singing and praising the Lord.  I want the same songs my brother had at his funeral (and he listed them).  I want a blanket on my casket that says, "This lamb went to be with the Lord."

Tears were streaming down my face, and a physical therapist walked in.  And this is what it's like to be a chaplain.  In heaven and at a funeral in one moment, interrupted, and moved along in the next.

So, that was it.  I had to leave, so I left.  Sad, but rich, and with a clearer and more convinced picture of heaven and all of the superheroes who live there.

39 and NOT holding...

Today is my last day in my thirties.  Tomorrow is my 40th birthday, and I don't think I could love that idea any more.  For real.  This surprises me because I've heard forty bad-mouthed my whole life.  I think of black balloons and pending hospitalizations from spontaneous bodily disintegration.

But, if 40 is old (which it isn't), and old is wise (which it can be), I'm celebrating that.  The wisdom of growing older, of knowing more and more who I am and what I'm about.  That is an incredible feeling.

If I had to deliver a 40th birthday speech to the whole world in ten seconds, I think it would be this:

Some things need doing better than they've ever been done before.  

Some just need doing.   

Others don't need doing at all.

Know which is which!

(author unknown)

and 

Let your God get bigger, and try to imitate the God you believe in.  

The End.

Ecclesiates says "there's nothing new under the sun", but I still experience things for the first time, all of the time.  In a couple of days, I'm supposed to sing the National Anthem for more than a thousand people (Pray for me, I'm terrified!).  In the past month alone, I made a meatloaf without a recipe and it was delicious (A miracle worthy of investigation by the Magisterium), attempted reading War and Peace (and decided it was in the "things that don't need doing at all" category), had a patient climb out of a hospital bed to get on her knees for prayer, did my first podcast, made a new friend, and peed in a Gatorade bottle. 

   

If I live to be 85-90 (my loose ideal), I can only imagine what that list will look like by then.  Or maybe I will be like my 99-year-old patient who is still "disgusted with her prayer life".  If I die tomorrow, I am grateful for the list, so far.

In the next 40 years, I want to learn Spanish well, continue learning to play the guitar, walk the Way of St. James, and keep the better-than-good things I already have, which are many.  In a word, relationships.  

I have friends, family, and an incredible job as a chaplain in a healthcare system.  Meeting people, learning their stories, and sharing in their joy and pain, are among my greatest privileges and treasures.  

But, I start and end my days at home.  My priority, crowning achievement, greatest challenge, inspiration, thrill, and triumph is living under the same roof with these people.

If they were not who they are, I would not be who I am.  At the end of my life, I pray that if I haven't done anything else, I've done well by them, and by all whom God has entrusted to me. 

And so I pray.  

Amen.

My Friend With an Empty Vacuum Cleaner Bag

I got a little time to myself yesterday.  My husband took the boys shooting and no one needed me for hours.  I was already out, so I took myself to lunch and went from store to store, shopping for a rug to go under a particular chair in my house, or anything else I couldn't live without that was less than five dollars.

And this is happening more and more, only subtly, here and there.  The guys all want to see this action movie or that war documentary, and I'm out.  Sitting in the other room, doing whatever girl/Mom activity I choose.

I used to be the generator, facilitator, supervisor, or recipient of every activity my boys dipped their toe in.  Every activity.  And it was exhausting.  I see parents of young children, now, and remember just how exhausting.  I admire them so much.

Overall, my thought about raising kids who are growing up and seemingly need me less and less, is one of great joy.

But, there is the occasional, and always unexpected, lump in my throat.  Like when I was on my way home from Wal-Mart the other day.  I passed the elementary school that my older boys attended and my youngest still attends.  But, only for two more years.  And in that moment, I felt like I was visiting this town from the future, where elementary school and boys who go there, are but a foggy and distant memory.  And I wanted to cry.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn captures this feeling perfectly in The Cancer Ward, as one of his cancer-stricken characters reflects on his life:  "Sometimes I wonder whether the children were real, whether I didn't just dream them.  Maybe they never existed?"

It's clear, now, that my children are real.  Their bodies are lounging around my living room (including the one who is sharing my couch cushion), Lab Rats is on TV, there are army guys by my coffee cup, a t-shirt on the floor, and dominoes are strewn all over my dining room table.  The evidence of real children is all over the place.

Among our summer sojourns, we've made a friend at the park.  He frequents it five or six times a day, because by his own admission, he doesn't have anything else to do.  He's divorced and his children are grown.  He admits that sometimes, he vacuums, just for something to do.  The bag on his vacuum cleaner stays empty, because his house never gets dirty.

Surely, this will never be us.  Right?!  

But, surely, it will.

Our friend reminds me that I'm living the American dream.  To be happily married, with young children, and time to enjoy all of it...

I'm afraid to admit it, but I need the reminder.  It is easy to miss the treasure of the dailiness - between basketball practices, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, and repeating, while never, ever asking myself, "Did I really need to sweep or vacuum?!"

So, in case you don't have a wise friend at the park with an empty vacuum cleaner bag and time to enjoy your kids, I'll loan you mine.

Competent Humility

I'm just home from the Adoration chapel (my weekly one hour date with Jesus, only I'm usually at least five minutes late, because I call my Mom on the way there, and well, ten minutes is hardly enough time, but leaving sooner proves mostly impossible).  Tonight was one of those nights I didn't need the coffee I drank beforehand to stay awake, because I am in epiphany land.  Land of epiphanies.  When did I write you last?  A couple of weeks ago, I think.  Pretty much since then.

My clinical pastoral education supervisor challenged me to make "claiming my competence" as one of my learning goals.  I was shooting for "positive use of power and authority", which seemed much more clinical and considerably less narcissistic, but I conceded.   I could see that she might be on to something when I couldn't so much as comfortably name one thing I knew I was good at, or why I was good at it, without feeling like a total clown/heel/Oscar award winner.

I quickly accepted I was going to have to recognize the competencies I already possess and name them.  But, I wondered why the idea of it felt so abhorrent?  This might be one.  A long carried belief...

...God highly values the man who out of true humility belittles and forgets himself, judges himself unworthy of all gifts and benefits, does not flaunt them when received, and does not seek the praise of others...                             -Thomas a Kempis

Very aware of the tension between my learning goal to name my pastoral competencies and a life goal of pursuing humility (hopefully with a more lenient deadline than six months), I began to rack my brain, perusing my new books for hints, and trusting that God would resolve the real or perceived conflict between naming my competencies and belittling and forgetting myself!  Goodness me!

In doing so, I came across a chapter entitled, The Caregiver's Life Experience as a Source of Authority.  Aha!  Life experience!  Yes!  I have that.  Good, here we go...

Without reading so much as a paragraph from the chapter, I made a list of all of the things I've endured or overcome in my life (including but not limited to the four things mentioned in my grief timeline from my last post).  Afterward, I was actually feeling a little embarrassingly proud of that list.  Huh!  I had never considered my hardships as bullet points on an emotional availability/proven character/pastoral competency resume of sorts.  Kind of cool to drop this list (pretend it's written on an old tin can) into the empty metal bucket of my self-perception, and hear the loud clank of something in there!

That would have been quite enough self-revelation for a good chunk of time to come, but, it was quite the same thing again (in rapid succession).  While I was sitting there, feeling good about all of the bad/hard things in my life, I realized, "Hey!  That's not all!"  There are a lot of really good things that should be clanking around in that bucket, too!  Fourteen years of marriage, twelve years of motherhood, seven years of working in the clinical setting between the medical and spiritual side, three units of clinical pastoral education, and a partridge in a pear tree!

Ha!  Hoo and Ray!  

Feeling instantly more competent in pastoral care than ever before, I thanked God for the mercifully brief period of revelation, all of the experiences in said revelation, and returned to the conundrum of forgetting myself while thinking about myself inordinately.

Providentially, I found this little gem of a daily morning offering, a few days old, in my inbox from catholiccompany.com:

"There was much in the Magdalen that she had never used, perhaps never dreamed of, until she came to our Lord. He revealed to her the secret of true self-development, which is another word for sanctity. And she found under His guidance that everything in her had henceforth to be used, and used in a fuller and richer way than she had ever imagined possible. It was in no narrow school of self-limitation, in no morbid school of false asceticism, that this poor sinner was educated in the principles of sanctity, but in the large and merciful school of Him who has been ever since the hope of the hopeless, the friend of publicans and sinners; who knows full well that what men need is not to crush and kill their powers, but to find their true use and to use them; that holiness is not the emptying of life, but the filling; that despair has wrapped its dark cloud around many a soul because it found itself in possession of powers that it abused and could not destroy and did not know how to use. Christ taught them the great and inspiriting doctrine 'I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.'"
— Fr. Basil W. Maturin, p. 40

I felt extremely humbled at the thought of being so needy, so well-known, and so hand-fed.  Exactly what I needed.  There was only one thing I still needed to know.

Where do the corners of Magdalen's true self-development and Thomas a Kempis' humility intersect?

Back in the chapel, I asked the Lord this question, in so many words.  Can you show me what being competent and humble at the same time looks like?

He did.