Dear Us,

Tiring of waiting for the election results to become official, I started composing an open letter to Congress.

It was more like an open postcard.

Dear Elected Officials,

Stop blaming the other side and get to work building a country that works for all of us. And if you won’t do that, shame on you.

But before I can send that postcard to our elected officials, I’d better mail one to myself. And while I’m at it, to every other person who calls this broken country of ours home.

If we don’t stop blaming the other side and get to work building a country that works for all of us, then shame on us.

Because It isn’t just up to them, it’s up to all of us.

Getting Around To It

Meditation has been on my mind for a long time now. It is the spiritual practice I am most drawn to, and yet, I never seem to get around to doing it.

This probably has to do with the fact that there hasn’t been a lovely, carefully designed space in our home in which to sit while doing it. Except the only space required to meditate is the one between my ears.

It could also have to do with the fact that I don’t seem to be able to find a consistent time, every day of course, to do it. Except any time of day can work.

Or it might be that the few times I have done it, nothing seemed to happen. Except the benefit of meditation is in the doing whether anything happens or not.

Perhaps it is because it’s difficult to find a time when the house is quiet and I will be uninterrupted. Except mediation happens in the midst of real life, not off at some silent retreat center.

So.

I’m writing this after having finished meditating smack dab in the middle of the day, within earshot of a visiting daughter doing homework with our grandson at the dining room table, the yaps of their little dog Comet, and the footsteps of my husband as he comes in from some outdoor chores. Nothing happened. I just did it.

It is easy to put up obstacles in our own path.

It’s easy to get rid of them too.

Ommmm

Photo by Shiva Smyth from Pexels

Get Over It

When the reality of the pandemic first began to hit, many people, including me, had no idea how long a haul we were in for. Are in for.

We hunkered down and prepared ourselves to ride it out and make it safely to the other side.

Somewhere along the way, many people, including me, began to tire of the uncertainty, restrictions, and isolation. We were over it, and wanted to get on with it.

However, as lockdowns, mandates about the use of masks, group gatherings, school options, and tiered plans for re-opening continue to roll out, there is no real end in sight. Add to that the glaring light shining on systemic racism, the inequities in every arena, the political rancor that is poisoning our shared life, and perhaps the most important election of our lifetime—well— the haul just got longer.

We have each played a part in writing the story of today, and, we will each play a part in writing the story of tomorrow. Will we bring the best of ourselves to the world within our reach, or not?

There is no seeing over this horizon.

There is no getting to the other side of it.

This is what we have.

And this is where our work is.

Right here.

Right now.

Wishing it were different never has, and never will, make it so.

Let’s get over it, and get to work.

Photo by Gabriel Peter from Pexels

No More Kicking Cans

to kick the can down the road:

put off confronting a difficult issue or making an important decision, typically on a continuing basis

Recently, but prior to George Floyd’s death, these two sentences came to mind.

No more kicking cans down the road. There is no more road left.

With those words came an image. An accumulation of cans piled up against a barrier. Each can had a word on it that identified one of those difficult issues and important decisions that have persistently been put off. Cans that we have continued to kick down the road. I could see the cans. It took longer for the barrier that stopped them to come into view. Was it a brick wall? One of those concrete barriers you see on the New Jersey turnpike? Or maybe, the gates around the White House?

Squinting my inner eyes, I finally saw it. The barrier was the Earth herself, drops of sweat on her weary brow from the effects of climate change, wearing a mask like the ones we wear to protect one another from spreading COVID-19. The global pandemic has exposed this pile of cans for what it is. The accumulation of years of unwillingness to do the right thing, take the long view, and reckon with our own tendencies to look out for me and mine, while looking away from them and theirs.

Then George Floyd was murdered.

He pleaded with the man with the knee on his neck, telling him repeatedly, that he couldn’t breathe. He pleaded until he ran out of air. And then he was dead.

The Earth, against which all of those cans have been kicked, is telling us that she can’t breathe.

Words alone wouldn’t communicate what I was thinking and feeling, and while I might have a bit of a way with words, not so much with colored pens and pencils. That’s when I called my friend Willa. A sophomore in high school with a heart that is deep and wide, Willa has a keen intellect, and a grasp of the world far beyond her years. I want to be like Willa when I grow up.

I asked if she would consider drawing something to capture what I had seen in my mind’s eye.

She would.

And she did.

Except not exactly.

She took what I said, filtered it through her own lens, and came up with something so much better. Something more powerful, and disturbingly accurate—the Earth in full protest. Willa saw what I couldn’t. The cans are not heaped in a pile waiting to be picked up. It’s too late for that. They’ve all ruptured. Their contents have spilled out all over everything, and we have to deal with the mess we have made of the world. Starting with the racism that has been laid bare. In my mind, racism has been its own separate issue. That’s because I am white. To anyone who is not white, the impacts of racism are felt within the context of every other issue filling the skies above the protesting Earth. Yes, white people are impacted by these issues too. But not simply because they are white.

No more kicking cans down the road. There is no more road left.

Earth is calling us to action. To not only take to the streets in protest against what is wrong, but to lace up our shoes and get to work for what is right.

Look at her.

Feet firmly planted, her fists raised in defiance, she is simply not going to take it any more.

We can’t either.

With gratitude to Willa McLaughlin

Old Glory

Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.

~Roald Dahl

Today I ordered a new flag pole so that we can hang our faded-but-still-symbolic American flag. The old pole is bent and no longer in good working order, kind of like our country. Time to provide a stronger staff on which to hang Old Glory.

Election season is upon us, and as is true in any neighborhood, town, or city across this beautiful, broken country of ours, the way we will cast our votes will not be the same as that of all of our neighbors. And while I deeply care about who others vote for, I care even more that we all care enough to show up and have an informed say in the state of our union.

You Could

Strapping on my snow shoes outside of Timberline Lodge to head out on my own, I was musing on where to go. Tom, busy getting his skis on to spend a few hours on the slopes, said, You could climb to Silcox Hut.

What?

Silcox Hut is a small rustic lodge nestled into the flanks of Mt. Hood. It sits at about 7000 ft, and to get there from the Lodge means trekking straight uphill for little over a mile while gaining 1000 ft of elevation in the process.

Tom headed for the chair lift, and I headed for the official, mostly flat, snow shoe trail, not intending to head up the steep slope that would get me to Silcox Hut.

The thing is though, I’ve always wanted to see it up close and personal.

After a few steps on the trail, I let me gaze settle on the roof line of the hut way, way, way up the hill, which is when it began to sink in.

I could climb to Silcox Hut.

I could climb to Silcox Hut.

I could climb to Silcox Hut.

With that thought, I set out to do something I’d wanted to do for a long, long time, discovering a few key things along the way:

Make a decision. The first step to accomplishing that long-held desire was to decide to go there. I even said it out loud to no one but me, and maybe God. “I am going to climb to Silcox Hut.” When we give voice to something we could do, we are one giant step closer to actually doing it.

Set milestones. There were trail markers all the way up the slope. Looking up the mountain, I’d pick one as my next resting spot. Sometimes I’d go farther, but I never stopped before at least reaching my next goal. Breaking things up into pieces keeps us moving in the right direction.

Take note of how far you’ve come. Every time I stopped to rest, my gaze would naturally go to how much farther I had to go, and how much steeper the slope seemed to be getting with every step. It made all the difference to look back over my shoulder and take in the distance I had already covered. The antidote to giving up is to remember how far we’ve come.

Linger at the top. Rather than turn around and head back down, I lingered at the top, soaking in the feeling of accomplishment, and the way my lungs and muscles felt for having worked hard on my behalf. The pleasure derived from doing something we set out to do stays with us, reminding us to keep going, even when the going gets tough.

Is there something you’ve long wanted to do?

Well.

You could.

Silcox Hut: Mt. Hood

On The Road Again

The early weeks in a new year are often a time of introspection and reflection as we allow the dust of the previous year to settle, and our vision and roadmap for the new one to begin to emerge.

It is time well spent.

On one condition.

Insight is cheap unless we take action on what we’ve discovered during the days of turning our gaze inward. That deeper understanding of who we are and what we care about is meant to energize our lives out in the world. It doesn’t even matter if we don’t yet have a crystal clear vision for the road ahead. It is time to start taking action, trusting that we’ll gain the clarity we need through the process of moving forward.

Do you remember those toy cars that had an internal mechanism called a pullback motor? The more you pulled the car backwards, the more the energy built up until when you released the car, it shot forward.

We are seven weeks into this new year. It’s time to stop pulling our cars backward, let them go, and hang on for the ride.

(With gratitude to Dane Anthony for reminding me about these tiny cars)

Photo: PRR on pexels.com

Starting Today

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

What if we took these as our marching orders, starting today?

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Is This The ______________ That I Want?

Tom and I had been married about eight years when he spent a couple of weeks teaching at a remote retreat center in the North Cascades, while I stayed home minding the fort. During those two weeks it became clear to me that there was no question that I wanted to be married to Tom. However, that wasn’t the real question. The real question was—Is the marriage we have the one that I want?

It wasn’t.

Those aren’t thoughts one can keep to oneself if one wants things to change.

After he returned we were out running errands one day, and stopped at a Starbucks. I can still see the table where we were sitting out on the sidewalk. I’m sure he was expecting just a nice catch-up visit, so when I quietly told him I wanted to talk about our marriage, a deer in the headlights about sums up his initial reaction. Thankfully, unlike a deer he didn’t disappear into the woods, but leaned forward, and leaned in. That conversation, over lattes, on a sidewalk outside of Starbucks is the conversation that changed the trajectory of our marriage.

Together we began to give voice to what was working, and what was not. We needed plenty of help along the way from therapists who could help us navigate all of the issues that could derail us if we let them. After 25 years together, we still hit brick walls and have to talk about scary things. On any given day, we work hard to bring the best of what we have to each other, with varying degrees of success, but always with the commitment of building the kind of relationship and life we want. Our conversation over coffee that started all those years ago is one that we will probably be having for the rest of our lives. At least it should be if we want to keep building the marriage we want.

The changes in our marriage all started with a hard question, as most hard changes do, and, it is a hard question that can help any of us get to the heart of any matter that matters to us.

Is this the…relationship, parenting approach, community, fitness level, body, friendship, career path, communication pattern, story emotional health, financial reality, team culture, family dynamic, belief system, outcome, home-life, fill-in-your-own-blank…that I want?

If the answer is yes, then we keep on keeping on.

If the answer is no, maybe today is the day to figure out what it is we do want and how to go about getting it.

Photo by James Wheeler from Pexels

Insight + Action = Transformation

Every day there is the possibility of discovering new things about ourselves and our way of being in the world.

If we pay attention, we can gain insight that can help us become more of the person we want to be.

Insight however, is cheap.

It’s what we do with it that counts.

Question 1: What insight have you discovered about yourself?

Question 2: What are you going to do about it?

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