A Gathering Of Words

Life is nothing if not a maze of grace.

I’ve loved that gathering of words ever since it appeared on my page. Hanging together like good friends, they are at ease in one another’s company. Each word separate but intimately connected, the meaning greater than the sum of the its parts.

Life is the condition that distinguishes us as animate beings, it includes the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change, signifies our existence as a human being, and refers to our time here from birth until death.

In other words, life is kind of a big deal.

A maze is a complex, and sometimes confusing network of paths and hedges designed as a puzzle.

In other words, a maze challenges us to find our way through.

Grace is courteous goodwill, an extended period of time granted as a special favor, and unmerited or unearned favor.

In other words, grace is what helps us transcend our blunders.

Our time on the planet is our shot at becoming who we are meant to be and doing what we are here to do. There will be dead ends, unexpected detours, and wrong turns along the way. Treating ourselves and others with kindness and goodwill smooths the way for everyone.

In other words, life is nothing if not a maze of grace.

No wonder these words found their way to one another.

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Becoming Better

My good friend and colleague, David Berry is the V.P. of People & Culture at Municipal. David hosts the podcast, Becoming Better Men, which is about exactly what the name suggests.

Recently my husband and I listened in on David’s conversation with another good friend and colleague of mine, educator and spiritual director, Dane Anthony. Their conversation, There’s Another Way to Be Myself, was rich, insightful, and one of my favorites to date.

At the end of every conversation David asks his guest the same five questions. One in particular grabbed my attention.

What is a quality you wish you had less of?

We decided to answer that same question for ourselves.

My answer was clear and immediate.

Zero doubt about it, the quality I would like less of is defensiveness. For the record, other people in my life probably wish I had less of it too.

It’s been with me for as long as I can remember. Perhaps it grew out of being raised by a patriarchal father who wasn’t a fan of strong women, which is tough when that is what you are. It might have been a necessary coping mechanism back in the day, but not any more. It is a protective reaction, based on fear, and it isn’t pretty. Especially when you are married to a guy who absolutely is a fan of strong women, and which is in fact, one of the reasons he wanted to share life with you.

Like any longtime habit, my defensive pattern runs deep, and it doesn’t take much to set it off. However, I am discovering that there is a sliver of time in which to make a different choice. A tiny wafer of moments that creates enough room to take a breath, which creates enough space to take another one, and then another one. Those breaths allow me enough time to step away from that old reactive quality, and begin to step into a new one. One that is based on curiosity, not fear, and favors connection over protection. Sometimes my better angels don’t win, and I blast right past that tiny sliver of time. But now I know it is there, and as Dane Anthony reminds me in our monthly conversations, we can’t ever un-know what we’ve learned along our way.

I hope you will listen in on David’s conversation with Dane on Becoming Better Men. And when it’s over, maybe you will want to answer that same question for yourself.

What is a quality you wish you had less of?

If you are like me, your answer will come fairly quickly, and lead to plenty of opportunities to practice a new way of being yourself. And while practice may never make perfect, it will always make better.

(Be sure to check out Municipal for some great sports utility gear.)

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Okay With Not Being Okay

The other day I screamed at a customer service agent over the phone.

Stop! Just stop talking! Be quiet and let me finish! Thankfully I stopped short of yelling Shut the F#@k up!, but just barely.

It didn’t make me feel any better. How could it? Yelling at him wasn’t okay. But then again, neither was I. My little interchange on the phone was a clue about just how not okay I’d been feeling.

Typically whenever something isn’t okay, my first response is to try and fix it. To try and make it better. To try and get over it so that I can get on with it.

I’m trying not to do that.

I’m trying something new.

I’m trying to be okay with not being okay. It’s a stretch.

After hanging up the phone from yelling at the guy who was trying to help me, I cried for about the ninth time that day. Then I laid on the couch for a while. Then I cried some more. Then I threw the ball to the dog. Then I took a nap. Then I watched the KC Chiefs beat the NE Patriots. Then I ate dinner. Then I watched the GB Packers beat the Atlanta Falcons. Then I took a walk. Then I went to bed. Then I slept. Then I woke up. Then I had a cup of coffee on the front porch in the early morning darkness.

Things weren’t suddenly okay, but somehow that seemed, well, okay.

As I write this, there is a little more breathing room around my not-okayness. And with a little more space, I’m less tempted to run from it and more inclined to reflect on it. Instead of trying to fix it, I find myself turning to face it. Rather than hurrying to get over it, I’m slowing down so as to get something out of it. Because it’s here for a reason, and there are things that can only be discovered when we are anything but okay.

We are in a hurt locker. All of us. We’ve been through hard times before, but not these hard times. We’ve navigated hard things before, but not these hard things. With no end in sight, it only makes sense that there are going to be days when we simply are not okay.

And when we’re not, it is fertile ground for growth.

And I’m okay with that.

Milestones

“I’m going to say three words, and I want you to remember them.”

Chair

Lemon

Sunrise

Yesterday I had what is called a Medicare Wellness Exam. We covered all the basics of a normal exam, with the addition of a few new twists now that I am old enough to be a card carrying Medicare recipient. Like remembering those three words, which the PA asked me to recall and repeat several times throughout the visit.

That exam was a milestone event even if no one said so. It was a stark reminder that I’m on the far side of youth, and that my final horizon here on this planet is getting closer every day.

Milestones aren’t reserved for those of us with at least 65 trips around the sun. They belong to the forty-something with their first pair of readers, new parents with someone other than themselves to care for, a high school graduate paying their first month’s rent, a recent retiree with time to spare, or a child wobbling off on a bicycle without the steadying hand of a parent.

We are all heading in the same direction, and there’s no turning back.

Every milestone is a reminder to be all-in, and if we aren’t, then today is the day to start.

(And yes, I still remember them.)

Chair

Lemon

Sunrise

Photo by erdinç ersoy from Pexels

Photo by erdinç ersoy from Pexels

Final Word Of The Day: CULTIVATE

For the past few weeks I have focusedon a word of the day drawn from a list created at the beginning of January. Each word was chosen to serve as a guide to inspire and inform my steps through 2020. If you are just joining me now and want to look in on earlier posts on this topic, you will find links to each at the end.


CULTIVATE

As I write about this, the last word from my list, it seems fitting that today is the exact midway point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Also known as the Vernal Equinox, the first day of spring ushers in a season of new growth.

Driving home from church today we passed fields that last week were unplowed, but are now tilled and readied for new crops. As it is for farmers, ranchers, and community gardeners, now is the time to set our minds upon that which we want to grow within us.

Whatever it is that wants to take root in our lives, it is time to prepare the soil, plant the seeds, and provide them with what they need to grow and thrive.

Photo by PhotoMIX Ltd. from Pexels

Photo by PhotoMIX Ltd. from Pexels

Word Of The Day: GRACE

Over the next few weeks I will be focusing on a word of the day drawn from a list created at the beginning of January. Each word was chosen to serve as a guide to inspire and inform my steps through 2020. If you are just joining me now and want to look in on earlier posts on this topic, you will find links to each at the end.

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My grandson, Hollis, is practicing his letters. Currently he is captivated by a sort of coloring book that focuses on the big picture of such things—the uppercase letters of the alphabet. Each plastic-coated page is dedicated to a letter, and on that page there are 4 of the same uppercase letter in a row, all outlined with dashes. The task for little hands is to trace the letter with a washable marker that can be wiped off with a wet cloth, making it possible for the owner of those little hands to practice again. And again, and again, and again.

Grace is a lot like that.

It is a chance for us to wipe the slate clean and try it again. And again, and again, and again. It is also an opportunity for us to allow others to wipe their slates clean and try again too.

If there was one word, and one word only, for me to choose as a daily traveling companion, I think it would have to be this one. Life is nothing if not a maze of grace. Some days I seem to get it all right. I show up as the kind of person I aspire to be and bring what I have to offer to the day before me. Other days I get it so wrong it feels like I will never recover. Most days are a combo plate of the two.

Grace is the washable marker that traces the dashes that outline my days.

Again, and again, and again.

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Practicing Love

In his latest book (The Great Spiritual Migration: How The World’s Largest Religion Is Seeking A Better Way To Be Christian), Brian McLaren suggests that we need to learn the practical skills necessary to love well, starting with those closest to us. When those skills are practiced at home they can then be put to use out in the world with others.

His is an extensive list, and to my mind, there isn’t one that isn’t worth the effort. And, because the list is so expansive it might feel a little daunting to you as it does to me, so rather than take it all on at once, pick a few that beckon to you. Or maybe better yet, ask those near and dear to you which ones they would love to see you practice, which btw is practicing skills 7, 17, and 18.

  1. Common Courtesies

  2. Gratitude

  3. Admitting Weaknesses & Failures

  4. Self-Reporting Emotions

  5. Expressing Hurt & Disappointment

  6. Confronting & Forgiving

  7. Asking For Help

  8. Differing Graciously

  9. Surfacing & Negotiating Competing Desires

  10. Taking The First Step To Resolve Conflict

  11. Upholding Wise Boundaries

  12. Saying Yes & No

  13. Winning & Losing Graciously

  14. Creating Win-Win Outcomes

  15. Speaking Truth In Love

  16. Speaking Truth To Power

  17. Asking Good Questions

  18. Requesting Feedback

  19. Expressing Affection

  20. Opening One’s Heart

  21. Giving Gifts

  22. Seeking Wise Counsel

What better gift to give to ourselves, and to those we love this holiday season, than to diligently, humbly, and intentionally practice the skills of love. Love is, after all, the gift that keeps on giving.

Photo by Ylanite Koppens from Pexels

Shedding Our Skin

There is a good chance that most of us have stumbled upon an old snake skin. It looks like the snake simply slithered out of the old skin, leaving it in one piece, a remnant of life before the new skin appeared. One of the reasons snakes shed their skin is to make room for further growth. The shedding of their skin is necessary because while their body continues to grow, their skin does not, and in order to accommodate the growth that has occurred, new skin is required.

Have you ever had the experience of slipping into your old skin? The one that served you once, but no longer does? While it might feel tight and a bit constrictive, there is a familiarity about it that, for the moment, feels comforting. We know that old skin. We remember that old skin. We even miss that old skin because becoming more of who we are meant to be means risking being in the world in new ways that are anything but familiar.

We humans do the same thing. We shed our skins too, just in smaller increments. A reminder that the skin held us together in the past is too small to contain us now.

Photo: Pexels.com

Photo: Pexels.com



New Shoes

Most pilgrims who walk the Camino de Santiago end their journey at the Santiago de Compostela cathedral, often celebrating the mid-day Pilgrim Mass. Others however continue on to the fishing town of Finisterre. There it has been the custom for many to *burn their hiking shoes as a final act of their pilgrimage.

Those hiking shoes, probably well-worn, have served their purpose, having gotten them to “the end of the world”, and now they will need new shoes to take them wherever their road leads in the future.

Life is a continual act of letting go of what might have once served us, but no longer does. Of burning away the old in order to make way for the new. Of unpacking our bags and taking stock of what we carry, and repacking with the essentials necessary for the next leg of our trip. Of practicing new skills and putting old ones to rest. Of burning our old shoes and breaking in new ones.

Whatever it is that got us here will not get us where we are going.

(*this practice has attracted much criticism due to the obvious environmental impacts and safety implication.)

Photo by Lum3n.com from Pexels

Photo by Lum3n.com from Pexels

Owning It

The Seattle Seahawks lost yesterday.

That was then.

This is now.

Today, the day after the game, is known as Tell-The Truth-Monday. As I understand it, this is the time when everyone involved in the game, including the coaches, tells the truth about what happened in the game, takes ownership for what went well (not enough) and for what did not. It is how they individually and collectively take stock, gather and apply the lessons learned, and move forward. This commitment to the practice of taking ownership doesn’t just happen after a loss, it happens after every game, win or lose. It’s how they get better.

Becoming our best selves requires the same commitment to the practice of setting time aside to tell the truth about what is happening in our lives, and take ownership for what is going well, and, for what is not. It’s not only how the Seahawks get better, it’s how we get better too.

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