Good Morning, I had never been extremely fond of the word “hope.” My dreams were dashed early in life and a lack of understanding the importance of being in the present moment did not enter my life until I had to dye my hair to keep from seeing the grey. Then one day, I looked in the mirror and said, “Your hair needs to match your wrinkles, so I threw away the dye bottle and faced the reality my roots could not hide.

Let me explain. If you are as old as I am you might remember the song, “Cry” by Johnnie Ray. There a lyric in it that says, “Remember sunshine can be found behind a cloudy sky, so let your hair down and go on baby and cry.” Hope doesn’t hang out where reality is denied. Why, because if you can’t let go of what robbed you of hope, you are stuck in limbo and I spent many years hiding out there.

During those years, I was given what I call “a blinding glimpse of the obvious.” I was extremely active in a twelve-step organization that supports the families and friends of alcoholics. I received a call from a young woman who told me her husband was hooked on both alcohol and drugs. She said they had a baby daughter and that she had left him and returned home to another state to be with her parents to sort out her feelings. She had decided with the help of her in-laws to return and make an attempt to reconcile if he would agree to get help. She explained that he was currently living with another woman and her daughter and that it was very hard for her to accept that he would want to be with this person and her child instead of his own wife and daughter.

I told her that we would welcome her to our 12-step meetings and that I felt she would find them very helpful. Before we said good-bye, I said I will be praying for God’s will in your life.

She responded with confusion in her voice. She said, “Surely it is God’s will that my husband be with me and his daughter.”

I found myself saying, “Your husband has free will and God does not mess with free will.”

She did return to town and attended a few meetings and then I did not hear from her for a couple of months. One day, the phone rang and when I said, “Hello,” she identified herself and she said, “I wanted to call and thank you.”

This time, I was the one that was confused. I said, “We’ve missed you at the meetings. What are you thanking me for?”

She said, “I wanted you to know that what you said on the phone the first time I spoke to you about free will has freed me. My daughter and I will be leaving tomorrow and I will be filing for a divorce. My husband refuses to get help and leave the other woman. I need to get on with my life and make a life for our child.”

Hope does not exist in limbo but it flourishes in reality.

The older I get the more I equate happy and sad with the EGO. I’m more comfortable with the terms joy and sorrow and have found that you can’t have one without the other. I love poet Kahlil Gibran’s take on this : “Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” In 12-step I learned that suffering is inevitable but misery is optional. What a relief that was and is. Blessings, Carol

“It is not the answer that enlightens but the question.” Eugene Ionesco

I had such a need to understand, to analyze everything, to be sure, to find the answer so I could live. One day, I realized that I was getting old and if I wanted to live instead of just exist, I best live my questions.

To do that I found it necessary to decide that life is trustworthy. What do I mean by that? I mean that creation is one and it is constantly and inexcusably dedicated to its evolution. We are part of that evolution but not the center of it. We either contribute to the growth of consciousness or we jeopardize it.

Author and theologian Cynthia Bourgeault (Returning to Essentials: Teaching an Alternative Orthodoxy, disc 1 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2015), CD, MP3 download) says “God (Life) is rapturously delighted in every human being whose heart breaks open and blooms. Then, as human beings come to their glory, the world comes to its glory. It’s a view which is inclusive, recognizing that human beings on all paths are called to glorification, to the full emergence of the human being. It’s evolutionary in that we are a work in progress, both individually and collectively. Creation itself is not static but dynamic.” (Italics are mine.)

Several years ago, my stepmother found herself faced with Macular Degeneration. Her range of vision was getting smaller and smaller. Even what she could see was becoming quite blurry. She finally moved from her home into assisted living. My son, who I consider my teacher, went to visit his grandmother and she was lamenting her situation. She said, Why me? Why is this happening to me? And my son respectfully and lovingly replied, “Grandma, why not you?”

I find that response a dynamic question. It set her up for acceptance. It baited her to move from WHY questions to HOW questions. How am I going to deal with this? Am I grateful for all the years of sight that I was given? Am I willing to take the energy my frustration and anger has created and use it to discover how to live lovingly and productively with this loss of my sight and my independence? I’m grateful to say that is exactly what she did. And I have no doubt that she was grateful to her grandson for his question. She didn’t need sympathy, she needed reality.

My son has taught me, helped me see the good in the world. One of his favorite sayings is “Every day’s a good day, Mama.”

Good Morning, In recent days my physical and emotional pain levels have been very challenging. I found this article extremely helpful to me. It contains such a beautiful explanation of the meaning of compassion. A dear friend introduced me to a saying that I have found to be very helpful over the years. She said, “You either work for God or do God’s work and they are not the same thing.” When we work for God, we are in charge and our own need for control, for validation, limits the healing power of our efforts. When we do God’s work, the natural flow of Grace leads us and wisdom has the freedom to emerge and healing energies gather. The Earth holds both giver and receiver with compassion. Blessings always and all ways, Carol

Good Morning, I retired very early last night and awoke this morning about 4 a.m. As I made my way to the kitchen to take my thyroid medication (a morning ritual) it was obvious that my whole body was quite tense. It dawned on me that my mind was already percolating. It tends to bubble up when my feet hit the floor with several options about what needs to be done today. I realized what a blessing it is to have my simple morning ritual—taking my thyroid pill—before the compulsive doubting that has more or less ruled my life sets in.

I decided rather quickly, a decision I can only attribute to the ever present natural grace I tend to ignore, that I needed to sit down and begin my day with a 20 minute silent meditation. With my feet flat on the floor, a small pillow on my lap on which to rest my lower arms and hands, an awareness of my sit bones supporting my spine and the gentle tuck of my chin to be sure my head was not leaning forward and placing its heaviness on my cervical fusion, I closed my eyes and basked in the predawn stillness.

The fact that my toes were gripping the floor for dear life entered my awareness and I started there with a body scan. Letting them go, gathering the free-flowing energies that relaxation brings. As the energy traveled upward, my sit bones greeted my chair and tension departed from my buttocks. An awareness of my scoliosis followed and I felt my left shoulder and rib cage adjust itself with a gentle release that seemed to align my thoracic spine. My heart felt the shift and seemed extremely thankful. Tension left my shoulder blades. I’m sure if they could speak, I’d have heard them sigh.

I heard an inner voice whisper, “Smile!” The brain loves it when we smile. It is the simplest form of meditation and sends a primal signal to the brain that all is well.

As I closed my meditation, I realized that my 20 minute experience was reverential. I had dedicated 20 minutes to showing reverence for my body.

I am extremely fond of “re” words. Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines reverence as
1: again refill [=fill again] redo [=do over; do again]
2: back to an original place, condition, etc. recall [=call something back]
reverence presupposes an intrinsic merit and inviolability in the one honored and a similar depth of feeling in the one honoring.

“Re” words always invite us to call something back—to meet and greet it in its original form which to my way of thinking is natural. If one reads the Genesis story of creation, we are told that the act of creation is a “letting.” “Let there BE.”

May we all bring reverence to our daily activities for we are both Creature and Creator. It’s truly an awesome realization and if indeed there is such a thing as original sin, it is that we have forgotten who we are and attempted to separate ourselves from our natural state.

Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Genesis 1:27
God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

Let it BE,
Carol

By Grace I’m Saved

Good Morning, A gentle rain has been falling here this morning. With all the severe thunderstorms, tornados wrapped in rain, potential flooding that has been sweeping across our country, I know we are blessed here in my little-sleepy-southern town to be experiencing a gentle-life-giving rain.

Thankfully, it was not raining late Sunday when my doorbell rang and I could here my neighbor calling my name frantically as I opened the door. She had been hearing water running and decided to investigate.

Another neighbor is on vacation and she had just discovered that water was pouring out of the water heater pipe on the side of the vacationing neighbor’s house. Our water heaters sit in a large bucket–type pan in the attic and she knew that something had happened to the other neighbor’s water heater. It had to be leaking or water wouldn’t be coming out of that pipe.

I called the vacationing neighbor but she said that no one had a key to her house. I got permission from her to have the city turn off the water to the house. I called the emergency utilities number and they promised to send someone out to stop the flow of water which we knew from experience (We live in an HOA and our own units have the same floor plan an utility hookups.) could be over-flowing onto the attic floor and finding its way into her bedroom closet.

While I made telephone calls, my neighbor was down on all fours clearing an overgrowth of grass away from the water main. I was concerned we would find a nest of spiders and she was lamenting the possibility of confronting a snake when we opened the lid. I realized that I was running around out there in my pajamas and she was kneeling on the ground in white pants. Have you ever tried to remove grass stains from white pants?

While we waited for the city utilities on-call person and his magic tool necessary to turn the water valve off, my neighbor, who was still frantically pulling grass away from the water-closet lid, told our other neighbor Johnnie who by then was on scene, “This is the most excitement Carol and I have had for months!”

Johnnie’s face said it all. These two broads have this under control. I think I’ll just go to the house. What else could he say?

I’ve been home from my sojourn in New Mexico for two months and with the exception of watching my resident Mourning Doves, the replanting of my herb and flower garden, and cleaning 5 months of cobwebs and dust from my home, not much has happened around here and I must admit, I’m easily bored.

Doing our best to help a neighbor gave us a sense of purpose but doing it together gave us a sense of belonging. The longer I live, the more I believe that the best definition for God is Grace. God is the glue. Sometimes, it’s sticky and messy. Sometimes, it’s warm and fuzzy but when it’s boring, it’s a red flag.

My dear-primitive-Baptist friend and neighbor, whose theology I do not share, often says profound things. She and I were in the moment on Sunday, dealing with the situation together. When I think about attempting to deal with that situation alone, I feel overwhelmed and had that been the case, I have no doubt, I would have done what needed doing but I would have fallen in a heap afterwards, totally exhausted. But working with my neighbor, sharing and caring for our vacationing neighbor, left me energized, left me thankful.

Since I returned home, I’ve been isolating myself. The doorbell is not always going to ring. I have to reach out. I have to build community. It’s the EGO that gets bored. It Edges God Out. It feels victimized and if we are lucky, it get’s angry enough to surrender to the flow of Grace. There is a lot of energy in anger and it can be fruitful when we own it and give it to God. By Grace I am saved.

Good Morning, I awoke at 5 a.m. to the birds morning song outside my bedroom window. I walked into the living room and raised the roman shade to check on my Mourning Dove’s nest and her two little ones. They are still there. The babies will be a week old tomorrow and will fly soon and I assume at least one will return to nest on my porch in a couple of months.

Their Mama no longer reacts to human activity on the porch. She knows that she and her offspring are safe. It is a re-minder for me that we all seem to re-quire RE-Minding, in one way or another. In my case, learning to trust myself has been a big challenge for me.

I took my morning thyroid pill and returned to bed and did some breathing exercises to strengthen my left side as directed by the physical therapist. I re-minded myself how important it is for me to re-lax. I basically function in a “fight or flight” mode and seldom visit the comfort of the parasympathetic nervous system! It has taken a life time for me to understand that and I’m so very grateful.

I set my intention for the day: RELAX
I understand that “fight and flight” is not necessary BUT
I REALIZE that it is automatic for me.
It comes from a primitive part of my brain AND
I’m learning to invite that impulse to RELAX.
Acceptance of WHAT IS opens the door
to WHAT CAN BE.

“When you begin to understand [get REAL about] what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.” Jiddu Krishnamurti

I love the sound of laughter, the energy of sharing is music to my ears. I welcome the birds morning song that begins just before dawn. It is a charm not an alarm clock. Many times at night, I play an instrumental CD designed to calm the mind–calm the mind and the spirit sings. Several times a day, I stop and I breath very deeply. I need to hear my breath so I can remember to be grateful for it. I had a dear friend who lived and worked with only a 30% lung capacity for years. I walk each morning and I give thanks for the neurological wonder that moves my legs. I’m convinced sound is involved. And there are no words for the sound of silence, the awesome presence of stillness.