This? Or That?

Did you have the time you wanted? I asked.

Not exactly…but it was good. She answered.

What an inspiring answer to my question.

Summer is a time of setting expectations for how things will be, good, and bad. Road trips, family reunions, summer vacations and staycations, obligatory visits, home improvement projects. But it isn’t just summer. Anytime of year we look ahead and expect, imagine, hope, dread, or anticipate, that things will happen a certain way. They never do. Not exactly. Sometimes they are just as we expected, sometimes worse than we imagined, and sometimes, more than we ever could have hoped for. It’s just that it never turns out exactly as we expected.

We thought it was going to be this, but we got that.

We imagined it working out like this, but it worked out like that.

We wanted things to go this way, but they ended up going that way.

That’s why I love the response I got to my question, and am inspired to go forward holding my intentions with an open hand. Maybe you will be inspired too.

Photo by Valentin Antonucci from Pexels

Road Trip

A good friend who is no longer with us was fond of saying that when God wants to teach us something, He takes us on a trip. I love that idea. Kind of like She is riding “shotgun” next to us, and of all the possible trips we can take, the most insightful, instructive, and inspiring, a road trip wins out, hands down. Extra points for other people in the car.

A road trip requires us to pack for the trip to the best of our ability, and yet it teaches us that we can never be prepared for every contingency, and if we try, we will be burdened with too much stuff, and miss the opportunity to get creative, wing it, and work with what we’ve got.

A road trip taken with others gives us the chance to connect in new ways, hold new kinds of conversations, and, find new ways in which we drive each other crazy. Enclosed in the same vehicle, headed in the same direction, we might just discover new ways of being on the same page.

A road trip lets us get up close and personal with anything that grabs our interest along the way. If we build in enough time to allow for a few side trips, detours, and unexpected surprises, we return home more informed, inspired, and possibly inclined to learn more about something we encountered along our way.

A road trip always has a snafu, big or small. A flat tire, road work delays, the campground that is full, the trail that is closed for the season, or the unexpected snowstorm with our chains still in the box…back in our garage. It is the snafus that make the story interesting and worth telling again, and again, and again in the years ahead.

A road trip brings out the best in us, and, the worst in us, and when those two collide, well, that’s why God took us on the trip in the first place. Stuck in a car, with miles to go, we have a chance to bring out more of the best in us, and leave behind more of the worst in us.

Roadtrip!

Equipped

We want to be equipped for whatever comes our way.

Sometimes we are.

Sometimes we aren’t.

Whenever we come to the edge of our capacity, we have the choice to retreat back into our safe arenas, or step out into the risky territory that spans the gap between who we are now and who we want to become. It is there, and only there, that we are challenged to show up more fully, and bring more of who we are to our relationships, conversations, and the world around us.

It isn’t easy and it’s scary as hell to risk new ways of being in the world, but it is the only way I know of to become more well equipped for the life I am here to live.

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The Chase

Chasing squirrels is high on Gracie’s to-do list any day of the week. Because she can’t safely be off-leash out in our neck of the woods, that makes actually chasing one a moot point. If she tries, as she did yesterday, forgetting that she is tethered to an old stump, she will get caught up short in very short order.

The thing is, the squirrels don’t know she is on a leash.

This morning a tree squirrel who calls our property home was afraid to make a run for the woods, never realizing that freedom was his for the taking. Flitting from branch to branch he chattered constantly, trying to scold and scare her away. She circled the tree, jumped up on the trunk of the tree, and sat by the tree, but no matter how much Gracie wanted to chase that squirrel down, her leash wouldn’t let her do it.

Sometimes I want to put my thoughts on a leash. You know the ones. The ones that chatter and scold and scare us and just won’t shut up. What if we put them on a leash and tethered them to an old stump? And when those thought show up chattering and scolding and scaring, we remember that no matter how much those thoughts want to chase us down, the leash on which we’ve put them won’t allow it.

Pick a thought, put it on a leash, tether it to a stump, and head out into the woods where freedom is ours for the taking.

Something’s Gotta Give

Only you know what it is. Nobody else can tell you what it is. If you don’t know what it is now, you will. Or you can, if you want to. It may take a little time, more than a little courage, and a splash of grace, but if you want to know what has to give in order for something else to show up, you will. Trust me on that.

What takes up space leaving no room for what wants to expand? What consumes your thoughts leaving no room for new ones to emerge? What takes up your day leaving no room for what brings you energy?

Something’s gotta give? What is it?

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Being Present

This morning three things occurred in quick succession:

I tripped over a rock that holds our screen door open because I wasn’t looking where I was going.

I ran into the door of the dog crate because I hadn’t closed it properly.

I was hit on the head when something fell off of a hook because I was moving too fast.

Life was trying to tell me something.

Be present. Instead of being where we are, we look ahead and miss what is right in front of us, or in this case, right under our feet.

Be present. Instead of tending well to what is called for now, we move ahead leaving a trail of unfinished business behind us.

Be present. Instead of running the race set before us like the long distance event that it is, we sprint ahead until life crashes down around us.

In all three instances in that short chain of events, the message was the same.

Be present.

Photo by Martin Damboldt from Pexels

Creating Space

Last night as we sat outside with a glass of wine and our calendars, we looked back over the last few weeks, and out over the ones ahead, and it was obvious that our days had been, and will be, filled with things that matter. What wasn’t obvious was space, and space matters too.

There were things that couldn’t be taken out, but some that could. One, in particular, stuck out as negotiable. It needed to be done. It just didn’t need to be done right now. With one click I deleted it off of my calendar, and not only did space open up in my days, but in my chest as well. My breathing slowed, my shoulders dropped, and an inner window opened wide.

It’s amazing what can happened when we build space into our days. Sometimes it’s easier said than done, but like anything, it’s a habit to be cultivated. Who knew rescheduling a colonoscopy could be so good for your soul?

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For Sunday Reflection

“Consider this: the only person you’re guaranteed to be with every day of your life is you.”

Emily P. Freeman

When I read this sentence, it landed as true. And if it’s true, then we’d best get on with becoming the kind of person we’d like to hang out with.

The Basement

Today we tackled the basement. Old memories, holiday decorations, collections of this and that, things saved in case needed to repair other things, and on and on and on. Everything down there had a story, and it was hard to know where to start, what to save, what to store, and what to sell.

It was a daunting task.

When faced with a daunting task, it is almost impossible to take the first step.

When faced with a daunting task, it is almost impossible to do anything but take the first step.

When faced with a daunting task, it is that first step that makes the next step possible. And the next, and the next, and the next.

The basement is where we put things that we want to think about later. When later comes, a step at a time, what was daunting becomes doable, and what is doable becomes done.

Give Me A Break

Yesterday was a very big day for Gracie-the-chocolate-labradoodle. We had a private training session where she learned some big new things, and she did great. Later in the day she came with us to a community dinner where she practiced being calm in the midst of her greatest temptations to go crazy, and she did great.

Today, she is completely worn out. It was our plan to build on the training that we started yesterday, and she wasn’t having any of it. In every way she knew how she was telling us that she needed a break. A day of rest to just be, and not do, and that is exactly what she got.

We would all do well to follow her example. When everything in us is telling us to take a break, let’s do everything we can to do that. Take a day, or an hour, or fifteen minutes to just be, and not do.