About Face

Life becomes a matter of showing up and saying yes.

~ Richard Rohr

Two days after Thanksgiving I was up early before most of the others tucked into every nook and cranny of our home were awake. Throwing on my coat and boots I headed out into the cold and still dark morning because Gracie-the-chocolate labradoodle needed to go outside. Truthfully, I needed to go ousidet too. Every day for the past couple of weeks seemed to have required everything I had to give, the day that lay before me did too, and frankly, I wasn’t sure that I was up to the task. Not, at least, as the kind of person I like to bring to the party on any given day. I was tired and spent, and when I get like that grace, joy, and gratitude aren’t my forte’.

Standing out facing the pines, the house behind me, I waited for the dog to take care of her morning business, pondering the day ahead. I dreaded it, unable to imagine anything other than making it through. I wanted to turn my back on the day and pretend it wasn’t waiting for me when I walked back inside.

And then In the morning stillness, these words rose up:

How you go back into the house will determine the kind of day you have.

In that moment I knew that it was up to me. I could show up and say ‘yes’ to the day before me or not. It was my choice. It’s always my choice. A truth that is rarely convenient is that we have far more choice over who we want to be in any given moment than we give ourselves credit for.

Turning around to face the house, and the day before me, I headed back inside.

It was a good day.

Put-And-Take

We have what we call a “put-and-take” savings account as a way of having ready cash when we need it. Every month we put money in there in order to be prepared for expenditures ahead, and, every month it seems we take some of the money out for said expenses.

Money in.

Money out.

Money in.

Money out.

You might describe it as a savings account with a revolving door. The funds are continually deposited and withdrawn to save for and pay for the cost of living. It strikes me as a good metaphor for our lives. We spend ourselves in the service of what matters to us, and in order to do that we must also continually fund our inner account. What it means to do that is unique to each of us, and can change wildly depending upon our life chapter. What matters is that we do it as best we can, because whether talking about money or our life, we can’t spend what we don’t have.

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Time's A Wastin'

Ideas are driven by a single impulse: to be made manifest. And the only way an idea can be made manifest in our world is through collaboration with a human partner. It is only through a human’s efforts that an idea can be escorted out of the ether and into the realm of the actual.

~ Elizabeth Gilbert: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

For the past year, or more if I’m being completely honest, several ideas have diligently knocked on my inner doorstep. I’ve tried to ignore them, have pretended no one was at home, and peeked through the shutters to see if they are still there. They are, and I’ve yet to invite them in. If not careful, one day I will check on them only to find that they have moved on, my resolve to finally collaborate with them regretfully too little and too late.

I know the power of an idea that suddenly strikes, and the magic that happens when we accept its invitation. Shit gets done. People’s lives are touched, usually none more than ours, and we have the chance to share our gifts with the world. And yet, acting on an idea when it makes itself known continues to be a growing edge. I’ve learned first hand the energy, courage, and grit required to see an idea through, and the regret that will haunt me if I don’t.

As Joaquin and Reese crooned in Walk The Line, time’s a wastin’, and with only 25 more days left in the year I’ve decided to throw open the door, invite those ideas in, and see what kind of trouble we can get into together. I’ll keep you posted.

Any ideas knocking on your door?

Time’s a wastin’.

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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.

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A Holiday Permission Slip

This Thanksgiving was one for the books.

We weathered tag-team illness, a midnight trip to the ER, free range grandkids and grand-dogs, emotional highs, lows and everything in between, more people than beds, and, and a Thanksgiving unlike anything we had planned. Perhaps the description that comes the closest is from Tom’s prayer of gratitude for the “Glorious Confusion”. It was all that and a bag of chips. As challenging as it was at times, we all hung together, and loved the Thanksgiving stuffing out of each other.

However, opening my eyes at the end of the weekend in the early morning darkness, it dawned on me that another holiday is just around the corner. In that moment all I wanted to do was hunker down deeper into the covers and wake up after Christmas. The more I thought about it and all the expectations that come with the season, the harder it was to breathe. That was, until this morning, when my sister’s text arrived on my phone.

’I’m giving myself permission to not care about Christmas for the time being.

Reading her words, a tiny bit of space opened up inside and I began to feel like I could catch my breath. Remember when your parents wrote you a permission slip to miss school? What if we all wrote out permission slips to skip the kind of holiday we think we should have, and give ourselves permission to have the one that we could have?

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A No-Nonsense Thanksgiving

nonsense: words that have no meaning or make no sense

When it comes to describing our Thanksgiving this year, the words that have no meaning or make no sense are words like perfect, elegant, formal, fancy, flawless, tidy, or impressive. No one who will gather around our table has the capacity to pull off any of those words. Collectively we are worn out, adjusting to big changes, loving, raising and growing little humans, moving into new homes, having real conversations about real things, holding one another accountable for and loving each other in spite of ”our stuff”. It simply feels like life is as real as real can get.

When it comes to our Thanksgiving this year, the only words that make any sense are words like messy, simple, casual, imperfect, crazy, loud, emotional, and authentic. Thankfully we are finding ways to make sure that it is well-seasoned with ample amounts of love, grace, and laughter, because if we are hungry for nothing else, we are hungry for those.

I guess you could call it a No-Nonsense Thanksgiving, which might just be the very best kind.

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.

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Unloading The Wheelbarrow

It is easy to treat our mind like a mental wheelbarrow. One that we fill to the brim with issues, and our thoughts and feelings about those issues, all of which require precious mental and emotional energy as we carry them with us wherever we go. Rather than taking the time to actually do something about the contents of the wheelbarrow, we just keep wheeling them through our days.

If you’re like me, almost anything is fair game to pile into the cart. On any given day my cart might be piled high with relationship issues, conversations past, present and future, financial concerns, heartaches, challenges to those we love, health issues, politics, global warming, aging skin, unfinished projects, the NFL Playoffs, and the holidays. Just to name a few.

One of the best practices we can develop is to lighten our own mental load. To stop pushing the wheelbarrow, take out one thing, and deal with it. Find out about it. Understand the truth about it, and with that understanding do what we can to take care of it.

To lighten your mental load, what is one thing you can take out of your wheelbarrow?

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Giving Up On Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving there are so many moving parts that it is impossible to nail down an exact plan.

Who’s coming when? We tried to come up with an exact schedule, and then gave up.

Will there be enough beds for everyone? We tried to come up with an exact schematic, and then gave up.

Enough cribs for the littles? We tried to figure it out exactly, and then gave up.

How many people to plan on for dinner? We tried to come up with an exact count, and then gave up.

All we know is that people we love will show up when they can, everyone will have some sort of place to lay their head, babies will be tucked in at night, and there will be plenty of food for everyone. Because we’ve given up on having it be exactly as we want it, we are free to give thanks that it is turning out exactly as it is.

Which might just be exactly the best way to do it.

Given What We Have

Given the present situation, who do I want to be?

Given the present reality, how can I show up and bring the best of who I am to what is before me?

Given the present options, which one will best reflect the person I am meant to be?

When it comes to dealing well with what life brings our way, it seems to boil down to a few simple questions with answers that are often anything but easy to live out.

Given what we have, what will we choose to do?

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