The Dog Days Of Christmas

Blue and Ruthie are GSP/Labradors. Young, energetic, and both in training, they belong to our daughter and her husband. This current training requires that they interact with their owners, and no one else, to establish engagement and connection. They came for Christmas to our rural mountain home, and when not outside exercising on a long line, they were in the house, tethered to one of their owners, and smack dab in the middle of the crazy, wonderful family chaos that is Christmas. All of us had agreed to support them in their training efforts, and so basically ignored the dogs the entire time they were here. As counterintuitive as it seems, it was exactly what Blue and Ruthie needed to continue their growth as happy, fun, and loyal family members. It was a challenge to stick with the program, and, as it turned out, everyone was up to the task.

Gracie is our 12 week old chocolate labradoodle. She too is in training, which currently means that her world is pretty small. When not outside with one of us, she lives happily In the laundry room that allows her to see life beyond her world through the mesh of the baby gate across the doorway. Too much stimulation, and her world is turned upside down. Kind of like a kid who has too much screen time, she doesn’t know why she’s a wreck. She just is. We asked people to support us in our training efforts by interacting with her in short visits, with calm, quiet energy, and to basically ignore her the rest of the time. As counterintuitive as it seemed, it was exactly what Gracie needed to continue her growth as a happy, fun, and loyal family member. It was a challenge to stick with the program, and, it turned out, everyone was up to the task.

Christmas was definitely different because of the dogs. Wagging tails threatened wine glasses on low tables, we almost lost the leg of lamb on the kitchen counter to Blue when no one was looking, little Gracie had a couple of accidents when we lost track of time and forgot to take her out, and sleeping arrangements had to change to accommodate the canines.

The dog days of Christmas required that we all adjust, trust one another, and let go of expectations of how things should be, and get on with enjoying them exactly as they were. Which is kind of how life is supposed to be, don’t you think?

Love, Actually.

“But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 

This is the first and greatest commandment. 

And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”

JESUS

When it comes right down to it, if we are wondering WWJD?

It’s pretty straight forward…

Love, actually.

Merry Christmas from my heart to yours.

Tough Love

“What if love is the mightiest word?”

Praise Song for the Day by Elizabeth Alexander

(A poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration)

(Watch Elizabeth Alexander Video here)

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Love. A word so frequently and casually tossed around, it is in danger of losing its meaning.

In her book, Becoming Wise, Krista Tippet refers to love as something muscular. What if, as Elizabeth Alexander wonders in her poem, love is the mightiest word? And what would it mean if it is not only the mightiest word, but is also muscular and robust, tenacious and tough? It would mean that love isn’t just something we experience, but something we actively do. Something we work at, and like our muscles, the more we love, the stronger our love becomes.

For muscles to be strong and healthy we have to actively work them on a regular basis. We stretch them so that they remain supple and resilient. We strengthen them, adding more repetitions, weight, and resistance. We increase stamina by working them for longer periods of time, and at higher levels of intensity.

What if we approached love like that?

When we only love in ways that are easy and familiar, love that could be supple and resilient grows tight and constricted.

When we only hold affection for those who are easy to love, and for those who are like us, love that could be sturdy becomes soft.

When we only love when it doesn’t push us, love that could persevere over the long haul runs out of breath.

What if love is the mightiest word?

What would that mean for me? For you? For all of us?

Hanging The Antlers

Today is the fourth Sunday in Advent, ushering in the theme of Love, which, as it turns out, can show up in the most unlikely places.

Last summer my brother Peter gave me a fabulous set of elk antlers from one of his annual hunting trips to Montana. I’ve wanted a set for the cabin for years, and now that I had them, I knew exactly where I wanted to hang them. There was no other place for them to go but up above our fireplace, over the mantle in the middle of the rock covered chimney. It was a placement that would make Ralph Lauren and Joanna Gaines swoon.

I asked Tom if he would be able to hang them there, and he said that he thought he could.

Perfect.

I began to imagine those long desired antlers in their new home, with a fire blazing and candles glowing on the mantle.

A couple of months passed and the antlers hung out in our laundry room. I knew my husband had a lot on his plate, so wasn’t worried that they wouldn’t eventually find their way onto the rock. It never occurred to me that Tom might have a different opinion. Until one Sunday morning over coffee when I asked him if he thought he could get them up that day. After a long pause, he finally told me he didn’t like the spot I had chosen, and he didn’t want to hang them there. What? He’d never shared that with me in all the conversations we’d had about the antlers. I was frustrated and mad, especially since I’d spent so much time imagining them up there, and I wasn’t going to give up the fight easily. Neither however, was he. He suggested some of the areas he’d thought of, none of which (of course) were acceptable to me. We were at loggerheads, and the antlers were still in the laundry room.

Somewhere along the way I remembered a therapist we’d worked with, and here’s what she would have had to say. I don’t care about the antlers or where you hang them. Hang them anywhere you want. Upside down in the bathroom, over your bed, on the rock fireplace, or inside your closet. What I do care about, is once those antlers are up, are you two better as a couple or not? Do you understand and respect one another more, or not. Are you closer and more intimately connected, or not?

It’s not about the antlers.

As much as I didn’t want to admit it, our relationship was more important than those silly antlers. Once we each let go of having to have it our way, we found an even better (of course) spot for the antlers. Tom hung them today, and I love them right where they are. We both do.

When it comes to love, it’s not about the antlers.

This Is The Day

This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:24

The alarm went off at 5AM this morning. Opening my still sleepy eyes, this was the image that greeted me through our window.

The first words that came to mind were those of the writer of the words from the book of Psalms quoted above. Grabbing my phone I stepped out into the cold early morning air, the frozen grass crunching beneath my feet, and captured the image of the moon as it set, ushering in the morning of a new day.

Walking back into the house it dawned on me, again, that this day, like every day, is a gift. It is the day that has been given to us, and it is the day in which we can choose to rejoice.

Or not.

The Psalmist doesn't say, “Tomorrow is the day” or “Someday, or another day, or yesterday” She (or he for that matter) says, “This is the day”. He (or she for that matter) doesn’t say, “We are rejoicing” or “We should rejoice” or “We might, could, must, or will try to rejoice.” The Psalmist says, “We will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Rejoicing is a choice. A commitment to find a way to be glad in this day which has been given to us. It is the only one we have. The day before is gone, and the day ahead not promised. It is only this day in which we can choose to rejoice.

Or not.

As I look around the world that is within my reach (and don’t even get me started on the world at large), on any given day there is at least as much heartache as there is happiness, as much pain as there is peace, and as many problems as there are solutions. It is in the midst of the complexity of our very human lives that we are called to rejoice.

This is the day that has been given to us.

Will we rejoice in it?

Or not?

The choice is ours.

Cooking Up Joy

“Any possibility of joy requires the acceptance of reality. “

*The Book of Joy

Well, that sucks.  

Reality, at least in my world, doesn’t always match up with how I want it to be. On any given day, things can go off the rails, and I’m left to deal with what I’ve got, not what I want. Where’s the joy in that I ask you?? Well, if there is any to be found, it has to be smack dab in the midst of it, because if it can’t be found there, joy is going to be darn hard to come by.

Joy, at least the real meal deal, isn’t dependent on circumstances, it’s abides in the midst of them. Not the happy meal kind of joy, but the stick to your ribs kind. Not the fast food variety, but the slow cooker style. The kind we cook up by being the best us we can with the ingredients we’ve got to work with. It may not be fancy, but it is food for the journey.

Joy as comfort food.

* The Book of Joy by His Holiness the Dali Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Abrams

The Joy Of Sadness

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

Psalm 30:5

Joy is not the absence of sorrow.

Sorrow, however can be a gateway to joy.

There are few of us who look forward to pain and loss, much less the deep, dark emotions that accompany us in our  grief. It can be tempting to try and shorten our times of sadness, to move through them as swiftly as we can, and even to attempt to escape them altogether through our coping mechanisms of choice. But sorrow has a purpose. It isn’t meant to break our hearts, but to break them wide open. As I wrote in BLUSH: Women & Wine, There is a cleansing that takes place when we grieve with our whole hearts. By moving through it , rather than hiding from it, we come out the other side made more whole through our willingness to be broken.

Take heart.

Be courageous.

Weeping may endure for a night.

But joy is to be found in the mourning.

Where Did The Joy Go?

I can lose my joy in a nano second.

And the culprit?

COMPARISON

Sometimes I compare myself to others to see if I measure up, and everything seems to be fair game…Work, Money, Book Sales, Social Media Platform, Blog Following, Body Image, Our Home, Family Dynamics, Emotional Intelligence, Education, Mindfulness, Spirituality, Physical Fitness, Creativity, Stature, Puppy Training Progress…just to name a few.

As soon as I focus on mine vs theirs, joy slips out and discouragement sneaks in.

On the other hand, some of the harshest comparison comes when I look at where I am in relationship to where I think I should be in any one of the categories listed above.

As soon as I focus on who I am vs who I think I should be, joy slips out and shame sneaks in.

Our work, here on planet earth, is to become our most authentic, wholehearted self. To be the best us we can be. In other words, to be our true self. The one who is uniquely equipped to help, heal, and love the world that is within our reach.

When we live from that place, nothing can rob us of our joy.

With gratitude to Katie Meleney for this tiny wooden sign that hangs above my desk to remind me…

In A Heartbeat

Joy resides in the heart.  

Today has me thinking a lot about hearts. A few months ago my husband discovered, kind of by a fluke, that his heart was beating too fast, and somewhat irregularly. Rather than getting its signal from the sinus node, which regulates the heartbeat, his ticker was responding to a different impulse. While not imminently dangerous, in the long term it would be good to take care of it.

Today, he did.

His doctor, a cardiac electrophysiologist, put a catheter up into his heart to locate and shut down the misfiring cells. He’s out of surgery, and we will head home tonight with his heart, once again, responding to the beat of the right drum.

I think joy in our hearts is a lot like that.

We are meant to experience joy deep within, and come wired with an internal signal to regulate the quiet, steady heartbeat of joy that can sustain us even in the midst of our most challenging days. But sometimes we let fear and anxiety, anger and resentment, guilt and shame run amok, and suddenly our hearts are out of whack too. In other words, we allow the wrong impulses to regulate the state of our hearts.

Time to locate and shut down the misfiring messages, and allow our hearts to do what they were designed to do.

Beat with the quiet, steady heartbeat of joy. 

Choosing Joy

Entering this third week of Advent and its theme of Joy, I am struggling to unpack this tiny word. It feels so important, and so universal to the longings of our human hearts, and yet it so hard to describe.

It’s kind of like happiness. But not exactly.

Happiness is more like a state of mind, while joy is a state of being.

Happiness happens to us, while joy happens inside of us.

Happiness comes and goes, while joy can take up permanent residence.

Happiness depends on outside circumstances, while joy is an inside job.

Maybe joy is both a choice and a practice. Life is hard, and will always be a mixture of the good, the bad, and the seriously ugly, but in the midst of it all, I am learning that I can choose joy anyway. I can practice joy no matter what.

Rather than try and unpack its meaning, maybe I’ll just wrap my arms around this tiny word and hold on for dear life.

Want to join me?

Tiny Joy Vase: Beanpole Pottery