My oldest daughter turned eighteen years old today. It sounds trite, but it does seem like only yesterday, she was laid upon my belly, fresh from my womb, and as I lifted her to check her sex, was overjoyed to find out she was a girl. You see, I had given birth to three sons in the 9 years before her birth, two of which were delivered by Cesarean section. My second son was born vaginally in a hospital where I was given oxytocin, an IV, an episiotomy and had a neonatal team in the delivery room because there was meconium present when they broke my water.
Jasmine was born in a birth center, with no drugs, no interventions and no episiotomy. I told her that it was the happiest day of my life, a huge triumph and a delightful surprise as I never knew the sex of my babies before they were born.
I left the birth center six hours after she was born. Though I was exhausted I simply couldn't sleep the first night she was home. She, however, slept through the night--a feat she wouldn't repeat for several months after that night. I just gazed at her all night long with a heightened joy that I haven't known since that time, with the possible exception of the birth of her younger sister. I did, however give birth to Jordan by C-section, and though far from the birth I imagined, I was grateful when I learned the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck two times.
For several years I worked part time as a childbirth educator, and Jasmine's birth, 18 years ago today was a real triumph--a vindication of sorts. Unfortunately, V-BAC's (vaginal birth after cesarean section) are rather rare now days, due to fears of litigation in the event something goes wrong.
More than the triumph of a successful delivery so many years ago is the celebration of the success of parenting a child to adulthood. I have good kids, not perfect, but good. Though I have many shortcomings as a parent I am proud of the fact that in a very real, concrete way, I was "there" for my kids. I was blessed to not have to work a full-time job, though I did, in my childrearing years put in many hours in our auction business--hours that for the most part I could choose. Of course my kids will tell you they spent many hours at our many auctions, running bid sheets, selling concessions, even from time to time, cashiering or performing other duties--especially the boys. I tried not to be overindulgent of them, and to teach them the value of money--a lesson more clearly lost on the younger ones, I admit.
As I gaze upon my now grown daughter I am overwhelmed by how beautiful she is--the same sentiment I knew when she was only a few hours old. One of my favorite things to do with my very young children was simply to sit on the floor and gaze at them, delighting in their newborn perfection and amazed that the universe still turns and teems with constantly renewing life. Each of my children is a measure of grace that seems undeserved. I am proud to call them my own, knowing full well they belong to me not, but that we all belong to the One who birthed us and delights in us eternally. My hope is that my children know this as well.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Happy Birthday, Grandpa Stub
Today is my grandfather's birthday. I might not know this information except that my mother told me that April 19 was also my due date, but I, true to form, arrived five days late. I don't know the dates of my paternal grandparents' births, nor the date they died, how old they were, etc. However, I do know both the dates of my maternal grandmother's birth and death. As the sixth child of seven I was quite young when my grandparents died, with the exception of, again, my grandmother. Such information could be relatively easily attained, but since my mother died just this past November it would be more difficult than simply making a phone call.
My grandfather's name was Stuart, but we always knew him as Grandpa Stub. He died at 65 years of complications from gall bladder surgery. His death was unexpected, and even in the mid 1960's, untimely. I was only four years old when he left this earth, to join his daughter in "heaven." She died at the tender age of seven, leaving my mother an only child.
My memories of him are vague, if not more stories told about him than actual memories. I remember visiting him and my grandmother in Ironwood, Michigan, where I was born, but didn't return to until I was 16 years old. I remember once sleeping in a crib, which for a four year old was a great indignation, but my grandparents had a rather small home with an upstairs that was more like an attic, with deeply pitched ceilings. I remember him giving me Vicks cough drops, and I still associate the smell of them with him. I remember another time him visiting us in our home in central Wisconsin. It was "little brother/sister day" at the kindergarten my older sister attended. We lived only a few doors from the elementary school and when we came home from school my grandparents were there. My sister and I got a spanking that day for trying to steal away in his car, and I suspect he might have driven off with us hidden in the back if not for our giggling.
According to my mother, my older sister was a live wire and would sit on his lap and talk incessantly, play with his glasses and generally drive him to distraction. I was the direct opposite apparently back then, content to just rest in his arms. I don't remember those times, or any others for that matter, but the differences in our personalities were often noted by my mom when she would speak of her father.
Grandpa Stub loved to fish and kept a rod and reel in his car at all times. My grandmother told us that frequently on Sunday drives or road trips he would stop his car near a stream or river and nearly always would catch a fish.
My grandparents owned a grocery store in Ironwood, Michigan, the building still stands today and you can read the words at the top of it--Reid's Hall. It has fallen into disrepair over the last dozen or so years, as has many of the old buildings in that part of the country.
When he was young, Grandpa Stub was in the Navy during World War I and crossed the ocean seven times during his years of service. I have the pin that was given to the wives or mothers of service men at the time, only recently having found it after I thought it was gone for good.
When my mother died this past November, I thought to myself, now Grandpa's family is complete again. One day I look forward to getting acquainted with him again, on whatever plain of existence we find ourselves in the next life.
Happy Birthday, Grandpa. I love and miss you.
My grandfather's name was Stuart, but we always knew him as Grandpa Stub. He died at 65 years of complications from gall bladder surgery. His death was unexpected, and even in the mid 1960's, untimely. I was only four years old when he left this earth, to join his daughter in "heaven." She died at the tender age of seven, leaving my mother an only child.
My memories of him are vague, if not more stories told about him than actual memories. I remember visiting him and my grandmother in Ironwood, Michigan, where I was born, but didn't return to until I was 16 years old. I remember once sleeping in a crib, which for a four year old was a great indignation, but my grandparents had a rather small home with an upstairs that was more like an attic, with deeply pitched ceilings. I remember him giving me Vicks cough drops, and I still associate the smell of them with him. I remember another time him visiting us in our home in central Wisconsin. It was "little brother/sister day" at the kindergarten my older sister attended. We lived only a few doors from the elementary school and when we came home from school my grandparents were there. My sister and I got a spanking that day for trying to steal away in his car, and I suspect he might have driven off with us hidden in the back if not for our giggling.
According to my mother, my older sister was a live wire and would sit on his lap and talk incessantly, play with his glasses and generally drive him to distraction. I was the direct opposite apparently back then, content to just rest in his arms. I don't remember those times, or any others for that matter, but the differences in our personalities were often noted by my mom when she would speak of her father.
Grandpa Stub loved to fish and kept a rod and reel in his car at all times. My grandmother told us that frequently on Sunday drives or road trips he would stop his car near a stream or river and nearly always would catch a fish.
My grandparents owned a grocery store in Ironwood, Michigan, the building still stands today and you can read the words at the top of it--Reid's Hall. It has fallen into disrepair over the last dozen or so years, as has many of the old buildings in that part of the country.
When he was young, Grandpa Stub was in the Navy during World War I and crossed the ocean seven times during his years of service. I have the pin that was given to the wives or mothers of service men at the time, only recently having found it after I thought it was gone for good.
When my mother died this past November, I thought to myself, now Grandpa's family is complete again. One day I look forward to getting acquainted with him again, on whatever plain of existence we find ourselves in the next life.
Happy Birthday, Grandpa. I love and miss you.
Monday, April 18, 2011
What's Next
The time is 11:42 am and I have been at the computer all morning. First, finishing an article for the Catholic Anchor newspaper for which I am a "stringer." Second, creating a new blog focused on the challenges of living and eating healthfully. And now, resurrecting my promise to write daily--one I have kept poorly and for which I feel much shame for my negligence of what truly feeds my soul--and that is writing.
A wise and dear friend took me to breakfast last week and challenged me to think about my future, to consider how I would spend my time now that my years and years of childrearing are drawing to their eventual close. While I will always be a mother to my five offspring, their dramatic need for me has lessened over time. This year my oldest daughter will graduate from high school, and only Jordan, my 15-year old, will remain at home. A few short months from obtaining her driver's license, she too will become less dependent.
As we talked about my roles as wife and mother, as a business owner (though my husband does most of the work) and a committed church volunteer, he asked how I met the "transitional" times in my life. My response was that I adapted to specific demands by doing what was required of me, by doing my "duty" so to speak. That ability to adapt and respond he perceived as a strength, but also a weakness in that as "response" it didn't require of me the three things that are necessary to achieve the dreams I initially claimed I did not have. Those three things; discipline, focus and sacrifice are requisite to attaining goals I little realized I had--perhaps the nearly 30 years of motherhood have obscured them.
I remember writing in a survey taken during the last weeks of high school (and returned to me at my 20th class reunion) that my three favorite things to do were writing, sewing and photography. Little has changed, though what now clarifies for me is that writing is perhaps my preferred pursuit--a vocation, perhaps, with sewing (and many other creative pursuits) being my avocation. Clarity now demands a response, and the response is to return to the discipline of regular writing, focusing on honing my skills as a writer and sacrificing the things in my life that whittle away time, distract me in fruitless pursuits and undermine my efforts.
Stay tuned for more!
A wise and dear friend took me to breakfast last week and challenged me to think about my future, to consider how I would spend my time now that my years and years of childrearing are drawing to their eventual close. While I will always be a mother to my five offspring, their dramatic need for me has lessened over time. This year my oldest daughter will graduate from high school, and only Jordan, my 15-year old, will remain at home. A few short months from obtaining her driver's license, she too will become less dependent.
As we talked about my roles as wife and mother, as a business owner (though my husband does most of the work) and a committed church volunteer, he asked how I met the "transitional" times in my life. My response was that I adapted to specific demands by doing what was required of me, by doing my "duty" so to speak. That ability to adapt and respond he perceived as a strength, but also a weakness in that as "response" it didn't require of me the three things that are necessary to achieve the dreams I initially claimed I did not have. Those three things; discipline, focus and sacrifice are requisite to attaining goals I little realized I had--perhaps the nearly 30 years of motherhood have obscured them.
I remember writing in a survey taken during the last weeks of high school (and returned to me at my 20th class reunion) that my three favorite things to do were writing, sewing and photography. Little has changed, though what now clarifies for me is that writing is perhaps my preferred pursuit--a vocation, perhaps, with sewing (and many other creative pursuits) being my avocation. Clarity now demands a response, and the response is to return to the discipline of regular writing, focusing on honing my skills as a writer and sacrificing the things in my life that whittle away time, distract me in fruitless pursuits and undermine my efforts.
Stay tuned for more!
Monday, January 31, 2011
A Blank Screen
The challenge of an empty page is minor in respect to the vulnerability of the one who decorates and illumines it with words, especially when done in a seemingly insignificant public forum as an obscure blog--but public no less. Exposure to one's own thoughts on paper or a blank screen is at times, brutal. This is known to anyone who keeps a private journal. To choose to expose oneself may entail limitations on what is written. Necessary, this is to spare the reader the excessive detritus of our lives. To engage in such cluttered prose is unfortunate when our brains cannot adequately engage our bodies to write fast enough to produce on paper (or a screen) the words that come unrelentingly to our minds. In that failure, as it seems, we feel much is lost in what was meant to be written. Perhaps not.
Still, some things are too precious to allow a type of censure that restricts the honesty of a moment when joy breaks through. I had that moment this morning when I returned an item to my daughter's room. I noticed the "pillow pet" on her bed. She told me yesterday her dad wasn't too pleased when she cajoled him into buying it. "Cajoled" was not the word he used when he told me the story. Seeing the red shaggy eared dog, with little red hearts on his white belly, I couldn't help but think of the heart of this girl of mine. Tucked between the wall and mattress, there is stuffed blue bear, a brown one, and a tumble of bright blankets. She sleeps in a cold room in our house, a room that gathers ambient heat, and sometimes I can hardly find her in the tangle of her bed. But this latest addition to her sleeping environment is its own kind of warmth in the world of a 15 year old that has cold and tearful lessons for her, the kind that erode large pieces of childhood innocence. These are her earliest, no doubt.
As the youngest of five, this precious one, has known a mother different from that of her older siblings, not intrisically, but stylistically, I suppose. She is bright and tough in ways that they are not. She is cautious and reserved to degrees they don't exhibit. Though there are "family resemblances," each child is as unique as each of us, a mother just sees this in ways others do not. Each child of mine decidedly had a different "mother" in me, more likely invoked by their evolving personalities, which in turn evolved mine. My adventure in parenting is more than 27 years in the making, and it brightens as it mellows, sharp and subliminal at turns. This evolution of souls, theirs and mine, and now that of a young woman in a world that can be achingly cold is a marvel to behold. I remind myself that we are all "works in progress." Souls, each and all of us, are evolving in a universe that is purposeful, meaningful and created in love. This universe renders a stuffed toy to warm a young girl's heart, but it also engenders a moment for a mother to reflect the preciousness of knowing the heart's need of a child, her child. Her father understands this too.
In raising five children it is often difficult in the "now" of any challenge to ponder the important work it is and the cosmic value that it has, much less the imperative to try to do it well. When you have the opportunity to ponder--and despite the intensity of any given moment--you do have that eventually, it is an affirmation that you have done reasonably well if you find joy, meaning, and relevance. At times I get caught up in the many failures, the small regrets, the moments that I let pass without seizing or reflecting. Of course, being reminded of them by my children can magnify them in my mind, but that keeps me humble. And humility is the key to joy, and the best way to approach the blank screen.
Still, some things are too precious to allow a type of censure that restricts the honesty of a moment when joy breaks through. I had that moment this morning when I returned an item to my daughter's room. I noticed the "pillow pet" on her bed. She told me yesterday her dad wasn't too pleased when she cajoled him into buying it. "Cajoled" was not the word he used when he told me the story. Seeing the red shaggy eared dog, with little red hearts on his white belly, I couldn't help but think of the heart of this girl of mine. Tucked between the wall and mattress, there is stuffed blue bear, a brown one, and a tumble of bright blankets. She sleeps in a cold room in our house, a room that gathers ambient heat, and sometimes I can hardly find her in the tangle of her bed. But this latest addition to her sleeping environment is its own kind of warmth in the world of a 15 year old that has cold and tearful lessons for her, the kind that erode large pieces of childhood innocence. These are her earliest, no doubt.
As the youngest of five, this precious one, has known a mother different from that of her older siblings, not intrisically, but stylistically, I suppose. She is bright and tough in ways that they are not. She is cautious and reserved to degrees they don't exhibit. Though there are "family resemblances," each child is as unique as each of us, a mother just sees this in ways others do not. Each child of mine decidedly had a different "mother" in me, more likely invoked by their evolving personalities, which in turn evolved mine. My adventure in parenting is more than 27 years in the making, and it brightens as it mellows, sharp and subliminal at turns. This evolution of souls, theirs and mine, and now that of a young woman in a world that can be achingly cold is a marvel to behold. I remind myself that we are all "works in progress." Souls, each and all of us, are evolving in a universe that is purposeful, meaningful and created in love. This universe renders a stuffed toy to warm a young girl's heart, but it also engenders a moment for a mother to reflect the preciousness of knowing the heart's need of a child, her child. Her father understands this too.
In raising five children it is often difficult in the "now" of any challenge to ponder the important work it is and the cosmic value that it has, much less the imperative to try to do it well. When you have the opportunity to ponder--and despite the intensity of any given moment--you do have that eventually, it is an affirmation that you have done reasonably well if you find joy, meaning, and relevance. At times I get caught up in the many failures, the small regrets, the moments that I let pass without seizing or reflecting. Of course, being reminded of them by my children can magnify them in my mind, but that keeps me humble. And humility is the key to joy, and the best way to approach the blank screen.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
An Exercise in Exercise
The treadmill; what an incredibly ingenous way to harness the energy of man or beast to power something. I think particularly of Scrooge's comment regarding the dilemma of care for the penniless and powerless, "are there no poorhouses, are there no treadmills?" I ponder this as I submit to the tedium of a different sort of the same instrument that requires electricity to function, and powers nothing but my own sense of wanting to respond to my body's need to move.
The treadmill is torture without the tremendous grace of music in the form of an ipod which sometimes has the uncanny ability to deliver songs in a way that powerfully pulls me out of the drudgery of what I am doing--and the pathetic irony, as well. My work-out today was blessed in that way.
So when Gino Vannelli's "Venus Envy" is the first song for the warm-up I can't help but hope that those who believe they dramatically differ from the ideal the song speaks of, feel far less so in hearing their intrinsic worth affirmed by one whose voice is its own Venus of sorts. From there, Yes' "It'll Be A Good Day" affirms the rightness and goodness of everything, as John Anderson always communicates in his amazingly resonating way--well, at least for me (and his millions of long, long time fans.) I can't help but assent to his wisdom so many times in my life.
After a few more tunes that challenge my urge to want to just dance, and inspires some moves that would look weird in a public gym, I start to wonder how long I've been at this repetive effort that sometimes seems a metaphor for my life--moving quickly and getting nowhere.
I generally don't engage the "scan" function on the treadmill which records my time, calories burned, etc, until a few songs anyway because I can't bear how long it takes to feel like I'm accomplishing anything or burning significant calories. So, I wait til I break a sweat, or I wait for the next song to end. I decided to do that today, and the next song was Bob Dylan's "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" an 8:37 ballad that has a perfect beat for going 4 miles an hour. And I can't help but feel that God has a sense of humor, the universe moves in ways we scarcely understand, and we move with it, forward. I also think about if you take the word ipod and flip the "p" over you have a "g". Certainly this little purple device I love best of all my possessions is filled with the sacred--in digital form.
At the end of this song, I hit the "scan" button, and I have finished the 2 miles I wanted to achieve--2.11 miles, actually, in 35 minutes. And I loved every one of them!
The treadmill is torture without the tremendous grace of music in the form of an ipod which sometimes has the uncanny ability to deliver songs in a way that powerfully pulls me out of the drudgery of what I am doing--and the pathetic irony, as well. My work-out today was blessed in that way.
So when Gino Vannelli's "Venus Envy" is the first song for the warm-up I can't help but hope that those who believe they dramatically differ from the ideal the song speaks of, feel far less so in hearing their intrinsic worth affirmed by one whose voice is its own Venus of sorts. From there, Yes' "It'll Be A Good Day" affirms the rightness and goodness of everything, as John Anderson always communicates in his amazingly resonating way--well, at least for me (and his millions of long, long time fans.) I can't help but assent to his wisdom so many times in my life.
After a few more tunes that challenge my urge to want to just dance, and inspires some moves that would look weird in a public gym, I start to wonder how long I've been at this repetive effort that sometimes seems a metaphor for my life--moving quickly and getting nowhere.
I generally don't engage the "scan" function on the treadmill which records my time, calories burned, etc, until a few songs anyway because I can't bear how long it takes to feel like I'm accomplishing anything or burning significant calories. So, I wait til I break a sweat, or I wait for the next song to end. I decided to do that today, and the next song was Bob Dylan's "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" an 8:37 ballad that has a perfect beat for going 4 miles an hour. And I can't help but feel that God has a sense of humor, the universe moves in ways we scarcely understand, and we move with it, forward. I also think about if you take the word ipod and flip the "p" over you have a "g". Certainly this little purple device I love best of all my possessions is filled with the sacred--in digital form.
At the end of this song, I hit the "scan" button, and I have finished the 2 miles I wanted to achieve--2.11 miles, actually, in 35 minutes. And I loved every one of them!
Monday, December 20, 2010
What endures
Despite the pace of the season, the personal challenges it brings this year, there is this sense that I must be about the business for which I am gifted, my writing. So, back to the blog. In the midst of dusting a bookshelf so I can place my overflowing books at the very top (not necessarily a wise thing in earthquake prone Alaska) I came across one of the many journals I have started at various times. Perhaps you know the ones, those that have a few pages that rail against some personal or societal imperfection--generally the former for me--but rarely are sustained.
Similar in appearance is the one I found, but its pages were a blessing so often looked for but not always found this time of year. I took this on a journey, wrote one page, and then abandoned it. Finding it today, however, it is clear to me that the orchestration of our lives is hardly random and even less devoid of meaning at any and all times.
As many of you know, my mother died just a few weeks ago. Deterred at times by my own mourning and the demands of the season we place upon ourselves, understandably and otherwise, I have written nothing of my thoughts of this time of healing.
Perhaps what is written below will suffice for now. It was written on December 14, 2004 in Iron Mountain, Michigan while at my mother's house:
The first gift is realizing that all situations, challenges, choices are best faced with an attitude of love. It seems as though the chaos, the pain of loss, the overwhelming emotional challenge of facing death is best navigated with Love as a companion. When Love is captain of the voyage through grief, the journey brings even more gifts. Strength, generosity, patience, hope, and blessed peace.
To find myself with gratitude without guilt, sorrow sanctified by faith (however fragile) and fear crushed by empowerment is nearly overwhelming, joyful even. To have the blessed assurance that God's timing is oddly perfect, that good fruits have already been gleaned from a harvest of loss makes my heart sing.
Rest in peace, dear daddy, deeper in the heart of the Father of us all.
And thank-you, for pointing me toward Him and for teaching me to love.
As I breathe back the mist of tears that surface in my eyes, I would like to dedicate this return to blogging to all those with loved ones whose earthly journeys ended this year. Our shared pain of such loss is so poignant in this time of remembering the abundant grace of Love, whose birth on our planet we celebrate.
As I navigate my first Christmas as an orphan, I feel lucky to have been adopted by my community of faith, my friends, my family. The arms of comfort, bewilderment, sorrow and hope that have surrounded me in this time astound me with the affirmation that what endures is Love that is timeless, whole, and sustains us all in endless communion. The assurance of what I know to be true is the great legacy of two parents whose profound gift to me was a nurtured faith and the ability to express it.
I will honor that all my life.
Similar in appearance is the one I found, but its pages were a blessing so often looked for but not always found this time of year. I took this on a journey, wrote one page, and then abandoned it. Finding it today, however, it is clear to me that the orchestration of our lives is hardly random and even less devoid of meaning at any and all times.
As many of you know, my mother died just a few weeks ago. Deterred at times by my own mourning and the demands of the season we place upon ourselves, understandably and otherwise, I have written nothing of my thoughts of this time of healing.
Perhaps what is written below will suffice for now. It was written on December 14, 2004 in Iron Mountain, Michigan while at my mother's house:
The first gift is realizing that all situations, challenges, choices are best faced with an attitude of love. It seems as though the chaos, the pain of loss, the overwhelming emotional challenge of facing death is best navigated with Love as a companion. When Love is captain of the voyage through grief, the journey brings even more gifts. Strength, generosity, patience, hope, and blessed peace.
To find myself with gratitude without guilt, sorrow sanctified by faith (however fragile) and fear crushed by empowerment is nearly overwhelming, joyful even. To have the blessed assurance that God's timing is oddly perfect, that good fruits have already been gleaned from a harvest of loss makes my heart sing.
Rest in peace, dear daddy, deeper in the heart of the Father of us all.
And thank-you, for pointing me toward Him and for teaching me to love.
As I breathe back the mist of tears that surface in my eyes, I would like to dedicate this return to blogging to all those with loved ones whose earthly journeys ended this year. Our shared pain of such loss is so poignant in this time of remembering the abundant grace of Love, whose birth on our planet we celebrate.
As I navigate my first Christmas as an orphan, I feel lucky to have been adopted by my community of faith, my friends, my family. The arms of comfort, bewilderment, sorrow and hope that have surrounded me in this time astound me with the affirmation that what endures is Love that is timeless, whole, and sustains us all in endless communion. The assurance of what I know to be true is the great legacy of two parents whose profound gift to me was a nurtured faith and the ability to express it.
I will honor that all my life.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Distilling
The biggest challenge for me in writing is not at all in not knowing what to say, but in distilling my way of saying it. This has been so apparent in the crafting of my "reflection" on last weekend's scripture readings, my recent testimony at the AFACT municipal budget forum, and in any attempt to work on the novel I have been writing for several years. 15 lean and clean minutes can be agonizing when the urgency and necessity of what you are saying seems as if it is being wrenched and sifted from your mind, heart and soul in the act of writing it down. It is more like down and dirty hours for several minutes of spoken words. Maybe "digestion" is a more accurate term. Its movement, literally, is not to produce crap, but to sustain life.
The smaller challenge is to take the 15lean and just let it be what it is to be, without editing so much in my head before I type it out on the keyboard. But I will spare you what sometimes becomes a self-indulgent rant when stream of consciousness goes awry. Well, maybe not.
Writing makes room for the other, even in the privacy of journal, there is an audience. That could be any one from God to some psychotic voice. Writing is self speaking to Self, and "other" is illusion. Of course, in a world of relationship, where our autonomy and independence is prized this does not appear to be so. What writing seeks is a way to connect on some level with another--another human being, hopefully. The beautiful thoughts that each of us have, regardless of how that are expressed, should be shared in this manner--if only with another one.
A basic yearning and need in human beings is to communicate with others, evident in the the crude grunts of our ancestors to the fascinating connections we make electronically with each other. We now have myriad options to get our words, no matter how mundane, out there. What a wonderful opportunity and a sacred trust. Perhaps then, when it comes to what we give to the world, we could spend a little more time distilling our words and being careful to remember the true purpose of digestion.
The smaller challenge is to take the 15lean and just let it be what it is to be, without editing so much in my head before I type it out on the keyboard. But I will spare you what sometimes becomes a self-indulgent rant when stream of consciousness goes awry. Well, maybe not.
Writing makes room for the other, even in the privacy of journal, there is an audience. That could be any one from God to some psychotic voice. Writing is self speaking to Self, and "other" is illusion. Of course, in a world of relationship, where our autonomy and independence is prized this does not appear to be so. What writing seeks is a way to connect on some level with another--another human being, hopefully. The beautiful thoughts that each of us have, regardless of how that are expressed, should be shared in this manner--if only with another one.
A basic yearning and need in human beings is to communicate with others, evident in the the crude grunts of our ancestors to the fascinating connections we make electronically with each other. We now have myriad options to get our words, no matter how mundane, out there. What a wonderful opportunity and a sacred trust. Perhaps then, when it comes to what we give to the world, we could spend a little more time distilling our words and being careful to remember the true purpose of digestion.
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