Looking in the Rear View Mirror

When you took Driver’s Education in high school, you were taught to be aware of all your surroundings so that you would be safe behind the wheel. As you looked ahead, you scanned the traffic and the roadsides. You glanced regularly at your rear view mirror, where you kept an eye on the vehicles and the highway behind you. Any stationary or moving object that was close to your car loomed large and sharp and colorful, and sometimes caused you great concern. As you drove forward, however, anything that was a possible hazard receded into the distance, until it disappeared completely from view.

Many of our day-to-day experiences, especially the problems, are similar to those images in the mirror. Today, right at this moment, the problems are so close. We feel pressured and confined by them. We find ourselves short of breath, or with a rapidly beating heart even as we think about them, regardless of the actual size or scope of the difficulties. They may appear big and complex, sometimes perilous, or even insurmountable. We fear the consequences if we crumple in defeat, or we become very angry, or offended, hurt or bitter as we struggle to come to some sort of resolution. Yet, over time, the feelings we have today, much like the roadside images, often recede into the distance, and become nothing more than specks on the landscape of our past.

How can something that is so large and so very important, fade later into obscurity, stripped of its larger-than-life size and emotion? How can it, at a point in the future, sometimes even morph into a humorous anecdote that you share, such as “Remember that time when I was in high school, and I called you in the middle of the night because I got the car stuck in the woods on an ATV trail?”

Time. Distance. Perspective. Prayer. That’s all. Sometimes, it’s just the passage of hours, days, weeks, or even years. Other times, it’s just a matter of putting some figurative or literal space between you and the issue. It may simply be a matter of taking a few steps and a few deep breaths, and finding a different point of view to gain that fresh perspective. And last, but certainly not least, there is the sweet relief of sharing your burden through prayer.

Is there a problem or issue in your life that would benefit from the healing balm of time, distance, perspective or prayer?

I hope you dance

Many of you will be facing the bittersweet moment this month of watching your child head off to college. Your heart swells with pride at what a terrific young adult your baby has grown into, yet you are concerned about letting go, and letting them grow on their own.

I know. We have been there.

The first time we dropped our eldest off at college, I thought I was going to be just fine. I was so excited for her, and the plans she was making for herself. She was and is an independent thinker who is guided by a strong core of decency and knowing right from wrong. What could I possibly be, other than exceptionally proud?

Oh. I could be a blubbering mom. Just like those before me, and those who would follow.

I would get better over the years at saying goodbye, but as someone who can be brought to tears by the slightest hint of emotion in a TV commercial, it has always been a bit of a struggle for me.

We have been there twice, with both daughters. We have seen them off, not only to the start of their college careers, but also to side trips that had me stressing. There was the weeklong bare bones hike into the mountains with no soap or shampoo, and-gasp!-no electronics, that also required each participant to spend one night camping completely alone. (Quick-where is that paper bag I keep handy so that I can stop hyperventilating?) There was the trip we weren’t able to make to JFK airport, in NYC, to watch the plane whisk our daughter to Paris for her junior year abroad. That was tough. Especially the panicked phone call from her, hundreds of miles away, saying that she had left her backpack-her life, her passport-in the van when it dropped her at the airport. (She was reunited shortly with her pack, thankfully!)

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

The good news?

If you think your heart swells with pride and possibly constricts a little with concern at watching them leave home for the first time, just be patient, and watch them grow into adulthood. There is hope, for those of you who are in the midst of those “terrible, horrible, no good very bad” teen years. Much like the ordinary caterpillar who becomes a lovely butterfly, your child-who you may have joked about putting out in the yard with a “free to any home” sign-will transform into a really nice human being and a good friend.

Soldier on, my friends. Parenting is not an easy task, nor is it generally filled with gratitude from your teens. But the rewards are great. Grow them up, and let them go.

So what is the message here? I guess it would be to stay hopeful and loving, firm and fair, and remembering to look beyond the skirmishes of today to the rewards of tomorrow. "I Hope You Dance" is a song by Lee Ann Womack that my hubbie dedicated to our oldest daughter at the time of her graduation. It makes me teary eyed every time I hear it, as I think Lee Ann captures the message of love we desire to pass on to our children. A word to the wise: go get some tissues before you hit play, just in case...

Happy, happy, joy, joy

I love being married. My hubbie is my bff, and I adore him. We consider ourselves so blessed to have joy and laughter overflowing in our lives, connecting us with our family, friends and our faith. That is not to say that everything is easy-breezy, hunky-dory every day. We have challenges that arise, emergencies to be handled and sometimes, hard choices to be made, just like everyone else. But, that’s life.

Fortunately, when we took the big leap to get married over 26 years ago-yikes!-we both really liked the idea of a small wedding, so there was no disagreement there. I have seen and heard about couples whose all-consuming wedding plans often take a toll the relationship. I find this state of affairs sad when it does occur, since the newlyweds are far more apt to be focused solely on little things, such as the crispness of the napkin folds, rather than on each other, and all the friends and family that have gathered to celebrate with and for them. (A disclaimer here-I am not suggesting that the bride and groom completely ignore the planning process, and instead spend their days, eyes locked in love, gazing into the starry depths of each other's souls. Balance, people, balance.)

So, it was with great joy and laughter that I watched the wedding video below. If you didn’t get to see the wedding couple interviewed on the morning shows on TV, I can tell you they appeared ordinary and really likable. They just seemed real. And really, really happy.

My hubbie and I were so taken with their idea that we said that we would consider having a big wedding if we could do what they did. Take five minutes to watch, and let the joy in!

A final note: In case you aren’t aware, the only people in on their plan were the parents and the minister. None of the guests knew what was coming.

OK, one more note: I would say that this video is resonating with many other folks as well, since YouTube lists the number of views at over 12,100,000. Wow.

May you find a reason to be happy and joyful today!

Blindness and perspectives

Although the weeklong workcamp we just completed involved a tremendous amount of hard work, we looked forward to the evening programs with anticipation, as they provided an opportunity for fun, fellowship, and food for thought, as well as a joyful boost of energy at the end of the day. One night, our ebullient MC, Steve, talked about how we can be unknowingly blind, and how we need to change our point of view in order to have another perspective revealed to us.

A story he shared got me to thinking that we can be very comfortable and secure in our inability (or our unwillingness) to see other people or situations in a different light. We just know-without a doubt- that our crotchety old neighbor is on a mission to make our lives difficult, our child’s teacher is a control freak who spends her evenings thinking of ways to squeeze the love of learning from her pupils, and our boss is just plain mean, and devotes all of his waking hours to creating new ways to us miserable.

This perspective adds such order and satisfaction to our messy and chaotic lives, as it enables us to put people in neat, little boxes. (Yes, I do realize that you may be spot-on in your assessment of someone, but that is another post for another day.)

There are times, however, when we are given sight, when the hidden is revealed. We may not embrace it fully at first, as it rocks our world in an unsettling way. The voice in our head wonders, “I am wrong? No. Don’t think so. Can’t be. That would mean I am…wrong. I don’t like being wrong. I am always right.”

In my family we call this change of perspective “paradigm shifting without a clutch”, and it throws us, with much screeching and grinding of cogs, into a completely different gear. The voice in our head reluctantly notes, “Oh, I didn’t realize those circumstances in my neighbor’s life, my child’s classroom, or my bosses’ world."

I know that I continue to plug away about perspective in my posts, but stay with me here, as it is a lynch pin in becoming too darn happy. Your comfort zone-what I have dubbed for this discussion as your “I just know” zone-can be a space as confining and constricting as your Great Grandmother’s corset. It may be a small corner in which we stubbornly stay, facing the wall, and wonder whose fault it is that our view is so dim. I invite you to step up to higher ground, to an open space where we will gain a much wider view. That sweeping vista may cause some butterflies in the tummy, but it is certainly worth it. If we never look at people or situations from that fresh point of view, how will we ever grow and change in a positive direction?

Gather your courage and your walking stick today, and start moving towards that outlook.

Note-A shout out to workcamper B. above. Thanks for your willingness to get down from your ladder, be my model at the drop of a paintbrush, and cheerfully put on "a fresh look" and "looking as though something has been revealed".

More on Volunteering

My hubbie and I volunteer through our church with a variety of ministries. We have worked with our Food Pantry, which served over 3,500 meals last quarter alone in our small community. We both belong to a group that works on small home projects for folks who are unable to do these things for themselves. The biggest venture for us so far, though has been the culmination of our church’s year long planning for the one-week workcamp, which is done with our co-sponsor through the Group Workcamps Foundation. They describe their mission on their website:

How does a community respond to a tragic flood? In 1977, Loveland, Colorado responded by hosting the very first Home Repair Workcamp and the Group Workcamps Foundation began repairing homes – and in the process helped people in mending their lives.

At each Workcamp, hundreds of teenagers and adult sponsors come to a community like yours for a full week, and spend five days repairing homes for elderly, low-income, and disabled residents.

The preparation for the workcamp is monumental. Our steering committee requests applications from qualified area residents who are in need of work, selects the homes, determine the equipment and material needs, and ultimately welcomes 350 teen volunteers and their youth group leaders, who hail this year from states including Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine and New Hampshire. The vans roll in on Sunday, and out pour hundreds of kids, who bring with them loads of joy, excitement and an abundance of an attitude of service. They pay to come to camp. Yes, let me say that again: they pay to come to camp, to scrape and paint homes in the heat and humidity, to repair porches, steps and railings, to sleep in sleeping bags in classrooms on the floor of our middle school, to connect with the residents, and especially for the opportunity to serve, grow in their faith, and to show God’s love in a practical way. Cool beans, as one of my friends says.

Scraping wallpaper to prep for paint

Marking the loaned ladders

Here are some estimated numbers from this week, as we begin our Workcamp:

Towns served: About 13

Homes readied: About 50

Ladders loaned: Over 100

Volunteers arriving: 350

Goodie bags created: 360

Lunches prepped: Over 1,400

Meals made: Over 3,300

Hours worked: Over 9,000

Miles traveled: Thousands. Filled with many songs, bad jokes, much merriment, lots of junk food and very little sleep

What do they all add up to? Relationships forged. Paradigms shifted. Lives transformed. Really great stuff.

As I noted in my previous post about volunteering, I encourage you again to find a cause, a need in your community, even something so simple as an elderly neighbor who needs help bringing the groceries in from the car. I can't say it any better than Nike: Just do it.

A sampling of the goodie bag treats

Go ahead and volunteer!

In these difficult economic times, it can be so easy to feel sorry for yourself. The threat of unemployment, the discouragement of not being able to find a job, the increasing gulf between your wages and your bills, or a general concern regarding how much more belt-tightening you can do can take a toll on your good humor and overall state of mind. Sometimes, as I have noted previously, you need to take a breather and find a different perspective. I think Booker T. Washington-a man who was born into slavery in 1856 and yet became the founder of Tuskegee Institute after the Civil War-said it best:

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

There is a lot of wisdom in those words. If you have ever volunteered, really done something for a cause because you believed it was the right thing to do, you know how amazingly good you feel about it. Not because it was necessarily easy, comfortable or convenient, because odds are, it wasn’t, but because you walked away knowing you helped. Yes, it’s corny, but it is so very true.

You can volunteer time, money, and even goods you no longer need. For instance, we recently donated our dog kennel fencing to Puppy Angels, an organization that does animal rescue and adoption. During the pickup of the fence, we met Dora, a young Pitbull. She was lithe and bright and energetic, she is the dog you see here with her pal Kelly, and Dora is available for adoption.

How are you feeling these days? Stressed? Down in the dumps? Feeling sorry for yourself? My prescription for you would be to get out and volunteer. You can find opportunities everywhere: your community, your church, your neighborhood, and you can do it once, or on a continuing basis. Reach out and help someone today. You really will be glad you did.

Happy Independence Day!

The National Memorial Arch at Valley Forge, PA

Photo by Kim Hall

The United States Memorial Arch, located at the intersection of Outerline Drive and Gulph Road, was erected to commemorate the arrival of General George Washington and his Continental Army into Valley Forge. Quoted from the National Park Service

I took advantage of an opportunity to travel to Valley Forge, PA, this past May. While visiting the historical grounds, I came upon a field that was dotted with reproductions of the soldiers’ cabins. I entered one, and was struck by how small and cramped the space was for six men, and how extreme the temperature must have been in the bitter cold of the winter. Knowing that General Washington and his troops walked these same grounds, and thinking about the immense sacrifice those soldiers made, I stood in absolute awe of their fortitude and courage. We are indebted to them, and are incredibly lucky to live in this great country.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!