Bringing Faith to Life
Archive for June, 2016
What is your place of abiding?
0“Jesus came for a far more radically transforming purpose than to serve as a role model. Jesus came to invite us into a living relationship with him, to abide, live and move in his spirit, as the branch abides in the living vine. Just as the bird does not imitate the air or the fish imitate the water, but rather they abide in their life-giving element, so are we to live in Jesus and Jesus live in us.” ~ Flora Slosson Wuellner
What is your “life-giving element”?
Where do you settle in with a deep sigh
and say, ah, everything I need is here.
Now, I am clicking, the ideas are coming,
the world is starting to make sense because
I can see myself as I am and know my place in it.
I can drink to quench my thirst
and breathe to inspire my mind,
I can gulp my sustenance
and wriggle free of my stiffness.
I can soothe my own soul.
Such a place of flourishing
is this space of abiding,
I in Him and He in me.
What’s your place of abiding?
Coming Out of My Own Closet
0
Two hours down and I have only gotten through half the stuff in my closet. At the urging and with the help of my youngest daughter who conveyed handfuls of items to try on, each piece of clothing received a yea, a nay or a “second chance.” The pile of “no’s” grew precipitously, demanding a second bin even larger than the first to contain all the send-offs.
Lo and behold, there’s a reason I frequent elastic waist bands and loose-fitting sportswear; most of what I own no longer fits or has become yesterday’s style or color. “Shoulder pads, really Mom? They’re so retro. I can probably sell them on my clothing website.” The message is clear: I shouldn’t have all this stuff. Why am I keeping it?
The easy answer is, I’m too lazy to go through it. The more honest answer is, I don’t want to try it on to see that it no longer fits. Gone are the days that I can hang onto jeans hoping I might shimmy in if I just lose that last 10 pounds. Today, as buttons don’t button and zippers don’t zip, I fight the urge to hate myself for the shape I’m in. Heavier, rounder and softer.
While some people fear that others will find what they’ve been hiding in their closet, I fear what I have been hiding there from myself. Now, here it is, in living color, undeniable and staring back at me from the mirror. The body you used to have is gone. Now you’re stuck with this one. With me.
It’s amazing what a closet shows you about yourself. Can I handle the truth? I am not who I used to be, no matter how tightly I hold onto the used-to-be me. The grip I have on the last vestiges of myself is slipping.
I can’t run full steam ahead with all my ideas like I used to. limited energy. limited time. limited passion. limited resources. What will I give my future? What’s worth giving it to?
Allow me this moment of lament for those youthful days when growing out of something meant growing up. Jeans were too short because I had grown taller, not wider. Shirts were too tight because I had grown bustier, not thicker. Toes poking out my sneakers meant a longer instep, not flattening arches. The only things that lasted more than a season were my favorite t-shirts and sweatshirts which, when they lay in frayed tatters, my mother insisted it was time they go.
Can I see today’s growing out of not as growing up but as growing into?
Can I grow into an older self, more secure in my skin and more comfortable with my size? Can I embrace the truth which no one will tell me unless I tell myself that I am not my weight or the number on my label? This physical change is, if not inevitable, at least for me is real and not avoidable. Here I am in the body I have, for which I am grateful and to which I am dedicated in my care taking. Can I accept the newly old me?
“I’m trying not to hate myself,” I hear myself say out loud to my daughter who should never hear me say this.
“It’s okay, Mom. We’ll go shopping,” she says smiling and without a trace of the indictment, derision or self-flagellation I feel certain I deserve. All of these years I have toiled to maintain a fit physique – I’m in the fitness business after all – so as not to be accused of not working hard enough to be thin. Now, I need to make peace with healthy and as high performance as possible, given the raw material I have to work with.
Apparently, what I’m growing into is someone who’s not afraid of what lurks in my closet. It’s not hiding now; it’s in plain sight. I guess this is just my version of coming out. What I see in the mirror is just fine. Mine to take care of. Mine to use. Mine to share.
Everyone has a closet.
My Creative Process
0Here goes:
- Begin with “You are loved, whether you produce anything today or not.”
Your offering is already acceptable. You have brought yourself to this day. - Surround yourself with the things you enjoy, people you love and the things you love to do.
- Begin.
- If it flows, continue.
- If not, set it aside and begin again.
- Toil while it makes sense. Set it aside when it sags.
- Revise another day.
On the next day, begin with…
“You are loved, whether you produce anything today or not.”
This, most of all, because the fear of failing to produce acceptable fruit keeps our hands in our pockets and our hearts under wraps. The world needs our hearts and our hands. Love opens both.
Begin.
***
What’s your creative process?
When Chemistry became Biology
08 years
What are we made of?
the stuff of stars
the elements of the periodic table
concocted of chemicals that explode,
ions that interact,
molecules that relate.
We are the stuff of life.
No more, no less
and yet.
Yet,
we think, and move
and have our being.
Somehow we animated,
went from sketch to living color.
Our chemistry became biology,
we moved from dead in our tracks
to alive and well.
Well, not so well.
Our chemistry is faulty, we say,
prone to pesticides and processed to pieces.
Our environment does us in, we say,
nothing to be done about the ways of the world.
Our bodies betray us, we say,
resenting the long hours and little pay.
Who would fault us for losing hope in them?
Except,
the One who made us,
who imagined our being.
The chemist who
connected our elements,
shaped our molecules,
formulated our reactions,
exploded our contents.
This One,
the only one present when
our chemistry became our biology.
When we came to life.
If we let them
2
When they’re young, children need to learn how.
How to tie a shoe. How to make their letters. How to ride the bus.
How to strike the ball. How to throw the pass. How to swing the bat.
How to greet a friend. How to get themselves to sleep. How to decline politely.
These, they learn by rote. There is a technique to be learned, an accuracy to be achieved, a method to be followed. There is a correct way to accomplish each of them. Once they can do it, they practice again and again to get it right. Kids need practice and a patient teacher who will offer soft correction until they’ve got the basics down.
Until they know it by heart.
Once ‘the heart’ knows it and they can execute the pattern without thinking about the steps, they are ready to try their hand at harder things. The techniques they have learned as children are the building blocks for the strategies they apply to adapt and adjust to life’s demands. This is living. Free-living.
What if we don’t let them try?
If we don’t release them from our tutelage, but instead stand by to correct their technique as they… step up to hit the fast ball which now may be a slider, cutter or change-up? Or take their stance to strike the golf ball which now may be behind a tree, on a side hill lie, with a pond dead ahead? Or drop to throw a pass into secondary coverage they’ve never seen, in the face of linemen bigger than they’ve ever faced?
As children, they need to learn the basics as well as they can, so that as adults they can apply the skills they’ve learned to situations they never saw coming. Accuracy and reproducibility then give way to flexibility and adaptability. When the foundation is there, the performance doesn’t founder, it flourishes.
What a joy that is to watch!
From a safe distance we see capability take shape and confidence grow as they apply the lessons of childhood to the responsibilities of adulthood. Not the way we used to do it, not they way we would have done it, but the way they have figured out it needs to be done.
When children are young, they need to learn how.
As adults, they’ll know how…
If we let them.
walk the walk and let ’em talk
0
After three long days of sitting in scientific meetings telling me Americans don’t get enough exercise, I skip out the front door of the convention center and into a city I don’t know and turn right. Weaving my way around pedestrians, past store fronts, around tree stumps, over uneven cobblestones, I swing wide to navigate past a woman walking her dog.
Smitten, of course, it’s a sweet old dog, I pause to greet the lumbering black and white beast and smile at his owner who is gamely trying to pull her charge along. He’s being a bit contrary, ambling begrudgingly despite his master’s prodding.
The woman looks at me and back at the dog. “See?” the woman says nodding in my direction,”She’s sporty. We all need our exercise.”
I’m sporty, apparently, because I go for a brisk walk in sneakers and track pants. I speak exercise to those I pass, not in a ‘you should be’ way but a ‘don’t you wanna?’ way. This woman and I have never met, but one look tells her a lot and speaks even more.
Oh, the irony, as there are thousands of sport science experts just around the corner at the convention center, presenting their findings, debating the details, and lamenting the sad state of the health and fitness of the people in their communities. Ah, progress marches on and science with it. Knowledge is powerful, but what about the power of practice?
If we walk the walk, words are optional.