Fear and hate are ripping and unraveling the fabric of humanity. The fabric isn’t made up of one color or type of thread, but many, many—and it is woven into a radiant, magnificent tapestry…a single, beautiful tapestry of humanity. But when horrifying incidents like the recent attacks on Paris slash at it, the tapestry risks getting shredded to pieces. Continue reading “When Hate Gut Punches Hope”
I love summer, I do—but I also love fall, winter (to a point), and spring. The changing of each season is meaningful to me, and I appreciate being witness to the cycle of life.
For many, this time of year means students head back to school—and millions of parents rejoice. Continue reading “A Season of Re-Calibration”
Do you ever think you have THE answer about some aspect of life? A bright idea that will solve whatever issue is at hand? Where the metaphorical light bulb goes off and your mind’s eye sees everything falling into place?
I haven’t had a lot of light bulbs going off lately, and that’s left me feeling a little in the dark. Too bad there is no switch to flip and easily see with clarity.
But my ideas aren’t always THE answer, anyway, as I learn time and again.
Continue reading “Interrupted By God”
Do you remember learning your multiplication tables in elementary school? We were expected to go over them until we could rattle them off like we were wielding a numeric machine gun. It wasn’t my favorite assignment, for sure, and I remember my mom drilling me on them until they finally sunk in. The theory, in part, is that once they are embedded in our brains, we will then be able to use them with little effort to solve bigger problems.
So many times it is practice that enables us to progress or gives us the tools to move forward. Continue reading “Practicing Life”
I took my mom to the bank drive thru the other day. I think these mainly still exist for people in my mom’s generation—though having the little canister get sucked up into the tube is pretty cool. The transaction turned out to be very frustrating because the tellers didn’t see something they should have and ended up treating us rather poorly.
My mom was…ticked. She wanted me to get the teller’s name and complain. I told her to take a breath and let it go. We have bigger fish to fry. But it took her a while to get past it. (Actually, I think given the chance, she’d still give the teller an earful.)
I know I can be guilty of the very same kind of misspent energy, and I bet you can admit to the same. While forgiving little slights isn’t too hard, there are times where it’s just easier to steam at the injustice.
And then there are the bigger fish that do indeed need frying. The kinds of hurts that make it even harder to let go and offer forgiveness.
But no matter how big or small the “fish,” we should always strive to forgive, and here are my ten great reasons why…
Of course, this by far isn’t a definitive discourse on the merits of forgiveness, but I hope that you have found a little something here to remind you how key forgiveness is to a healthy life. And if you didn’t and instead feel like this has been a waste of your time, I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me!
According to Matthew McConaughey—or maybe Einstein—time is relative. Having seen Interstellar over the weekend, I am again challenged to wrap my brain around what this means. (I think I need a brain yoga class—with so many things requiring me to stretch my brain, I’m in serious jeopardy of pulling a muscle.) (Also, in a completely unrelated parenthetical comment, I must admit that while McConaughey was piloting that spacecraft, I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d rather be driving a Lincoln.)
So…the relativity of time. While the academic version of it puts time in a fourth dimension, I just want to deal with the relativity of good old linear time today.
If you’ve ever seen the movie City Slickers, perhaps you’ll remember Mitch, Billy Crystal’s character, giving a brief summary of life:
In classic Crystal style, he is a huge Doug Downer for those innocent middle schoolers. It’s a funny bit, but at the same time—depending on how old you are—you can’t help but wince at the kernels of truth in his rant. For the 40s—my decade—he states, “you grow a little pot belly, you grow another chin. The music starts to get too loud; one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother.”
Sigh. Thankfully, while the others already apply, the music hasn’t grown too loud for me. Just ask my son who occasionally needs to tell me to turn down the music. Mama still likes it loud. (And, no—I am not yet hard of hearing!)
There is another part of the movie that resonates with me, though, and that’s the desire to have a “do over.”
In the movie, Phil (Daniel Stern) is at a crossroads in his life and states, “My life is over! I’m almost 40 years old, and I’m at the end of my life!” Doug Downer, meet your brother.
If you happen to be someone who is exactly where you thought you would be at this point in your life, I commend you. God bless. I have a feeling you are in the minority, though.
Many of us, like Phil, aren’t exactly where we envisioned ourselves.
To cheer up his friend, Mitch offers this hope: “You remember when we were kids, and we were playing ball, and we hit the ball over the fence out of bounds, and we yelled, DO OVER?…Your life is a do over. You’ve got a clean slate.”
Of course, it’s not as simple as that, we all know, but the idea of second (or third, or fourth, or more) chances to create yourself anew is powerful—and scary. While it shines hope, it doesn’t necessarily come easy.
I’m in “do over” phase right now. And this is where the whole linear time issue fires up. Some days I feel like it’s simply too late for me to start over. How much time do I have left? (Doug Downer, meet your sister.) But other days I am well aware that all I have—and all anyone else has—is…today. Just today. So whether I’m in my 40s and trying to carve out a new life or I’m in my 20s, the one thing I know I have in the spectrum of my life is…today.
There is no difference.
True, if you create a timeline of my life, this new life chapter will be shorter than if I had started writing it earlier, but all I have is today’s page. There is no going back and editing. There’s only today’s blank page.
Every day is a mini do-over of its own.
If today was a piece of poop on a stick, tomorrow doesn’t have to be—and if it is, well then the next day offers the same fresh chance for change.
So if you, like me, find yourself struggling at times, wondering whether your life choices screwed things up or possibly made things better, remember that time is relative.
Within Mitch’s rant from the clip above, he says, “Value this time in your life, kids, cause this is the time in your life when you still have your choices.”
Sorry, Mitch, but I disagree. Yes, things get way more complicated with responsibilities and commitments as you get older, but…we still have our choices. The impact may be farther reaching, but…we still have our choices.
Hindsight may have us kicking ourselves that we didn’t make certain choices sooner (or at all), but that does nothing to help write today’s page.
This is something I need to constantly remind myself about. I am not too old for a do over. And if I make it to 80 and I want yet another do over, I won’t be too old then, either.
What matters is the DO in do over. Otherwise…it’s just…over.
So fill up today’s page as best you can. And remember, if you don’t like what you wrote for today, tomorrow offers a brand new page.
