Living Better

I think one of the lies of Satan is the definition of 

BETTER. 

 When we are small, we begin to believe the lie, as we are held away from things we want.

"Wait until you are bigger."

And, thus, we begin to believe the lie. 

As we grow, we work more to earn more to spend more so that we can be bigger. Bigger house, bigger car, bigger vacation, bigger retirement, bigger birthday parties, bigger gifts, bigger restaurant tabs, bigger business, bigger debt. Bigger anxiety, bigger stress, bigger schedule.

And when we get to the end, we realize it isn't better. Just bigger.

Bigger regret.

Last weekend, I had the honor and sacred privilege of caring for my husbands grandfather before he died. He was, by the standards of his community, wealthy. He channeled his wealth back into his community and opened a summer resort and winter ski area that was open to the general public in a generation when skiing was only available to the elite who were wealthy enough to purchase a membership to the Country Club. He gave local kids cheap lessons, jobs, instructor certification and a ticket to a different life, where choices were made based on character and not by how much bigger they were able to live. Many left the community for higher education and different opportunities. Almost as many come back every season to pour their hearts back in to their home. 

This makes it better. 

Lloyd seemed to know the difference early enough to mold his life's choices around being better. And, when the time came, he was able to reflect and say, "I've had a good life," and then wait to greet death like an old friend instead of something to be feared. 

The gift of the dying is that we have a window to what is most important. The things that are bigger are not what make life better. Easier, perhaps, at certain times. But not better. We are given direct insight to the difference between bigger and better.

And we can choose BETTER.

New Year's Un-Resolution

2013 is gone and I'm pretty sure I missed it. I got to the end of the year and felt like I didn't check nearly all the things off my list that I had written there. Even though I did get to go camping a couple times with the kids at the Sand Dunes (which is the most peaceful place on earth, in case you were wondering).

So. I wrote down the events I will do in 2014. Some of them are written on the calendar in permanent marker, others will happen spontaneously when there is a nice day. Many of them are simply spaces that fill me up, that help me center on the people that are most important to me. Some of them will require a babysitter or Camp Grandma. Some of the will require doing extra laundry. Some of them will mean skiffing an assignment at school or taking an extra day of precious PTO. But they WILL happen. In no particular order:

1. Stay at the Parlin house with good friends (preferably in the summer when we can be outside fishing in the pond or drinking coffee on the deck.
2. Camping at the Sand Dunes (because it's tradition. And peaceful and beautiful and reminds me how my insignificant troubles are--no bigger than a grain of sand). 
3. King Reunion (July)
4. Buffalo Creek Bike/Camping trip
5. Take Liam and Wyatt hiking at the Crags
6. Cross Wedding (June)
7. Eitzen wedding (July)
8. Sipapu ski trip for Clown Clinic (February)
9. Scrapbook Retreat (January)
10. Ski with the family another weekend, just for kicks.
11. Family bike ride
12. Hubby bike ride
13. Eat at Mountain Flying Fish
14. Hubby Hike
15. Spend a day at Mt Princeton Hot Springs
16. High School Reunion (I'm not going to tell you what year. You get to guess.) 
17. Talk with "Dear Kate" at least once a month, either by text, FB, phone or (ideally) in person. 
18. Seven. Seven minutes of a workout and seven minutes of prayer. Every. Day. Because even the busiest of us can find seven minutes of something we can give up. 

It's going to be a busy year! Let's get started . . . . 

Glimpse of the Holy

One of the privileges of being a mother is that one has an inside line to Spirit. 

Not just the random feelings of spirituality that people experience during euphoric experiences or the faded notes of casual holiness one might experience while singing worship songs during church. 

Occasionally, 

One actually gets to see 

SPIRIT. 

Children are, especially as they are becoming verbal, able to express the language of SPIRIT in its purest form. They aren't yet marred by the constraints of this world, and their souls still remember the language of the ONE who Gave them. . . . (do you hear that?)  

Gave Them

breath

hope

love

spirit

life

GOD

life

spirit

love

hope

breath

I had a GLIMPSE of GOD today. 

Because children still know. 

LOVE the 

I AM.

I was sitting on the floor reading a book to my Graciela (someday, I will tell HER story)

and she looked up at the wall, 

and waved.

waved

I stopped. 

What? Who--What--did she just see?

I asked, "Who were you waving at?"

"Just that thing."

"What thing?" Was it happy?"

"Yes."

"What was it?"

"It was Gjhwanna."

(There are truly no letters to describe this sound. The first 'note' is kind of breathing through a "G" sound. It's the closest I've come.)

"What is Gjhwanna?"

(she looks at me like I am seriously nucking futz and she is about to send an FMLA note to my boss about how crazy I am)

"It's GJHWANNA! You know. Your Angel."

Uh. 

My Angel.

ANGEL. 

(if it's possible for souls to have a rhythm, mine just skipped a beat)

"What's Gjhwanna look like?"

(Shrugs.)

"I don't know. A Angel."

(DER)

Did I know this once? Have I see my angel before? 

Once? Did I know who this being is? And how close I am--every moment--to the much larger, much more focused, much more HOLY, reality?

When I was small?

did i KNOW?

THIS IS HOLY

AND I AM IN  AWE.

GOD WITH US.

selah

Children are for Humility

There is nothing quite so humbling as children. 

The perspective they bring puts the lid on the crock of any delusions of grandeur I may have of myself, typically at the moments in which I am almost convinced that I am ALL THAT. 

Between a massive belch at the church potluck and the tantrum in the salad isle at the grocery store, or the statement in the drink isle to the local grandma that he's tasted beer, it's a wonder I don't just shrivel up before walking out the door in the morning. Yes, Pride is safely tucked away in the B.C. era of my life. 

Some examples, so you may laugh at my good fortune:

       I am riding my bike, with the wind in my hair. I can feel the power in my legs . . . pedal, Pedal, PEDAL. That little just-turned-three blondie calls out to me from her tag-a-long trailer, "Mommy, put my shade down." 

     "Why?" I ask. "It's not very hot today." 

     "Because I don't want to look at your butt!"

     From my middle child: "Mom, when you were little, were you in black and white?" This is also the child who told his teacher that I am as "pretty as a zebra". 

     And from my eldest, in a hot wheels driving "class" with his younger siblings: "Today, class, we are going to learn how to speed without getting caught." 

These short people (who will only be short for a few more years till they are ALL going to be looking down at me from the rafters--thank you, Clay) have given me a depth I never knew existed. They have given me the ability to be in a euphoria that only exists in movies and the simultaneous capacity to be emotionally anhiliated. 

If they grow up to be God-being, people-loving, justice-seeking, beauty-seeing, courageous-asking, happy-living people, I will rejoice. That will be the ultimate success. 

There is a strange paradox in exhaustion. At once, one feels a primal, despairing physical weariness, while also sensing a vast spiritual plain. It's almost as if--instead of thinking, rationalizing and plotting a logical response, we are simply reacting on the most basic instincts.

Let's face it: as spiritual beings, we respond spiritually to our most basic needs. We seek to survive, to protect and to maintain. We aren't planning, praying creatures in those moments. We are simply moving. 

Over the past several weeks (couple of months) I have both felt moments of exhaustion in myself and observed it in others. Primal exhaustion. The kind where your body begs for sleep and your heart aches to not feel ANYTHING. (I have also had some really, really, really rested and rejoicing days. And I am surrounded by amazing people, family and friends who allow me to be real and who keep me grounded. Lest you think I am at the intersection of "Numb" and "Depths of Despair" rather than on the steady incline of "Perspective". 

While I could be philosophical and boring, I would rather share some of the quotes and comments that have spoken to me and kept my spiritual perspective intact: (disclaimer: I will attempt to give credit where it is due, but in some instances just latched on to the language instead of who wrote it. If there are corrections, please post them in comments.)

• "Jesus liked messy. He tended to run toward it. We think of the disciples he chose to do ministry with, the stories of the misfits and the outcasts he loved so well. He gravitated toward people that didn't have their crap together."  -Jamie the Very Worst Missionary www.theveryworstmissionary.com
• "Limp, anemic sentiments will not stand in the face of a world that is not as it should be." -From One Degree to Another www.natepyle.com
• "Today while the blossoms still cling to the vine, I'll taste your strawberries; I'll drink your sweet wine. A million tomorrows shall all pass away 'ere I forget all the joy that is mine today." -This was on Lydia West's FB wall. I don't know who the original author is. 
• "God doesn't sit anywhere with a big wand moving mountains and directing job interviews and making my hair turn out decent today.  God instead sits in our spirits and we move, God moves, ideas move, hopes move......." -My very own wise sister-wife cousin, Tonya. You can view her blog here.
• “I must learn to love the fool in me – the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries.  It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool.” -Theodore I. Rubin, MD. Also found and posted by my cousin in a guest post on another favorite blog, www.femonite.com.

There are a lot of really painful, tragic stories around me every day. There is an equal portion of triumph, even in the broken faces of those who choose to keep moving, just to be moving. 

I choose to see them, really see them, and respond. I refuse to put my head in the sand and ignore the Namaste of those around me just because it is uncomfortable to look at them, just because I don't think I have the emotional energy. Even on the days I am tapped-out and am only moving with them. 

Accomplishments List

School starts next week. I have mixed feelings, mostly because I dread the thought of homework and getting tasks assigned by other people done within their time frame as much as my children might if they weren't SO EXCITED about learning and seeing their friends again. 

So, to calm myself, I've made a list of things I accomplished this summer:

1. Enjoyed three glasses of wine a week. Minimum. 
2. Spent time with family and friends doing random enjoyable things, usually involving food.
3. Got one speeding ticket. (I'm telling you--that stretch of highway between Raton & Las Vegas, NM is just BEGGING me to pin it.)
4. Family bike outings. I think we managed three.
5. Completed one course towards my Masters.
6. Started a lung cancer screening program at the hospital where I work. (With the help of many, many, many other people.) And managed, somehow, to not work more than 50 hours a week.
7. GARDEN
8. Managed to get through summer, because of Camp Grandma, Camp Cousins and Camp Bike Shop, only needing to put my children in a sub-par summer day program for three weeks out of the summer.
9. Managed to not forget anyone's birthday. So far. 
10. Went to the Sand Dunes . . . once.

( . . . sigh . . .)

So, here's a half-hearted toast to summers' end, and to high expectations for next summer.

My Name Is Lisa, and I Have a Problem.

There are two items I need to check off of my Bucket List, one immediately: 

1) Last night, I had a precious 40 minutes of free time, and I chose to stop at a nearby shoe store, which shall remain almost anonymous, Famous for its Footwear clearance rack. 

I found a much needed pair of comfy, sleek, dressy loafers to replace the ones that I threw in the trash at the checkout counter in at least three pieces. I also found a pair of shiny, apple-red, perfect height, classic pumps. In my size. On clearance. Buy-one-get-one-half-off clearance. 

Upon arriving home, I realized I have no fewer than three pairs of shiny, apple-red, perfect height, various pumps. In my size. Purchased on clearance. 

Apparently, I have an addiction. Cue Mission Impossible: Navy. I consulted Kate, who responded with something highly encouraging like, "That is a perfect metaphor for what a confident, empowered woman you are." Which made me feel wonderful and really would be a desirable metaphor if I could actually walk in shiny, apple-red, perfect height, classic pumps without looking like I'm trying not to fall over. 

The second item is much, much, much more serious.

MUCH. 

2) I would not describe my upbringing as "conservative", rather "aware". We were often encouraged to view another perspective, and consider how our appearance, actions or words might be taken in untended ways. However, the community we lived in could be described as "conservative". As in, smoking, drinking and dancing were really excellent ways to cozy up to the devil himself. 

But. 

I've always wanted to dance. Even though I run in to the wall if I turn around too fast, and I fell down the stairs last year and ended up with a rod and six screws in my hand, and my oldest, as a toddler, cried every time I tried to have a little rhythm. I've always wanted to know how it feels to know enough to let the music move me. 

So. I bought five sessions of dance lessons. And not ballroom, tap or even contemporary dance lessons. Hip-Hop dance lessons. 

Perhaps they'll cover walking in red pumps in the first class.