A Throw Away Day

Today I remember that after exertion, one must recuperate. I'm listening to a new friend describe the way she recuperates after a day of activity. She's still recovering from a serious illness, so she spends entire days regaining strength.

She rests. She does nothing. Her health depends on these days.

She calls them her "throw away days." Not one useful thing happens on these days except for rest. 

"You need some throw away days," she says.

I imagine I do. It seems wrong. It seems like a waste. But to a person recuperating, a throw away day saves your life. Calling them a throw away day helps clarify how unimportant or insignificant your activity will seem on these days.

Of course, that kind of recuperation holds incredible importance. Sometimes, you have to throw a day away to make it become the best kind of day.

You're recuperating.

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Do you find it hard to have a day of rest when you need one? 

"In Great Deeds, Something Abides"

I'm visiting Gettysburg, and no matter how many times I walk the battlefields, I'm always overcome with the extraordinary sacrifice of soldiers--then and now--who fight for freedom.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain's words echo in my heart and mind as I walk. I remember his great speech at the dedication of the Maine Monument on October 3, 1888:

"In great deeds, something abides. On great fields, something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream; and lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls. This is the great reward of service. To live, far out and on, in the life of others; this is the mystery of the Christ,--to give life's best for such high sake that it shall be found again unto life eternal."

In great deeds, something abides. And in the great mystery of Christ, we give our "life's best" for a high sake so that it "shall be found again."

I feel heart-drawn just as Chamberlain said I would feel.

Later, I walk to the spot where Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, and I take note of one certain witness tree.

I hear the words again: "In great deeds, something abides." I want to live "far out and on" into the life of others and participate in the great mystery.

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Next year is the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. If you haven't visited yet, I recommend taking a trip!

Perfect 'Cause They're Not Perfect

A couple from Texas--they know cowboy boots--comments on my own boots.

"We love those boots!" they exclaim.

The man leans over to look more closely to examine them and says, "They're perfect because they're not perfect. So many boots are too shiny and too fancy. Your boots are perfect."

I lean over to my friend and say, "Did you hear that? They're perfect because they're not perfect."

Imperfect things reflect a certain glory. The more ordinary and comfortable (I wear them all day long), the better. These boots are 25 years old. My mother wore them. They were put together perfectly by an expert maker.

Perfect!

I just have to end with one of my favorite poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

                                                       Pied Beauty

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;	5
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:	10
Praise him.

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I just love the perfection of imperfect things. Don't you?

"The Hard is a Whole Lot Easier When You're Living Your Dream"

Last night, I learn about the following conversation: A mother shares her concern over her daughter's dream to run an orphanage in Haiti.

"Why are you so concerned?" her friend asks.

"Because it's so hard there. Life will be so hard."

The friend looks at her directly and says, "Life is hard everywhere. But the hard is a whole lot easier when you're living your dream."

The hard is a whole lot easier when you're living your dream.

Living with flair means I follow the dream, even if it's hard.

Everywhere is hard.

The hard will be a whole lot easier if I'm living my dream.

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Isn't it so true? I remember how hard it was to begin a ministry position and leave comfortable jobs. The hard was easy because we were living God's dream for us.

Obviously, This Isn't Over

We finally cut down our dried-up sunflower bloom and roast the seeds.

"Well, we did it," I sigh to my daughter. It's bittersweet; the whole journey ends.

I turn to cut down the large stem, but I can't do it. 

I keep the tall stem of the sunflower just growing in that pot--without the glorious bloom--because I can't bring myself to see it all end. My youngest planted that sunflower from a tiny seed in the kitchen. We watched that daily journey of transformation from seed to huge sunflower. We loved visiting that bloom every day.

And now it's over, the daily examination of its progress, the hope. 

So I leave the tall stem, just sitting there, with brown leaves rising up and down the stalk. It's starting to shrivel near the base.

Earlier this week, however, we notice something growing on that stalk.

It's another sunflower.

When they say it's hopeless and that the journey's over, they haven't seen my sunflower. It's the same lesson I learned two years ago when I started to feel old.

Keep yourself planted, even if the big bloom is gone. You never know when a new one will pop up.

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I love the bright yellow sunflower, especially as October approaches!

Did You Know?

This morning, the Dragon Boy begins every animated sentence with, "Did you know?"

He has so much to share. "Did you know about . . .?" I learn about many types of dragons. I then learn about the game he's inventing.

"And did you know. . . ?" He continues with a new interesting fact for every square of sidewalk we pass. 

The zeal of children! The joy of sharing every discovery!

Living with flair means we maintain that joy in learning that becomes the joy in teaching others what we've learned.

Did you know, for example, that there's a website called, Did You Know, that shares interesting facts? Today I learn about the Mimic Octopus that can copy the movements and coloring of over 15 different species. They impersonate shrimp, crabs, jellyfish, flounder, sea snakes, and starfish--to name a few.

Called, "Nature's Greatest Actor," this little octopus delighted me today. I never knew! Did you? Here's a YouTube video where you can watch the Mimic Octopus in action.

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What would you tell me today if we were walking to school together? Did you know about the Mimic Octopus? 

"Stress Comes from Assuming Responsibility for Things that Are Not Your Responsibility"

15 years ago (I remember the day!) a wise, older woman took me by the hand and said, "You experience so much stress. Sometimes stress comes from assuming responsibility for things that are not our responsibility."

What could she mean? She explained that God is responsible for it all. I'm not. Have I taken on responsibilities that are not mine to take? Oh, yes I have.

"You assume responsibility for things that are not your responsibility." 

If I'm not responsible for this or that, but God is, then everything changes.

Everything changes because God can handle it.

I think about this conversation multiple times a year.

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What's your solution to stress?

Dangling

I'm in line at the grocery store, and I can't take my eyes off of a little baby strapped to his mother in a Baby Bjorn carrier. The baby, facing forward, dangles with joy: feet wriggling, hands waving, eyes exploring. He's so free.

One would think it would terrify a baby to dangle without any sure footing. One would think that dangling in space--attached by tethers--would make one feel totally out of control.

Well, not for this baby. When you're tethered tightly to the one who loves you and cares for you--the one who will not let you fall--it suddenly doesn't matter that your feet have no place to stand.

You kick your feet with joy; you wave and explore. You're free, dangling.

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I love thinking about God holding me in a Baby Bjorn!

"The Harder You Fall, The Higher You Bounce"

I'm telling my woes to my hairstylist (the one who told me last year that it's better to be the spotlight than be in the spotlight), and he says, "Well, the harder you fall, the higher you bounce."

He advises me to go ahead and fall hard and fast into whatever pain or sadness each day brings. Then, I'll rise up into joy.

I'll bounce. Remember: The harder you fall, the higher you bounce.

He's cutting my hair (adding bounce, of course, because everything's a hair metaphor). "Don't avoid pain. Don't be afraid of it. Sit with it and go ahead and fall. Then, you'll bounce. The point is not to say 'cheer up' to anyone. Instead, go right into the pain and wait for the bounce."

I love getting my haircut.

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Have you fallen hard in life only to find you're bouncing so much higher? 

What I'm Learning About Self-Acceptance

Yesterday, I learn about how to help children love who they are--who God uniquely made them to be. I'm observing the problems of conformity, popularity, social acceptance, and rejection all played out in my daughters' (and my own) lives.

We cry a lot around here. It's painful to not fit in. 

It's painful, but as my great friend in Texas reminded me this week: "If you're rejected by the popular crowd, it's probably because you're doing something right." This is the woman who regularly reminds me that I'm the perfect mother for my children. 

So instead of thinking about all the ways we're rejected, we're thinking about self-acceptance. We're delighting in the unique, quirky, totally awesome things about us.

It's working. My prayers are working. I find that when children are being themselves--creating, imagining, playing freely--they stop thinking about popularity. They remember they are made for something great, and this probably means they won't fit in.

That's OK. We're really learning that's OK around here. I tell my friends it took me 30 years to really accept myself and believe in God's complete acceptance of me. Living with flair surely means we relish in God's unconditional acceptance of us in Christ. When we know this, we run across the playground freely without a care in the world.

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 When did you finally accept yourself?

Encounter with a Writing Spider

This morning, we see an enormous brown and yellow spider on the walk to school.

I learn that this garden spider commonly holds the name "Writing Spider."

Argiope aurantia and Her Writing

She constructs and deconstructs this web daily. She builds a fresh web every new day with that distinctive zig-zag through the center of her web. Nobody knows for certain why she creates the series of X's in her web. Called stabilimenta, this silk structure inside a web confuses arachnologists. It seems to serve no purpose at all other than decoration. It doesn't necessarily stabilize or reflect light a certain way. It doesn't serve to attract prey or warn birds.

It's just writing in the web.  It makes it beautiful; it's artful.

The arachnologists want it to serve a great purpose and to aid survival. But it doesn't. I remember C.S. Lewis commenting on that which has no particular survival value. He writes in The Four Loves,

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”

Perhaps even the spider writes just because it's beautiful. 

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I'm going to check on this spider tomorrow and see if I might photograph in better light! 

Analyzing Media: What's Missing from a Report (Did Jesus Have a Wife?)

This week, as we teach media analysis--in particular, bias--I wonder about every piece of news I read. I find myself so curious when reading reports about Jesus's alleged wife.

Something's missing, and it makes me so frustrated. I want context. I want to know what question Jesus was asked before he answered "my wife."

Here's why: Do you remember when the disciples asked Jesus in John 4 if someone had brought him food? He responds, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work."

So of course, I'm wondering if someone said, "Jesus, do you have a wife?" To which he might respond in similar fashion, "My wife. . . " (essentially debunking the idea that he was thinking about a wife at all--like the food).

That's all. I just want to know the context. I want to know the whole conversation.

I tell my students to get the larger story. What comes before and after the quote?

Context matters. It might just change everything.

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What do you think?

It's Not a Constraint; It's "Creative Pressure"

I read last night in InGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity, by Stanford neuroscience professor Tina Seelig, about the importance of pressure in the creative process.

She talks about "building up creative pressure" that motivates us to produce. Without pressure, creativity actually wanes.

High pressure leads to high creativity, especially when there's a mission. Seelig cites numerous examples of how constraints (time, resources, support, energy) fuel genius acts of creativity. She explores the Apollo 13 crisis, eBay's Auction for America, Twitter, the Six Word Memoir project, and others.

The tighter the restrictions, the more creative people became.

What if we saw daily constraints as creative pressure? We don't have the time to write a novel. We don't have the space to design this new thing. We don't have the energy. We don't have the money. We don't have the support of others.

Maybe these things aren't the end of the world if we saw them as building our creative pressure.

Maybe our creativity requires these restrictions.

I like thinking of it this way.

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Can you create under pressure? Who knew you might actually be more creative?

"This Is Where We're Going."

Every few weeks, I stop in the middle of class and remind students of the whole narrative of the course.

"This is where we're going. This is what we're doing. This is why we are doing it." I reiterate the whole thing again.

We'll have the same conversation in a few weeks (then again a few weeks after that).

If we don't pause to remember where we're going--what it's all for--we lose the narrative of the course. If we lose that narrative, students choke upon the details. They don't move forward.

Often, I find myself assuring students that it doesn't make sense now, but it will.

It will. One day soon, this will all come together, and you'll see.  

Since I've been teaching so long, I can make this promise. I know what they don't know. I see what they can't see. All the pieces will fit beautifully because I designed this course. 

Suddenly, I remember the importance of connecting to that Larger Narrative--the one true story--that guides my life. If God designed it, then I'm pausing to consider the narrative: Where are we going, God? What are we doing? Why?

If I lose these answers, I lose everything. I choke upon details because I forget where we're going.

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Do you take time to remember the big picture? 

Easy After Church Salad

Instead of my traditional fancy bag salad from the grocery store, I decide to make a chopped salad. Yes, even I did that.

Folks love it. They want more. I think I saw someone actually lick the bowl afterwards.

Just rinse and chop three romaine hearts. Add one chopped avocado (drizzled with lemon juice), four garden tomatoes, a bag of those crispy red pepper croutons, and 4 tablespoons creamy Italian dressing. I added some salt and pepper just for fun.

Enjoy!

The crispy red peppers give the salad a little spicy punch, and the lemony avocado balances it perfectly. My daughters love the creamy dressing and the tomatoes.

Anyway, I'm moving beyond the bag salad, and I think that's a sign I'm living with flair.

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Do you have an easy salad recipe?

Imagine If

I've been talking to my oldest daughter about what would happen if people were kind and included everyone.

Can you imagine? 

I'm starting to realize that everything from our shoes to our titles works to divide us and put us into certain groups. We're taught to exclude others in order to form an identity for ourselves.  We begin to know ourselves by who we push out of our groups. 

But. . . what if? What if we didn't do this?

I'm praying for it. I'm praying that we're the kind of people who demonstrate kindness and simply include people. "Go find the little girl that nobody is playing with, and invite her into your group! Who cares what she's wearing, who her parents are, or whether or not she picks her nose!"

But this doesn't happen all the time. We're driven by competition and deep insecurity most of the day. Oh, if only we were secure enough in God's love to be kind and inclusive at all times! If only we were secure enough to build radical communities where every one contributed and felt valuable and loved! If only we were strong enough not to gossip, insult, or reject!

I'm praying for it.

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Raising daughters is hard. 

Amazed Again: Viewing the Powers of Ten Film

Last night, I see the short film Powers of Ten, and I'm amazed. Most of my neighbors have seen this, but I somehow missed it all these years.

Trust me. You want to see this. Here's the link: Powers of Ten Film.

It's 9 minutes long, but you will love it.

What did you think?

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Amazed! 

How to Avoid Heart Rot

My youngest and I examine a tree trunk by our home. Once, it stood tall over the neighborhood, but experts knew something wasn't right.

The tree suffered from heart rot and had to be cut down.

The entire inside of this externally beautiful tree rotted. (And yes, the heart rot possesses the shape of an actual heart. I feel like Someone's trying to get my attention.)

How did this happen? Why? When? How could such an enormous and wonderful tree actually reveal nothing but hollow decay?

Both my daughter and I need to know. (I'm really asking about myself and my own heart. I'm really asking about my own internal states.)

We research a bit and discover how heart rot results from decay caused by fungi that enters from wounds cause by storms, improper pruning, and insects or animals. These wounds will come, but we learn how to prevent or minimize the rot.

Yes, tell me! Teach me how to minimize heart rot when the wounds come!

Apparently, you want to make sure you have deep root feeding and properly sealed wounds. You have to make sure toxins cannot continue to enter. You also need to remove--by pruning--those parts of you that allow the harmful things in. I learn about clean breaks. I learn that if, in fact, heart rot begins, a tree knows how to compartmentalize. The tree knows how to grow around the decay and form a border so it can't harm the rest of the tree.

In my own spiritual life, I consider deep-root feeding on God, clean breaks from toxic things, and creating boundaries against decay. I think deeply about the "root of bitterness" that can defile our core. I think about love and forgiveness and unity and acceptance.

I don't want heart rot. Living with flair means we're beautiful and strong, inside and out.

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Don't you find so many spiritual lessons in trees?

Just Knowing Made Me Happy

We see a hot air balloon rising just about the treetops as we're driving to a friend's house.

"Let's go find it," my husband says.


So we do.

Just knowing that one could--if she wanted to--ride up into the sky in a hot air balloon makes me so happy.

Your Enchanted Healing Hands

This morning, the Dragon Boy falls down and scrapes his hands. He comes to me and presses his wounded palms against mine and closes his eyes.

We stand there for a moment, palm to palm, right in the middle of the morning rush to the school building. 

"You have enchanted healing hands," he says.

He believes it. I'm standing right there, healing him. It makes perfect sense because I learn--according to his precise genealogical record of the two of us--that we both came from the same enchanted forest. He's sure of it. We arrived in the same manner, and thus, we possess healing properties in our hands for one another.

Suddenly, the day turns into legend and myth. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and Dragon Boy all mix in my mind.  Anything can happen. That wardrobe might just take us all to Narnia this afternoon (or maybe we're already there).

Living with flair means we think about our enchanted healing hands. We possess healing properties. I'm starting to believe it.

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I miss my own imagination sometimes, don't you?

You Don't Know What You're Missing

Five years ago, a student of mine designed an ad campaign encouraging college freshman to stop drinking on weekends. He created a picture of a passed out college student on the front of a t-shirt. He wrote above it, "You don't know what you're missing." Beneath the image, he began a list of all the amazing activities one could do instead of simply partying.

The university loved it. I loved it.

Today in class, I ask students to tell me a few of the activities they do outside of class. I'm amazed at all a person can do! I learn about croquet clubs, skiing clubs, investing clubs, Chinese calligraphy clubs, service clubs, clubs that exist just to encourage other clubs, television production clubs, and Italian clubs. I learn about Christian clubs, equestrian clubs, and political clubs.

Students tell me they can choose from 800 clubs.

I feel myself growing larger inside. I remember my own clubs: fitness group, walk-to-school, Italian Mamas, and writing groups. I begin to think about other clubs I would want to join this year. Photography? Film? Maybe I will start a calligraphy club.

Once again, I realize one should never have a bored day in her life.

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What clubs do you attend?

How Would You Define It?

I read Psalm 119:164: "Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble."

A heart at peace? How does one define it and know it? It goes deeper than emotion, like a fixed anchor for the soul even as turbulent waters crash about. It's a steadiness. It's an assurance. It's a giggle in the face of evil. It's a dance in the desert.

Jesus comes as the Prince of Peace, and some days, I think this is my favorite name of God.

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How would you define it? 

A High Alert Situation

Every morning when I open wide the back doors to let the fresh morning air come through the screens, the chipmunks come and taunt our cats. The little chipmunks pop their heads up through the deck and stare at the cats.

The cats stare back.

It's a high alert situation. The cats stand like statues (except for their tails).

Ears back, tail swishing, eyes fixed. You can't bother a cat on high alert. The whole body tunes itself to a singular object. Nothing else matters.

Jack with His One Eye Focused

You can't distract them from this moment. It's too important.

I thought of Proverbs: "Pay attention and turn your ears to the sayings of the wise." Nearly every chapter urges, "Pay attention. Turn your ears to wisdom."

Something about the rigorous cat in front of that chipmunk stays with me all morning. Pay attention. Turn your ears to wisdom in this way. Let nothing else matter. It's too important.

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Happy Weekend!

What I Learned This Week

In the spirit of quizzing, I decide to ask myself what I really learned this week.

I'm picking raspberries, and I reflect on all I've learned this week about unity and what destroys it.

As I think about living in unity within families, neighborhoods, classrooms, and larger communities, I'm learning that our default state tends towards separation, isolation, divisiveness, cynicism, superiority, gossip, and complaint.

We know very well how to destroy harmony. I can do it every day with my words.

So I'm learning to fight against it. I choose to move towards the outsider, to draw others in, to build up and not divide, to speak hope, to stay humble, to believe the best and speak the best, and to offer thanksgiving. Every unity-destroyer has an equally powerful opposite force that generates beautiful harmony between people. The Christian life should--I'm learning--reflect that beautiful harmony.

Living with flair means we generate beautiful harmony.

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What are you learning most of all these days? 

"Comfort in Everything"

I read this morning a quote from Hannah Whitall Smith. She argues that "the soul who gives thanks can find comfort in everything; the soul who complains can find comfort in nothing."

I realize the truth of it, especially when she later writes this bold statement:

"There can be nothing in our lives that lacks in it somewhere a cause for thanksgiving, and no matter who or what may be the channel to convey it, everything contains for us a hidden blessing from God."

How different my days could be if I only believed that every moment has within it a cause for thanksgiving and a hidden blessing from God!

Training the heart towards such truth--remembering it each and every day--changes everything.

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Did you find the hidden blessing today?

They Don't Have to Like You

Students hate my reading quizzes.

But after all this time and all these years of learning how to really serve students, I stand behind the benefit of reading quizzes. They increase student attentiveness and encourage great class discussion because folks come prepared.

But students don't like them, and, by extension, students aren't too thrilled with me.

That's OK. I tell them that by the end of this course, they'll be the strongest writers. They'll never see verbs or semicolons the same way. That's the goal. The goal isn't liking me.

Sometimes, living with flair means you endure not being liked because you're accomplishing a good thing. It's the same with parenting, writing, and just living day to day. Somebody won't like what you're doing, and that's OK. The goal isn't to be liked.

Besides, some students love the reading quizzes.

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When did you learn it was OK not to have everyone like you?

From Worry to Watching

This morning, I read some beautiful words in Paul Miller's A Praying Life. He says that when you "stop trying to control your life and instead allow your anxieties and problems to bring you to God in prayer, you shift from worry to watching."

I love it. I love that when I go to God, I'm then invited to watch. I'm watching for God's amazing answer and work on my behalf. I'm watching for His power and presence.

I'm watching not worrying.

Miller says that I'm looking for God to "weave his patterns in the story of [my] life." As I see God work, Miller insists that my life will begin to "sparkle with wonder."

It does. It really does. I'm not worried today. I'm watching for God's intervening hand.

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Shifting from worry to watching! Don't you love the freedom and joy in that? Are you now watching?

You Don't Know Until It's Gone

My kitchen computer (a tiny little netbook that's falling apart) loses her backspace button today.

It just stops working.

If I want to delete a letter, I have to stop and figure out a way to press in the residual little bump that's part of the old backspace button. It takes forever.

I find myself slowing down. I find myself deliberately placing my fingers on the keyboard--like a new typist--because it's so difficult to correct these errors.

It reminds me of my ancient past when we used white out. You had to blow on it so it would dry and then reposition your paper in the typewriter (what's that?) and retype your correction. I suddenly feel so thankful for the backspace button on this computer.

That's it. Backspace is my flair for today. Something so simple and so taken for granted! I love that I lost it so I would feel that love for it again.

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What little thing have you lost that you are now so thankful for?

Are You Truly Content?

This morning in church, it occurs to me that much of my thinking involves wanting some aspect of my life to change. I pray in this direction. I hope in the direction of just make this all different.

Wait. Stop!

I remember that contentment in our circumstances represents one of the greatest gifts given by God. Contentment means happiness and complete satisfaction. Paul writes, "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Him who gives me strength." Later, I read that "godliness with contentment is great gain." 

I need the wisdom to know when to stop praying for change and to start praying for contentment. 

Maybe I can do both. I don't know. 

I choose today to ask for contentment, and I feel myself rising out of the darkness into glorious light. 

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Do you feel truly content? Share your secret! 

Ask for Wisdom. It Comes.

Today I remember the simplest truth that we can ask God for wisdom. In James 1:5, I read that "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously without finding fault, and it will be given to you."

My natural inclination is to sort it all out myself. I implement strategies. I verbally process. I journal. I ask everyone for advice. I think and think and think.

What if I just asked God for wisdom? It seems too simple. It seems too easy.

But I do it. I ask God for wisdom regarding a problem, and without fail--and often within the same day--the clouds part, and I know the right way to think or act in a confusing situation. Today, for example--right after I pray--a friend arrives at my door with wise, Biblical counsel.

The wisdom unfolds generously: scripture, discernment, and confirmation just come. Maybe it's not always in the very same day, but it does come.

I ask for wisdom, and God gives it generously.
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Where do you go for wisdom?