Finding Hope

All the best stories begin this way,

not enough light to see hope.
Along their difficult path,
our heroes find themselves
in peril, heartbroken, penniless, 
nearly swallowed by despair,
bloodied and broken 
and just this side of death.

And then
somehow the faintest glimmer,
the tiniest spark, just a pinprick 
in the fabric of darkness,
appears, and it is enough.
Our heroes begin to believe 
that hope creates its own light
and suddenly they see their way clearly.

And now
the choices are mine, trapped though I feel.
Whether to play the hero or some bit part,
whether this story is mine,
and whether, like all the best stories,
it is part of the story 
we never tire of hearing or telling, 
because it is true.

                                                            **SS**

Healing Waters

River Guide Dave on the Colorado River

     “They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.” 

Herman Hess, Siddhartha

   It’s the one-year anniversary of my divorce and of my trip to the Grand Canyon that I thought at the time would be a journey of self discovery - of the shedding a skin. What I found was scorching hot temperatures in a surreal terrain where scorpions and wood rats roamed the grounds. I was kicking myself for not doing a spa trip. Here I am a year out, though, and I can still smell the ozone-richness of the rapids of the Colorado and see the shifting  shadows of moonlight on the canyon walls. 

  It’s odd what sticks from a trip.

  Often it’s not the expected. Take River Guide Dave, for example. School teacher by the fall, winter and spring. Wild river guide in the summer. I had the fortune to get a spot in his paddle boat one day, a coveted position. With cowboy hat perched high, quoting from the likes of The Wind in the Willows and Siddhartha, he regaled us with tales.

  I learned valuable river lessons that day, and as it turns out, life lessons as well. One was point to the positive. If you fall out of the boat, people point to the direction to which to go - not the dangerous areas. It makes sense really. Focus on the positive you want in life, not the negative you hope to avoid. Where we focus our attentions is often where we end up arriving.

  The other key piece of advice I got: Paddle from the edge of the raft. Not used to the scale of the rapids in the Colorado and having heard “death” stories of former people who had braved the river, I was cautiously paddling. A fellow rafter took pity on me and started giving me direction. “Move to the edge of the raft, lean out and dig in. It will give you more control.” I did, and she was right. 

  That advice has come back to me in some of my darkest moments this past year  learning how to be a single mom with three precious kids. I so want them to dig into the precious parts of life. I want to teach them to be courageous, to lean into life even when it’s scary. And, yes, we may fall in. But if we’re lucky, we have friends pointing to the positive.
                                                                **DB**

Hearts Leaking with Love

'Get To'

This week I have a six-hour Thanksgiving trip (one-way) in a van with three kids and my mom on a journey to see family in Georgia. Part of me is excited, and another, larger part, is exhausted even though I haven’t left yet. As a single mom, there’s no reading in the passenger seat anymore or passing the kids off to Dad.

 Kids hungry? I feed them.

 Need help packing? That would be me.

 What, now they’re fighting? Well - may the best child win.

God somehow knows my breaking points. He put this book, “God Never Blinks” in my path, which I bought on a whim and found myself loving the simple wisdom of journalist Regina Brett. Her first chapter is about a house painter who lives by two simple words: Get to.

So instead of dreading the ‘have to’ dos, it’s the ‘get to’ dos. I get to have my children for the holidays. I get to enjoy meals and fellowship. I get to drive them to an extended family holiday celebration. I get to witness their lives. It’s a subtle shift – but oh so powerful. I think, how did I get so blessed? Aren’t I a lucky gal to be at work admiring this cheery crayon drawing on my wall by my youngest child who already is learning life isn’t always fair, but that it's so much better with a grateful heart. 

DB

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   The week before Thanksgiving, we always have a holiday meal and communion service at church. This year we had an especially large crowd, and we needed all hands on deck to get everything ready. I saw one of our ministers preparing the communion table at the front of the sanctuary. "Is there anything I can do to help, Woody?" I asked. In exasperation, he replied, "Yeah, could you get these cups to stop leaking?" We were using the inexpensive paper cups that we often have for potluck supper beverages, and I could see rings on the glass table top where grape juice was seeping through the seams of several cups. I helped Woody replace the leaky cups, and prepare the bread rolls and smaller plastic cups that would allow us to do communion "family style" around our individual tables. But I couldn't stop thinking about the leaky cups.

   What was in those cups? Yes, it's grape juice at Providence, like at most other Baptist churches. In some Catholic and Protestant congregations, it's wine. But I believe it's more than that. Whether or not I can subscribe to transubstantiation -- the idea that the consecrated wine or juice actually becomes the blood of Christ -- there's no denying the powerful symbolism of the liquid in that cup. With it, we remember the suffering of God's Son and his ultimate triumph over death. In that cup is compassion -- literally "suffering with," which is what God did for us through Christ. In that cup is hope that the darkest moment in the story is not the end. In that cup is love too strong to stay dead. It's no wonder the cups were leaking. Such things cannot be contained. They will find their way to where they are needed. In messy and surprising ways, they will come to us.  

SS

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 Out in Africa. She'll be back soon.

AF

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Dogs, divorce and dings

    This week I'm thankful for moments of levity. Lately there has been a lot of stress in my life and the lives of my loved ones. So I was grateful to be able to do silly things this weekend, like enter a costume contest with my dog (and even win a prize). There's nothing wrong with a little silly sometimes, and I thank God for it.

SS

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“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, 

so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

                                                                                              Joseph Campbell

Living Well Post-Divorce

Ah, the holiday season, chocked full of Hallmark commercials of holiday bliss. I’m trying to prepare myself for the onslaught of images of loving couples with perfectly mannered children. It’s too bad we can’t air brush reality.

Or is it?

I went with a friend recently to a noon day session at The Center for Women about living well post divorce. The speaker, a quote collector like myself, brimmed with positive reaffirming statements calling the period just after a divorce a “fertile void” that begs for recreation of yourself. It’s messy in the middle, she tells us. “You have to become lost enough to find yourself.”

She encouraged us to use reframing statements. Instead of happily ever after, it’s happily even after. It’s not a broken family. It’s a redefined family. I sigh inwardly, but have to admit how many people I know who have used divorce as a journey to authenticity and peace. I recently visited Jack London State Park in Sonoma Valley and looked at the picture of him with his second wife, who “got” him. Having had sad parts in his childhood, I rejoiced that in his short life he connected with someone with as an adventurous spirit as his own, who didn’t get burned by his meteoric glow.

(His quote in the photo above, in case it’s too hard to read:

“I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.”)

DB

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    The walls were showing ten years of dings and dirt, ten years of a life full of teenagers, friends, and family gatherings.  It was time for a spruce up.  I scrubbed the walls down, cleaning off an absurd amount of dirt, dust and cat hair. I spackled a few scrapes and nail holes and then did some light sanding.  Then  - a new coat of paint.  The walls looked fresh and better than new - unmarred, unblemished. 

   I often find myself in need of some spackle and sanding for my own self. How nice if it were that easy to clean the dings and dents out of our own hearts! I cling to old hurts and losses and spend too much time dwelling on past mistakes. I need to spackle the holes, sand down the mistakes and remember that with each new morning, I get a fresh start, a clean slate, a whole new wall to write on or paint anew and even ding up all over again.

AF

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