TAKEAWAYS FROM 2022

 2022 has flown by and as I look back it feels like it was one of the most active years I have experienced in decades. So much happened this year. I traveled to Costa Rica for a destination wedding, I visited girlfriends in Pa. and Fl., my grandson was married in April  and my son was married in June, my son gave me an 80th birthday bash at his beach house and I got to see the new year in with my children, grandchildren and a great-grandchild,  my granddaughter moved in with me and Paul in September, I hosted a sister-friend weekend in November at my son's beach house and Paul and I made it through a week without power due to a 16" snowfall in January. It seemed there was always something either going on or being planned. I am not complaining about any of it because for the most part I really enjoyed the events of the year.

This year was not just about events, it was also about insights. I saw a lot into myself , my patterns and how I tend to do life according to my basic beliefs about myself, and the stories I have told myself and have believed about life.

One of the big takeaways from this year was learning to look within when I am resisting or struggling with life and its situations. I became aware of how often I look outside of myself in an effort to blame someone else for what is happening and how I am feeling. It is so easy to want to remove the mote out of the other person's eye than to see the beam in my own eye. When frustrated, I want to blame someone else for the frustration which solves nothing. I find when I blame the other I just get more angry because they are not who I want them to be and my frustration grows into anger. Nothing is solved when we look without because the cause of the frustration is within. 

So takeaway # 1 is learning to look within  instead of dumping my anger and frustration on someone else.

Another takeaway from this year was seeing clearly the difference between saying "I love you" and actually showing and practicing love. I am acutely aware of how easy it is to say the words without following up with action. I believe love is a verb, even though it can be used as a noun.  Though words carry a lot of weight, they can still be hollow.

I understand that a lot of people love me and I am grateful to be loved. However, there is a difference between saying I love you and actually caring for someone. Here is what I have come to understand about caring.  My heart is gladdened and I feel warm inside when someone reaches out with a phone call, an email, a text or a written note because they are thinking of me.  Or when someone asks, "What can I do to help?" That is what I call being cared for. To care for others requires us to move beyond self and into a place of considering others needs. I am not talking about giving up myself for another, I am talking about going beyond myself out of consideration of others. That is caring.  

So takeaway # 2 has been a huge one for me this year and I am still deeply embedded in the process of allowing myself to be cared for, asking for care and consideration when needed, and letting more love in. 

I have no idea what 2023 will be like but I do know that the words "slow down" are running through my being. I feel the nudging within to take longer and slower breaths, to be where I am instead of running into the next moment and to  spend more quiet moments looking within for the source of my comfort and discomfort. 

Happy new year to all. May your year be filled with peace, joy and love and care for all of mankind. 

 

PREJUDICE AND THE LOSS OF KINDNESS

In three short weeks I will turn 81.  When I was younger I thought 81 was old. However, what I know today is that 81 is older, but is not necessarily old. I do not mind being 80 and I am sure I will not mind being 81. I embrace my age and do not pretend to be younger. 

I was born in 1942 and grew up in the 40's and 50's.  I often say I wish I could go back to that time. There was a lot that I would not want to go back to, but what I do miss is that life was simpler then.  We had family values, we knew all our neighbors, we were all there for each other, we stuck together, we ate all our meals together gathered around the kitchen table, we prayed together and we didn't need much. 

This is how life was in my family and for a long time I thought it was the best that life could be. I still believe the family and caring parts of it were the best,  but as I have grown I have come to see the unacceptable parts of life and the beliefs we adhered to in the 40's and 50's. 

Homosexuality was kept in the closet because it was totally unacceptable. Segregation was alive and well and the black people in our little southern town had their own neighborhood, and they had their own churches, fountains and schools. The whites believed they were superior to the blacks. 

The town I grew up in was predominately Catholic and we looked down on those who were of different faiths. We judged them as "wrong" and did not believe the divine lived in their church buildings.

Little girls were raised to be a wife and a mother, to be prim and proper and definitely not to have sex before marriage. Our training was cooking, cleaning and laundry. If and when girls engaged in sex and were found out, they were considered whores and used goods. They were whispered about behind their backs and ostracized by the other girls. Boys were raised to be the head of the house and to be angry if they chose, have sex as much as they wanted without marriage and to think they were superior to women.  The men were served first and the women served them. 

So, though the 40's and 50's had a lot of good points, it also fell short of being idyllic. Of course, as a child growing up in the south, I did not know anything was wrong or missing in the society we lived in.

I am not sure what happened in my life to send me in the opposite direction of the "values" I was raised with, but I developed my own set of values. I am still a southern woman (by birth) but I abhor racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, islamophobia, zenophobia, mysogeny, homophobia and most of the other phobias that have to do with making those who are different wrong and unacceptable. 

It cuts to my core when I hear or read ugly statements about blacks, gays, Latinos, Asians, women, LGBTQ's, Muslims and on and on.  I somehow, as part of my spiritual growth, have developed a love, empathy, and deep compassion for those who are considered underdogs in our society. I have a need to stand up for them and to lift them up. I see and understand that we are all part of the same creator energy and that the same sun shines on all of us. It does not matter what we look like on the outside or what our religious belief or sexual orientation is, we are all brothers and sisters.

The more exclusive we become, as a society, the darker our world becomes. Hatred, violent rhetoric and actions, condescending remarks and looking down on others who are different contributes to the downfall of society. We will never be a world filled with love, goodness and kindness to all until we banish our thoughts that we are superior to others. 

I do not understand how people who go to church every Sunday, quote scripture, pray and believe in a God, can make fun of and denigrate their brothers and sisters. In some cases they even hate those who are different and commit violent acts against them.  How can this be????

As I age, I continue to pray for and hope for a change in the consciousness and the hearts of my human family. I pray we learn to love each other and treat others with kindness and empathy. I pray we learn to practice the Golden Rule and give up judgment and prejudice.  I pray we learn to reach across the aisle and include those who are different than we are. 

We all matter!! We are all made by the same creator energy!! We all deserve respect, kindness and love and LET IT BEGIN WITH ME!!

"Joie de vevre" or Delight in Living

 Being Cajun French and raised in a household of Cajuns, I heard a lot of French when I was growing up. One of the sayings my mother and grandmother taught me was "joie de vivre", which means joy in living, a delight in being alive, and a keen carefree enjoyment of living.  

This morning, in my quiet time, the word joy kept coming to me. As I thought on it I became very aware of how little pure joy I actually experience in my daily life. I remember when I was a child how excited I would get about a lot of little things. Going to the movies on Sunday afternoon, playing paper dolls or reading a good book, running wild and free in the yard with friends, a cousin spending the night and many other day by day occurrences would send me whooping and hollering through the house in delight and anticipation. The smallest and simplest things filled me with joy. 

And then I grew up and found myself  caught up in the process of life and I somewhere lost sight of what really mattered. It's not that I don't have joy in my life, it just seems the moments of joy are not enough. Thomas Merton said, "The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little" and as I look around me and listen to others, I believe many of us have settled for too little in the name of being an adult. 

My heart longs to touch joy more, to revel in being alive and living the wonderful life I get to live. It is too easy to get caught up in the seriousness and the busyness of it all and forget to experience joie de vevre..Every day chores like cooking, cleaning, errands, paying bills, writing and whatever else shows up in my day sometimes feel like a drag and something I need to get through. I want to change that.

 I want to focus on the light and on the goodness in life. I want to take time to delight in the simple things in life and not get caught up in the "to do's." I want to learn to step back and laugh at some of the outrageous, ridiculous and often times meaningless things I do or say in life in an effort to get it all done, maintain the status quo, be right and keep life under control. 

I believe we all embody joy. It is a part of who we are, and for many, in the process of growing up and being and behaving as others told us how we were supposed to be, we learned to ignore it and set it aside.  It is up to each of us to allow self to feel the delights of life. Imagine how different life would be if we all lightened up and allowed self and others to experience and express delight. 

I have a little three year old neighbor girl who likes to come to my house to play with my granddaughter's dog, Sami.  She squeals and laughs and becomes totally engross in her interaction with the dog. As I watch her I am so aware of the pure delight she is experiencing. I also am aware that her delight in the simple things in life is still evident because it has not been taken away by the adults in her life, nor has it been squelched. She has no problem rolling on the floor with Sami. 

As I think about this precious child and the joy she has, I feel the desire and resolve within me to return to a life of  joie de vevre. I am going to recapture that part of myself that has been set aside. I will keep you posted!!

The Dichotomies in Life

 Dichotomy: A division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different.

I am very aware that life is composed of dichotomies. There are roses and thorns, joy and sadness, anger and acceptance, inclusion and exclusion, love and fear, belief and doubt, certainty and uncertainty, busyness and rest, exhaustion and energy, hope and despondency, ups and downs and laughter and tears.  

The truth is, depending on the day, the circumstances, how I feel physically and how much sleep I have had, I can experience a myriad of feelings from up to down and somewhere in between. Life is not always on an even keel. 

There was a time on this healing journey where I thought something had gone wrong when I experienced downs and doubts. I thought maybe I had taken a wrong turn somewhere and I would question myself and get anxious about the negative thoughts and  would try to bring myself into a more "spiritual" state of being, a more positive place. That was then and that was exhausting. 

Today, I know that a life lived in a human body in this world, on this planet, especially in this polarized environment, is subject to dichotomies. How I feel on a particular day, or in a particular situation, does not affect, nor does it have anything to do with the most important part of my life. which is my connection to divine creator energy. As long as I can remember who I am, why I am here and that I am part of the divine. I can regain my balance and go on with life. 

In the unseen world, which is the eternal, there is love and peace. In the seen world, which is temporary. there is dichotomy.  When I focus on and keep returning to a place of peace and love I am able to withstand the winds of life.  In that space I am in touch with what really matters. My fear of lack, of not being enough, of failure or of loss lose their power. 

 Because that which is of the seen world is temporary does not make it any less important. It is a challenge to live a grounded life and maintain balance and authenticity in this world. Earning an income, living with integrity, having loving relationships with family and friends, though part of the temporary. does not lose its importance in our daily lives.

As long as we are alive and in a body on this earth, there will always be dichotomies.  There also will always be choice about what to respond to and what to hold fast.  We do not have to deny the thorn to embrace the rose.. We can be well aware of the thorn and the pain it can cause while choosing to fill our life with roses. We can love one another despite the things we don't like while embracing each other, and self, as a whole human being worthy of love and kindness. 

We are spirit (eternal) and we are human (temporary). We do not have to deny one for the other, or put one above the other. We see the dichotomies, we acknowledge them and in many cases embrace them, and move forward as we remember "we" and "it" are all part of the whole.