wednesday, May 29, 2024 Quote of the week

“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm is all about.”

Haruki Murakami

In the summer of 1975, my mom took me to see the blockbuster movie Jaws. I just finished fifth grade, so I guess she thought I was old enough to learn the oceanic dangers of being chomped to death in dramatic fashion by a twenty-five foot shark. Mom was not too concerned for me to watch the bloody shark attacks, but she covered my eyes when Ben Gardner’s decaying head bobbed into view during Hooper’s dive. I knocked her hand out of the way because, for me, the nearly eyeless noggin clearly looked fake, but the shark? Wow!

Chief Martin Brody stammered one of the most iconic lines in the film after seeing the shark in its entirety. Brody precariously backed into the cabin and told his crewmember Quint, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” From that point, the heroic trio conjured up new strategies to wrangle the shark and make the beaches safe once again.

The size of our circumstances determines the size of our boats too. On lovely days with little troubles, we can glide easily along in a rowboat, stopping to admire the gentle breeze blowing across the water. On other days when squalls arise (or sharks), we may need to board a bigger craft in order to make it through the storm. When we experience life, the size of our boat, as well as who is in it with us, will matter.

During the most arduous times of grief and loss, choosing to be on an ocean liner is more comforting than the small schooner in Jaws. My ocean liner during my periods of loss was my faith. Susan May Warren quotes that, “God is in the storm. That though the winds blow and my life feels torn apart, if I can just trust Him, I’ll discover Him at the center.” Like a child trusts her parents, I trusted that God knows best. Relinquishing my control over events manifested peace.

Those onboard with me were my family and friends. The truest of souls did not jump ship but rather weathered the storm with me, and I with them, for they were grieving along with me. Love never ends, so the love I have for the departed I still carry with me. All the love I have for those gone, I now spread to others.

At the end of Jaws, the crew was exhausted, yet exhilarated because they made it through the storm. Brody and Hooper found their way together back to shore floating on remnants of the boat and the power of their spirit.

Who is on your boat?

wednesday, May 22, 2024 Quote of the week

“It is not enough to be busy…The question is: what are we busy about?”

Henry David Thoreau

My phone reports how much time I spend using my apps and Googling searches. The latest report stated I spent nearly nine hours of screen time in just one week. That was astounding for me. The concerning issue is that I can’t begin to recall what I was reading or researching. Had I been seriously going down the rabbit hole of mindless scrolling?

Time is measured in increments of hours, minutes and seconds. Once it’s gone, there is no going back, there is no rewinding, there is no recapturing. Psychologist and public speaker, David Kundtz compiled a reflective book titled, Quiet Mind: One-Minute Retreats From A Busy World. To reappraise Thoreau’s question, what are we so busy doing that we have only a mere sixty seconds of stillness to dedicate to ourselves?

My father-in-law, John, preached the importance of being good stewards of our money. Money should be used to care for ourselves and for others, so I’d like to throw into the ring that we are to be good stewards of our time as well. Our hairs are numbered as are our days, yet the hours can be squandered. The gift of time is rendered precious, so we should be held accountable as to how we spend our moments just as much as how we spend our money.

After losing Jim, people advised me to stay busy, but what was I supposed to be busy doing? Staying busy for me didn’t have to look busy, for I needed something else. I needed reflection, prayer, and mediation, which are all very active to the spirit. Taking “time” to do what helps get in front of grief is staying busy. Time itself is healing. Max Frisch said that, “Time does not change us. It just unfolds us.” Time paves the way as to who we are becoming after loss.

Romans 12:2 reminds us that we ought “not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Time allows transformation. Time allows renewal and restoration. As we process grief, decide how you allow time to govern your moments. “The key to time management,” Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson states, “is to see the value of every moment.”

Time…spend it wisely.

wednesday, May 15, 2024 Quote of the week

“Sometimes a slight pace change is all you need to snap out of a mental or physical funk.”

Mark Plaatjes

Every now and again, I feel like I am submerged in a fishbowl. I’m just watching life happen while swimming around, simply observing. It’s unsettling not feeling tethered and not particularly belonging to something in my own life.

Then, the tendrils of overthinking throttles my thoughts. I rehearse the timing on how to accomplish the bullet points dotting my to-do list. My mind spins in my attempt at efficiency, so I am literally wasting my available time I’m trying so hard to arrange.

When Jim was still with me, he’d recognize these “funks” and suggest I go for a run. When I told him that I was alright, he’d smile facetiously and say, “No, you really should go for a run.” I’d heed his advice and go. So today, I listened to his voice in my heart. I trotted down to the neighboring high school track. And I ran.

Running is like a mental crowbar; it dislodges the fog that clouds my purpose and my thoughts. It loosens the stuff I no longer need. The image of fog came to me during my run, for I had definitely been in one earlier. Novelist Mehmet Murat ildan said that we should “...always try to see what lies beyond the fog,” and I needed the run in order to see my beyond. In its own time, fog eventually burns off leaving a more crystal view of what was once too dense to see.

After my run, I settled down to write and stumbled upon the quote about needing to change up the pace. Mark Plaatjes, who just so happens to be a champion marathon runner, culminated the purpose of my run. Call it serendipity or a Godwink, it spoke volumes.

Flash fog, as National Geographic explains, is when “fog can form very suddenly and then disappear just as quickly.” I have no inclination as to what caused my flash fog, but when the sun rises, when Light appears, the fog lifts.

During our grief, we will experience the fog, a sudden flash of what we’ve lost. But believing in the Light, the Source, will enable us faithfully to help see our beyond.

Discover your own light.

wednesday, May 8, 2024 Quote of the week

“I like watching the puddles gather rain.”

“No Rain” by Blind Melon

Spring brings with it rain. Recently, we’ve had quite a bit in the Midwest, so much that I haven’t seen many neighbors except between the storms when we are all busy cutting our lawns in anticipation of the next front. Nothing too tumultuous…just good old-fashioned thunderstorms! Meanwhile, everyone is tucked inside observing the unfurling greening of the grasses and the burgeoning blooms of flowers.

Watching the rain fall from inside, I looked out to see two little girls splashing in the streams trailing down the street. They had on raincoats, but their hoods were unconcernedly thrown from their heads. Bob Marley wrote that, “Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet,” and those two were definitely feeling the rain and experiencing the joy of the moment. It was so innocent, so pure. No screens, no selfies, just saturated joy.

Just when I thought it could not get any more sterling, they found a puddle. Standing at the edge, both jumped in with both feet with a tumble of laughter that followed. One of the girls reached her hands up to the sky and plunged whole-heartedly into the middle of the puddle and spiraled into a perfect cartwheel! Within seconds both were haphazardly flinging themselves hands and feet first into the puddles. Yes, cartwheels!

“Let the rain kiss you,” poet Langston Hughes reminds us, “let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops, let the rain sing you a lullaby.” Children are the best teachers for adults because they teach us that even during the drenching sky, there is beauty; they teach us that we can create our own beauty.

Those two little girls shared with me such an uncomplicated moment. It reminded me of the song by the band Blind Melon. Jim would play the song on his guitar, and we’d sing it together. It’s a great message: take the time to watch the puddles gather rain.

A pluviophile is a person who loves the rain, one who finds comfort in nature’s rhythm, which brings about a tranquil peace of mind. However, in the perspective of the little girls, it unleashed an unabashedly flurry of cartwheels!

Even during your own gray and rainy days, find your splash!

wednesday, May 1, 2024 Quote of the week

"We rise by lifting others.”

Robert Ingersoll

Last week, I shared with you in my blog that I enjoy a good thriller such as Silence of the Lambs, but twisted entertainment might not always be the answer when grieving. During those critical times of strife, encouragement could be the better theme.

As my classes are nearing the end of their examination of the civil rights movement, they will study the movie Hidden Figures. I watched it again to create a viewing guide in order to bring to light discussion questions. As I watched, I experienced a myriad of emotions ranging from aggravation, to flabbergasted, to joy. To contemplate that this cultural mindset was the norm only a speck of time ago, is unimaginable.

To paraphrase my friend, Bernie Murray’s reflection, why is it difficult to apply humanity and respect to one another? I think perhaps it is because of cultural and familial influences that build perspectives, but as Whitney Wolfe Herd stated, “Life is about perspectives and how you look at something…ultimately you have to zoom out.”

What was most enlightening for me in the movie was the change in perspective of the coworkers. As time moved forward, their eyes were opened, boundaries were smudged, and coworkers became colleagues.

The movie left me with a sense of empowerment. Through education and determination, those historical women of NASA exemplified all that is good despite the obstacles they relentlessly endured. Just because that is the way it’s always been, doesn’t indicate that is the way it has to stay. Maybe through that same determination, the weight of grief will lighten.

Lisa Ebersole Dempsey writes that we should “…not tear one another down but build up…determine to make someone’s life better not bitter.” As we escort each other through the pains and joys life brings, encourage, uplift, praise. Those are the best medicinal anecdotes to confront our own hollowness after loss.

“When emptiness is still, that is eternity. When it moves, that is love.” Adyashanti