Mom: (knuckles red from holding onto the arm rest)
Chanman: Seriously mom, I would rather drive with Kent.
Mom: Yeah, I would rather you drive with Kent as well.
Chanman is Drivin’ Part I
Chandler bounces into the kitchen after a “drive” with Kent. “humph” is all I hear from him as he slouches into the kitchen chair.
“Mom, if someone tells you to turn right at the NEXT stop light, which one do you turn at?”
I thought for a minute, wondering if it was a trick question.
“Well, I would turn at the light I come to first.”
“But that is the FIRST light. In order to turn at the NEXT light, you have to have a FIRST light,” he retorted (rather smugly).
“So, you didn’t turn at the NEXT light–you turned at the SECOND light?”
“Exactly!”
I wish I had laughed to myself, but that isn’t what happened. Then, I proceed to support my point-of-view by calling several friends for back-up. They were supportive enough to oblige.
Discouraged, Chandler went to his room to shower and get ready for bed.
As he headed to bed, he yelled down the stairs, “Mom, I am going to bed. Love you!”
“Love you more,” was my reply
“Just wanted you to know that FIRST, I am going to brush my teeth and NEXT, I am going to bed.
Touche my boy—touche!
Missing Facebook Today…
just sayin’…
Transcending the “Whys?”
For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power and love. 2 Timothy 1:7
It’s the news that changes your life for ever. It either illuminates your faith or nullifies it – it strengthens your friendships or dissolves them – defines your character or distorts it. Nothing is the same–the familiar is no where to be found and “normal” no longer exists.
While awaiting a liver biopsy, my friend and I sat in the waiting room- she explaining the steps that brought them to this point and me understanding the familiar journey all too well. Holding back tears–I listened. The results came at the end of the week–stage four liver cancer.
People call times like these “defining moments” and for some, this is the case. It is also the commencement of questioning. Why? Why is this happening to me, my kids, my family? Why is God allowing this to happen? Why, after all we’ve been through…? Why….? It is the natural human response.
I personally believe that the “whys” matter little. If, by some inexplicable means, we were able to know the reason, would it matter? Would we then be able to say, “Sure God, now I get it. That makes perfect sense to me, no problem.”? – of course not! No answer would be sufficient.
The obstacle lies when “why” living begins to bog us down, when we allow the “whys” of life to stifle our ability to live fully in the here and now. Dwelling in the “why” causes us to drown in our circumstances, leaving us depleted of energy and faith.
To transcend living in the “why” is a choice, albeit a difficult one–a choice to put faith above doubt, hope above despair, and gratitude above pity. Perhaps it is even an opportunity to see God through the pain, to know God more fully – to experience His grace and love even when we can’t comprehend the “whys”.
Life Without Facebook Part I
“Time has no meaning in itself unless we choose to give it significance” -Leo Buscaglia-
I have survived almost two weeks without Facebook. I haven’t checked my status, your status, your photos, my news feed–you get the idea. Guess what I have found? TIME! Yes, I have an unexpected amount of extra time on my hands. I do miss “socially networking” with friends and family, but the residual blessings have been worth it.
When I exited Facebook I did so with wordage similar to “now you will have to contact me in the old-fashioned way: phone me, email me or text me”. Who would think “texting” is old-fashioned (chuckle)? I had no idea that so many would take me up on my request. I have had more folks call to “check-in”, email to share a story or simply connect, of all things, in person. I have thoroughly enjoyed it.
Part of the decision I made when giving up Facebook was the promise that with the time I normally spent “networking”, I would use more constructively – writing, praying, reflecting etc… I had no understanding of what this change would entail or look like in reality.
On my first day without Facebook, I walked into the house, plopped my book bag on the kitchen counter and thought to myself, “Now, what are you going to do?” Seems that I normally spend a good deal of my initial “down time” after work networking on Facebook. Only a moment passed before a friend came to mind – one who lives far from me, but who is going through an amazingly trying time. I sat down to write her a note. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a handwritten letter to someone. A few days later, a friend called with grave health news. She needed someone to just listen and asked if she could stop by. I not only had the time to spend with her, I had the energy and focus to lend an ear. Just yesterday, another friend called to say, “I miss you on Facebook (I had to smile) and want you to know about this great decision I am making for my life (extra big smile), so I decided to call.”
I wonder if I would I have made these same decisions even without the Facebook “fast”? I would like to think so, but I am not sure if that is the case. This act of self-denial has not only provided the time to contemplate, it has caused me to become more intentional in the use of my time. My aspiration is to live more in the present, to find a way to reach beyond the “noise” of life, and to learn to tame the “hurry”.
I just finished a book by Ann Voskamp entitled One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are. The entire book was a blessing, but her words particularly resonate when she articulates the frenzied life we sometimes live.
Hurry always empties the soul….I speak it to God; I don’t really want more time; I just want enough time. Time to breathe deep and time to see real and time to laugh long, time to give You glory and rest deep and sing joy and just enough time in a day not to feel hounded, pressed, driven or wild to get it done– yesterday.”
This is where I often reside–robbed of my joy and strength because my life is too hurried. I understand that Facebook is not the reason I feel drained of time, it is simply one of the many diversions which exhausts my energy each day. Only by reducing the life “noise” am I able to hear, enjoy and experience the now. I am learning to live fully in these moments of life when God is ever near–these moments that allow me to slow down the pace, get my breath and live fully with thanksgiving (eucharisteo).
As a disclaimer: My blog is set to automatically post to Facebook (even though I am not on it right now)–ironic isn’t it? So if you wish to make a comment on this post that you would like for ME to see–then you will have to view it from my blog and comment there.
Well Read? What Does That Really Mean?
How many of these 100 books have you read? Copy and paste the list on your blog, highlight the books you have read and then post a link here to your blog.
I am not sure what criteria was used to compile this list, but it seems fairly complete (with the exception of The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Bridget Jones Diary)
The BBC says the average person has only read 6 books on the list. Looks like I better get reading…
1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare – read some, but not others…
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy.
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth.
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson – No but I just finished his new book AT HOME and loved it.
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt.
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
Two Posts–One Day –Senseless!
I conducted a poetry workshop within my classroom today. It was successful, as lessons go,—my students were so engaged that they didn’t even want to go to band—they wanted to continue to write. Tonight, I found myself watching Oprah on TIVO—and I found myself encompassed in my very own poetry workshop lesson of the day. Oh, a victim of my own instruction—trying to make sense of something so utterly “Senseless”
Senseless
How many will join our ranks?
I am sitting
At home
Watching Oprah and learning of a man
Named Ken Granda
Father of three
Shot
In the hallway of Virginia Tech
Needless….senseless.
I knew something was wrong
He didn’t call me back
He was brilliant
How is his wife?
Children?
Three children…
He was a wonderful father..
Hearts are broken
Children without a father
What do we do?
It is surreal…
We can’t move forward…
We can’t make arrangements
We can move forward until
They release
The body
Release the body
“Our sense of grief can not be compared to your own…”
No, it can not.
Grief
Can not be compared….
I Hate Guns!
I will admit that the recent happenings at Virginia Tech have aggravated my feelings in this area. You see, a former student lost his life a few years ago to the fact that firearms were readily available to him. Now, we find ourselves reading about a college student with a semi-automatic handgun who had the capability of killing over 30 young people in one fell swoop — in a heartbeat the lives of the Virginia Tech students and families will never be the same-innocence has been stolen from them. Security is gone. I can’t imagine the pain that the parents of these children must endure—it is truly senseless. The loss of my husband was great, but I comprehend and acknowledge that the loss of a child is the greatest loss of all.
I am unwavering in my stance regarding guns. There are very FEW absolutes in my life—this happens to be the ONE that is steadfast. Is this harsh–perhaps, but I will not waver—I will not back down—nor would I ever stand in the way of your “right” to own a gun, especially for hunting (though I have zero tolerance for semi-automatic anything). But if I am aware one is present in your home, my child would NOT be allowed to visit you. See, I am under no illusion that my child, who is capable of conquering any extremely complicated video game, could figure out how to open a “locked” gun cabinet if he so desired and curiosity; well, it is within every child’s nature.
At the end of the day, I believe in the potential of life from conception to death—it is a part of who I am. I can’t explain it any better than to tell you that—ALL life has promise. It doesn’t end at conception and it certainly doesn’t end with making horrific decisions. Do I KNOW that at moments in time, this doesn’t make sense, YES, but I still am willing to hold true to the fact that life is precious no matter what—and guns—seem to only accelerate the ability to take it away.
This I know for sure.
When Will I Learn?
Don and I never played the “popular in the school district” game and sometimes our kids suffered; however, in the past, Don was actually here to “oversee” the kids sporting activities. When my youngest son received word of the baseball team he was to be on this summer, I took exception with the fact that he seemed to be on a team coached by someone outside our community. As a single mother, I was hoping that he would be on a team coached by a role-model from our own community with which he could “connect”. Selfishly, I wanted to be able to car-pool with parents I knew well and be able to count on their support.
As always, I took things into my own hands and emailed the head of the youth league my concerns. As I was reading his response, my 11-year-old was looking over my shoulder and asked “Mom, why are you emailing Mr. L?”. I told him and, of course, he was APPALED. He said to me “Mom, we will deal with the hand we are dealt. I DO NOT want any special treatment.” So, I sent another email to Mr. L (who, most likely, thinks I am a nut case by now) that we would simply stay with the original team my son was assigned to.
The next day I received the team roster. Though I do not know the coach, the son of our “spiritual development pastor” at our church was on the team (my son already has great admiration for this man) and also the father of another man who was friends with my husband.
WHEN WILL I LEARN? When will I “GET” that God is truly in control of our lives and those of our children? I long to, one day, have the faith of my 11-year-old son and embrace the “hand I have been dealt”.
This I KNOW for sure…
DUMA!
My 11-year-old son and I love to watch movies together. We watch all kinds of movies, but have noticed that in many of the movies we watch together a parent dies. This could have been the way it was in movies we watch before, but we seem to be more keenly aware of this plot line now. With all we have been through you might think this to be horribly difficult to watch, but it really isn’t. Instead, it has opened dialogue between my son and me and has, in fact, assisted the healing process.
This weekend we watched the movie DUMA. DUMA was listed on my brother, Evan’s website as his favorite movie of the year. Now, Evan usually likes those artsy movies where, when I leave, I am left wondering what it was all about. Even with that in mind, we decided to take a chance and give this movie a try since it was about a South African boy who befriends a cheetah (who doesn’t fall in love with a cheetah cub). I am so glad that we did.
This is a lovely movie about friendship and the legacy of a father as the boy, Xan, goes on a journey to return his beloved cheetah back to its rightful home. The scenery is breathtaking and will make you want to hop on the nearest jet to South Africa to experience the “wild”. There are many poignant quotations in the movie, but one that really stands out is when Xan tells his new friend, Ripkuna, that his father died. Ripkuna articulates, “People go when they are ready to go, not when you are. We are all just travelers on the same river, grandparents, parents, sons and daughters. We all have our time on the river. We do what we can before we disappear”. How true.
Another moving scene is at the end of the movie when Xan expresses that his father will live on within him. At this point my son looked over at me and said, “That’s where dad lives on—in me.” Yes, yes he does.
This I know for sure.