The Great Gripe

So each day is a new path, nothing ever quite goes as planned.  Getting knocked out with the flu...or whatever last week...this week has been a series of physical inconveniences, mostly associated with breathing...which is, of course, a reminder to thank God for the ability to breathe.  I learned my ability to "be nice" and "accept change" does not function so well when I can't breathe. I am fighting with whatever is in the air and breathing through my mouth is just not fun. Not fun at all. 
Woe to all allergy suffers!  I would have thought that those of us with chronic allergy issues should have been genetically weeded out of the populations by now...alas, we are still here...and genetic engineering of food, flora and fauna allow us to continue to live, altho less vigorously than others. Annoying.
What is more interesting to me is that I am grumpy. I'm taking minor misfortunes personally.  I do not like being cantankerous...but like Grumpy Cat, I would prefer to growl at anyone who gets in my way.
I ordered a new chair swing for the back yard. It was a great price. I got it today. Now I know why it was a great price...sigh...reminds me of what mail order was like in the 50s and 60s...it will be okay for...camping trips. But not the quality of the chair that wore out.
Gripe. Gripe Gripe.  Like the quote I posted earlier. Pride, in place of humility, is a real killer. Good health or bad, attitude makes the day work or not work.  So it is important to remember when your health...my health...is not performing optimally...it is essential to be more attentive to attitude.  I have to short-circuit the years of conditions to b*tch when I feel...compressed...into a place I'd rather now be. 
Amazing, the people who walk so bravely into an illness, possibly a deadly one...and choose to be optimistic, hopeful, caring.  It is a charism, I think, to be blessed with the ability to endure suffering gracefully. 
You know, that "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."  I can't let that one go. I can't stop talking about it. I can't stop trying to let it permeate every cell in my body...and I am painfully aware that I come up short. Often. Especially when I am physically drained.  Less easy to forgive when you are sick. Less easy to forgive when you are hungry. Less easy to forgive when you are tired. When you are in need.
Frustrating.  But it is cool to at least recognize it. A first step to becoming...holy...for lack of a better word, altho it might be the best word.
To know that, inside me, I cannot be loving enough when I am not well; I must be compassionate with my sisters and brothers who drive me crazy...especially when I am well. Maybe they are tired. Or hungry. Or sick. Forgive them. I don't know their story...everyone is fighting a battle we know nothing about. Patience. Temperance. Fortitude...what's the fourth?
SO...in this great silliness when I like to write...and write and write...I have to forgive them...for letting me down...and damn, I have to forgive myself...for screwing up and being impatient, or ornery, or just plain selfish...and just get up or out of it and go back to...something slightly above that.
Baby steps. And thank goodness for small illnesses...enough to remind us how really wonderful our human bodies are...no matter how lumpy or wrinkled or slow moving...or hairy or hairless...they are really cool...and the older we get, the more interesting they get...our reward for a life lived...and living...as crazy and wonderful as we might let them be.
Okay. I'm done.  If you got this far...thank you for putting up with me. THANK you for being my friend.  Sigh.

Divine Mercy Sunday

First post on New Blog...going to have to work out some bugs, but here goes! 

 

Got up with the sound of birds waking me and light just arriving over the house...watered my hard to reach plants with my newly extended hose and had a conversation with my tree in the front yard: "Are you ready to go to heaven?  I really may have to cut you down in order to get a good price on the house.  Do you mind? You've had a good life..."  and I thought, "killing a tree for profit...I'm not a very nice person."  But perhaps Grandpa (from The Education of Little Tree) would probably tell me that there is an order to things and perhaps this is the time for the tree to go.  My grandkids have made it clear that they don't want me to take down the swinging tree in the back yard...

Holding on and letting go. Being part of something and then not being part of something. Doing a retreat...puts people in such a high that they believe anything is possible, but then, they let go...and go back to what was, thinking sometimes: this is as good as it gets.

I suppose it is more like: this is as good as you let it get.  Changing a long lived habit pretty much takes every bit of your strength...or perhaps a great tragedy. My chaplain world would say something like: disenchantment or chaos or an unbalance...my nerd side would call it: a disturbance in the force...

Something that prompts us to action, most often to return to the status quo...the way its always been. 

There's that book, "The Dream Giver" which reminds me of Pilgrim's Progress. We get an idea for the life, a dream, we want, and we start on a journey to get there...immediately we encounter obstacles: the work is harder than we thought, it is not quite what we expected...and sometimes the people we love most are the ones who are working hard to see that we do not change, or grow. They don't understand that there are times to hold on and times to let go.  They don't have the dream, so you must forgive them and move on...if you really believe in your dream.

This is the journey of the Pilgrim too. You will encounter all sorts of distractions, people who will be your "balcony people" (cheering you on) and people who will say the thing they know will put you "back in your proper place."  It's all part of the deal. You find out how committed you are. You discover if this is the real dream

I was confronted with some interesting challenges this week: people for whom I was the exact right person for the job...and others, for whom it became obvious that someone else could do a better job. I said yes to some work and no to other work. I was called "not very Christian" when I said no...and because that comment "got me hot" inside, I realized again that I have still much work to do on that forgiveness thing.  Not that I needed to say yes, but that I needed to forgive the person who said it, because they were speaking from their need...which did not match mine.

We need to nurture our moral compass. Teach it to work by the values we have learned about the things that make life good.  Clean house, rake the leaves, plant a garden that we can enjoy walking in, inviting others to come and share a meal.

 

 

As this is Divine Mercy Sunday...and there is much going on today around the world...I think it is important that maybe we "import" some divine mercy on ourselves...and dare to live our dreams...or perhaps continue to seek that which completes us.  We need to not be so hard on ourselves (oh I have a PhD in that one!) and just follow the road, one step at a time...learning how to hold on to that which builds us up and to cast away that which separates us from real joy. 

Make a list, a NICE list. A list of your STRENGTHS. A list of your GIFTS: "Who I am." Do it for a few days. Maybe a week.  Then make another list: "Who I want to be" And then try "how am I going to get there?" list.

All the while, offering divine mercy to yourself and others, who come along in that story, or journey...and kind of "get in the way."  Forgive them. Let them go, if you cannot forgive them enough to let them stay. Accept that all change feels like chaos in the beginning, that it might hurt a bit, or a lot, that there may be more to cleaning house than you thought. If you succeed, hooray. If you don't...well, maybe that wasn't really your dream...or if it was, get up and try again.

The great thing about being alive: there are always options you haven't thought of yet.

Yeah...I'm really out there today. Hugs.