The Birthing Process

Henri Nouwen writes that "patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are".

That is not always easy for us to do because sometimes the here and now is a very painful place to be. The last thing we want to do is to live it fully.

We want to move on from here - quickly! To be any place else but here. And if we can't do that, then we want to dull our senses - distract ourselves from the pain that feels too big to bear.

"We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later and somewhere else......Trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand."

I discovered the truth of this statement when I started being present to myself in the moment - even though I wanted the moment to be very different from what it was. I just opened myself up to it anyway - accepted my life situation as it was this very moment - instead of needing it to be different. I accepted myself as I was this very moment - not needing me to be different. And THEN, the moment I did that, my life changed. I changed.

All I had to do was stop trying to run into the future - stop running from who my past carved me out to be - and LIVE being the treasure I didn't even know I was - in spite of all my wounds. Wounds that made me feel different in a "not okay" way - not realizing that it is these very wounds that make each of us special in our own way.

Our own unique gift that each of us bring into the world to share with others is waiting to be born through these "birthing pains" that we are so busy trying to run away from.

Be Still. A great Self is about to be born. Soon. And all you need to do is be present to the metamorphosis that is completely beyond your control. Your resistance will only slow it down.

The pain is only temporary - a natural part of the birthing process.

And as with any birth, once you are holding this new Self in your arms, you will be so delighted that you will forget every painful moment it took to get you here.

A Touch Of Joy - A Touch Of Sorrow

"Joy and sorrow are never separated. When our hearts rejoice at a spectacular view, we may miss our friends who cannot see it, and when we're overwhelmed with grief, we may discover what true friendship is all about. Joy is hidden in sorrow and sorrow in joy." - Henri Nouwen

Today has been a joyful day. My husband would have loved being a part of it.

To help me choose recipes for the cookbook I'm working on, I had my bible study group come for a pancake breakfast. I made the toppings yesterday - strawberry and blueberry.

The minister manned the griddle and cooked the bacon and the pancakes for us - regular, buttermilk, and pumpkin.

I baked apples in maple syrup to go with the pumpkin pancakes; and we finished off with a taste of pumpkin custard.

What a tremendous way to start off our day and our bible study.

I'm glad that I have healed enough to be able to enjoy these wonderful high moments of life once again; without having to suffer the terrible lows that immediately follow them earlier on in the grief process.

Today I Get On With Living

I feel like I am just coming awake after a long sleep. The sun is shining in the blue sky. The green grass has come alive under the little robins' feet as they search for food. Spring is certainly in the air.

This morning, while going through some papers, I was moved to tears (healing ones) once again by these words from Jan Suberman:

Forgive me
if you, my beloved,
my love, have died.

All the leaves
will fall on my breasts.

It will rain on my soul,
all day, all night.

My feet will want to march
to where you are sleeping.

But I must go on living.

Life On Our Planet

Today I am realizing that the most important thing in the world for each of us is to find a way to express all the love that is uniquely ours to give.

It will be expressed in different guises throughout our lifetime. And some of the ways we find to express it, we will be better at than other ways.

Our expressions of love will not always be recognized by others for what they are - feeble or misguided attempts to express our love.

Sometimes the love we have to give will probably be expressed in some pretty warped ways as we try to find our way back to sanity.

We all have our wounded areas that interfere with our abilities to freely express the love we came into this world with; but these imperfections are what make each of us the special people that we are capable of becoming.

On The Move

I was living in Toronto when my children started kindergarten and I had to start crossing the busy streets without a hand to hold. That was when I learned how dependent I had become on those little hands in mine. I felt so vulnernable as I walked alone.

It seems to me today, as I reflect on that memory, it has been the pattern of my life. Over and over again, I was forced to learn how to stand on my own two feet - walk on my own two legs - without a hand to hold onto.

It's always scarey at first - best to take small steps just starting out. That way it is not so overwhelming. And before long, you remember how to do it; and next thing you know, you are trying to catch up to yourself.

Six Word Memoir Meme

I have been tagged by www.lindasog.com to define myself in six words. I have been giving thought to it all weekend, and though I came up with some that fit for the moment, they didn't fit for the majority of the time.

I actually came up with two that I seem to spend my life bouncing back and forth between. Sometimes I am LOST IN FEARS/INSECURITIES ONCE AGAIN and sometimes I pull myself together and then I am STILL STUMBLING ALONG GRATEFUL TO SERVE.

I am going to have to default on the second half of this tag, though. The only person I can think to harass is www.howlsatmoon.blogspot.com - He brought it on himself by rattling my cage and telling me to "get at it".

Let The Love Flow

I remember reading someplace once that you should not hate your addiction. It is your doorway to God.

At that time, I really could not understand what they were talking about. But I guess I must have filed it away somewhere so it could resurface once I grew to the point where I had experienced a little bit of that truth for myself.

Whenever I fought my addiction, it just grew stronger - gaining another foothold on my soul.

Finally, I surrendered to it. "I don't have any more time to waste fighting you," I said to my addiction. "I am going to live my life in spite of you."

And that is when I found out that my addiction was hiding a gift of hospitality that comes natural to me. An awareness of, and a respect for, what happens when people break their fast (end their isolation) and come together over food. An enjoyment of one another. A reaching out towards one another. All that I hungered for was there all along. I just didn't recognize it because I was being distracted by the fight that was going on inside me.

God was there all along - right in the midst of things - telling me to chill out. Relax and let the love flow. Let go of those reins of control. The love energy is too strong to be controlled by human hands. It just requires an act of surrender on your part/my part.

We recognize the strength of that energy. We know that we can not control where it will take us. Funny when I think of it - because no matter where it takes us, it has to be better than where we are at. Control never takes us anywhere worth being. Surrender to any level of love seems to take an act of courage on our part. Is it a fear of heights that hold us back - because that is where love always takes us - to unimagined heights - new levels of awareness.

Silver Lining

We have all heard it said that every cloud has a silver lining.

I am now realizing the silver lining that came with my car accident.

Because of the mobility problems the accident left me with, I now feel justified in giving myself permission to go into semi-hibernation during the winter months.

Besides no longer having to go out in below zero temperatures, this has given me the opportunity to get in touch with a deeper part of myself - a part that can now go out into the world and interact with it very differently than I did before the accident.

Today was a town day and I was very much in touch with this new part of me; and the excitement that it was feeling. I was seeing with new eyes and feeling with new senses; and it WAS exciting. The whole experience felt good.

An ordinary person doing ordinary things; and enjoying it.