Negative Command

This week I heard a sports announcer say, "You can't obey a negative command." He said it in the context of an athlete saying, "I can't miss this free throw," or "I can't fail," in some way. He said this a self-defeating practice. Have you ever tried the exercise in which someone says, "Don't think about a big plate of spaghetti," or "Don't think about a pink pig." Yes, we all know that when we entertain images, it's almost impossible NOT to think about them.

I know when I have negative thoughts, I don't like that irritable feeling. I'm uncomfortable, and tell myself, "Don't think about that." Well, I have found out first hand that I cannot obey a negative command.

And so, what is the solution? I must replace the unwanted thoughts with positive ones. Of course, God's Word is best thing to put into my head, or maybe Godly music. But you know, a distraction of any kind can help. Especially something that requires mental concentration.

Clean Underwear

Novelist Robert Bausch said, "Saying you don’t read poetry is like saying you don’t change your underwear; it says more about you than the underwear."

With this in mind, I will not SAY that I don't read poetry, but I will admit that even though I don't SAY it, I actually don't read poetry very much. And when I do, I'm afraid I lack the patience to really absorb it. Yesterday I listened to Richard Blanco read his poem "One Today" as part of President Obama's second inauguration festivities. I believe poetry is meant to be heard as well as read, and I immediately liked the poem. I shared it with a young friend who writes poetry, and she said she liked it too. But I wondered, "Why do we like it?" And so I found the text of the poem and read it through a couple of times.

The first characteristic I noticed was that Richard Blanco chose several interesting verbs--not verbs that I had to look up in the dictionary, mind you, but words I didn't expect to hear used as verbs or words that were in some way surprising but effective in communicating his thoughts and feelings.  

I have reproduced the first two stanza's here and highlighted the verbs or verb forms I thought especially interesting.


One Today by Richard Blanco

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—
bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—
to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did
for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

Blanco also made good use of visual and auditory images. Listen to Stanza 6:
 
Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,
or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,
buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días
in the language my mother taught me—in every language
spoken into one wind carrying our lives
without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

And then the figures of speech--similes, metaphors, personification...
"The sun...greeting the faces of the Great Lakes;...the apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows begging our praise;...and always one moon like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop and every window..."

Thank you, Richard Blanco, for making us want to read poetry.

Grandma Moses and Me

"I look back on my life like a good day's work; it was done and I am satisfied with it." 
Anna Mary Robertson Moses.

Grandma Moses was born in 1860; she began oil painting in the 1930s when arthritis in her hands made the hobby of embroidery difficult or maybe impossible. Notice I said "began"! If you will do the math, you will see that in 1930, she was 70 years old. What a time in life to begin a new career. And what a career it was!
She is remembered today as an important American folk artist. If you Google her name, I'm sure you will recognize her work.

Grandma Moses' story encourages me because it is easy for me to regret what I have failed to do up until now. But you know, the days, months, and years will pass whether I make use of them or not. Grandma Moses could have said, "I've always wanted to paint. Ho hum, I wish I had started years ago. My, my, now I'm too old." Somehow I doubt Grandma Moses ever really "got old," though she lived to the age of 101.

That's how I want to be. Obviously I didn't choose the year I was born, and I'm not ashamed of the number of birthdays I have had, but I don't want to be "old" in thinking and attitude! And so I am doing a few things to help ward off "oldness." I try to stay in shape physically by walking for exercise, but I need to add some resistance training to this. You know, the whole fragile bone thing... Also, I'm keeping my brain active with reading, teaching, and piano practice, and I have added lumosity.com games to my regular routine.

And then there are some things I need to do MUCH better in. One of them is my walk with the Lord. Bible reading and prayer are so important, but often they don't seem urgent to me and tend to get shuffled around. And so this needs to go to the top of the list.

Then there is that nagging wish to write. I'm not sure why or why I can't get away from it or why I feel such reluctance to just DO it. Anyway, in this area, my goal is to write 50 posts in 2013 whether anyone reads them or not. (I would have said 52 for 52 weeks but...you guessed it, I'm already 2 weeks behind!)

If I were to die today, I don't think I could say, "I look back on my life like a good day's work; it was done and I am satisfied with it." But I would like to.

What Does It Mean to Forgive?

This post is a work in progress. The question of forgiveness came up at the ladies prayer breakfast on Saturday, and our assignment for the next month is to try to identify exactly was forgiveness looks like.

*What forgiveness is NOT:
   1.  Forgiveness is not minimizing the other person's sin.
   2.  Forgiveness is not placing yourself as a continual victim of abuse.






*What forgiveness IS:
  1. Letting go of any retaliation or punishment.





*Thoughts:
  1. If I am not at peace but am obsessing about the situation, does this mean that I have not really forgiven him or her?
  2. How do I come to terms with the fact that some people are toxic? Is it possible to forgive the person but keep him or her at a safe distance?

Thoughts on High School

Thoughts on High School

July 6, 2012

Too bad we can’t see our school years, particularly those of high school, for what they are while we are going through them. I have often said that education is wasted on the young. When we are children, we are too immature to realize how interesting as well as important school subjects can be, and to be honest, we are naturally lazy! But what I was thinking about recently is that during our school years we are also immature socially. Let’s face it; we are not at our best when we are 16! In fact, we may be at our worst. It is an awkward stage; we are plagued with worries about how we appear to others; we are socially clumsy and maybe physically too. We are overly sensitive about the language and body language of others. Our flaws are exaggerated in our own eyes, and unfortunately, we may take our insecure frustrations out on others. I know I am not proud of all my memories of my own childhood actions. I wish I had been less concerned about what others thought of me and tried harder to make others feel accepted. Maybe this is why high school reunions are so pleasant. We see that most of us turned out OK! Maybe we didn’t succeed or fail the way our high school peers thought we would, but for the most part, I think we turned out to be pretty responsible adults!

Taking Risks

Taking Risks

July 8, 2012

Here we are in farm country. Their life style is all about risks. The weather is the big wild card. And so every summer or fall they have to decide to order the seed and perhaps fertilizer and weed killers and whatever else they may need for the next spring. And let me tell you, the Farmer’s Almanac is not a very reliable indicator of what to expect the next year! And then besides the financial investment which also may include significant costs to purchase and maintain equipment alongwith the inevitable fuel costs, you have the time and effort it takes to put the crop in the ground all the while the big weather unknown looming over you.

But are the farming risks really that different from those in any small business? Or any large business for that matter? Is business the only area of life for which we must take risks in order to succeed?

And then there are other areas of life that involve risk. Relationships are risky. People disappoint us, and we disappoint them. We can’t control everything our children do. The fact is that we control very little! But relationships are worth the risk! We must not be so cautious that we run no risk of disappointment or loss.

Nothing Stays the Same

Nothing stays the same.

July 6, 2012

We are on “vacation” in Iowa. I put that in parentheses because we—my husband and I, my daughter Anna and her husband and two pre-schoolers--are staying with my soon-to-be 89-year-old mother. Don’t get me wrong; I am glad and thankful to be here and to have them all with me, but it is not relaxing for me, what with the shopping, cooking, cleaning up, laundry, etc. But I digress. What started my train of thought was the family picnic on July 4. My cousin Debbie mentioned that it felt funny going to the Carlton Church without Carl being there and to the 4^th celebration without Ray. Earlier in the day, it had crossed my mind that it had not been many years since Gerald, Vernon, Carl, and Ray would have all been there. I commented that nothing stays the same, and it really doesn’t. We shouldn’t expect it to, and we really should try not to feel sad when it doesn’t. Another change we saw that day was that a new generation is coming up. Judy Dobson generously brought toys and costumes for Emily’s kids. Since Anna’s kids were there too, they got to join in the fun. Joey became a knight in shining armor; Nora transformed herself into “bat girl”; and Jackson made the cutest, fiercest little pirate you ever saw! And so, change is not a bad thing. Something in our make-up resists change, and it IS heart wrenching in a way. But we must not let fear and reluctance to change or nostalgia about the past keep us from relishing the present.