- Sleeping in
- Catching up on Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice
- My sister-in-law's triumphant "Ya we did" exclamation punctuating the various, not usually done by girls tasks we tackled together today, while the guys did the really heavy lifting.
- microwave popcorn
- a long hot bubble bath
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 182
Today's Daily 5:
Some Thoughts on Grief, and a Project You Can Support
I haven't talked about it a lot here, because none of the stories are mine to tell, but I've been an observer of grief quite a lot over the last year. Several friends lost parents to cancer, others have children who have been terminally ill, or who face lives that won't play out in an "american dream" kind of way. On a personal level, I've walked through the process of grieving changes in living circumstances, relationships, and many other things. These days it seems like every week brings news of a new death, or someone else who is battling for life, or facing dramatic changes in circumstance that must be grieved. At times the onslaught of news has been overwhelming and left me struggling to process and understand the pain I was experiencing and that people I care deeply for are walking out.
All of these experiences combined made my heart leap when my friend Karla Adolphe sent out an email indicating that the next album she was planning to record was aiming to be a resource for those walking through the process of grief. More than that, her desire is to have this album be a free resource - not an album for sale, but one that she can give away to those who are grieving.
I was with Karla at a worship gathering where she led recently, and was reminded all over again of the power of her voice, and the way Jesus uses it. I'm so excited to see the way God will work through this new album, not only because of the topic, but because of Karla's unique ability to invite the hearts of her audience to connect with Jesus.
This is a clip of one of the songs that will be on the album, played publicly for the first time recently, at a concert in Colorado:
The exciting part about this project for me is the chance that we have to support it. Maybe you remember a year or so ago, when the Blue Like Jazz movie went viral with it's Kickstarter fundraising campaign? Well, Karla is doing something similar to raise funds for this album. You can go to THIS site to participate. I've borrowed the following, explaining just a bit more about the heart of the album, from the fundraising site:
About a year ago Karla was privileged to be at the hospital when a dear family said goodbye to their daughter. In the midst of that beautiful and heart-wrenching day Karla witnessed music play an important role in the early stages of grief.
The goal is to create a resource to help people through the process of grief, and because of this Karla will not recoup any of her $9800 budget with cd sales. The goal is to raise at least $7500 by April 1, 2012 to cover the costs of recording, producing, mixing and mastering and marketing the album.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the topic of grief, and I'd love to hear if you were able to support Karla in this project. As always, leave me a comment!
Friday, February 17, 2012
Daily 5 - Year 3, Days 180 & 181
It occurred to me as I sat down just now to make today's daily 5 list, that making a list for yesterday completely slipped my mind in the time and space between when I arrived home last night, and when I fell into a rather exhausted stupor and eventually sleep.
So, first, here's yesterday's Daily 5:
So, first, here's yesterday's Daily 5:
- gorgeous orange sunrise
- Vietnamese noodle bowl
- Chinese food with house church friends
- the laughter and joyful conversation that always comes on the nights we share a meal together at house church
- a hug and kiss goodnight from my favorite little man as I left house church last night - I always love the moments when he comes to offer affection.
And, here's today's Daily 5:
- Making my way through Ian Cron's memoir "Jesus, My Father, the CIA and Me" via audiobook. I've lacked the energy to do much "traditional" extracurricular reading since school started, but this book (which, by the way, you should all read or listen to!) has been an awesome way to meet my need for words that don't have anything to do with the nursing process and do have everything to do with the value of story, the process of healing, and a love of Jesus.
- Vietnamese noodle bowl, second day in a row!
- A quiet lunch hour, shared with a friend.
- that a necessary (if somewhat frustrating) errand went quickly and smoothly on my way home from school tonight
- Loving a quiet Friday evening at home. They've become almost sacred, this time where I clean, sort, decompress from my week, eat simple meals, and ease myself into the weekend and catching up on things like the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy. Tonight has been particularly lovely, since it is the beginning of reading break, so I am ushering in a week with a different schedule, and lots of time to rest. It's also been lovely in that a particular activity, which was once sacred, and then needed to be separated from my sacred life in order for me to heal, was able to be a bit sacred again tonight, but sacred in a way that wasn't marked by painful memories, but the joy instead of sitting with it, and knowing that I was choosing to let it be sacred and not feeling forced into it.
Friday Reflections, February 17, 2012
Today's Friday Reflection comes from a daily email written by Richard Rohr. His words on prayer challenged me earlier this week, and I wanted to share them with you today:
DISCOVERING YOUR TRUE SELF THROUGH PRAYER
“Everything exposed to the light itself becomes light,” says Ephesians 5:13. In prayer, we merely keep returning the divine gaze and we become its reflection, almost in spite of ourselves (2 Corinthians 3:18). The word “prayer” has often been trivialized by making it into a way of getting what we want. But I use “prayer” as the umbrella word for any interior journeys or practices that allow you to experience faith, hope, and love within yourself. It is not a technique for getting things, a pious exercise that somehow makes God happy, or a requirement for entry into heaven. It is much more like practicing heaven now.
Such prayer, such seeing, takes away your anxiety for figuring it all out fully for yourself, or needing to be right about your formulations. At this point, God becomes more a verb than a noun, more a process than a conclusion, more an experience than a dogma, more a personal relationship than an idea. There is Someone dancing with you, and you are not afraid of making mistakes.
From The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, pp. 22-23
DISCOVERING YOUR TRUE SELF THROUGH PRAYER
“Everything exposed to the light itself becomes light,” says Ephesians 5:13. In prayer, we merely keep returning the divine gaze and we become its reflection, almost in spite of ourselves (2 Corinthians 3:18). The word “prayer” has often been trivialized by making it into a way of getting what we want. But I use “prayer” as the umbrella word for any interior journeys or practices that allow you to experience faith, hope, and love within yourself. It is not a technique for getting things, a pious exercise that somehow makes God happy, or a requirement for entry into heaven. It is much more like practicing heaven now.
Such prayer, such seeing, takes away your anxiety for figuring it all out fully for yourself, or needing to be right about your formulations. At this point, God becomes more a verb than a noun, more a process than a conclusion, more an experience than a dogma, more a personal relationship than an idea. There is Someone dancing with you, and you are not afraid of making mistakes.
From The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, pp. 22-23
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Present Even With This
The moments when the exhaustion and sadness hit seem odd sometimes.
This week they came at the end of two days that were truly good. One day in which I embraced silence and created space for my soul to breathe, and one in which new things went well, and some old things were resolved.
And yet, at the end of each of those days, I found myself wondering as the feeling that sometimes precedes tears came upon me. I found myself questioning the sudden appearance of sadness.
It was (and is) tempting in those moments to argue with myself, to shame and scold myself. To tell myself that the days have been good, the weeks have been good, that all things considered, even life has been good. To scold myself for feeling sad, and work to talk myself out of it.
Instead, this week I tried to be present, even with the sadness.
To acknowledge it. To allow it to exist without shame. To ask some questions of myself, of it.
I'm not so good at this being present with pain. My preference is to avoid it - the partial topic of a long and lovely conversation I had this week, and most likely of a post in the future. Mindful of that conversation I have tried to sit in the presence of the sadness and the exhaustion and allow it to be present.
And in sitting, this week, I noticed some things. I noticed that last week was full of hard things, things where I can say with pride that I handled them well, that I was able to walk through them in a way I wouldn't have been able to a year ago. I noticed that embracing the quiet space that my soul was craving gave time for my feelings to surface more truly. I noticed that though some of the ongoing challenges of my living space have been tempered lately, the questions and the pain of the situation, the grief that goes with it, those remain, and when I am quiet they have space for expression. I noticed that some of what I was feeling was exhausted relief, as bits and pieces of last weeks challenges came full circle to their resolution.
And in pausing to be present with those things, to notice them, I discovered that the urge to cry from sheer exhaustion was passing. That instead of anger and frustration, I was feeling grace for myself, grace for the things I was experiencing. The sort of grace I've always been able to offer freely and deeply to others, but have rarely managed to extend inward towards myself.
And so, I choose to be present even with this. Even when being present doesn't look like joy. Because I am learning to understand that I am loved, by Jesus, and by friends, and that I need to offer love to myself. And I am learning that when I am able to be present with myself in the painful moments, I am more able to allow Jesus to be present in them as well. And that being present with myself, and accepting Jesus' presence brings deep peace, even amidst the pain. And since my heart cries out for that peace, I will choose to be present with myself, even when it hurts.
This week they came at the end of two days that were truly good. One day in which I embraced silence and created space for my soul to breathe, and one in which new things went well, and some old things were resolved.
And yet, at the end of each of those days, I found myself wondering as the feeling that sometimes precedes tears came upon me. I found myself questioning the sudden appearance of sadness.
It was (and is) tempting in those moments to argue with myself, to shame and scold myself. To tell myself that the days have been good, the weeks have been good, that all things considered, even life has been good. To scold myself for feeling sad, and work to talk myself out of it.
Instead, this week I tried to be present, even with the sadness.
To acknowledge it. To allow it to exist without shame. To ask some questions of myself, of it.
I'm not so good at this being present with pain. My preference is to avoid it - the partial topic of a long and lovely conversation I had this week, and most likely of a post in the future. Mindful of that conversation I have tried to sit in the presence of the sadness and the exhaustion and allow it to be present.
And in sitting, this week, I noticed some things. I noticed that last week was full of hard things, things where I can say with pride that I handled them well, that I was able to walk through them in a way I wouldn't have been able to a year ago. I noticed that embracing the quiet space that my soul was craving gave time for my feelings to surface more truly. I noticed that though some of the ongoing challenges of my living space have been tempered lately, the questions and the pain of the situation, the grief that goes with it, those remain, and when I am quiet they have space for expression. I noticed that some of what I was feeling was exhausted relief, as bits and pieces of last weeks challenges came full circle to their resolution.
And in pausing to be present with those things, to notice them, I discovered that the urge to cry from sheer exhaustion was passing. That instead of anger and frustration, I was feeling grace for myself, grace for the things I was experiencing. The sort of grace I've always been able to offer freely and deeply to others, but have rarely managed to extend inward towards myself.
And so, I choose to be present even with this. Even when being present doesn't look like joy. Because I am learning to understand that I am loved, by Jesus, and by friends, and that I need to offer love to myself. And I am learning that when I am able to be present with myself in the painful moments, I am more able to allow Jesus to be present in them as well. And that being present with myself, and accepting Jesus' presence brings deep peace, even amidst the pain. And since my heart cries out for that peace, I will choose to be present with myself, even when it hurts.
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