Deadheading

Standing by his butterfly bush, my new friend Pat and I were talking about church and family, living and learning. He remarked, "If you aren't deadheading, you're missing blooms."

I smiled and nodded, a little mystified. The comment didn't seem to fit our conversation. But Pat is Irish and a musician, so I naturally assumed he was imparting deep meaning upon my humble, seeking mind. "Yes, true," I agreed, raising a thoughtful eyebrow, hoping to hide the fact that I was grasping for the truth veiled in his simple words.

I'm not sure how many minutes passed before I realized he was just talking about nipping off the dead blooms from his butterfly bush so the younger buds would develop more quickly. In addition to being Irish and a musician, Pat is a gardener, and while we visited his hands were busy neatening up the shrub and preparing it to bloom more fully. Since it was a butterfly bush, he was preparing it to attract more butterflies, as well.

The deep truth was there, though. My brain looks for allegory and message in everything, because I believe God speaks to us through the stories of life now just as Jesus did when He walked among us. In Pat's little self-explanatory sentence I heard echoes of a vinedresser's shears trimming fruitless branches, whispers of waiting brides keeping oil in their lamps, and footsteps of a discouraged young ruler who could not let go. God is in the details if only we'll listen.

Deadheading. Getting rid of what's no longer necessary, so that what is beautiful may come into being. If we aren't deadheading, we're missing blooms. If we aren't releasing anger and jealousy and disappointment and fear, those old, deadly habits will hang around until they kill us. Hands that are gripping hateful memories or vengeful thoughts cannot open in praise and they can neither give nor receive. We have to deadhead. We must cut off the spent, the used-up, the useless. We must learn to recognize what things are out of our control - and some of those things are controlling us, with our permission - and we must release our hold on them so that they will have no hold on us. Then we can be free to grow, to become, to expand our territories and walk in joy.

So here's a challenge: Have you heard a story within the story of your day? Have you listened? Listen now. And if you can't hear, consider letting go of whatever you're holding over your ears. You might be surprised by how much better you can see.

A Moment of Reflection - I Saw Me

I don't really know who reads this. Sometimes it feels like I'm just talking to myself in a closet. I know what that's like, because there have been times in my life when I've done just that: times when I've felt too alone, too confused, too sad, or too angry.

I don't know who reads this, but if you're reading and you know what it sounds like to talk to yourself in a closet, maybe this article will help you put a name on how you feel. It did for me.

I don't know who reads this, but I'd very much like to hear from you. Do you ask questions that have no answers, like I do? Do you see answers that no one else sees? Do you hear truth in unexpected places? I do.

I don't know who reads this, but maybe you're like me. So maybe you'll find a connection in this article with the fancy name: "Existential Depression in Gifted Children." It said words that made sense to me. It described things I have done, things my children have done, ways we have been challenged and ways we have coped. It made me feel happy-sad and understood.


I cried.

Did you?

Beautiful - Five Minute Friday

I’ve finally come to the place where I know I am beautiful because God made me so. I’ve said those words before, but the change is that now I can honestly look in the mirror and see this body, worn from many years childbearing and childrearing, and know that the picture in the mirror is not who I am.

I am beautiful because I am beautiful.

I am not beautiful based on my figure, my hairstyle, my clothing, or my accessories. Mother always said, “Pretty is as pretty does.” She said that true beauty comes from the inside, and that if I would cultivate that inner beauty I would grow more beautiful with the years.

My mother is beautiful. When I was a little girl I used to cry happy tears over Miss America pageants, over how pretty the young women were, and I would always say, “But not as pretty as you, Mommy.” True to her word, she’s continued to cultivate the inner beauty and she is more beautiful as the years pass.

Maybe that’s what’s happening to me. Maybe I’m finally seeing the results of years of forgiveness, patience, kindness, giving, serving, and loving. Maybe the hard work of hushing my critical spirit to do what is right and put others before myself is paying  an unexpected bonus. Maybe choosing to smile instead of frown really does make us prettier.

Whatever it is, it sure feels good.

Listen - Five Minute Friday

I need to listen. I am a good listener, to those around me. I'm not so good at listening to me, though. I forget even to have a me sometimes. If I listen, though, I'm there.

Too often I think I'm listening to me when what I'm really doing is talking to me. Instead of paying attention to what I think or feel, I'm telling myself what I ought to think or feel. It's a delicate balance; sometimes I need someone to tell me how to behave, because I am selfish and arrogant and mean, but I'm not always those things, and they don't define all of me. Sometimes I listen to myself talking in the voice that tells me how to behave and it squashes my spirit and keeps me from celebrating the joy and beauty and peace that also reside in me. Talk less, listen more. I need to do that.

More important is that when I listen honestly, God is there. I hear what other people say about God. I read the Bible to hear about God. When I get still and listen, though, I hear God. I hear what He says about Himself and what He says about me.

I have to be very, very quiet to listen in that way. I have to be so still that I hear my own breath before I can hear the inspired God-breathed words. It only takes a moment, though. I don't have to go far away. I don't even have to be alone.

All I need to do is listen.

Fall - Five Minute Friday

The password is “fall.”

Remember when Password was a game, not a fixture of life? It fell by the wayside about the same time as Richard Nixon. Almost that long ago, well, only a few years later, I received a microwave oven as a birthday gift from my soon-to-be-ex-fiancé. He fell away shortly thereafter, before my marrying him would have made the mistake permanent, but that microwave has been a fixture in my life ever since.

I learned to cook with that microwave, pleased with myself for saving time, conserving energy, reducing dishwashing and cutting fat. It wasn’t all sales hype; the microwave really did change the way I ran my kitchen.

It’s a huge thing, as big as some dorm refrigerators, but it’s been a faithful servant and a fixture in my kitchen for nearly thirty years. I’m glad we didn’t pay the extra $150 for the one-year extended warranty. It’s never needed service. It’s one of the things that I don’t even realize I assume to be permanent. Like honeybees on clover or trees on the hillside, it just is. It’s been here so long that I’ve never even thought about its not being. Of course, the honeybee population fell off years ago, despite my letting clover take over my yard to feed the few survivors; and the trees on too many hillsides are felled at an alarming rate these days.

My second son, as a toddler running in the house, got a warning from my father: “You better slow down. You’ll fall and break something.”

The little bounder shot back, “You can’t break me. I’m a people thing!” Sure enough, he didn’t fall that day, and the falls on subsequent days have never broken him, either.

I guess I thought the microwave was like that. We can’t break it. It’s a microwave thing.

We wore it out, though. I mean, I guess we did. It wouldn’t thaw cheesecake last night and it won’t cook oatmeal this morning. I’m pretty sure a service call is not in order for a 1984 microwave. It’s just that – I don’t know how to – think about – my day – without a microwave, that particular microwave, with the burned place from a foil-wrapped burger that my little sister put in when the oven was new; with a missing temperature probe that fell down behind the refrigerator two houses ago and wasn’t worth retrieving; with a stand just for it because it takes up too much counter space in our little kitchen and it’s too big to fit under the cabinets anyway. I don’t get attached to things, usually, but I feel as if a piece of my universe just disappeared and left a big-old-microwave-sized hole right there in the kitchen part of space-time. My microwave fell out of existence.

I guess I’ll have to be careful not to fall in, too.

Remembering PERSON, NOT A

DAVIS
MICHAEL W
### ## ####
A POS
PROTESTANT

This is not a person.

We wore dog tags
and POW bracelets to remember men we would never know.
They were athletes
musicians
poets
preachers
artists
lovers
sons, brothers, husbands, fathers
friends.

NAGY
EDWARD J
### ## ####
O NEG
CATHOLIC

This is not a person.

Children unaware,
we only knew something bad was happening somewhere we couldn't go.
They laughed
cried
worried
blessed
helped
healed
smiled
suffered
sang
fought.

MILLARD
PHILIP M
### ## ####
B POS
JEWISH

This is not a person.

We hoped for change
though we did not know to what or from what,
and we did not know things never change.
They were brave
young
handsome
dashing
important
patriotic
good
lost.

But

RODRIGUEZ
RICARDO L
### ## ####
A NEG
PROTESTANT

was not a person
to us.

Why do the men in the dark sedan give dog tags to mothers and wives?

This is not a person.

You take away a priceless human being
and return a piece of stamped metal?

You throw away a life,
a piece of combat equipment,
a fighting unit,
and bring her

SOMEONE
SON O
### ## ####
A POS
GONE

View - Five Minute Friday

 

So it’s Friday again, and this time I’m meeting the day as it begins, still up at 1:00 a.m. This week's Five Minute Friday prompt is “view.” I decided to take a look at that for a while before retiring.

Five minutes: Go.

View is larger than sight

because view sees beyond what is there

to what it means,

I think.

I have a long view

of life,

and it helps me see

what’s important,

what’s nonessential,

what’s enduring,

and what’s not.

When I say there’s a lovely view,

some people just look quickly and nod agreement,

but others know

that I mean the sight has meaning:

it is lovely because of something,

something other than its appearance.

I suppose in my world,

this one, I mean,

the one everyone can see,

appearances mean more than views.

The way I see it,

life is all about the view.