Love Thy Neighbor

I am taking a hiatus from this blog due to competing priorities in my personal and professional life.  There are so many wonderful things going on with me and I just don’t have the time or energy to devote to this blog.  I am sure I will return soon or at least fairly soon (late Spring 08 perhaps when the edits to my upcoming book are done).   I can’t believe the volume of readers these blogs get even with zero self-promotion. I have considered this my cyber message in a bottle and I am amazed at the number of people who uncorked the messages…We will keep up the church signs and slogans blog because that is a service we promised (my friend and I were each distracted by Valentines “week” this week but we are back on the case and will be better than ever).  peace and joy and love (and thanks!)

Today is Valentine’s Day; many people (sorry to generalize, but mostly men) say it’s a “Hallmark Holiday” but I looked it up and the holiday has a lot of historical significance.  There were many Christian martyrs named Valentine so many that it turns out the Catholic Church honored eleven of them up until 1969. 

Valentine’s Day took on romantic connotations initially in a poem by Chaucer; that transformation from honoring Christian martyrs to a concept of romantic love was solidified by the formation of a “High Court of Love” in Paris on Valentine’s Day in 1400.  This court apparently oversaw love contracts, betrayals and violence against women; judges were chosen by women based on poetry reading. The rest is history.

Do you have a Valentine?

• If so, then today is a great day to reflect on all you admire and appreciate in that person; if not, then today is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on what you would like in a Valentine (if you want one) and all the awesome things that you have to offer.   I had a very clear idea of what I wanted in my Valentine: strength of character, kindness, patience, intelligence, strong but with a servant’s heart, someone whose actions communicate love well in advance of his words and someone who attracted me physically, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually and whom inspired me (not much to ask, right?).

Did I find him?   Only God, he and I know.

Today is also a great day to honor the other people in your life who have shown you love; the unsung heroes that gave you a piece of their hearts and helped strengthen yours.

• Do you have any teachers who inspired you to bigger dreams?  Why not send a long overdue thank you about how their kindness and attention helped you?  If you fear they may have retired you can contact the School Administration Office; they will forward any note you send on to the teacher.  I tried it and it worked for me. 
• How about the parents of some of your friends who supported you in their own way when you were growing up?  Think of all the competing priorities parents have raising their own kids; the fact that some parents take an active interest in all children in their sphere of influence, really means a lot.   Why not let them know?
• Is there someone at work who is always willing to help you (even if it is just helping you keep your sanity)?  I like to buy a big box of kid’s Valentines and write one out for everyone at my workplace telling them what I appreciate about them.  It is fun and it makes me smile (just be careful that everyone knows you wrote one out for everyone…you don’t want to give a false encouragement to someone who may pine for you)
• How about a coach, or a pastor or anyone who helped you become the person you are today or inspires you to try and become the person you want to be? 
• How about a member of the armed services?  There are many programs that can connect you with someone; I need to do this today as I have put it off.
• Etc, etc, etc:  if we open our ears we can hear the silent heroes all around us

Romantic love is only one piece of our hearts; it’s amazing but all love transforms if we let it.    Today is Valentine’s Day and since the day was originally set aside to honor Christian martyrs I think it’s only appropriate that we honor and thank all those who show us love and self-sacrifice.   Happy Valentine’s Day world!

Yesterday was a cold, winter day where I live; the kind of day where snow falls and then freezing rain and then more snow.  It was the type of day where every minor activity carries with it the extra weight of the snow and the uncertainty of walking and driving on ice; life in general seems harder.  I love winter and I am active during winter.  I rarely miss an opportunity to be outside but even I am finding these last few weeks of snow and rain and snow and rain draining. 

It was only as I was driving home yesterday afternoon and focusing on how poorly the roads were plowed that something occurred to me.  The weather is sometimes inconvenient during winter storms but what if I had to be the same roads but my circumstances were different? 

I imagined an elderly husband struggling to get to the nursing home to see his wife because he never missed a day and, even though she didn’t recognize him anymore, he knew somewhere inside the non-responsive resident dwelled his beloved lifelong companion and that companion was waiting to see his face, so he cleaned off his car and set off on his journey of love…a warrior fighting his own fear of the bad weather. 

Or the woman working two jobs to ensure that her family had a warm place to live; I imagined her waiting at a bus stop to go to her second job, exhausted, cold, longing to just go home and give her kids a hug and climb into bed with them and read them a story, but instead she pulled her hood tighter around her face and prayed that Jesus gave her the strength to go on.

Or the homeless person whose emotional and mental state didn’t allow him to chose any option but to stay on the street; I imagined him and how cold and wet he must be and how absolutely alone one must feel on the streets of a big city in a blizzard with all noise but the wind muffled by the snow. My Mom died this time of year and was buried on Valentine’s Day. 

I imagined a family on their way to a wake and then a funeral.  Riding in a car full of grief to the point of breaking, this family faced the longest day and now had to deal with the added burden of bad roads and unsafe conditions.

In retrospect yesterday was an awesome day.  There are so many things in this world that we cannot control: the weather, the road conditions, and the health of our loved ones…the list goes on and on.   One thing we can control is to have an attitude of appreciation for our situations and also a constant awareness of all the stories being lived out in all the cars around us.

I noticed this morning that I am getting a ton of searches for a poem for “Love thy Neighbor Day” at church (or “Love thy Neighbor” poem). So I felt bad my blog wouldn’t fit that need and I wrote this poem; I wanted to keep it relevant for all ages. It may help.

Love thy Neighbor

My fuzzy mitten fit his giant palm perfectly
We would walk so slowly as he quietly spoke with me
We passed by our neighbors and greeted them frequently
Noting a broken railing he would later repair it secretly
“Unless they ask, don’t tell them, Minnie Mouse”
“Why Daddy? When you did something so nice”
“We don’t need thanks when we repair a house,
They’re our neighbors and love is not always announced”

I hold her tiny fingers as she walks awkwardly
Her eagerness propels her but her eyes are on me
We come upon our neighbors and greet them frequently
“She’s so beautiful,!” they crouch down to see. “I agree”.
We make our way forward this is only a part of our journey
“Alright”, I pick her up and place her so she can reach the slot
“This is it, but before you drop it let’s pray that what you’ve got,
Will help those children, their Mom and Grandma a lot!”
The envelope makes a satisfying “clunk” and she laughs out loud

“Unless someone asks don’t tell them, Minnie Mouse”
“Why Momma? When we did something so nice”
“We don’t need to tell when we provide food and a plow,
They’re our neighbors and love is not always announced”

“Momma, you said they’re in Afreeeca, is that close to us?”
“Africa” I smile, “by miles is far, but by Jesus’ compass…it’s our house”

A few weeks ago I made a silly post to my new blog pondering church reader boards/church signs and slogans. I then discovered that many, many people were visiting my post daily. I reasoned that this was due to one of two scenarios: a. church workers and volunteers were looking for some new ideas for their reader boards b. people were looking for additional options when it comes to mocking these signs.

To accommodate both potential audiences my friend and I developed a new blog dedicated strictly to Church Signs & Slogans. We quickly discovered it is an art and way more difficult than the bemused people driving by may imagine.

We researched options available prior to deciding to create a niche blog but they seemed limited to “for a fee” businesses and those blogs dedicated to bashing the signs. We did not review any of the posts so the ones on our blog were devised by us or completely and unconsciously plagiarized from prior experiences.

We hope to add about 20 per week and to improve with practice. You know you are getting loopy when you pitch this idea to your friend:

“Go green; get a Donkey!”

Jesus, King of Kings, First Environmentalist

Anyway; I hope this site is of use to the scoffers and the hard workers.

I was mulling some things over the other day and these analogies occurred to me.

Hope is a lint remover                                                                          
Love is a sweater well worn
Faith is the uniting of the two

Peace is a ribbon unbroken
Grace is the gift in the box
Life is the unwrapping

“Hope is a lint remover”: hope takes things that were once worn down and seemingly headed for the trash and allows us to give them a second, third, maybe an infinite number of chances. We need hope or we would give up and we would throw ourselves away when all we needed was a good swipe of hope to feel refreshed and to be transformed.

“Love is a sweater well worn”: nothing is more comfortable to wear than love except when we start noticing the holes and the accumulation of lint, etc. If you love you will get hurt; you will earn and carry holes in your sweater; some time you wind up covered in lint. It is the choice you make and most consider it worth it when they feel the familiar silky feeling of that sweater gathering about their neck; they tug it down. Still there are times we can’t help but wish our sweater looked like it did when we first got it.

“Faith is the uniting of the two”: faith allows us to reach for hope; faith allows us to know our love for everything and everyone deserves reviving. Faith brings the two together; faith gives us the will to be optimistic and chose hope; faith gives us the strength to keep that sweater and the will to improve it.

“Pease is a ribbon unbroken”: peace is something that is so seemingly fragile and so evidently beautiful. When you have peace sometimes you get nervous and start hording it, “I love this shiny peace I have and I don’t want to disturb it, so whatever I do I am not going to let this get disturbed. I am just going to continue on and be at peace”. But peace is meant to be active; yes it’s a ribbon unbroken but ribbons can be tied together in many ways; peace is something that can grow and morph with the situations. And without an occasional break in the peace you would not get the best gift of all.

“Grace is the gift in the box”: grace is second chances; grace is the ability to make things new again. Grace is forgiveness and new life and grace is amazing. When you open the box and see grace sitting in all that sparkly tissue paper, it brings tears to your eyes. No thank you card can every fully express a discerning (one who knows the gift’s value) recipient’s gratitude.

“Life is the unwrapping”: to receive grace you must have first failed; failure is a prerequisite to grace. We make mistakes; we do stupid things; we hurt others or ourselves. Ideally we make amends for those errors but we also know that in the corner in that shiny paper with all the curly ribbons is a gift. To open that gift is to admit our own flaws and humanity–our peace will be broken by the admission, but once we open it we see that the peace is now portable. We can carry it with us and wrap any situation in it because the gift of grace gave us another chance at life.

I asked my friend for a one word topic about which I should write; she emailed me back immediately with the word “time” saying that’s what popped into her head.

After I cried a little I began to again ponder time. Has any word or concept except death caused me so much consternation? And they are related; time holds the hand of death. You doubt me? Think of it: “his time was up” “it’s so unexpected she was too young”. The expiration of time is death’s fraternal twin and I grasp the relational aspects of time clearly.

It’s time itself that I just don’t get. Time is real and imagined and that dichotomy throws me. Time is real in that living organisms age and die, or non-living things reach a point of deterioration and no longer exist. That fact is irrefutable. But the entire system by which we measure time is arbitrary. Of course it is based on the natural cycles of life but still measuring time is an artificial constriction based on natural cycles.

Humans have used the stars, sun and moon to gage time since life began and it was the Romans who charted the cycle of the moon and regimented the measure of time into the Julian (for Caesar) calendar. Leave it to the Romans to implement a methodology that was rigorous, logical, orderly, universal, practical and mandatory.

I can grasp the history of the measurement of time easily but my mind wanders in a million directions when I consider the word and its ramifications:

*If we didn’t measure time would we age less rapidly because we weren’t consumed with its passing? Or would life become so meaningless from a lack of delineation that we would die sooner because we had no purpose?

*What if there were no day and night but time continued? Can you think of a more troubling existence than unremitting sunshine or non-stop darkness?

*When did time begin? If nothing existed before time began then why did we need time? Why would God implement a finite existence for everything on this earth when it would have been such a growth opportunity to let the same people, animals, plants evolve over thousands of years?

*Does God even measure time? If God has no beginning or end then does he need a watch? If he doesn’t, then who keeps track of when our time is up? If he does, then how bored is he after all these years?

Many reasonable and bright scientists would interject that God is only a concept invented by man out of need; man cannot conceive of a universe that is simultaneously random and orderly but outside the control of any one being, so we invented a friendly, yet demanding and all-powerful God to help us feel more secure and easily explain away the complex issues of death, suffering, etc (”it‘s all part of God‘s plan”).

The existence of God is a whole other post. If man-made deity is an issue you would like to explore read the novel by Margaret Atwood, “Oryx and Crake” (it is brilliantly written; she has enormous insight regarding science and also alludes to the concept of man-made deity with some of the most lyrical language I have ever read). For that matter one of my favorite books as a child was “A Wrinkle in Time”-which has nothing to do with this man-made deity but it’s fabulous.

It seems to me that time is some wild creature roaming unfettered in the mountains and hills of our lives. We can try to lasso it in with our technologies, try to contain it with anti-aging super foods and surgeries, we can even brand it with clocks, watches, etc but it cannot be domesticated; time is feral and time has been that way since time began.

I don’t understand it. So I apologize if I have wasted your time with this post. Of course I can only have wasted what was there to begin with…

Have you ever noticed a strange coincidence that you feel might be more than a coincidence? I believe it was Jung who described the conditions of synchronicity.

Well lately I have been having synchronicity when it comes to being exposed constantly to hearts. I mean the simplistic valentine shape not the human organ (how disturbing would that be? strolling down the street and I look down and there is a human heart…. If that were my synchronicity then I think you should rent the backhoe and start excavating the basement walls for the missing letter carrier).

I also realize that what you tend to be aware of seems to multiply (remember learning a new word and then you instantly see that word?) But this goes beyond a heightened awareness and is crossing the line into personal mini-phenomena.

In November 2007 I was shopping with a friend and I saw a key ring for sale in the shape of a modern heart; I liked the fob and I liked the mechanism so I bought it. I instantly switched my keys and pronounced to my friend one of my life long theories “change your key ring, change your life!” (I have about four such theories which I may share sometime, all are valid based on purely empirical evidence as measured by me and could change your life).

Since that day in November everywhere I go I see the cute, valentines-shaped hearts.
a. They have been found on the ground outside my house
b. One was left in the park I go to every day it was the middle of winter… placed on top of a picnic bench
c.  Two small hearts were on the binding of a book my friend just brought to a party last night (she brought it for me to borrow…she had never mentioned this book before nor ever loaned me a book but the book was Kitty GayHEART by Willa Cather)                      d. I woke up from a nap the other day and next to me (I promise) was a perfect miniature heart shaped piece of paper towel (perfect not “squint and see” but see outright defined, symmetrical and cute and no, Jesus wasn‘t on the heart nor did I see any other images in my toast etc)
e. My dog was running outside the other day and I saw something hanging from her mouth when I was able to borrow the jaws of life to pry it from her jaw I found it was a mailer postcard from an instant oil change company with a picture of a heart made of oil as the only visible image
f. Someone drew a heart from the salt left on the side of my car when I was volunteering at an event
g.  I received a mailing from a client and they included a heart paper weight for me but didn’t mention it at all in the documents or the memo that accompanied the package

I have dozens of such examples….

I only shared this heart situation with one friend; she was skeptical at first but has now acquiesced something odd is happening. But the question remains what does it mean? Is Cupid looking for a successor? Is the universe trying to make up for third grade when I didn’t get as many valentines in school as my friend Jessica?

I am not sure but what seems to resonate inside of me is that it is time to heal from a broken heart I incurred two years ago. The reasons don’t matter but they were not romantic–a devastating incident occurred that hurt me more than words can say.

I did what I needed to do to heal. I pulled my heart inside of me and went deeper and deeper into the concentric circles of introspection and protection. After a lot of prayer, meditation, and tears, I feel something lifting. I have been slowing peering out of the cave of my self-imposed healing hibernation and I think this “Heartapalooza” is God’s way of saying to me it is safe to again risk my heart by being fully engaged in life.

I see just now as I am typing this the symbolism of putting a heart on my key chain. This heart is helping me unlock doors to gain access to that which is closed off; what I need now is to turn the key to my own heart and again throw the door open to wind and rain and sunshine.

I feel more love for my world than ever before (a self imposed exile will allow you to appreciate it all so much more when you parole yourself) and more perfectly in synch with my self than I have ever been, so I now is the time for me to step outside the locked door and fully engage with everyone and everything in this beautiful, maddening planet. I am so grateful for keys and for doors and for hearts and mostly for the infinite number of chances we are given to live again and again.

So “change your key ring; change your life“…but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Loss has been a big factor in my life. It is a constant theme of being human and we all face it. It is just the cycle of loss started very early for me. My dad became sick before I was even a teenager; he died when I was just an adolescent. Then my brother died and then a further series of losses came my way.

By the time I was in my early twenties I began to feel like I could use some help in sorting through all that had happened and examining the impacts to my life and to me. I decided to go see a therapist. That was a big step for me because most of the time I liked to try and do things on my own and somehow I felt like a bit of a failure in needing to ask for help.

My experience was not good. The woman asked me what had brought me to her and how I was feeling and asked me to share my family history and dynamic. I was honest and the next session she started announcing all these theories. She didn’t let me talk; she just kept cutting me off and saying “you don’t want to hear this but…”. The crux of her theory was that no one loved me.

Now I can tell you that there were times when my needs definitely took a back seat to those of ill family members and I was more than OK with that fact, but I also knew simply by being exposed to the lives of my friends that it wasn’t the experience of most children.

However the therapist couldn’t know the way my Mom took care of me when I was sick, she didn’t see the way my Mom comforted me after disappointments, she didn’t know how my Mom kept the house in such an orderly way and made us such wonderful meals even while nursing my Dad through terminal cancer, the therapist never saw the countless sacrifices she made so I and my siblings wouldn’t go without. She couldn’t have known the warmth my Mom gave to my life…it was done in love and it was love.

This therapist couldn’t have seen the way my Dad’s eyes lit up when I walked into the room, heard him take time every night to discuss in depth with me what I was studying in school, she wasn’t with me and my Dad when we took mini (one day) road trips to visit my uncle and my Dad would patiently answer every question I asked and I had so many (how does electricity work? how does TV work?, etc) She couldn’t have felt what it was like when my Dad would rock me to sleep every night when I was an infant and suffering with colic (so much so that the rocker he used broke and he caught me when I flew up in the air as he flew to the ground, this was one of the little legendary stories all families have and repeat). My Dad was the most loving and giving man I have known and he showed it freely to me.

I knew about the concept of “denial” so I took a week or so to think about it. I examined both my feelings about her theories and my history and used that, which could be measured and that which is simply known deep inside, and I decided that she was completely wrong. She didn’t understand me; she was rigid in her approach; she was more focused on being right than on what I needed. I didn’t go back.

I instead turned to poetry and journaling to devise a specific way for me to revisit the painful episodes in my past and to try and release the feelings that might negatively impact me in the future. I used stream of consciousness techniques, which is generally not a part of poetry (not spending any time agonizing over word choices but more in trying to tell my story in an immediate way that evoked the feelings of the time). I also designated special journals for healing, spent time a great deal of time in prayer and meditation and shared what I was feeling (and sometimes what I wrote) with those closest to me who I could trust with my pain.

It helped me move on…imperfectly (that is life) but it allowed me to tell my story and for some reason that has always been immensely important to me.

Now I also believe in and advocate mental health care. People cannot do it on their own in situations where there are serious chemical imbalances or in any situation where they feel overwhelmed to the point of being hopeless or that their life is without joy. Sometimes even seemingly minor things can be worked out easier with the help of a guide. I feel that seeking the help of a trained professional for our mental health is no different than seeking out a doctor for another condition; we just add our own self-stigmas.

A couple of years ago I again faced a giant trauma. This time the effects were so devastating that I decided I needed a professional’s guidance and assistance in sorting through the pain and the feelings so that I could more quickly regain a feeling of being whole. I found a wonderful therapist who was compassionate but who called me on things that I needed to consider, who was wise but really let me come to my own conclusions, who was reliable and very much a trusted advisor. He helped me immensely; I was able to release a lot of the effects of the trauma and move on.

I advocate the help of a professional to all those who are feeling overwhelmed and who just can’t seem to get it together emotionally…seek help. Just be sure the person who is helping you is a good fit for your situation and that they really understand and value you.

I wrote this poem a few months ago; it is part of a book that (ironically due to how it was written with little editing and no agonizing) will be published later this year. This poem recalls the first time I saw a therapist. I again used stream of consciousness.

If you or someone you know wants to clarify and release the pain of memories, just pull out a pad of paper and a pencil or your laptop, go somewhere quiet where you will have uninterrupted time and remember. Remember what it was like, make notes in your head or on the paper of the exact feelings. Then think of images and descriptors; for example I remembered this woman had giant, bushy, eyebrows that she kept raising; I also remembered her office was well decorated and everything looked very expensive. Then use the event to tell a story and those images to translate your feelings into a poem.

I don’t spend more than 3-4 minutes on the whole process. The poetry doesn’t have to be perfect; it is the highest form or art to take that which is painful and to mine its life changing properties for healing. You will be a true artist of life–the best kind of artist!

God bless–if you are suffering please trust things will get better and you are not alone. If you need help then ask for it and don’t settle for anything less than what you deserve. You are special and you matter.

The therapist drums her pencil
On her notebook that looks expensive

“Focus” she says
“On your childhood… it wasn’t good
Though all parents disappoint”
The bridges over her eyes meet
Furry spans on which to cross her theories

“Now it’s really quite clearly
A case where you weren’t truly loved
It’s nothing to cry about
Oh look our time is out
Next week let’s delve deeper”

I exit the office and muse
My eyes fixed on the pavement
“Wait, where did I get these shoes?”
Blue Mary Janes with a bow?
And did my feet somehow shrink?
Now they won’t reach the clutch
How will I get home?

I see the big wheel unattended
He won’t mind if I borrow his ride
I peddle so hard that I don’t notice
I ‘m 20 years past my street sign

When I first moved into the area where I am now living I had a daily work commute that took me down a street that cut through the heart of a suburb. The street was lined with very expensive homes intermixed with the occasional rehabbed farmhouse but, other than the yards/lots of the homes, there was no vacant land.

There was one exception to all the development; at one intersection there was a grove of very old trees. There had to be 40 of these incredibly tall, beautiful trees that someone had had the foresight to plant far enough away from one another so you could still see light through them and see every tree; it left the viewer with an impression of grandeur combined with spaciousness.

I would inevitably get stopped at the traffic light for this intersection but even after a long, stressful, day I would welcome the delay. Staring at those trees and the beauty of that lot refreshed me. It was my favorite part of the commute.

I changed jobs and residences so it has been a while since I passed that corner. One day I did and I was horrified. Trees still stand on the lot but someone has now cut down many of them and replaced them with a giant, modern, silver and black sculpture. I love art and I create it so I appreciate the affect of incongruity but only if it is done with a holistic vision. This sculpture is so very out of place that it is jarring.

I now live in a small suburb close to one of the Great Lakes. I love walking to the lake every day and I often take advantage of a walking path that borders the lake. The walking path is shaped in a figure eight and has inclines and several lovely trees; there are some picnic benches that are strategically placed, but all and all the focus is on nature. The best aspect of this trail to me is that no matter what part of the trail you are on you can always see the lake.

The same week that I saw that a sculpture had displaced those 100 year old trees, I was equally horrified when I went to the walking trails to discover that someone had obscured a view by placing a giant bronze sculpture of a sailboat in a newly placed flower bed.

I appreciate the thought and the efforts of all the well-meaning people who seek to enhance the life of a community via the placement of sculpture and art and flower beds in parks. I, personally, don’t think you can improve upon what was already created by God. I do think that if we all just focus more on enjoying the beauty we find naturally in our commutes and our communities; then we will also focus on preserving the most beautiful sculpture of all….planet earth as exhibited by nature.

I believe it was Matthew Arnold in the poem Dover Beach who wrote: “Getting and spending we lay waste our powers, little we see in nature that is ours”.