Feeling Grateful

New Year's Day!

I'm feeling GRATEFUL to be surrounded by the people I love...

People I enjoy hanging out with... 

Living in SURROUNDINGS I enjoy ... 

Feeling HEALTHY and strong. (Even though, as I write this, Terry and I both have colds!)

What else do I need?!

Interesting things to do? I have more than enough UNFINISHED PROJECTS - crafts and creative pursuits - to keep me busy all year.

It's a beautiful world out there! I'm thankful to be part of it, to be alive!

Two Ways of Looking at My Home

My life, over the past month, has revolved around two books - Marie Kondo's, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, (which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to restore a sense of order at home). And a book on re-igniting creativity, entitled, It's Never Too Late to Begin Again, co-authored by Julia Cameron, whose book, The Artist's Way, is one of my all-time favorites.

Marie Kondo suggests that, before we begin to de-clutter our homes, we look at different rooms and imagine what we would like them to look like.

I found this exercise helpful and inspirational. It motivated me to move things I didn't want in a room to another place (usually the basement or my upstairs sewing/craft area).

Later, I plan to go to these temporary storage areas and decide whether to keep the stuff or not, asking myself the now-famous question: "Do they spark joy?"

At the same time, I found it interesting that one exercise in It's Never Too Late to Begin Again suggests sitting in a room in our home, one that we don't usually spend a lot of time in, viewing it from a different angle - simply appreciating what it is that we enjoy about that room..

I don't remember why the authors suggest doing this...! (I've been looking - unsuccessfully - to try to locate the rationale.) But I did find the it helped me appreciate not only my home, but also my life, which my home reflects... It restored a sense of contentment - and appreciation.

Is Complaining Bad for Your Health?!!

Everyone likes to vent from time to time... But is it bad for one's health?!

I came across an article recently that claims that complaining and negative stress in general aren't healthy. If you're interested in reading the article, there is a link to it above.

According to this article, brain research studies show that spreading negative energy and negative stress impair the brains of both the griper and the listener. That sounds serious!

Perhaps it's time to pull out my  "Positive Thinking" resources and remind myself to be thankful, focusing on solutions rather than problems, appreciating every stage of life, every single day!

Decreasing Stress

This summer, I've been listening to audio books while working on "mindless" projects, like knitting and organizing parts of the house.

I'm currently listening to a library copy of Joyce Meyer's book, Over Load, a Christian self-help book about dealing with stress.

Will this book have anything to teach me? I wondered. My life is no longer as stressful as it once was. After all, I can choose what I want and don't want to do, every day now that I'm retired.






But I have picked up a few tips. Here are a few that I jotted down:

1. Be thankful and say so - it will change the atmosphere we live in - and increase our joy.

2. Be a person who encourages others.

3. Rather than rehearse our problems (or our aches and pains), remember the problems we've come through - and count our blessings. Think and talk about God's goodness.

4. Don't compare ourselves to others. Other people's gifts are a benefit to us and the world, but we can only enjoy them if we aren't jealous.

5. Worry decreases when we speak and hear hope-filled words.

As I listen to the book, I am reminded of my mother's positive attitude, even during the last few years of her life.

This is a good place to be when you need help, she'd say of the nursing home where she lived. The people are kind, the food is good. They look after us very well.

I knew they did - but her words helped me accept her declining health: I knew she was happy.

Thanksgiving Challenge: Thanking God for the Good... and the Bad

I have been reading Barbara Brown Taylor's book of sermons entitled Mixed Blessing. In it is a sermon she preached one Thanksgiving - about giving thanks for the good and the bad in life. Here is part of her conclusion:

Our challenge this Thanksgiving morning is to... learn to... say "thank you" [to God] for the whole mess, the things we welcome as well as the things we would risk our souls to escape...

God is God, and our lives are our lives, and we can love them or leave them, give thanks for them or whittle them away with regret. Our dare... is to embrace all that we have ever been and done and haul it up to lay upon the altar, and there to recognize our lives as... outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace. Every single occurrence in our lives is to be understood as an invitation to draw closer to God... and therefore worthy of praise and blessing and thanksgiving...

Thankful...

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving... I'm glad we have this holiday to remind us to be thankful...

Recently going through a box of school assignments I had saved from my children's childhood days, I came across this Thanksgiving assignment - with illustrations! Here is what an 8-year-old boy was thankful for:

I'm thankful for all my hands can hold: apple green, money, t.v. controler, gum, toys, Nintendo controler. [Apple green? Oh, yes... he always did love Granny Smith apples!]

I'm thankful for all my eyes can see: A baseball game, cats, dogs, t.v., cars, baseball bats.

I'm thankful for all my ears can hear: music, t.v., noise, sea.

What am I thankful that I can hold, see and hear today?!

The Secret of Happiness

Years ago I read a fascinating book entitled Celebration of Discipline.

It spoke about the benefits of integrating traditional spiritual practices into our modern lives.

I found the book so interesting because I had always viewed spiritual discipline as an ancient medieval concept abandoned by the modern church. But here a modern theologian (and a Quaker at that) was encouraging us to bring these practices back into our lives. I was faced with the question: Should I make meditation, fasting, confession (and so on) part of my life as well?


Recently I came across a reference to a new "discipline" in a different book, Strength for the Journey. Renee Miller writes about the "discipline" of gratitude: "Gratitude may flit across the canvas of our souls from time to time when we experience some unexpected moment of grace, but it does not usually flow like a steady mountain stream all through the day."

On the chapter on gratitude, the author suggests making a list of 100 things for which we are thankful. A list that long may bring us face to face, not only with all the good things we enjoy - but also with "pockets of brightness" in the midst of dark struggles.

I think of my mother - happy in the midst of dark times (blind and unable to walk in a nursing home) - daily grateful for the good food and care she daily receives. In fact, she often says: This is a good place to be when you need help. The food is good. The care is good. I don't think there is a better place than this.

Is gratitude (like a steady mountain stream) the secret to happiness? If so, it is a discipline we should all want to develop in our lives. Is regularly writing out 100 things for which we are thankful a good way to start?

Happiness is...

Do I need to re-think what happiness is?!

I was recently reminded that "... Happiness is not a period of time in anybody's life. It is a different moment every day."

This thought explains my mother's contentment at small pleasures - like going outside for a breath of fresh air, after a long winter indoors, or her joy in singing.

To the comment above, Joan Chittister adds: "We spend so much time wanting what we do not have. Be careful that your longings don't erase today."

Good advice for anyone - regardless of age or stage of life!

Flowers, Food and Friends

I always enjoy visiting Vera.














Her house overflows with plants...














... and good cheer.

And she enjoys hosting parties...














... like her "almost-annual" alumni reunion...

...  a pot-luck party for those of us who worked together for many, many years. Such a great idea!

Praying For My Mother

My mother isn't happy about the changes in her life. She has always been a healthy, active person. Now at 93, she finds walking difficult and one eye is almost blind from macular degeneration. (Thankfully cataract surgery has given her good vision in the other eye.)

Call it lack of faith - or reality - I don't expect her physical problems to go away.

(Grandma, Terry reminds her, when she gets annoyed at her physical ailments. Your body is like a car that's been used for many years - parts are beginning to wear out!)

So how should I pray for her, knowing she probably won't get better?

I have begun focusing not so much on my mother's losses, but praying that she will continue to enjoy life. So I find it gratifying that she still gets excited about the schedule of activities for the coming week... And later, when I leave, she is so busy talking to another resident that she forgets to wave goodbye!

Living With Gratitude

I enjoy drawing, in part because it causes me to slow down and stare - long and hard - at something quite ordinary until I appreciate the intricacies of its shape and shadings. I begin to see things I never noticed before.

In the same way, I often need to be reminded to slow down and appreciate the ordinary in everyday life. As Esther de Waal writes:

"A thankful heart seems such a simple thing , and yet I find that it is something I so easily forget and have so constantly to renew. I no longer let myself be surprised by the sheer miracle that every dawn the sun rises again. If I thought each morning that, like some prima donna, it was positively its last appearance then I might not so lightly take it for granted. When I have lost the gift of wonder, I have ceased to live gratefully... To live gratefully re-lights my awareness and re-kindles my love, for the capacity for true sight cannot really be exercised apart from ... the capacity to see with love and delight, with wonder and tenderness, and above all with gratitude."

(Living With Contradiction, p. 81)

Plants on Vacation

Indoor plants are lovely - but they depend on regular watering. This can be a problem if you need to go on vacation.


















Years ago I read that indoor plants can thrive for weeks without watering if they are placed in large plastic bags - creating a temporary terrarium.














Recently I tried it again.














After watering the plants and pouring off excess water, I closed up each plastic bag and left the plants (for several weeks) in a sunny room away from direct sunlight.

But I made a mistake. One of my African violets wasn't looking perfect; however, I thought a few weeks in a humid terrarium might revive it...














But instead, it died - and the moldy condition that was affecting it infected the other plants in the same bag. So the lesson I learned was - if a plant looks less than perfectly healthy, keep it in a separate bag by itself. It may not survive, but at least it won't infect ny plants.














The other two bags of plants did really well! The plants came out looking refreshed - as if they had enjoyed their little greenhouse "vacation"!

I Give Thanks!

Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada... (It's Columbus Day in the USA.)

Today - all weekend, in fact - I have been giving thanks...














... for family and friends...














... for joy in creativity...














...for health and strength...














... and growth - not only in my garden...


















But also in our family...














... as we joyfully celebrated an engagement this year!














For all this...














...and much, much more ... I give God thanks!

Thankful for... (Part 2)

I have become an armchair traveler... enjoying emails and pictures from friends who share their travel adventures...

Yesterday I shared one misadventure of a friend. Today I'd like to share another tidbit from her email...

Without mentioning the country she was in, I'd like to quote her again...

"The city is a real mixture of old and new, and different ethnic groups. Our guide was a very knowledgeable ... man who reeled off lots of facts and figures and assured us that there was no poverty or unemployment ... unless people chose to live that way. Beggars and the homeless are very much in evidence. After the tour he privately told a couple of us that he was not allowed to say anything critical or negative about the government and faced a possible 3 years in jail if he did. "

So again... today, I'm thankful for... the FREEDOM to tell the truth - as I see it - without the risk of being thrown into prison for simply criticizing the government...

Thankful for...

Sometimes I hear something that makes me very THANKFUL for what I have...














Here in Canada I often forget to be thankful for simple essentials like... WATER.














(In fact, most years we get so much rain that we actually COMPLAIN about it, forgetting what a precious resource it really is!)

But recently a traveling friend sent an email about her summer holidays and mentioned an airport adventure:

"I had to go via Dubai and had a 3 hour stopover there. None of the toilets in the whole of Dubai airport were working, due to there being no water to flush them with, which made for an interesting 3 hours and a lot of people walking around looking extremely worried. "

Hmmmmm. I can't even begin to imagine!! It never occurred to me that our water-based sanitation system would pose such a problem in desert countries...

(They would probably shut the airport down if that happened here in Ottawa!)

In our part of Canada, we have had a lovely hot, sunny summer so far...

Now when it does cloud over and begin to rain, I promise not to complain!

God's Teaching Style

One educational expert claims that we learn…

• 10 percent of what we read,
  
• 20 percent of what we hear,
  
• 30 percent of what we see,
• 50 percent of what we see and hear,
  
• 70 percent of what we discuss with others,
  
• 80 percent of what we experience, and
  
• 95 percent of what we teach to someone. (William Glasser)
  

(And, of course, our most effective learning happens when we do all of the above!)

I have been reflecting on God's teaching style... Like all good teaching, it has two parts: theory and practice.

Theory is essential. It is important to learn about God... to learn what God loves and deplores, what He has done in the past and plans to do in the future. We learn all this through personal Bible reading and listening to talks and sermons by knowledgeable Biblical experts.

Being active in a Christian community is also important. Active church involvement allows us to see God in action, as we watch people change, pray for the sick to be healed, and have opportunities to learn from each other and encourage each other. Discussing faith issues in small groups also helps us learn and grow... We also "teach" by sharing what we have learned with friends we trust...

But this (in teaching terms) is classroom stuff ...

Real learning cannot occur without real-life practice... testing the theory. Often this involves experiencing difficult times - when we can do nothing but TRUST GOD TO ACT, because nothing we do seems to be doing much good!

This part of learning really isn't much fun! But it is essential! If we claim to have faith in God, we need to know what this means. When we come to the point where we really can do nothing to help ourselves... and we need help desperately ... Then cry out in prayer to a loving Father God who is there...

When God comes to the rescue (and He will!) ... When we experience God's intervention again and again and again... we learn to TRUST our "CAN-DO-WILL-DO" LOVING GOD.

TRUST is the first thing a child has to learn to develop into an emotionally healthy adult...

TRUST is also essential in a life of faith. As we learn to TRUST GOD again and again and again... (over a lifetime!) we will - hopefully - eventually get it!

Yet, for some reason, TRUST is something I (personally) also constantly need to RE-LEARN! (Like food, my TRUST seems to have a limited shelf-life!) I keep going back to thinking that it's all up to me - when in reality it's a joint effort... I do what I can... pray... and TRUST GOD TO HELP THE GOOD STUFF GROW!

Over time we realize that we need to trust God for EVERYTHING!

That's all there is!!

Everything we have - health, family, friends, homes, jobs - are all gifts from God.

But the reality of that is only learned through experience.

Good Deeds are... Good for Us??!

In a counseling course, Terry learned that people often quit seeing a counselor... just when they are beginning to get to the essence of the problem. They start to feel the pain - and, rather than lance the blister, they walk away, leaving it to fester some more.

Perhaps that's why I left Debbie Macomber's book, One Simple Act for the past few days! I would read a bit, but when it came to the action part - the challenge to put generosity into action, I'd close the book and tell myself, I'll think about this another time.

Do a good deed every day. When I was growing up, this expression was in common usage. A boy scouts' goal, the concept filtered down into society as a whole. I wonder if we were kinder and gentler back then. I'm not sure, though I'm attracted by the concept of giving... and receiving more kindness.

In her book, Debbie challenges readers to consciously look for ways to help others - because kindness and generosity, like viruses, spread.

As an added impetus, she mentions a study that concludes that:

"Helping lessens the effects of both physical and mental disease, reduces stress, and gives you a rush of happiness..."

"The volunteers...testified to feeling a rush of euphoria, followed by a longer period of calm, after performing a kind act. This feeling, ... [a] "helper's high," involves physical sensations that strongly indicate a sharp reduction in stress and the release of the body's natural painkillers, the endorphins. This initial rush is then followed by a longer-lasting period of improved emotional well-being."

In a recent blog post on 1000 Awesome Things, the author mentions how learning to share his lunch in kindergarten ended his shyness and lack of self-confidence.

All this leaves me reflecting on how I can live more generously, attempting to consciously participate in random acts of kindness.

(And I'll try not to put away the book until it's done!)

Thankful!

Summer is here - and every day when I open the new storm doors - I'm THANKFUL for the light they bring in. (We installed two last fall - one in the front and one in the back.)


















It's like having two more large windows in the house!

I'm also THANKFUL for the flowers in bloom, like...














Anemones (with the variegated purple lamium behind them)...














Here is a close-up of an anemone, its golden center resembling a crown...

I bought a small lamium plant a few years ago at a yard sale, and it is now growing into an ever-expanding mound. I moved some of it last year, and I will probably divide it again.














Here is a close-up of a lamium flower..














Galium, this ground cover with white flowers is spreading under a tree.














And this shiny ivy - which is taking over part of my back flower bed - is currently in bloom with tiny flowers.














As I puzzle over the names of flowers (and weeds), I'm also THANKFUL for Rob, my knowledgeable neighbor, who usually comes to my rescue and tells me what are called!

The Power of ... Gratitude

Not long ago, I read a review of a book by Debbie Macomber entitled One Simple Act: Discovering the Power of Generosity.














Intrigued, I ordered the book online.

In the first chapter, Debbie mentions the Quaker practice of keeping gratitude journals - daily writing lists of things they were grateful for. After reading about it, she herself started to do the same thing, in a little notebook she nicknamed her "Ode to Joy."

She later came across some some astonishing scientific findings about the power of being grateful...

• Researchers at the University of California and the University of Miami discovered that "people who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer illness symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded troubles or neutral life events...

• ... participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress over a two-month period toward their most important personal goals - academic, interpersonal, and health based - compared to ... their control group..."

She also mentions that a professor of bioethics observed five positive results of being grateful:

1. "...Just fifteen minutes a day focusing on the things you're grateful for will significantly increase your body's natural antibodies."

2. "...grateful people are more focused mentally and ... less vulnerable to clinical depression."

3. "... healthier blood pressure and heart rate..."

4. "...grateful caregivers are healthier..."

5. "Recipients of donated organs who have the most grateful attitudes heal faster."














Hmmmm... Maybe I should give it a try, too!

Experiencing Failure

My daughter recently sent me a link to an interesting read: the commencement address given by J.K. Rowling (the successful author of the Harry Potter books) at Harvard in June 2008. Ironically, her topic is not "How to Make Millions Writing a Best Seller" - which she has done - but “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination," in which she tells how, in her words, "rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."

Her talk made me reflect on my own crushed dreams - and how these disappointments steered me away from certain courses of action, and towards others.

I have always admired people who get right back on the horse they have just fallen off of, so to speak. Successful athletes have that kind of dogged determination. But that's not my style. I need more time to recover and "heal": after failing at something that matters to me, I tend to back off, re-evaluate, and then - if I am still interested - go back, approaching the situation from a different angle. I try not to fail twice in exactly the same way!

As for poverty (which went hand-in-hand with Rowling's early "failures") - I have always valued the years when I had to count every penny. They taught me so much. That's why I have never wished for any of my children to experience financial success early in life, though of course, I always wanted them to have enough money to be able to follow their dreams. For me, struggling financially forced me to decide what was truly important to me... The experience of being poor - and knowing that I could still be happy living a simple life, without a lot of money - was an important lesson for me to learn. It is a lesson I would like them to learn as well...

Of course, I always had enough to meet my basic needs - but learning what those basic needs were was what it was all about.

In retrospect, it is interesting to see how "failures" in life are often the greatest learning experiences of all - if, of course, one is able to move on and learn from them, and eventually experience a measure of success.