stained glass

People are like stained-glass windows.

They sparkle and shine when the sun is out,but when the darkness sets in,their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
   - Elizabeth Kübler-Ross.

perspective

I've been reading my history.   "Asheville started out a primitive outpost in the 1700's.  Frontiersmen such as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett traveled through Cherokee country in the early days.  Asheville was basically a crossroads of Indian trails on a plateau surrounded by mountains and rivers on all sides."  They saw this land as wide-open hunting grounds.  

Over the next one hundred years the frontiersmen turned to visionaries, builders and poets.  "George W. Vanderbilt came to Asheville in the late 1880s and quickly purchased 120,000 acres to build his grand estate. The endeavor took six years and Vanderbilt commissioned renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to design the grounds and gardens, and celebrated architect Richard Morris Hunt to help him plan the house."  Edwin Grove got rich bringing the pharmaceutical business to Asheville.  Thomas Wolfe was born here and wrote a novel that brought attention to the little city.  This was a town of promise.

My 104 year-old friend talks about being a young boy and driving a horse-pulled wagon up Biltmore Avenue.  Every once in a while, he would have to pull over as a lone, new fangled car would make it's way down the street, frightening the horses.  This was a changing city.

Over the years, people have looked at this same area of land and seen different perspectives, different obstacles, different possibilities.

I got a wonderful view flying out of Asheville last Friday afternoon.  Before we disappeared above the clouds I could see miles of forests surrounding areas of buildings and traffic. The French Broad river winding past the beautiful Biltmore House.  I could see the hospital and college.  And then the quarry near my house.  Everything looks so different from the air.  

A few hours later I was landing in Los Angeles International Airport.  Same me.  Different place.  I needed some new perspectives.

One day I am home watching snow fall.  A couple days later I'm walking through palm trees, feeling the desert air. 

One day I am at work, sitting in a log cabin, listening to a hospice patient teach me how to hunt bear.  In less then a week I am wandering through the de Young Art Museum in San Francisco studying a Vermeer painting.

I ate at The Spaghetti Factory, picked lemons, drove down Hwy 101 and saw family I hadn't seen in a long time.  From out there I got to see my life here from a different perspective.  And saw clearly what my next learning curve is.

It is time to be really happy.  To let go of stress, and survival mode, and wanting more.  Time to revel in the richness of my blessings.

This isn't a new thought.  It has been building from several things I am reading.

Taisen Deshimaru's simple quote.  "If you are not happy here and now, you never will be."

Laura Munson's incredible story. This Is Not The Book You Think It Is.  

     "Poignant, wise, and often exceedingly funny, this is the moment-by- moment memoir of a woman who decided to let go-in the midst of the emotional equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane. It recounts what happened as Munson set out on her spiritual journey-and provides raw, powerful inspiration to anyone searching for peace in an utterly unpredictable world."

Ann Voskamp's dare to "live fully right where you are"  in her bestseller One Thousand Gifts.

And David's reminder in Psalms 16:11 "In Your presence is fullness of joy."

Same me.  Better views.  More gratitude.  More happiness.

blessings

I love biblical stories of blessings.  God blessing the earth.  God blessing the Sabbath day. God blessing humans. Humans blessing humans.

A blessing is defined as the infusion of something with holiness, spiritual redemption, divine will, or one's hope or approval.  Blessing someone is not limited to Bible times or biblical characters.  It is happening all around us.

In Hinduism, a guest at the table is blessed as the host cup their down-tuned hands over a candle flame and then raise their palms to their foreheads.  This symbolizes the blessing being given and received from each other's company.  

Observant Jews are instructed to say 100 blessings a day.

The Talmud states “It is forbidden to taste the pleasures of this world without a blessing.”

In Hawaii anything new (a new building, a new stretch of road to be opened, a new garden) receives a specific blessing by a Hawaiian practitioner

Young couples often choose an old Irish blessing for their wedding.  May the road rise up to meet you.  May the wind always be at your back.....

Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book An Altar in the World, encourages us to be more open to bestowing blessings.

She writes that our blessings do not confer holiness.  The holiness is already there. Pronouncing a blessing is our acknowledgement of the extraordinary, the movement of God.  And the key to blessing people and things is knowing they beat you to it.  You have to realize how much you have already been blessed.

She writes "All I am saying is that anyone can do this.  Anyone can ask and anyone can bless, whether anyone has authorized you to do it or not.  All I am saying is that the world needs you to do this, because there is a real shortage of people willing to kneel whenver they are and recognize the holiness holding its sometimes bony, often tender always life-giving hand above their heads.  That we are able to bless on another at all is evidence that we have been blessed, whether we can remember when or not.  That we are willing to bless one another is miracle enough to stagger the very stars. "

Her words inspired me.  I felt the urge to raise my hands over something.  To speak words of promise.  To acknowledge the extraordinary and to recognize how I have been blessed.  I want to say more blessings - to my family, to my front door, to the little spring flowers peaking up too early in the yard...

I remembered Taylor's words as I thought about what to say at the beginning of our last team meeting of 2012.  I remembered Jacob's words to the angel in Genesis.  "I will not let you go until you bless me."

We ended the year with this blessing.

May this table continue to be a place of sharing, commradary and friendship.

May the lives you have been a part of this year give you wisdom and satisfaction.

May the gentleness and compassion you have show, be given back to you again and again.

May the warmth you have brought to others , now warm you on cold days.

May there be moments of rest where your heart and soul find replenishing peace and quiet.

May there be moments of noise – laughter, energy and adventure.

May you never lose your curiosity, your sense of purpose, your calling.

May you continue to see beauty in the faces of your patients.

May you be filled with joy.

May it be so…

night owls

All the leaves are brown, 

And the sky is grey

I went for a walk on a winter's day

I'd be safe and warm if I was in L.A.

California dreamin' 

on such a winter's day

I stopped into a church 

I passed along the way

You know, I got down on my knees

And I pretend to pray

Oh, the preacher likes the cold

He knows I'm gonna stay

Oh, California dreamin' on such a winter's day.

Written by John and Michelle Phillips, © 1966

That is the song in my head right now. It's dark and cold.  And quiet.  It's the time of year that makes me long for sunny beaches, sweaty trail runs, tshirts and bare feet.  It's hard to get out of bed, hard to leave the house, hard to be "sunny".

The darkness isn't just a weather thing.  We keep getting phone calls announcing sickness and treatment plans.  Loved ones are moving across country, from "any time-around the corner" here, to only vacations and plane trips away. Our case loads drop dramatically in the winter due to death.  Our spirits are gray and grim.  Life is mean sometimes.

And the quiet isn't just a sound thing.  There is a quiet after the festivities of Christmas.  There is a quiet that comes from gritting through and a quiet in withdrawing.  There is a "winter of the soul" when God's light is not so obvious.  When even God is quiet.

A couple nights ago I was standing on my front porch at 3:00 AM.  I wrapped a cozy blanket around me as I waited in the dark for our puppy to circle the yard and find her perfect pooping spot. I am never outside at 3:00 AM and was captivated by the stillness, the twinkling stars and crisp air.  I stood perfectly still soaking it all in.  Then, through the quiet, something fluttered down to the ground about two feet from me.  I stared at a little brown and white owl, oblivious to my presence. He had a beautiful round face and soft feathers.  He grabbed a worm, then flew up to a branch next to me.  After gulping it down, he fluttered back down to the sidewalk next to me and stood quietly with me.  Until puppy came bounding back and the little owl flew off.

It was a magical moment.  Somehow it felt like a holy gift.  I crawled back into my warm bed feeling incredibly lucky to have been a part of the night.  I thought about the saying, scrawled in chalk, on our office wall.  "If you love SURPRISES, you are going to love LIFE."

I want to remember, in the cold, in the darkness, that there will be another summer.  The sun will shine again.  And in the meantime there will be warm blankets, hot chocolate, starry skies.  There may even be an owl or two.

In Still, Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, Lauren Winner talks about how, no matter what life brings you, "two years from now you will know some things about God that you don't know now."  And through the times where God is silent "You begin to think that maybe you can wait in the company of God's silence and see what you can see, about this God, about yourself.  Later still: Maybe this silence, this absence, is a gift.  Maybe what began as punishment is being converted to become an experience of God's strangeness, God's mystery.  You think:  Maybe I am being shown something here, if I would look, if I would see.  You think of these words from the prophet Zephaniah: He will shout with joy for you, He will jump for you in jubilation, He will be silent in His love."

superb!

He had made thousands of smooth landings in his years as a pilot for Pan Am.  But today he was nervous.  Today he was flying a full plane, and in first class were a group of Russian Naval Intelligence officers traveling from Washington D.C. to New York City.  As they began the descent, George decided this was going to be the smoothest landing those officers had ever experienced.  He worked the controls and guided the plane down until the wheels slid onto the runway.  A "mother's kiss" landing, as it was known to the pilots.  Gentle as a whisper.  When the plane reached the gate and stopped, George took his place at the cockpit door to nod at the passengers.

The Russian Naval Intelligence officers were soon at the door.  The stewardess greeted them and then turned to their leader.  "What did you think of our landing today?" she asked him.

In his deep Russian accent, the man boomed one word.  "SUPERB!" and walked off the plane.  George felt the word echoing through the plane and in his ears all day.  SUPERB!  He loved that word. "Marked to the highest degree by grandeur, excellence, brilliance, or competence."  He loved how he felt when the word was directed at him.  George decided he wanted to use that word regularly.  To find people and actions around him that merited that word.  Every day.  And so he began to look, and notice and pronounce SUPERB! whenever he could.

One day it was the service he received in a diner.  One his check stub he wrote a one word note to the waitress.  SUPERB!  The next day a plane's mechanic heard the word.  The next day it was proclaimed to anyone listening about the subway's efficiency.  And then a sunrise....

George told me this story this week.  Right after our hospice had been rewarded with a loud SUPERB!  The Russian officers had flow with George in 1971.  For over 40 years George has been looking for excellence.  And finding it all around him.

I shared this story with my team the next morning.  I talked about how many times they do amazing work in private.  For one patient, or one family member.  I reminded them of their value and asked them to hear that Russian officer in their minds, looking over their shoulder and exclaiming "SUPERB!"

And then I began my awareness of the superb all around me, to remind me of all there is to be thankful for.

like today -
a toasty heater in my bathroom, cutting the cold
two hot air balloons floating in the crisp, autumn sky as we drove to school
the buzz of coworkers, full of friendly chatter around our long, work table
Urban Burrito's delicious Bonehead salad and a diet coke
speed dial.  And a crystal clear connection that instantly links me to California
the efficiency of the Bilo grocery clerk
the laughter of my three men playing football in the leaves.

SUPERB! indeed.

tough mudders

This came in my email yesterday.

Erin is now a Tough Mudder and the owner of an orange headband.   Orange finisher headbands are never for sale. They can only be earned over 11+ miles of mud, fire, freezing cold water and challenging obstacles....

I still can't believe we did it!



There were awesome highlights.  *Making the trip with 5 really great women - Tough and encouraging! (That's Lisa, me, Heather L, Heather M, Shane, and Tanya taking the picture) 
*The purple Tough Mommas shirts that Heather designed.  
*Ploughing though the mud mile together.  *Spectators cheering the Tough Mommas on.  
*The beautiful  Moree's Sportsman Preserve we ran through.

There were awful parts.  Jumping into a huge trough of ice known as the arctic enema and swimming under a plank.  Not fun.  Getting shocked in the electric eel.  Not fun.   Wishing I had a lot more upper body strength.  Not fun.

But what has stayed with me most all week was an obstacle at the end of the course called Everest.  

Everest is, to quote the website, A quarter-pipe that you’ll have to sprint up and enlist the help of other Mudders to hurl you over this beastly summit. Everest is coated in mud and grease, a combination which will likely send you right back from where you came. Call upon other Mudders to catch you as you run up the quarter-pipe or work together to form a human chain so that you can scale someone’s shoulders to finally summit Everest.

I dreaded Everest all day.  And by the time we got there I was mud caked, beaten and spent.  I worried that the strong men helping people up the wall were probably already tired from aiding all the 90 pound spandexed women up, and might not be thrilled to see me coming.  And I was ready to be done.

But there is a no whining rule on the Tough Mudder course.  So I sucked it up and made a run for it.  Up to the wall as far as I could run.  I reached for the outstretched hands and made contact.  Then slipped out of their grasp and thudded back down the wall into a heap at the bottom.  Embarrassed, I stepped off the course.  At least I tried.

A photographer was standing nearby.  "You can do it!" He pep talked me.  "You have come this far.  I will help you.  You just need a little push from behind."  So I headed back to the starting line, and made the run again. Run, stretch, grab the hands, slip, fall.  Only this time I took out the photographer on my way down. 

A staff member was watching.  He had a shaved head, wore the bright yellow Mudder shirt and had helped countless others today.  He grabbed my hand and pulled me off the bottom of the half pipe where I was crumpled.  "We are doing this."  He said confidently.  "It is my mission in life to get you over this wall."  By now a crowd had gathered.  The event's main announcer was perched on the wall giving commentary on my attempts.  I was shaking and mortified.  Yellow man and the photographer ran with me up the pipe.  But I couldn't grab the outstretched hands tight enough and again I slid down.  

Yellow man stood me in front of the pipe.  Then he ran around the back and climbed up.  He leaned way over the ledge, calling for other guys to hold his legs.  Then he yelled for me to run hard.  Once again I ran, I reached, I grabbed.  But this time he was the one to catch me and he held on tight. He pulled me up and yelled for others to get my legs.  Suddenly I was over the ledge and laying on the top of Everest. The announcer was screaming "She did it!  She did it!"   I realized I was crying and saying "thank you" over and over. 

I have 19 little bruises on my legs and arms from Everest.  They are totally worth it.  I hope my yellow shirted hero fared better, but I bet he has some marks from it too.  I'm still embarrassed, still humbled, but most of all still so very grateful.  I continue to be so moved by his willingness to do whatever it took to get me over that wall.


With the adrenaline from this crazy event wearing off, I've been philosophical.  I've been thinking about so many other times in my life when I've faced daunting walls and slipped, crashed, and failed.  I keeping thinking of all the yellow shirts in my life who have encouraged, pushed and pulled me over when I could not do it myself.

All week I have pictured my yellow shirted hero leaning over the edge with arms outstretched.  I want to be that for others.  I've been inspired by that picture while I sit with my patients.  I want to be that kind of parent and that kind of friend.

Someday I will finish this ultimate obstacle course.   I will join a whole host of survivors who grabbed on to Jesus' outstretched hands, and realize just how far He had to lean out to hold us.  I will see the marks where He was was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.  Instead of a orange tough mudder head band I will be given a robe of righteousness.  One without a single thread of my own ability.  A total gift wrapped tightly around me.  I will be done with the mud forever and will loudly claim this promise for eternity.

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you spotless before the presence of His glory with great joy.  Jude 1:24

backpacks

On my summer booklist was Cheryl Strayed's Wild: from lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail.  Though I'm not a backpacker, the great writing and universal story of grief and transformation captured me from page one.  "With warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her."  I finished the last quarter of the book while curled up on a plane heading to California.

Two days later my parents introduced me to the movie The Way, -the story of Tom and the international group of people he meets making a pilgrimage on the "El Camino de Santiago" from France to Spain.  Tom's journey also frustrated, strengthened and healed him.  In ways that touched my heart.

With my mind full of life changing adventures, it felt so right to strap on my beloved pewter back pack.  Instead of the high sierras or a French countryside, I backpacked through Greenville airport, then Houston, then Ontario and then back.  But this was a pilgrimage, nevertheless.

In the quiet of my plane seat I determined that my Wild experience, my Camino journey was 14 months of CPE training in a Spartinburg hospital.  But I've had many Hajj moments and seasons.  From school and church days to my current tour with my hospice team. 

If a pilgrimage is a search of moral or spiritual significance, then every time I dust off my backpack alone or journey to a new space with others, my quest is expanded and enriched.

I love this review of The Way.  "Gradually the experience of the Camino works its way into the spirits of the pilgrims. They become mirrors for each other, helping to strip away the protective layers that have preserved their pain and isolation, and with their new vulnerability, freeing them to feel and connect once more. In the end, the message of this poignant film is that opening our hearts to others is the real miracle. Connecting with them through kindness and laughter and joy is the magic that invites the presence of God."

Blessed are those whose strength is in You, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.   Psalms 84:5 NIV