Yesterday was my birthday.
I heard from my octogenarian mom and all my siblings--sis washing her windows in California; the Floridian caregiver brother; and the older bro who had just landed in Tunisia after sailing 36 hours from Corsica, escorted by pods of dolphins. (He called on his cell phone while his crewmate fixed dinner in the galley. Despite three days in an ocean, there was no catch to accompany the buttered spaghetti.) My grown children called in greetings from her marathon training in Memphis, Smoothie King manager on his way to a friend's wedding in Florida, and the biology student releasing honeycreepers in Maui. The one still planted at home made sure I knew he knew and posted his latest inspirational photos on the frig. Assorted other favorite people turned up in various ways--even ones who did not suspect the significance of my day--and that coincidence is a gift of its own.

The neat thing about this week was it marked five years since our family sailed into its own stormy sea and a soft landing with all members intact was finally maneuvered, as on a sun-soaked beach. Someone I only know by name called to follow up. She had observed our intense suffering; feeling helpless, she prayed. Five years later, this woman broke silence to let me know she remembered.

God is not only tuned in, but his blessings are perfectly timed! hallelujah

Letting Go

Today was the final weekly meeting of my small discussion group of 15 women.
Only three times this year did they all attend at the same time. They've been a quiet bunch; often I had to resort to a round of answers in order to ensure everyone would participate. I've called each one weekly, prayed with them and for them, carried their burdens.

As we dismissed to go to our teacher's lecture, I collected my bag, and pulled my nametag off the door. I expected someone to come close, cling to my arm or wave a good-bye.
Nothing.
So I glanced back and saw them still in their chairs, leaning toward each other, bubbling with conversation. Ignoring me.

And it gave me the biggest thrill to know the women I served had become such close friends, on the deepest level possible--through Jesus Christ.

Thank you for the significance of this day; for the favor of a dedicated teacher who not only instructs us in Your truth, but shows us how to apply it to our lives.
For the ways You enable us to make this ministry a safe place to learn and share, to serve and to fellowship, may You get the most out of it all. Amen

One of my Favorite People of all time has launched a blog.
Check it out here.

My latest read is due back at the library.
Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie, a 30 year veteran of Hallmark Cards where he achieved the job title of Creative Paradox

In a nutshell, MacKenzie teaches how to emerge from the giant hairball--the tangled, impenetrable mass of rules and systems based on what worked in the past and which can lead to mediocrity in the present.

“In any large corporation, rank-and-file workers who put forward truly new ideas have the deck stacked against them right from the beginning. Most companies are peppered with people who are very quick to say 'no.' Most newly hatched ideas are shot down before they even have time to grow feathers, let alone wings. In saying "yes" to all those who brought their ideas to me, I was simply leveling the imbalance a bit. And it worked. People who have a deep passion for their ideas don't need a lot of encouragement. One 'yes' in a sea of 'no's' can make the difference.“

One of my favorite stories was about the meeting when MacKenzie had his creative workshop members draw on paper with crayons. He asked if anyone would be willing to risk sharing with the group what they had drawn. No one wanted to share and he knew that "a workshop without creative participation is not a creative workshop at all, but rather an exercise in cultural indoctrination."
As he was prepared to move on, a woman in the back of the room popped out of her chair and with a bashful eagerness walked to the front of the room and began to cheerfully trace out what was an enlargement of her original drawing.
Some in the group began to tease her, others added barbs, and a rowdy taunting ensued. The woman scurried back to her seat.

MacKenzie felt heartsick:
“Wait a minute! What just happened here! I want to talk about this.

But first I have to give you some of my personal background. I was once an alcoholic. My rehabilitation process included attending various support groups where, over time, I began to find out about some of the many lurking intricacies of addictive behavior. One especially valuable revelation for me was to learn about the powerful role shaming plays in the dynamic of any family cursed by an addiction-poisoned environment.

Addictive behavior does not damage just the addict, but the addict's family as well. In a effort to survive the insane behavior of the addicted one, other family members develop reciprocating insanities. And pretty soon, the whole tribe is participating in a jumbled web of addiction-induced craziness. The craziness seduces every family member into compulsively controlling every other family member so that nobody gets any big ideas about breaking the web of madness in some rebellious effort to move toward healthier behavior.

This compulsion to control, engendered by the addiction, becomes a protector of the addiction. The controlling takes many forms, one of which is shaming.

We were discussing all this at group one evening when the guy sitting next to me observed, 'Teasing is a disguised form of shaming.'

Bull's eye! One of the long-locked doors in my mind burst open.

For as far back as I could remember, I had always been a frenzied teaser but had never looked at why. Now I knew. I teased to control. Why would I want to control? Because I am afraid. For whatever reason, I have had a long-standing fear of others. One way of dealing with this fear was to learn the skill of teasing. I learned it well, eventually walling myself off with a bristling armor of barbed banter designed to blunt the power of those countless people I felt threatened by. My teasing became a weapon intended to push others off balance and thus reduce the sense of menace in my life.

I have a sinking feeling that the teasing you bombarded your colleague with just now reflects a similar strategy. I suspect that, when you teased this woman, it was an unconscious effort to control her by throwing her off balance--to stop her from risking, which she was most clearly beginning to do. Why would you want to do that? Well, when one of us finds the courage to risk to grow--to leave the status quo of the Hairball--that can be pretty threatening for the rest of us to witness. The threat is that we, too, might be expected to grow. And sometimes growing can be a frightening and painful experience. If we feel we have already suffered too much pain or are already frozen by a sense of menace, we are liable to do anything we can to avoid the pain or threat that often comes with the experience of growth. So we contrive to stop others in our loop who display a desire and willingness to grow. One way to stop them is to shame them. But because we don't want to admit to others or ourselves that we trying to stop growth, we disguise our shaming as teasing--'all in a spirit of good fun ('Whatsa matter, can'tcha take a little joke?'-- more shaming.)

So I would ask you--those of you are inclined to tease others--the next time you are about to tease someone, pause for just a moment. Look deep inside yourself. See if you can get in touch with your motivation. And perhaps, reconsider.

Some time later, when I was telling this [Death of a Thousand Cuts, that is what teasing can be] to another group, someone in the audience protested:
'Wait a minute. Teasing is how I show affection.'
My response was:
'You must find a better way.'”