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Love and Light from HEALING Creek
Tuesday June 2, 2009
"I stand corrected"
Do you ever have a random sentence stand out at you in a way it didn't before?
I didn't know the guy.
I didn't know his story.
I knew the words. Those three words rang true in places I didn't even know I had ...
How many times in my own life did I, would I, could I, should I have "stood corrected"?
I don't know how it is for you.
I can only speak for me.
Lately, I have been remembering and thinking,
"I stand corrected."
Gracious ... I REALLY APPRECIATE the PMs encouraging me ... but this post wasn't because I was being picked on by anyone. I promise. I posted this because I have been thinking about all the times in my life ... not just blogging, but real time, that I could have avoided a great deal of upset by just saying, "I stand corrected".
I meet people on-line and in real time who have pretty well tied themselves up in knots, insisting they are right, demanding to be heard ... and at the end of the day, no one really cared who was right or wrong and very few people really listened ... not because they didn't care ... because most people really do care ... but because life is so crammed with things that demand our immediate attention that we let things slide ... we gloss over the uncomfortable ... we try to bypass pain or the "drama" ... but guess what?
There is NO WAY to bypass any of those things. I can promise you that REAL LIFE has drama. Quit running away from it. It is a myth that you can escape it because it will find you. It will hunt you down until it has you pinned and say, "PAY ATTENTION TO THIS. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO LEARN FROM THIS. QUIT HIDING. QUIT RUNNING. QUIT THINKING YOU CAN ESCAPE HURT or PAIN or DRAMA because those things are part of life." Period.
The TRUTH is we are all are going to have GOOD days and occasionally, we are going to have a few really BAD days ... but count them all joy! They all add up to the wonderful people we are!
If we never knew pain or felt hurt, we humans wouldn't feel empathy for another who is in pain or hurting. Pain and hurt give our lives context. They help us put ourselves in another person's shoes. They help us reach out to someone when we recognize hurt in pain in others ... and some of you have proven that very point. You thought I was hurting and you sent the nicest private messages ... but this time, I wasn't hurting. I was just considering the human condition and commenting on the way we all try to outrun "drama".
I laugh at the modern myth that anyone can live a drama-free life. If we are fully engaged in living this life, there WILL BE drama. Our hearts are gonna take tumbles. We are going to feel burdened for people we love. We are going to shed tears. We are going to fight and stand up for what we think is right.
This business of truly living is messy as hell!
We all make mistakes. We all misjudge. We all sin.
BUT ...
We all can be set FREE by being willing and able to say, once in a while, "I stand corrected."
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Sunday May 31, 2009
I ended this day on the back porch,thinking of my favorite things ...
I will confess that most people will think my list is mundane and quite boring, but, we all have things that we could not live without.
I am a follower of light.
I'm specific.
I love sunrise and sunset for the golden glow that it covers the world in ... It's magic. Hollywood, with all it's technology can never bathe the world in beautiful the way that God does every sunrise and every sunset. If you don't believe me, try it yourself. Take a picture of something or have someone take a picture of you bathed in the first or the last sunshine of the day. It will be your favorite picture. I could ruin the romance of that captured magical moment by describing the scientific refraction of the sun but do we really care? LOL ... I don't. Neither will you when you see your smile lit up in God Light.
God light reminds me of another favorite thing. We call it God Sky. Have you ever seen a sky with rays shining out of clouds? Didn't it feel like Moses himself would have heard God's voice from exactly that kind of sky? There you have it! God Sky!
In the North, the sky is sometimes covered with dancing ribbons of light that dart and flash across the sky, mimicking firelight one moment and science fiction light sabers the next, cutting across the sky only to fade and pop up somewhere else even brighter. Sometimes they almost seem to drip and pour from the middle of the sky. I have wrapped myself in blankets and quilts, risking frostbite so that I could watched them from the porch where I could see the whole sky at once.
There is another kind of light entirely created by men or women that are quite human ... In the South, there are men and women who light up whole landscapes with light at night ... whether it's up-lights into an oak tree or maybe, they have wrapped strings of light so completely around a tree that it is silhouetted against a star-filled sky ... the clever creators have even mastered lighting up ponds and streams with floating islands of light ... Those landscaping delights always surprise me ... Walking out of a restaurant or a late night theatre ... only to be basked in golden light created by a clever landscaper and appreciated by ... well ... me!
I notice.
I wish I could announce that to their creators in the same elegance that their handiwork presented itself to me ... I notice.
More than that, I revel in those well lighted moments ... I feel them. I breathe them in like air. They will stay with me in memory the same way fireworks and musical pieces stay with me ... companions in darker times ... calling me back to times where magical light lit the way to the next place ...
There is a lot of talk about whether a person learns from sight or sound ... whether we take in an experience from the printed word, the spoken word or the visual expression of both of those ... but very little credit is given to the light that makes a blonde glimmer like an angel or a still lake that mirrors the sky in a way that transforms your boat into a magical flying ship gliding among the stars above and in their reflection below.
I notice.
Don't you notice too?
Hasn't everyone fallen in love with the face of a man or woman in candlelight ... found hope in a sunrise ... danced under a sunset ... cuddled under the moon?
I noticed.
It's quiet in my house. I have a few candles burning on the back porch. The sky is glittering and shadows are moving through the woods and I am feeling thankful ... thankful for this place and time ... thankful for the nighttime beauty, the candlelight, the glimmer of the creek and the sparkle of the sky ... and most of all ... the light that somehow, always finds a way to shine on me ... and you ... and all of us ... if we only take the time to ...
Notice ...
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Saturday May 30, 2009
Last night, I sat on the back porch, appreciating all the work I had done that afternoon, cleaning and scrubbing the pollen out of the furniture, floor and screens. I listened to the night ... the waterfall at the bottom of the hill, a dog barking in the distance, deer moving through the woods and a whippoorwill calling from a closer place ... when I noticed a few lightning bugs or fireflies flickering their way through the tree tops. It seems like they are here early ... but maybe not ...
Seeing them always reminds me of my childhood and one magical night ...
There was a place in Bostic, North Carolina called Green Acres Music Hall. It's not nearly as grand as it sounds. It was just a rough pole barn in the middle of a huge pasture as far out in the sticks as we can possibly go ... but once you managed to find it, you could be treated to the likes of Bluegrass greats like Acoustic Syndicate, Byron Berline, Norman Blake, The Sam Bush Band, John Cowan Band, Dan Crary, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Matt Flinner, David Grier, David Grisman, Larry Keel, Alison Krauss, Tom Saffell, and Tony Trischka.
If you got there early, you could sit up front in some old church pews. Getting there a little later might mean bringing your own lawn chairs and coolers and sitting on the hill behind the pews. It was an eclectic crowd ... hippies, yuppies and country folks all huddled together for the same thing ... good music. Staying late might mean pitching a tent and staying til morning, which a lot of die-hard fans were prone to do.
Joey and I went a few times. We still talk about the last time because it was the best of all ...
We packed up chairs and coolers, extra layers of clothing and umbrellas just in case and headed for the hills. The music was GREAT. We stayed till the last note played and headed home. We were chattering away about the night's music when we both saw the same thing. Joey stopped the car and we both jumped out to get a closer look.
The moon was shining bright on a old fashioned white church that sat off the road down in a low spot. All around the church, a million fireflies flashed! It looked more like a million lights of a far away city than fireflies, but there they were!
Neither of us said anything. I think I may have even held my breath, not wanting to do anything to change the moment. I don't know how long we stood there watching the fireflies dance in the shadows around the church.
It was magical. It wouldn't have been hard to imagine them as little angels or fairies delivering blessings for the next morning's service.
Joey said later that they must have all hatched at the same time and were drawn to the cool, low spot, looking for food and mates (the real reason that they light up) ... Neither of us had ever seen so many in one place before or since, but we both are glad we were there to share the miracle of light that surrounded the little white church in the woods.
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Bounce This Along!
The US Postal service sent out a message to all Letter carriers to put a sheet of Bounce in their uniform pockets to keep yellow-jackets away.
It is way better than spraying children down with bug-off! We use it when we are working outside. It really works. The Insects just veer around you.
All this time you've just been putting Bounce in the dryer!
1. It will chase ants away when you lay a sheet near them. It also repels mice.
2. Spread sheets around foundation areas, or in trailers, or cars that are sitting and it keeps mice from entering your vehicle.
3. It takes the odor out of books and photo albums that don't get opened too often.
4. It repels mosquitoes. Tie a sheet of Bounce through a belt loop when outdoors during mosquito season.
5. Eliminate static electricity from your television (or computer) screen.
6. Since Bounce is designed to help eliminate static cling, wipe your television screen with a used sheet of Bounce to keep dust from resettling.
7. Dissolve soap scum from shower doors. Clean with a sheet of Bounce.
8. To freshen the air in your home - Place an individual sheet of Bounce in a drawer or hang in the closet.
9. Put Bounce sheet in vacuum cleaner.
10. Prevent thread from tangling. Run a threaded needle through a sheet of Bounce before beginning to sew.
11. Prevent musty suitcases. Place an individual sheet of Bounce inside empty luggage before storing.
12. To freshen the air in your car - Place a sheet of Bounce under the front seat.
13. Clean baked-on foods from a cooking pan. Put a sheet in a pan, fill with water, let sit overnight, and sponge clean. The anti-static agent apparently weakens the bond between the food and the pan.
14. Eliminate odors in wastebaskets. Place a sheet of Bounce at the bottom of the wastebasket.
15. Collect cat hair. Rubbing the area with a sheet of Bounce will magnetically attract all the lose hairs.
16. Eliminate static electricity from Venetian blinds. Wipe the blinds with a sheet of Bounce to prevent dust from resettling.
17. Eliminate odors in dirty laundry. Place an individual sheet of Bounce at the bottom of a laundry bag or hamper.
18. Deodorize shoes or sneakers. Place a sheet of Bounce in your shoes or sneakers overnight.
19. Golfers put a Bounce sheet in their back pocket to keep the bees away.
20. Put a Bounce sheet in your sleeping bag and tent before folding and storing them. It will keep them smelling fresh.
This isn't meant to be a BOUNCE commercial ... any dryer sheet will work. I keep a jar on top of my dryer for used dryer sheets because they work just as well ... I guess you could say dryer sheets are a reusable resource!
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