Honor
Honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. - Ephesians 6:1-2
It's been a long while since I did "Bible Study" here and I'm not sure how much study will come out even today, but I've been thinking about the above verse (and it's antecedent in the Decalogue). I got there in a round about way. Thoughts of missing my boys and wondering what they think about me and the life we have. A chance comment by a friend on the difficulty of relationships with parents. And the memory of a friend from way years ago.
I'd like to tell you a little about my friend, he grew up in a home that was so abusive that he ran away to protect his life. Eventually, he found his way in the system and was placed in a foster home. Things have never been easy for him, but he has a sincere desire to be a godly man and this issue of honoring your father and mother was a serious obstacle for him. How do you honor people who never did anything to deserve your respect or love? We had many enlightening conversations on the topic and I'd like to share a little of what I learned from DG.
At the root, honoring your parents means to love the life they gave you. He and I were both born in a time before legal abortion and can only imagine that this principle is even stronger in a world of so much choice. They didn't have to give us life, but they did. And even if we don't know them, if we care for that life and live it to our best ability, we honor them.
Honor is not the same as respect or love. When DG first encountered those verses he thought they meant he had to give his love and affection to his parents and this was clearly an impossible goal. In fact, for a long time his daily goal was to reach a level of forgiveness that allowed him an escape from bitterness.
Honor doesn't have to be expressed directly to the people in question in order to "count". One of the ways that DG has shown honor has been to the role of Father. He has (oh man I'm afraid I'm going to miscount here ... 9? children of his own now.) He spends time with his kids, loves his kids, disciplines his kids, and has the relationship with each of his kids that he wishes his parents had cared to develop with him.
When I think about my kids, I hope that they do feel love and respect for me. I hope that they are motivated to honor me. But that's their responsibility. Most of all I hope that I am the kind of mother who motivates them to want to honor me. As a mother I can either make it easy for them to keep this command, or I can make it hard. I pray that I make it easy.
It's nine more days til my babies are home. Of course, they aren't really babies anymore. And if I want them to honor me, I guess I'd better remember that! 
I've spent a great deal of my time and effort this summer preparing our home. Yesterday, I was able to email them photos of their new rooms. And I called them so I could hear their reactions when they saw the results of my work.
Michael was surprised by how big his bed was. Tucker was thrilled to have the exact one he asked for. And then Tucker said, "Oh, my ... I'll bet she spent a lot of money!" His Aunt Cheryl had a conversation with him about how the money was my responsibility and not his. He's the kid in this relationship.
That's my next parenting task. I need to help him understand that he can trust me to make decisions that are in all our best interest given the information I have at the time. (I want that little disclaimer because it's also time for him to know that I don't know everything and I'm going to make some less than perfect choices from time to time because that's the nature of being a human Mom.)
So ya wanna see their rooms? I feel a need to show them off now because I'm pretty sure that once they get home they won't look like this for long ...
Michael's room with "Captain's Bed"
Tucker's Room with "Couch Bed
And because I LOVE this room, my living room with my new sofa ...
Another view because I love the big blue chair... I love my house. So ya wanna come visit? Come on down and set a spell. 
Ego and Art ...
I've been reading Julia Cameron's book, "The Sound of Paper" and on page 136 she writes, "The ego doesn't want us to merely be able to write, paint, sculpt, dance or act. It wants us to do these things well, to do them brilliantly, or -- and here is where drought sets in -- not at all."
The year between July 2005 and July 2006 was a time of severe creative drought for me. I think I wrote a total of ten poems in the entire 365 days. I did complete my 50,000 words for the NaNo project, but I never found the time to go back and polish that work. And the words above slapped me hard. I have been telling myself that I was too busy working, parenting, befriending, moving, setting up house ... (that last one has been my latest excuse) to produce writing. But the truth is that my ego has been in the way.
I want to write brilliantly. I'm not content with plugging away and doing a little by little on work that I don't think is ... brilliant. The book I talked about last week, "First Draft in 30 Days" is not a book about doing brilliant work. It's about the structures and disciplines of writing. About outlining, researching, organizing, and showing up at the keyboard day after day to do WORK that may or may not ever be brilliant. (Of course, my ego is screaming at me now that surely flashes of brilliance will appear or WHAT'S THE POINT?)
And that's exactly the point. My ego would rather make excuses than have someone read something that doesn't meet my standards for brilliant, witty, or profound. And my ego feels SO strongly about this that it is my staunchest ally in the procrastination game.
This week I gave myself the gift of time to feed my creative spirit. I gave myself time alone to think, time to explore new things, taste new things, feel things I've never felt before. And I will have wasted that time if I insist upon forcing it into something brilliant that my ego may admire.
I am considering several projects. And have been invited to consider or reconsider another one. I haven't been idle this week, I did work for my new boss, and I did work in the service of a friend. But most of this week has been about me. In a way that even the week in Iowa wasn't. This week, I have planned, taken notes, fed my artisic soul, and watered the hard dry ground of my creativity.
I am working on rescuing the book that got shelved two years ago. I love the idea of that story and I love the characters that inhabit it. It's the story of three sisters, each on the threshold of a major life crisis. (Cool Mary pointed out that if you Google "3 sisters" you get some amazing hits ... but I digress). My working title is "the Year of Behaving Badly" and in the end who was good and who was bad may be a matter up for some interpretation. (if I do it rightly and brilliantly enough)
I have in mind that the postcards project can be expanded. I'm trying to decide whether I will keep the format "as is" with much more of the story left out or hinted at than told directly, and simply add more postcards. Or if I should use the material I had in mind for the background of each card to flesh out into a full chapter and maybe retain those postcards as the postscript at the end of each. I think that has real possibility because the reader would get to see the story from one perspective in the chapter and then directly through the eyes of the protagonist as she writes the cards.
AND I'm very aware that November is coming. My project this year will be written as a partnership and its off to a very promising start. My partner is a genius at structure and plot. I'm a pretty good workhorse with the pounding out the words thing. And between the two of us we believe we can write a 100,000 word story in 30 days. That way we have each individually met the challenge of the NaNo contest. In order to get 100,000 words our story can't be a single linear operation. We will need subplots, interesting minor/secondary characters, and a WHOLE lot of espresso ... (if you wish to send Starbucks gift cards, please email me for the address )
Biting off more than I can chew? I certainly hope so. Because it's way better to wake up in the morning knowing that I will be writing, knowing something of WHAT I will be writing, and then WRITING, than to wake up in the morning allowing my ego to have the last word with that word being "we don't have time."
Once upon a time ...
Finish this sentence, "I'd really like to _______, but _________" What's your wildest dream? I know you have one. Maybe you want to bungee jump off a bridge or parachute down from a perfectly good plane ... Maybe you want to plant an herb garden, or write a song, or a poem, or a novel. Maybe you want to connect with another human being heart to heart instead of role to role. What's your dream?
Do you just know that if you had a month in an ashram you could connect with your spiritual center? Or maybe (like me) you look wistfully at the Benedictine sisters with their structures, liturgy and prayers. Maybe you have all the spirit you need and you'd like a little more material. Or do you think, if not for the mortgage, the car payment, the kids' contacts ... I could set aside more each month and retire from this day job to pursue my passions?
Come on, no one's looking. Its just you and me. What's your wildest dream? I know you have one.
There are aspects of my life that seemed far beyond "wildest dream" status five years ago. (I've been thinking a lot about five years ago because that's when I began my blog on Xanga and I can look back to what I was doing then and see how far I've come.) I don't know that I wanted these things back then. I know that many things I've done would have scared my socks off if I'd known they were coming.
And I'm not going to use my life as any kind of example ... "I made a million dollars and YOU CAN TOO ... just send me $59.95 ..." nope I'm not selling snake oil today. I just wonder what kinds of things you are allowing to hold you back. What kinds of things do you have the courage to let go of or grab onto? You know what I'm talking about, the courage that comes from you don't have a choice so you might as well dig down and just do it.
Well, all I want to say to you today, is that you HAVE the courage. You have the dream. And if you don't make your dreams come true, who will?
***********
I am taking several days "off" this week to feed my inner artist. (like the way that sounds?) Julia Cameron calls it having artist dates. Doing things that make you happy, make you feel child-like, make you see things from a little different perspective.
Yesterday, I bought a strand of fluorite that I will use to make a necklace.
Today, I bought fresh berries for lunch.
Yesterday, I drove down streets I've never driven before.
Today, I took a NAP - in the Middle of the Day.
Later, I plan to experience a poem I've never known before.
I've discovered a new pleasure. Its a shampoo/conditioner I get at Sally's Beauty Supply, it's the knock-off of Nioxin, but that stuff is expensive. This stuff is called Nutri-ox, or something like that. Anyway, it has peppermint oil in it. It's supposed to stimulate your scalp and make people with thinning hair feel like they are doing something to promote hair growth. I haven't noticed that my hair is any less thin, but the peppermint oil, it's fabulous. It makes my scalp tingle, and my hair feels soft and smooth. I washed my hair with this stuff today - twice. Early this morning, and again after my nap, just because I can. In my wildest most extravagant dream I never thought I'd wash my hair twice in one day just for the pleasure of it.
I'm not sure our dreams really are that wild when you come right down to it. I think that we are human beings who long to live our live to the fullest. And our dreams show us the gate to get where we are supposed to be.
Reason and Passion ...
“I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.’’ Terry Pratchett
Continuing a bit along the thread of things I've discovered since I turned forty, I must include Sudoku. Which in fact, I only really discovered in June, so I'm way behind the curve on this one, but that's okay. Better late than never.
I'm not sure why Sudoku appeals to people in general but I know exactly why it appeals to me. It's basic logic. I learned to love logic puzzles when I was a child and my dad would bring them home to me. He used to subscribe to a magazine called "Puzzle" or something like that. And he would bring home all kinds of interesting thought problems and put them on the table.
Sudoku is a game of elimination. Sherlock Holmes is the most famous eliminator I can think of and his maxim, "when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" has the comfortable ring of certainty. It has been demonstrated repeatedly by people who want to be nitpicky that Holmes eliminated things which were not impossible and that his logic in many cases was weak, but still you gotta admire that certainty.
At least I do. I like being certain. I think I've lightened up a little over the years. I'm very proud of myself right now because I am still in a waiting pattern for the new job to start and things are on the uncertain side of the scale right now, but I'm not freaking out. I slept well last night. I'm neither eating everything in sight nor going days on end without consuming anything.
So what does this have to do with being forty? Well, I've learned another thing that many people (whom I admire) seem to have grasped early in life. "The heart has reasons that reason cannot know." -Blaise Pascal. I was unhappy in my job. Therefore, the thing to do was follow my heart and leave it. I made effort to prepare for this by increasing my savings and I have a job offer. So I am now in the position of exercising a little faith in my heart. That one way or the other it will be right, that my heart hasn't steered me wrong.
I've confessed here that I still have very mixed feelings about the end of this transition. I had expected to leave that job and return to school. That's something that I've wanted to do for twenty years, and well, I'm not getting any younger. But that's on the back burner for at least another year and we'll just have to see what happens next. Maybe my heart has another idea ...
Kahlil Gibran, whom I quoted yesterday on friendship, has something to say about this tug between Reason and Passion...
On Reason and Passion
Kahlil Gibran
Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.
Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.
But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.
I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.
Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.
Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows -- then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason."
And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky -- then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion."
And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.
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