Happy New Year

I remember New Year's celebrations.  New Year's means a new page, a new endeavor, a new chance.  This is the time to get a new grip on the rope and set your mind to hang on for the ride--maybe even take the driver's seat.

When my kids were little, my yearly plans started with January 1.  We planned for the new garden, the end of the school year, and summer vacation.  After vacation we started planning for the beginning of school, the autumn events and Christmas. 

My mother planted the New Year traditions.  She enjoyed the mistletoe, the black eyed peas, the Happy New Year greetings to strangers, and sometimes a party. 

Christmas is a culmination, but New Year's is a beginning.  What will this year hold?  She told me about Janus who had two faces--one looking at the past and the other at the future.  She celebrated the baby New Year who was being born and the Old Man Time who was retiring.

This year I am looking at the New Year as a chance to finish some things and invest in new ones.  I will try to plan better this time.  (I always say that.)  I'll make better resolutions.  I will be a better Christian, writer, mother, person.  And if I don't succeed, I'll have another chance next year.

I Am Thankful for People

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Visiting with my children has become one of the supreme joys of my life.  I like to see these people I raised and loved when they were little who have now become capable and successful adults. 

One of the most challenging parts of this endeavor is to get to know this adult child I have known since before he or she was born.  It was a terrible shock to me the first time I learned my child was not an extension of me.  Now I have come to be thankful for that phenomena.  In addition to finding that they are individuals with thoughts and emotions that may be significantly different from mine, they have also changed and matured over the years.  Periodically, I find new vistas in their personalities that I had not seen before blessing me in my daily contacts

This was a truly wonderful Thanksgiving.  In addition to enjoying my daughter, I got to share thoughts and opinions with my son-in-law and their two lovely children. 

This has reminded me that the most wonderful blessing God has given me is people.  As I have said before, many of these people are my children.  I have learned from them and grown through my interactions with them.  But there are other people in this life who have been part of that blessing, too.  Some of them are blessing me in my daily contacts with them, and some are blessing me in the memories I have of them.

Holidays are wonderful times to remember the blessings of all those people who have blessed my life.  I hope for you, memories of wonderful people, too.  This is a good time to make new memories and add people to your list of blessings. 

100 words: Prejudice

Bias and prejudice are like the dust bunnies and dead flies that congregate behind the furniture. Those attitudes that you don't recognize as a part of your world view corrupt your clean house and create a subtle invasion of unpleasant presence until one day a friend comes by and drops a pen behind the sofa. In her attempt to retrieve it, she finds your secret store of hidden filth. Embarrassment! You failed to clean there. Your friend requests a donation for drug rehab, and as you write the check, you make a note to clean the drug bunnies from your attitude.

How Do We Learn Forgiveness?

I've been reading Spiritual Evolution by George Vaillant.  It is very enlightening.  The chapter I am reading now focuses on forgiveness.  He lists the physical benefits for individuals of forgiveness like reducing anxiety, blood pressure, stress on the nervous system, and peace of mind.  He also reports the benefits of forgiveness for countries or societies or civilizations.  Can we really ever live without the specter of war hanging over us? 

On a personal note, we can stop the pain that injustice from family, friends, or co-workers causes by forgiving them.  Forgiving is not always easy, and it helps to understand what forgiveness is and what it is not.

Forgiveness does NOT:

1. Accept wrong acts--A friend who says something hurtful does not need to suffer the same insult to "show her how it feels," but she may need to be told the extent of the damage her words have caused.  There is a critical difference between being angry at an insult and taking vengence.
2. Forget wrong acts--Forgiveness is a learning experience.  We should not forget that bad things happened but learn how to prevent them from recurring.
3. Accept injustice--Forgiveness is not accepting injustice to "keep peace."  Battered wives who accept pain and insult continue the injustice and are never have a chance to forgive.
4. Remove past pain--Forgiveness does not remove the pain suffered in the past, but it can prevent it from continuing.  Forgiveness removes the gnawing anger at a past insult that continues to destroy present communication.
5. Excuse the wrongs--Forgiveness does not excuse the wrong, but it gives a chance for the relationship and the behavior to change.  No excuse makes it O.K. to hurt others.
6. Accept repetition of wrong act--Forgiveness does not give license for bad behavior to continue. 

Forgiveness is a mature life skill.  Children and youth often forgive because a parent is forcing them .  The child who faces this issue may find forgiveness very difficult and perhaps fail to understand the principle.  Children are more prone to tit-for-tat retaliation than forgiveness.  Maturity cures some kinds of unforgiveness.

Sometimes forgiveness is a product of empathy--when you understand the needs and feelings of the person who offended you, forgiveness is almost automatic. 

Jesus demonstrated many of the principles of forgiveness in his ministry and practice.  A woman taken in the act of sin was brought to him by the upstanding men of the town wanting him to pronounce judgment on her.  Only the righteous could accuse her, but none of them past that test.  His forgiveness was implied when he said he did not condemn her, but there was more to it than that.  With the forgiveness came the obligation to sin no more. 

In the prayer he taught his disciples there is this petition: Forgive us our trepasses as we forgive those who trepass against us.  Forgiveness is intended to be passed around.  We forgive each other.  When he was dying on the cross, he forgave those who participated saying, "Forgive them for they know not what they do." Being stupid is sometimes cause for forgiveness, but understanding more makes you responsible for more.  Forgiveness is a mature response.

Mothers Still Have Hope

I visited with my son yesterday.  I guess it was good.  On some level it was painful and humiliating.  I'll explain.  He is in prison.  That is difficult no matter how positive the reason for my visit.  The grounds are manicured.  The chain-link fences are immaculate.  The inmates are courteous.  The officers are curt and business-like.

I was there to witness his graduation from a 6-month faith based program that focused on life skills.   He relished the good news that he had been accepted into a Christian halfway house upon release.

He reminded me that his birthday is next week.  He will be 52.  No, this is not some juvenile misstep.  This has been a lifelong pattern of behavior.  He enjoys the benefits he accumulates while pushing the boundaries of society.  His defense is consistent--I never hurt anybody.  He always repents and acts penitent, but somehow the message has never gotten to the control center of his being.  I pray that this time it has.  I always pray for that.

Autumn Is New This Year

Image via WikipediaFall is my favorite season of the year, and it is becomming my favorite season of life.  It's funny how personal experience changes your perspective.  I always thought that retirement and getting older meant slowing down and entertaining grandchildren, but there is more to it than that.  All these elements I've mentioned may be there, but my life and my needs and my interests don't follow those rules.

Now in the Autumn of my years, I see all the books I wanted to read and all trips I wanted to take still waiting to be experienced.  Well, guess what?  I can do some of those things I didn't have time or money for before.  No, I'll never swim the English Channel or climb Mt. Everest, but I never wanted to anyway.  I wanted to write and walk in the woods. I do those things now.  I wanted to tell my grandchildren about their ancestors and I have.  I still do. 

I have celebrated weddings and births and grieved at deaths and failures, but mostly in my Autumn Years, I am learning there is much to accomplish and I am crowding all the experiences in, and it enriches my days and my life.  I write to people I love.  I walk in the rain, well, not much; but I do stand on the porch and inhale the fragrance.

I find I'm doing things for people--no reason, just 'cause I can.  I take out the neighbor's garbage and do errands for her.  I take a friend to church because she can no longer drive.  I take my daughter to Bible study because I want her to have the joy of learning the deeper things.

There is a negative side to this:  I become impatient with younger people who don't see the benefits of Autumn.  They see it as an end rather than a season of fruit-bearing.  They even cut short the harvest and fail to follow through with planning for the next season.  There is Winter and rest and a new Spring coming.

Related articles

• Tastes and Smells of Autumn (quickandeasycookingwithcarol.blogspot.com)
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Things I Learned from Stories

Image via Wikipedia My mother loved stories, fiction, romance, and adventure.  She read a lot, and she and my father read to each other in the evenings.  Remember, this was a long time ago and there was no TV.  She passed that love of stories on to me.

I learned most of my morals from the heroes and heroines I read about in stories.  I learned about history from stories.  I enjoyed romance and adventure from stories.  And I learned that real life is the best story.  The memories and the way I remember and reclaim them provide endless entertainment.  The older I get the more urgent it is that I understand the things that have happened to me. 

To shape them into fictional stories is fun.  I get to analyze the characters and reshape the events to suit my fancy.  Sometimes I get to put a different end to a story or a different beginning. 

Some of the stories stay in my file cabinet as history.  They become part of the family legacy I enjoy writing or telling, and grandchildren benefit from them, too.  Some of those stories are guesswork--I may put my own interpretation on the reason for a move or why a couple got married.  Sometimes what was happening in politics or medicine or weather is significant.  Was there an epidemic?  Did a new frontier become available for the pioneer?  Was there a drought?

Stories are everywhere.  Some are true and some are fiction, but they all carry an element of experience and mystery.  Try out your stories.  Tell them, and write them, and enjoy them.  Enrich your life with stories from your life.