Category: Reflections

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mission statement

What is your mission??? I have been asking myself that for 5 months. Trying to make it fit in a neat package I could put my head around, strive for and focus on.

Then I had this epiphany… Your mission is not up to you. Its picked for you by God. Its not up to me to figure it out. Because I cannot see the whole plan for my life that I did not even pick. Did I pick where I was born? no  Parents? no,  skills??? no . I just got them.

All I have is what I have at any given moment. Everything could go away tomorrow. So much for planning for your  life. I mean you can go in one direction and end up somewhere else.

This is Good Friday, Even Jesus didn’t pick his mission statement. His Father  did. His Father  picks everything.

Mission statements usually are about how to get what you want in a way that makes you happy.

People just want to feel valued . Like their life matters in a unique way. If you don’t think that you would probably kill yourself at the first hardship.

My mission statement is to  be a worker at what I do in the best way know how. Give what you got. End of story. Give everything away that you have. My mission is to give whatever I get to whomever wants it

what you keep you lose in the end anyway. Be a river. A river of life runs though it. Flow out into all the places that need water.

that is what I want my art to be defined as. A drink of water. Pure and simple. 

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The Teardrop Chandelier

My husband and I bought a chandelier that was not like any we had see before. It was handblown in Murano and each teardrop glass had rainbow colored paint on one side. Each teardrop is unique and they are all different sizes with one even being bent. We love the bent one. Even though it is clear the stripe of rainbow on each piece makes they whole thing look like a rainbow even in the dark.

It looks like it is raining rainbows if you  stand under it.

Even though I took a dozen pictures of it , I could not capture the rainbows. It just looked like clear glass.

sometimes you have an experience that is hard to transmit. I imagine people suffering with depression or people feeling grief might have that problem.

Somethings you just have to experience it  yourself to understand.

Words can get in the way, Words say only what you know the words to mean. That’s all they can do. When words are not enough, tears say more.

Tears are not common, they  come from the deep place where words stop.

I like to think of my teardrop chandelier with rainbows  as coming from that same deep place That place is the most beautiful.

 

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All Possibilities

I heard a story about a woman who traveled to Japan. She did not speak Japanese. As she entered the airport panic set in. Every directional sign was in Japanese. No English anywhere. Her heart beat wildly, Her son was supposed to meet her at the baggage claim but she had no idea where to go.

Fortunately, she remembered something her son had told her, something he learned in the Army. When you are afraid your vision will narrow. You will actually loose your wide angle vision for a time. He told her that the solution was to take  deep breath close your eyes and then open them again.

She did this. Deep Breath , Look again. Much to her surprise she saw that under all the Japanese writing was  an English translation.

It was there all the time.

Everything is there all the time. All you need is there all the time. You just need eyes that see.

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Moving

We had to  move over the last few days so blogging is sparse. But there is one thing about moving that is wonderful. Your head gets cleared to see new things. It is sort of like going a trip.

But the house we moved to was calling out to have a new look so I had to spend a few days changing things around .

When you move furniture  around or paint a wall or two , it feels like a new place. You moved , time passed , your perspective changed,  so its time for a face lift to match. That is one blessing of moving.

The other is you look at all your possessions again. Those kept in drawers stashed away, hidden for even years, get pulled out and examined and either let go or packed away for the move.

This blessing is harder to take. First of all , the number of things that we pack away is pretty astounding. Then having to pick them all up and look at them reminds me of why I really put them there for in the first place. I did not know what to do with them. Too good to toss, but you aren’t going to actually use them again. Maybe never use them again. So it is the limbo drawers. Things that have no place.

For a thing to have a place it has to be used. Use it or lose it is definitely another  way to look at that phrase.

To keep an item , it has to do one of three things. 1.Necessary for survival, things that are nourishing to your mind or soul, And beauty. Beautiful things are necessary for health and to remind you that you are a human being , The last one is beneficial to the first two.

Its the last one that saves most of my possessions from getting tossed.

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The Day my Dad died

Most of my brothers and sisters and my Mom were together. We were hanging around the house in a state of shock is all I can describe it as. We did not know how long was left. He was quiet in the front room, laying on the hospital bed. Thank God we brought him home . He was in his house, not a hospital room. The sun was out so we decided to clean up the yard. We all went out to get every weed out of the lawn and clean up the flower beds. Dad loved the garden so it seemed like what he would want us to do. After an hour or so it was looking perfect. So back into the house to wait . Everyone was in the kitchen talking and being together. For some reason I felt like I should go check on Dad and tell him we got the yard all cleaned up. I held his hand and noticed that he was breathing very quietly. He was supposed to do the dying breath breathing when it was close to the end and he was not doing that .He was just breathing softly. Then he stopped. I called to Mom and said he stopped breathing and she called back”oh he does that sometimes” But he did not breath again.

His face was absolutely beautiful. He always was handsome but after going through all he did , even at age 90, He was flawless. Not a wrinkle on his face. He had lost so much weight that he was perfect. . We all were marveling how beautiful he looked . My brother shaved him and we put a suit and tie on him and took his picture.

Looking at the father that we all loved more than we knew. He  was with his family at the end.   I think there could be no better end than what he had.  Painful as it was to lose him, I am infinitely grateful to God for that day going as it did.

It felt like we carried him out on our shoulders and handed him over to God.

I think about Dad all the time, I wish I could tell him how the garden is doing, What the roses are looking like. I want to tell him how my son bought a home with a third of an acre with fruit trees and wisteria. He would love that.

I know I will see him again one day and then I will tell him everything again. We will plant new trees and watch them grow.

error: Please do not copy.