Living and Loving
Her mother had died tragically the weekend of her wedding. She was doing everything possible to make peace around all of that.
Wanting to pick out some hand-crafted jewelry for a couple of her friends, she stopped in a gallery in the small town she was visiting.
She was drawn to a powerful piece.
Although the gallery is a co-op and all of the artists take turns to cover the retail hours, Donna, the artist who made this piece, was the one working that day.
Her mother’s name is Donna….
These are sacred stories. Pay attention to happenings in your life. Do you have a story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.
I am so blessed to have beautiful, soulful, women friends. I had lunch with one, Jane Foster, on Friday. Especially after all these years, hearing Jane share her story still touches me. (See Jane Foster’s Story)
Jane was telling me about a custom hat she is having made by a woman out west. The woman’s husband has been very ill, so she is homeschooling their children, caring for her husband, and the custom hat business helps them make ends meet.
“Look at me. I am 72, and I am still here, and here you are making me a hat!” Jane told the hat-maker, who thanked Jane for restoring hope.
It is never about the hat.
This week, I finally got over to Kalamazoo and Joel and I watched the finale of Dancing with the Stars. The results were shocking, but the dancing and the special music, was, well—very special! I loved Lauren Daigle’s singing “You Say”. Here are some comments about the story behind her writing that song:
It was the day after my very first Dove awards, and I remember being completely overwhelmed. I walked into the studio, and Paul and Jason, my producers, were in there and they’re like “All right what’s going on in your world, how’s it been?”
It was the first time we had written since How Can It Be…I just remember feeling like so much had happened the night before, wondering How do I come back down to normal, how do I come back down to reality? And I started realizing these patterns of really high highs and then, okay now there’s a low. Really high high, now there’s a low…And Involving expectation in that space can just leave you kind of questioning your identity- Where do I fit in, where is my security, where is my footing?
So when writing “You Say,” I just remember feeling for the first time pretty conflicted. It was definitely the first moment in just being an artist that I was like Okay, where is all this going excactly? And I know that we’ve all faced moments in life where we can feel a crossroads happen— where we can see the past and also see the future, and realize how we are supposed to exist in the present. And it was one of those moments where I could see where things were going and I knew exactly where I came from, and I needed those worlds to still be married. (CCM Magazine)
Here is the first stanza of Daigle’s “You Say” lyrics:
I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I’m not enough
Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up
Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low?
Remind me once again just who I am, because I need to know (ooh oh)
You say I am loved when I can’t feel a thing
You say I am strong when I think I am weak
You say I am held when I am falling short
When I don’t belong, oh You say that I am Yours
And I believe (I), oh I believe (I)
What You say of me (I)
I believe
Songwriters: Paul Mabury / Lauren Ashley Daigle / Jason Ingram
You Say lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
When she was 15 years old, Daigle had an autoimmune illness that kept her down for about two years. She says that is when God taught her about her character.
Today I had Christmas Tea with another precious friend, Kathy Zerler. As we sipped on tea made from the peppermint Kathy grew in her garden, dried in her basement, and blessed by her meditative working of the mint with her hands, we treated ourselves to a few “cards.”
We exchanged gifts. I gave her a hand-crocheted kitchen scrubby, home-made jalapeno jelly, and yummy socks. She gave me fabulous glass containers to hold crackers and nuts on my kitchen counter, more peppermint, and an eye pillow and soap made from lavender she grew.
We shared how each of our spiritual lives are deepening—my two year commitment to the Dharma Path, and Kathy’s renewed commitment to bible study and contemplation. I read to her from Rupert Spira’s The Transparency of Things: “Non-Duality is not an immunisation against feeling. In fact, it is the opposite. It is complete openness, sensitivity, vulnerability and availability. Actually, suffering is our resistance to feeling, rather than a feeling itself.”
I confessed to feeling like our lives are being pulled away from one another, and read a bit more from Spira: “Consciousness is absolute Freedom. We allow this Freedom to express itself as it will, how it will, where it will and when it will. In one body/mind this might take the shape of a character that is quiet and sensitive, whilst in another it may express itself in a wild and exuberant way. We should not be misled by appearances.”
It is never about the hat or the tea.
P.S. When Jane received the hat, she sent this photo, and a message saying she thought the hat needed to be named. She decided to name it the “Giving Hat” because her husband gifted her the hat, it is giving her so much pleasure, and the proceeds that will go to cancer research is giving others a chance at a longer and better quality of life. Here she is in the “Giving Hat.”
Shortly before her husband passed, he ordered a frog bird feeder. She had no way of knowing the significance of that.
After he passed, their yard became a play ground for tree frogs.
They came, they stayed, they sang, and they dropped down onto picnic plates.
She now wears several “frog” charms on her necklace as a reminder.
Those who love us never leave us and nature has a way of helping us remember that. Often in surprising ways!
These are sacred stories. Pay attention to happenings in your life. Do you have a story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.
I was going to stop at a nearby apple stand on the way to my doctor’s appointment, but was a wee bit tight on time. Thanksgiving would be missing something without my mom’s Dutch apple pie. It is my contribution to bring Michigan apples to Tennessee for the pies.
I had just loaded my precious apples into the front seat of my van when another customer arrived. The man had a couple of questions about the varieties and prices, and since he assumed I am a person who knows something, I helped him make his selection.
As I came back around my van to get into the driver’s seat, I noticed another vehicle in the circle drive way across the lawn. A woman was standing in front of it, looking stressed.
I called over to her, “Do you need some help?”
Nodding her head, she called back, “Yes, we are stuck.”
Thinking I was just doing some quick in-and-out-of-the-car errands, I had no hat or gloves. The wind was brisk as I walked across the lot.
A younger man, perhaps a son, was on his hands and knees, digging behind the back tire with a small stick. Dressed only in athletic shorts and a light jacket, he was down on the cold, damp ground.
“We could use some cardboard,” the woman said.
I hiked back across the lawn, and opened the back of my van. I knew I had unloaded some cardboard boxes earlier, sending them to recycling. I grabbed the only thing in there—a white rag rug. By standing on tip-toe, and leaning over the counter into the apple stand, I was able to reach a small board that had “PEACHES” painted on one side.
I hiked back across the lawn, clutching the rug in one hand and the board in the other.
The woman looked at the rug and shook her head, “I don’t want to get your rug muddy….”
“It is only mud,” I pointed out.
I was finally able to convince them we could use the rug under one tire and the board under the other for traction. Cautioning the woman to step on the gas very slowly, I went to the front of her vehicle to push. She got in, put the vehicle in reverse, and I pushed.
Success!
It is our experience that if we feel hateful, we act hatefully. If we feel loving, we act lovingly. Likewise, if we truly feel that everything and every one is an expression of the same one Reality that we ourselves are, we will act accordingly and will quite literally behave towards others as we would behave towards ourselves.
(The Transparency of Things, by Rupert Spira)
Today is only November 19, but the season of kindness has already arrived.
This year, let’s see if we can all remember it is only a rug, and it is only mud, whatever it is. Let’s be intentional to have kindness last until this time next year, and then let’s start the season of kindness all over again.
Here is the freshly washed rug, no worse for the wear.