Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: scs-matters.com

  • Ramped-up Service

    The hope to get him home was sincere and unrelenting, but the barriers were significant. His condition was largely due to Agent Orange exposure during the Vietnam war. And he had been Post Commander.

    Two Vets came forth — they were willing to drive him and his wife (and their two big dogs) from Southwest Florida to mid-Michigan. A van needed to be rented and fitted with a bed and commode. The Post offered to cover expenses.

    But they also needed a ramp at home so they could get him into the house. Time was short, but timing was divine. The day his wife called her daughter, her daughter called her mother-in-law. The local post had a loaner ramp being returned that very day. Within 48 hours the ramp had been installed and was ready to welcome him home – truly ramped-up service for a truly deserving service-man!

    “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” — Dale Carnegie

  • Queen of Salsa Quarter

    It was the perfect quarter for her to have found.

    “Does this make me a member of the Circle of Quarter Finders? And what say you about my found quarter?” was the text message.

    “Oh, what a find!” came the reply. “Two years ago right now we were in the deep emotional waters.”

    This found “Azúcar” quarter had been released in 2024 as part of the American Women Quarters™ Program. Their mutual friend was a feminist and advocate. She died on July 5, 2024. This found quarter was the first coin in U.S. history to feature an Afro-Latina, honoring Celia Cruz, the legendary “Queen of Salsa.”

    A few months earlier, she had married the beloved partner of her late friend…. The spiritual meaning of the Latin dance, salsa, seemed to speak significantly, sending affirmation from the other side: The salsa encompasses community, the energetic exchange between partners, and deep ancestral roots.

    Remarrying after a spouse’s death is not a betrayal, but rather a testament to a person’s capacity for love and connection. It does not erase the love held for a late partner; instead, it demonstrates a desire to continue experiencing life and companionship.

  • Calm the Storm

    This post was inspired by my early morning reading of Barbara Brodsky’s most recent blog about the summer she could not swim because of an infection in a toe bone and the risk of amputation. Reading what she wrote of her experience, along with her appreciation to again be basking in her love of swimming, I had memories to share.

    I told her of a time when I had briefly overcome fear of deep water (in this lifetime generated by a near-drowning while a pre-teen). I was taking an adult non-swim course at the YWCA in preparation of leading high school youth on a wilderness canoe/camping trip. Buoyed by confidence, I quickly enrolled in the next level class. But that class had a different instructor.

    Something about the combination of that teacher’s style and the tasks required for this next level set me back…. by the end of the session my competency had digressed. Fear had set in again. I have not yet regained the joyful jaunting Barbara thoroughly enjoys.

    I told Barbara how much I appreciate the way she and John Orr teach the dharma by telling their own experiences. The term “dharma” has no single-word English translation, its exact meaning depends heavily on the context in which it is used. Derived from the Sanskrit root dhr — meaning to hold or to support — dharma is the truth of what is. Dharma represents the truth of an underlying order that sustains the universe.

    Last Sunday’s sharing as guest pastor at St. John United Church of Christ in New Buffalo was about “Mindful Morality” — differentiated from morality as a concrete idea. We were not looking at something always being right and another something always being wrong. We touched on an understanding of how the insular cortex processes physical disgust (like tasting rotten food), and also lights up during moments of moral disgust (like witnessing unfairness or cheating).

    I told Barbara when John and I were here in our 42-year-old mobile home while tornado warnings were going off last evening, I calmed myself by sweeping the floors. I could not control what was going to happen. I could only do what I could do in the moment. I remembered the story of Jesus calming the storm. I remembered when my colleague/mentor Dr. Mary Jo Bulbrook had a group of indigenous healers from all over the globe at her place in North Caroline with a hurricane coming. They created a healing circle and each did what he or she drew from his or her lineage to “calm the storm” both literally and figuratively. That hurricane dissipated all around them! The group gave great gratitude that they did not even lose electric power.

    Before the storms came through last evening, I had filled a bucket of water to be able to flush toilets if we lost power. John can use that to water flowers in a day or so.

    “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.” ~ Edward Everett Hale, American author and clergyman

  • Hundred-Dollar Blessing

    Joyce and a few friends have lunch out together on Wednesdays. They go different places on different days, but she was so grateful they went to Cracker Barrel on Wednesday, June 10, 2026.

    Joyce was chatting with another patron, enjoying the pleasant sharing. “I would like to give you a blessing, if you would like to receive it,” the woman said.

    “Of course,” Joyce replied. The woman pressed a bill into the palm of Joyce’s hand. Looking down, she was shocked to be holding a hundred-dollar bill!

    The woman spoke of having been in a cult as a child, then finding God. She and her husband had been very fortunate financially and they liked being in a position to share that blessing with others. Joyce felt this generosity to be a direct affirmation for the special sewing she has been doing — making small zippered cases for a mission project.

    “That hundred-dollar bill will be going to Hobby Lobby!” she happily exclaimed as she shared the experience of having gotten such great generosity.

    Great generosity from a stranger at lunch. A stranger who will forever feel like a friend….

  • Princess

    Princess came as her companion while her husband was working away from home.

    And Princess was her faithful fur friend for fourteen and one half years!

    Princess started having seizures in October and was on seizure medications every eight hours. The alarm was set for 3 am and, after giving Princess the medication, she would watch TV until she fell back to sleep.

    After Princess died, her husband’s work sent her flowers with a message, “Thinking of you. Sending sunshine your way.”

    The Dharma of Dogs: Our Best Friends as Spiritual Teachers
    by Tami Simon

    “The pain of her death was exquisite. I cried for weeks, but felt an incredible joy and comfort that was an equal part of the grief. I was so grateful that I had spent time with her — only with her, fully present and joyful.” (p.163)

    Thích Nhất Hạnh shared in No Death, No Fear:

      The day my mother died I wrote in my journal, “A serious misfortune of my life has arrived.” I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.

      I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet… wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. Those feet that I saw as “my” feet were actually “our” feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.

      From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.

    After Princess died she would still wake up at 3 am, even without an alarm. On February 11, one week to the day of Princess’ death , when she fell back to sleep she had a vivid dream that her husband handed Princess to her and she cuddled with her in bed. Sharing with a friend about the visit Princess made to her in that dream she wrote: “Very grateful.”

  • Goldfinch Grace

    A pair of goldfinches are active just outside my window on this early morning. I love early hours and beautiful bird songs that accompany their activity.

    I look up the spiritual meaning and am informed by AI:

    The goldfinch spiritually symbolizes unbridled joy, positive transformation, and divine grace. Because of its bright yellow plumage and cheerful song, its presence is a reminder to embrace optimism, celebrate life’s simple beauties, and express your true self without constraint.

    My attention leaves my window as the birds find some privacy in the lush leaves on the large shrub. I continue to hear their sweet singing as I begin to check Facebook. This message (attribtued to Deep Spring, and posted by a woman I used to attend their retreats with) speaks to my heart:

      “Hold in mind what you wish to create. Chaos is always uncomfortable for you. I’m not supporting the disruption of the world, but I’m reminding you that perhaps some of this disruption is a necessary process to move from the old into the new. The most important thing here is first, to watch your fear of letting go of the old, the fear of what will replace it. Will we all die in this process? Will everything be lost, everything we have loved? And then, to remind yourself of your power to co-create. As the old falls away, it is so important that you are able to step in and say, “Now, in this space that has opened, here is what we choose to co-create: a world of mercy, peace, friendship, loving kindness, well-being, joy.” You are being invited into that time, a time of letting go that is so hard for the human, a time of dreaming the big dreams. What would a world look like that is truly at peace? Envisioning a world of peace, of cooperation, of co-creation, of well-being for all beings. What would that look like? You are not the politicians who are going to put together the political structure, but the political structure is an outflow and not a ground. You are the ones who create the ground as you are able to be present with your feelings of fear, your presence with a world out of control, your feelings of anger at some of the authorities who are trying to push this world only for their own individuated use. Stop and note, “I am Shanti Das, a servant of peace, and I can use my energy to support peace in the world, or I can use my energy to further hatred and oppositionality.”

    I treasure the reminders we have to see the gifts life is offering. It is grace that holds steady the willingness to see this day as alive with possibilities. Of course there are conditions that challenge us. I certainly see that living here in our 55-and-over community. We have neighbors in wheelchairs who cannot even get out of their house and onto their porch. We have friends and family members who are navigating ongoing situations that call for Herculean strength every day.

    I don’t remember where I saw this, but these are wonderful words: Sometimes the things we can’t change end up changing us.

  • Angelic Axle Repair

    Folding chairs had to be moved from the funeral home, set up, and returned to the funeral home after the outdoor Blossomtime Blessing of the Blossoms ceremony held a few miles away. The trailer was rather old, and showing its age. One of the volunteer workers made a comment about the wheels and axles. The owner said the trailer had started out as a 1972 tent camper, and after many years when the camper part wore out, the frame was converted to a utility trailer. He said there would never be a problem with the wheels or axles because of a repair job many years before.


    Then he told the workers this story:

    One four-day weekend around 1977, my family decided to go camping at a Yogi Bear campground in Indiana. I had to work until noon on Saturday, so my wife would drive the camper to the campsite on Friday night. I would come down after work on Saturday.

    Everything went well until my wife drove over a railroad track in Plymouth. A weld on the trailer axle broke causing the wheel to rub the inner fender. A man following her in a pickup truck noticed the problem. After he alerted her, they both pulled into a parking lot where he introduced himself. My two younger daughters, and our fifteen year-old son were with her.

    The man in the pickup truck said he had the knowledge and tools needed to make the repairs and he knew of someone who would weld it back. He said our son would have to do the work, however, since the man had been involved in an accident a couple of weeks prior and could not help. Our son was mechanically inclined and was in machine shop classes in high school. Two jacks were taken from the man’s truck and the trailer was jacked up. The wheels and four bolts holding the axle on were removed, and the axle was placed in the man’s truck. The man and our son drove several blocks to a machine shop.

    Our son had related the following: They arrived at what appeared to be a new shop — modern, very nice, new black parking lot, freshly painted yellow parking stripes. They pulled up to the side door where they were met by another man who took the axle inside. The shop was brightly lit and full of the most modern tools and machines. The axle was placed on a welding table, pulled back into correct shape, checked to make sure the alignment was correct and welded back. The son told the welder to give him his name and address and the cost, that he would have his mother send a check. The welder replied, “I owe the man you are with a great deal. There will not be a charge.”

    The axle was taken back to the trailer and installed. Upon completion my wife pulled out her checkbook and asked the man for a price. He told her, “There is not a charge, but when you see someone broken down on the highway, stop and do whatever you can for them. When I was in that accident two weeks ago, if someone had not stopped to help me I would not be here today.”

    Our family went on to the campground and had an enjoyable weekend. After returning home my wife wanted to send a thank you card to the man who had helped them. She had his name but not an address, so she called the phone operator. She did not get a mailing address, but was given a phone number. She called the number and when a woman answered explained what had occurred and asked to speak to the man. The woman said, “That man was my husband. Unfortunately, he was killed in that accident two weeks ago. You are the second person who has called with such comments. Because of your phone calls, I now know where he is and that he is in good hands.”

    Note* Upon thinking about all that took place that day, it is obvious that ANGELS do walk among us and have remarkable powers and abilities. Apparently, the machine shop and tools were created by him for that very purpose.

    Photo Note** This “spare” on the trailer now is a 1972 original from when the wheels and tires were replaced in 2022, after five decades of service. We never had a problem with those tires and, although they did show cracks and had chunks missing, they continued to hold air while doing their job for 50 years.

  • Welcome Back To 24550

    Their home, along with the neighboring town of Hallam, had been flattened by an F-4 tornado that tore through multiple counties in southeast Nebraska during the evening hours of May 22, 2004. His brother came to help. Dan arrived quickly from Michigan. He brought with him not only badly needed skills but equally essential energy and optimism life-giving to all.

    Dan designed a t-shirt that was worn by hundreds of friends and neighbors and volunteers as they worked tirelessly side-by-side, dealing with devastated properties and broken hearts.

    Dan also ordered a custom-made address plaque to replace the one that had been by their front door. The words chosen carried a very special meaning:

    Welcome Back To 24550

    The plaque arrived the very day workers were coming to lay the bricks!

  • Howard and Karen

    My stomach’s rumbling reminded me it was almost dinner when I noticed a woman moving swiftly from door-to-door across the street from our home here in Glenaire. It caught my attention firstly because neither of the two houses are currently occupied. Directly across, friends are navigating health challenges that have prevented them thus far returning from their snow-bird location. And a new-build adjacent is yet to be purchased.

    I could see a vehicle parked in front of our house and a man came onto our porch but then quickly dashed away. Opening the door, I saw a handbill had been taped onto the glass. “There is no solicitation in the park,” I called out to him.

    “It is not a solicitation, it is a courtesy,” he called back.

    There was the logo of a roofing company, announcing they would be putting on a roof two doors down, apologizing for noise, saying it would be done in one day. The phone number of the company was at the bottom. “It looks a lot like solicitation to me,” I said while I went down the steps to return the paper. He muttered something about it looking however, and saying I could refuse the courtesy if I wanted to as he started walking quickly in the opposite direction.

    It was not a pleasant interaction so I decided to grab my phone and get the license plate. The woman had crossed the street by this time and she started hustling back my way calling loudly, “Karen!” I asked if she had gotten permission from the management, and when she called me Karen again, I asked why she kept calling me something other than my name. “Look it up, Karen!” she yelled, adding, “Don’t bother calling the manager, I am going there myself.”

    An internet search informed me “Karen” is a pejorative slang term used to describe a person—typically a middle-aged white woman—perceived as entitled, demanding, and overly indignant. The term is used to call out behavior that abuses privilege, such as demanding to “speak to the manager,” making racist or discriminatory remarks, or harassing others in public.

    Hmmm…. her behavior was certainly not very professional! I did call the park manager, and she had gotten to the office before my call. I clarified that her notifying the office of their “courtesy” only took place after my exchange with them. I asked him if he would have given them permission had they stopped before. He said he would have told them there was no solicitation allowed but he would notify the neighbors himself.

    I was shocked how dis-regulated my central nervous system was by the exchange. But the painful and the pleasant can be a dance duo.

    This morning, sharing text with my niece about the anniversary of my father’s (her grandfather’s) passing on May 7, 1992, we spoke our gratitude of his having found sobriety before my sisters and I had children. The grandchildren were spared. She wrote, “Mom and I both benefited from Neil T. Anderson’s work. One of the ways he summarized the Biblical principle of forgiveness/unforgiveness is how when we forgive, it lets that person off our hook (no more control or connection) but it doesn’t let them off the Lord’s hook (whatever unrepentant sin they have in their lives, they will be accountable for).” This shows up clearly in the teachings about karma. My dad’s active alcoholism was very unpleasant. His decades of sobriety before his death was very pleasant.

    A few days ago welcome warm air waffled into the house through the open windows as flies were also getting in. The pleasant and the unpleasant dance as a duo. After catching and releasing 4 flies (also seeing John kill one with the flyswatter) I looked up the spiritual meaning and read:

    The spiritual meaning of a fly combines contrasting themes of relentless persistence and survival with messages of decay, negativity, and spiritual impurity. It symbolizes the need to adapt, overcome obstacles, and examine one’s life for negativity.

    As my eyes and heart took the unpleasant and the pleasant in, what was revealed was grace and forgiveness. I recalled a time in my life when financial fears and genuine desire to help hurting people resulted in my seeing clients by circumventing the health insurance system. My actions, like this roofing company’s, were in a while-not-quite-illegal-definitely-not-fully-ethical manner.

    That neighbor’s new roof went on yesterday. How am I like this too? Awareness with non-judgment is healing….

  • A World of Our Own Making

    Grateful, Friday was an extraordinary day of shifts in perspective….

    I had been being drawn down a dim alley when our grand-daughter-in-love-to-be had not responded to text or email about their upcoming wedding ceremony. Thursday evening she and I had opportunity for a call that answered a lot of questions. As I rode my bike early the next morning, I was feeling a tremendous amount of love along with relief and gratitude for clearer understanding.

    Returning home from my ride, Barbara Brodsky’s email response to my request to share her recent journal post touched me in that soft spot as I read, “Thank you for loving the journal, Debra. Of course you may share it… anywhere…. I’m honored.”

    April Journal #7

    I sat in my hot tub at dawn looking with wonder at the tiny new maple leaves just emerging, that precious, vibrant pale green of spring; seeing the red buds on the crab apple tree; the lawn sprinkled with dandelions; garden filled with daffodils and tulips; tiny pale green cones emerging on the giant spruce tops, awed by the deep blue sky. Here is the wonder of life emerging into a new spring, a new season.

    I’m aware that I’ve been in internal winter, dormant and frozen. It’s time to emerge.

    Asking what has led to closure is a necessary step: it’s painful to become aware of body discomfort, anger and sadness, old habitual ways of dealing with physical and emotional pain. This is partially just the mammalian “fight, flight, freeze” reflex. For me one important step is just awareness that I’ve turned to “automatic,” and to remember my intention to be present and awake. I choose not to become a Tesla! I am driving this vehicle! That connects me to intentions: do no harm and I DO harm others by withdrawing. And harm myself. The flowers need the nourishment of rich soil, water and warm sunshine to flourish. Armoring myself, the sun cannot reach me.

    Aaron asks me gently, what do I fear? Aging, increasing personal feelings of diminishment and lack of any control in a world gone crazy! Sadness, really grief, that we are destroying ourselves, each other and the earth and I cannot do anything about it. I’m feeling the full weight of my years, running out of time to do anything positive. I see grief is predominant. The anger is an expression of the grief, and grief of the anger.

    Aaron: And what helps to resolve the causes for grief?
    Barbara: Joy, but how do I get to joy?
    A: Joy is inherent in you and will be experienced when the blockage releases.
    B: Are you saying I’m holding on to the blockage?
    A: Not consciously, with intention, but if you touch each of those places of pain within with gentle love and light, as a parent holds a frightened child, you will feel gradual opening. Then you will see the base for blockage. There must be intention for release to happen, and consciousness of the pain of continued closure.

    We leave off conversation here as I begin to meditate. “Breathing in, I touch my heart with love; breathing out, I choose to let go of old pain.”

    I see it like October leaves releasing from a tree.… no force, just releasing whatever chooses to go, and again… after a few minutes, mind settles into presence, with body, mind, breath, nothing sticking, opening into more spacious presence.

    Barbara closed her post with this precious photo of her youngest granddaughter swinging from the flowering crab apple tree planted from a seedling in 1974.


    My emotional load was certainly lighter as I headed to my sister’s to assist with some spring cleaning. We ended up doing her kitchen.

    As I began, she was sharing frustration with the messes made by her husband. I had already shared Barbara’s Journal #7 with her, and I had been sharing my insight and relief after the previous night’s call about the wedding. I stopped in the middle of cleaning and said, “It is frustrating to have the same messes over and over, but if you got a call saying he had died your heart would be broken and you would pray to be able to clean up after him again…. We are learning to hold all sides of our emotions.”

    We shared some tears and a hug as I whispered, “We live in a world of our own making giving our experiences their meaning.”

    As we worked our way around her entire kitchen she shared, “It feels so good in here now.”

    We both knew mammalian messes of our own made were also being deep cleaned as she and I worked side by side….