Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: synchronicity

  • Handyman!

    Shortly after she posted the Sacred Story “Screwdriver” she mentioned the story to some friends she was on a Zoom call with.

    One of the participants on Zoom unmuted and said, “After my husband passed I would occasionally find Cheerios in places that I know no one had been or spaces that had obviously been cleaned many times since he had actually been there to have them. I knew it was his way of letting me know he was still with me. It sounds to me like you had a visit from a handyman.”

    Between the posting of the “Screwdriver” Sacred Story and logging onto the Zoom meeting she and another friend had been on a call with a dear friend who was navigating a very challenging situation with a neighbor. The neighbor had cognitive loss with no family support.

    The neighbor’s situation was triggering deep pain. The stress of not being able to really do what the neighbor needed to be done was causing her to experience some heart symptoms. Her own family was concerned about her and telling her she needed to step away from the neighbor’s situation. She was feeling helpless and hopeless about her neighbor being all alone!

    This friend had an especially raw spot for her neighbor’s situation because this friend had undergone her own husband’s Alzheimer’s disease…. and he had been a handyman!!!!

    Wow. The name of the friend’s husband’s business had been House Calls. It was immediately known who this “handyman” that had paid a visit was!

    “I will never leave you nor forsake you” is a Bible verse that appears in Hebrews 13:5 and Deuteronomy 31:6. It’s a promise!

  • Screwdriver

    As he came around to his wife’s side of the bed he saw a small screwdriver on the floor. He picked it up and put it on her nightstand. When he mentioned having picked it up to her later that day, she went in to see it. She had never seen that screwdriver!

    She looked up the symbolic meaning and discovered that in both Christianity and Judaism, the screwdriver relates to God’s purpose for people and the use of tools to fulfill that purpose

    In Christianity screwdriver is symbolic of God’s workmanship: People are made by God and have a purpose to do good works. It is about our not being harmful or sinful, but using our abilities for good. An additional meaning can be repentance and the need to “grow up” in Christ.

    Within Judaism screwdrivers, and all tools, are to help people fulfill a higher purpose. Especially noteworthy is how God may call people to do things in unexpected ways, and people should be open to this.

    I found this online: Examples of things found in places where it seems logically impossible for them to be include: ancient artifacts from a completely different civilization found in a remote location, a perfectly preserved modern object discovered in a fossil layer from millions of years ago, a living creature from a different ecosystem appearing in a totally isolated environment, a human footprint in an area with no known human presence, or a technologically advanced device from the future found in the present day; essentially, anything that disrupts the expected timeline or geographical distribution of objects based on our understanding of history and science.

    We can now add finding a screwdriver that does not belong to them right out in the open on their bedroom floor….

  • February 10 – This is the Way

    She was on a Zoom meeting with a friend. The conversation went to a location in rural central Brazil which they had both been at previously. Her friend quickly sent a text message with a short video to identify a location they were speaking about.

    That location was very relevant to the process they were engaged in.

    The date the video had been taken was on the video: February 10. She glanced down at the lower right had corner of the screen on her laptop.

    “Jesus Christ!” she blurted out. “Today is February 10.”

    They both knew they were being guided….

    Isaiah 30:21
    Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

  • April 7

    Manifest is a supernatural drama series on Netflix about the passengers and crew of a plane that mysteriously reappears after being presumed dead for years. The show explores the passengers’ experiences as they adjust to a world that has moved on without them.

    Screenshot

    This is the plot summary online: On April 7, 2013, Montego Air Flight 828 experiences turbulence and disappears. The plane mysteriously lands at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, New York, five and a half years later. The passengers and crew discover that the world has moved on without them. The passengers begin to experience visions and guiding voices, known as “callings”, that predict future events. Some passengers develop unusual skills, while others are left to deal with the psychological impact of the event. Michaela and her brother Ben believe there is a government cover-up and try to uncover the truth.

    They had been watching the series for weeks, but it was not until the last minutes of the last (20th) episode of the last season that they realized the significance: April 7 was their wedding date!!!

  • Corinthian Bells Wind Chime

    They were planning on buying a gift for friends who lost their mom recently when she suddenly asked him what they were doing for the funeral. He responded, “Maybe flowers?”

    Immediately she said, “Let’s get them a wind chime.”

    He went back and forth if it was a good idea and sent a text message to the friend’s daughter asking her opinion. “Mom would love a wind chime,” was the response. Corinthian Bells by Wind River was the brand of wind chime they selected.

    Their friend loved the wind chime. It was especially meaningful because on the tag from 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 was this verse: “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

    That was their mom’s favorite bible verse….

  • Do What’s Possible

    Father Tom Weston says, “We do what’s possible.”

    It has been what I call a wonder-FULL week. It was Divine Timing having Stacey arrive in Florida on the evening of the day my sister completed her transition in Michigan. I was delightfully distracted doing things we love: riding bikes, putting together jigsaw puzzles, and spending good time with good friends, ending our week with a day out on the water.


    Several days ago a friend shared Sadhguru’s dharma talk and included a link to “I Am” by Kirtana. It is track 3 on The Embrace album, not an artist or a song I had heard of previously, but this opening stanza says it all.

      Before the body, before the story
      Before the name
      Beyond the mind’s attempt to find
      Or explain
      Before the breath, beyond the sense
      Of pleasure or of pain
      And after death, and after death, I am

    It is providential we have been watching Manifest, a sci fi series on Netflix. Stacey did not get to watch the end with us when John and Larry and Linda and I binge-watched the last five episodes last night. (I promised my sister, Janis, I would not include a spoiler in this post so no hint to the ending. However, I am saying many of the themes in this series are dear to my heart.)

    A conscious living of the grief journey has been significant for me and Johnnie’s passing has been a growth catalyst. We only saw her once during the many years she lived in Texas where two of her sons reside. When she moved back to Michigan, my other sister (Janis) and I had opportunity to visit Johnnie once. Johnnie became quite debilitated with rheumatoid arthritis and was unable to even put in or take out her dentures. She had to move in with her daughter for a time before spending her last months in a nursing home. Our niece reached out to us last fall and I am so thankful Janis and I got to Ann Arbor twice before my coming south for the winter.

    Life while we are here in body is often complicated, confusing, and painful — the characters in Manifest certainly demonstrated this fact. But, even in all of that, they proved that life is beautiful.

    Johnnie had a peaceful passing, and for that I will be eternally grateful. She did it her way…. and Grace was oh, so present. These words about grace from Sadhguru’s dharma talk touched my heart:

    Sun comes up in the morning but for you to see sun you have to open the blinds…. So, if you want to see sunlight as grace, even to receive that you have to do something…. Grace is not something that is happening to this person or that person; grace is…. something that is always on…. Grace is always on…. It’s just on. Grace has no discrimination. Grace has no distinctive way of identifying this person or that person. It’s simply on. It’s simply life….

    Before the body, before the story, before the name; beyond the mind’s attempt to find or explain; before the breath, beyond the sense of pleasure or of pain, and after death, and after death, the I Am. We do what’s possible.

  • 10:10

    She spent significant time in prayer as her her mother was coming to live with her due to debilitating rheumatoid arthritis. The Lord gave her assurance in John 10:10 which says, “I have come that they might have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

    She shared this beautiful message with her mother before framing the promise and placing it in a prominent place in her mother’s room. There it stayed until her mother went into a health and rehabilitation facility.


    The morning her mother died — only as she was speaking out loud to a friend that her mother had just gone home to the Lord — the immense power and grace of this verse took on an even greater significance.

    Her mother’s time of death was 10:10….

  • Believe in Yourself

    While she is in Florida, her older sister in Michigan is nearing transition in Michigan where her niece is sitting bedside vigil. Her niece offered to share a few intimate photos.


    Seeing the words on her sister’s shirt, tears of sacredness formed in her eyes. She shot a text message back to her niece, “Believe in yourself is on my yoga mat!!! I will take a picture and send it. The funniest thing is when I bought the mat it was rolled up in a bag and I had no idea it had words on it.”

    The letters in the phrase that spell out BE YOU are highlighted in hot pink on her yoga mat and that message had come to mean so much to her…. something her sister had consistently demonstrated throughout her life.

  • Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu

    Today is my birthday.

    As my birthday ritual I did an audio Mudita meditation with John Orr from an online retreat day April 11, 2021. Mudita is a Sanskrit and Pali word that means “sympathetic joy” or “appreciative pleasure”. It’s a Buddhist concept that involves feeling joy for the good fortune of others.

    The first person you choose is someone you can feel a genuine sense of happiness for their good fortune and happiness. Today I chose my older grandson, Bradley. Currently I am sharing substantial time with him as he his helping me get DebraBasham.com set up. It will be the new home to Yellow Brick Road and Sacred Stories and many of the resources that have been located on SCS-Matters.com.

    The second person is often called The Benefactor — someone who has been loving and supportive for you at some time or times in your life. I chose Reverend Betty Lue Lieber, who founded Reunion with her husband, Robert Waldon. This is the the program I was ordained through in 1997.

    The third person is a neutral person. It may not even be someone you know personally, but it is someone who is feeling happiness and good fortune with a recent accomplishment, something that likely brings that person joy. I chose Donald Trump. You are instructed in the meditation to notice any old mind states like jealousy or envy. Right there with those feelings say, “May joy infuse your life. May it continue all of your days. May you truly be happy. May you truly be free. May all of this grow. May it infuse your heart.”

    The fourth person is sometimes called The Enemy but it is just a challenging person (a person you are having a challenge with). You are encouraged to notice all of the happiness in that person’s life — loving family and friends and relationships, meaningful work. “May you be truly happy and well.” You are invited to be genuinely grateful for all that you have learned from this person.

    After the guided meditation ended I played a recording of the chant “Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu” from a residential retreat day October 10, 2019. Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu is a Sanskrit phrase that translates to “May all beings everywhere be happy and free”. It is a prayer for global well-being and peace, and a perfect chant to support the Mudita Meditation.

    When I finished I looked at a list of others I know share a January 22 birthday:
    1. Wayne Kaiser
    2. Emily Warner
    3. Phillip Largay
    4. Joyce Zerbe
    5. Aaron (Linda Gunter’s son)
    6. Allen Mumper
    7. Emily’s husband’s cousin
    8. PT at Borgess
    9. George Ross
    10. Izzie (granddaughter Courtney’s friend)
    11. Carrie Startcher (daughter Stacey’s friend in Clarksville)
    12. Sivia’s mother

    I like to also contemplate the day’s messages that come on this day from sources I value and follow.

    Daily Reflection from Deep Spring

    In a moment of darkness, you are wont to ask, “Why this darkness?” You have a sense that if you could but understand the darkness, you could protect yourself from it. Such thinking only further strengthens the illusion of the self. Can you sit there in that darkness and simply know, “Here I sit in darkness and I will wait. I need not fight with the darkness. I need not try to push it away. I need not grasp, even at faith.”

    Just faith: faith expressed as the willingness to sit in darkness, if darkness is what is there, without a need to grasp at the light but with the willingness to open the doors and allow in the light. ~ Aaron

    On this day of your life Debra, I believe God wants you to know that not everything has to turn out exactly the way you planned in order for you to call it a success. Sometimes all God wants you to do is to “get the ball rolling.” Then, She’ll take it from there.

    So when things turn out other than the way you wanted them to, don’t be so quick to say, “Bummer!”

    Many a Bummer is a Blessing in disguise. Consider the possibility that life is magic…and that there’s a rabbit in that hat.

    Love, your Friend, Neale Donald Walsch

    From Gratefulness.org

    You must live life with the full knowledge that your actions will remain. We are creatures of consequence. ~ Zadie Smith

    From The Daily Tejaniya

    When you are truly aware you aren’t focusing, yet you are
    aware of objects. You are aware of thoughts of the mind, sensations
    of the body, and perceptions (sights,sounds, etc.) of the world.

    By practicing in this way, the mind stays fresh.

    It may not be usual to be happier for someone else’s birth than your own on your birthday, but today I truly feel greater joy that Stacey was born than that I was born. I get that she could not have been born unless I had been, but emotions don’t always make sense. In fact, they are often very distorted. That is just how it is. So at three quarters of a century I am grateful for the wonderful woman who came in as a teenage pregnancy and those that came in from her.

    RIP Wayne Kaiser and Allen Mumper.

    May all beings everywhere be happy and free. Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu….

  • It All Matters

    While statistics are not people, and people are not statistics, it is staggering to hear numbers related to losses. A few days ago the updates on the California fires included: 40,300 acres burned; more than 12,000 structures destroyed; at least 24 people have died; over 100,000 people have had to evacuate.

    As the fires raged in California, the people behind the numbers became more real to me when learning that our great niece and her husband woke to blazes as the space they called home was destroyed by a fire in the second story of the home in which they rented a main floor apartment.

    I was awake at 4:00 am today. That is early, but actually I had been sleeping since 10 pm. While we were in the thick of remediation from a German cockroach infestation the past month I would go to sleep at 10 and be awake and inspecting the kitchen about 12, 2, and 4. Grateful to say “Howard” has helped us be sighting-free for almost 2 weeks with one exception (which likely was a juvenile Palmetto bug who just wandered in late Sunday evening). They say you are probably clear when you go 7 days without a sighting.

    Lying in this morning’s pre-dawn, praying for all who are navigating unfathomable difficulties right now, as I reach for my phone I see a post by our niece writing poignantly about the loss of home and possessions our great niece is going through.

      This not only relates to people in California right now, but to people like our daughter and son-in-law in-law, who just lost their home and most of their belongings in a fire last week in Opelika, Alabama.

      It’s a given that the most important thing is the survival of humans and pets – hands down. I think we tend to say things like, “Everybody got out, and that’s all that matters.” But, while that matters THE MOST, it’s not ALL that matters. It matters to lose the home you loved. It matters to lose all of your favorite clothes. It matters to lose things you held dear – stuffed animals you’ve had since you were a kid, little hand-written cards and letters and pieces of paper written by people you love. It matters to lose the guitar you’ve had and played for years. It matters to lose the collection of vinyls you’ve collected along the way, including ones that belonged to you late grandpa. It matters to lose the plants you nurtured for a long time. it matters to lose even the smallest things – the catch-all dish where you dropped your keys and your loose change when you got home from work, the dishes you bought for your dog, your favorite mug, the artwork you loved on the walls. And it matters that you’ve lost your happy place, your safe place, the place where you could be just the two (or however many) of you. It matters to lose neighbors because you can’t move back into the house you lived in next to them. It matters to lose the route where you walked your dog every evening, and the route you took from your door to work, or from your driveway to your closest friends’ house. It matters to lose the sights and the sounds that were unique to your little spot of the world. It all matters.💔

    This past Friday we visited our former community and saw people who are our friends, some former neighbors, out on Pine Island. Folks there continue to navigate the damage and losses not only from Hurricane Ian in 2022 which displaced us from our former winter home, but also Hurricane Helene exactly two years later and then Hurricane Milton mere days on the heels of Helene.

    Taoism holds that compassion is first among virtues.

    Jesus modeled compassion through actions and words, and taught others how to be compassionate as well. He instructed those about to stone to death a woman caught in adultery, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” This is just one of the powerful examples of compassion in the bible.

    Nietzsche’s criticism of the emotion of compassion included a distinction between “our compassion” and “your compassion” dovetailing with the caution to abandon what is called othering in Buddhism.

    This photo was posted by our great niece on Instagram after the fire last week. She is holding this brass horse statue, one of very few possessions that survived a catastrophic barn fire at her home when she was just 11 years old. Her dad had taken a trip to Ecuador and brought the statue back to her. She says she has kept it with her for twenty years “as a small token of hope — a reminder that life persists even in the face of death and tragedy.” She says it still holds hope, even after facing a similar catastrophic fire taking so much from them now.

    Friends who have family and friends in California have shared with me the odd feelings of relief as they learn of the safety of life and property for some and an overwhelming compassion learning of the loss of those precious aspects for so many others both those known personally and those not.

    Perhaps the wisdom of compassion resides simply in the words of our niece, “It all matters….”