A person walking down the road in the woods

FOOD FOR THE JOURNEY


When I reflect on the year past, it is easy to become anxious about the future.  2017  wasn’t  easy.    Disasters  hit  in rapid succession, their combined effect making each more daunting than the one before.   Floods, fires, A person sitting on the ground in front of water.earthquakes.   Simmering racial tensions heated and boiled over into the streets.  We were shocked to learn that our country, even our families were sharply divided by A person sitting on the ground in front of water.our social and political beliefs.   Social media became a national forum for proclaiming unsubstantiated “facts” and venting unfiltered frustrations.    Scientists were discounted and their hard work dismissed by  government spokespersons on the basis of undocumented claims  based on A person sitting on the ground in front of water.personal belief as best, or worse, vested interests.  One after another trusted leader tumbled from power as as  entrenched patterns of sexual harassment in the workplace came to light.   All of this served up to us as “Breaking News”   24/7 in HD Surround Sound, by newscasters scrambling  frantically  for the latest sensational tidbit.

Sadly, rather than becoming unified  against our common problems,  for the most part, we seemed to have been pulled apart.  I am exhausted by all of it.

2017 was indeed a challenging year.   However, it was not the only challenging year we have faced as a nation.  We have weathered  farA person sitting on the ground in front of water. greater  storms and we will come through this one. There has always been darkness.  Darkness in the world, darkness in me, in each one of us.   But there is also light. And to stay in that light and avoid slipping into disillusionment, I am going to need  spiritual nourishment,  Lots of it.

So here are some of my New Year’s resolutions to feed my spirit.

Spend  more time  with kids.

If we are watching, children will teach us how to enjoy the beauty of  ordinary A person sitting on the ground in front of water.things;  the intricate design of a daisy petal,  the magic of dew fall on  blue bonnets,  how to dream.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

Dreaming comes naturally to children.  They have no battle scars yet, anything is still possible. Inevitably, as the years go by,  dreams are lost along the way.  It isA person sitting on the ground in front of water. easy to become cynical, to lose hope.   But without it  our spirits wither and die.  Dreams are  spiritual food.  They are the crucibles in  which  hope  is formed.  It is the dream that is important, not the outcome.  Children know that.

Make time for art.  

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.
Edouard Manet “Boating” 1874

We Americans tend to think of art as a luxury, an activity only to be indulged when there is surplus money and time.   Art programs are the first to be cut from our educational and personal budgets.  But we are deluding ourselves. Art has dramatic healing power.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.
Odilon Redon, Ophelia Among the Flowers, 1905

A painting is more than  an image on a canvas.  It is an invitation to escape our world to another of our choosing, to be calmed, inspired, challenged;   to emerge recharged and refreshed.

 

Keep  friends close

I am blessed to have good friends. We are there for each other; for A person sitting on the ground in front of water.comfort, encouragement, support, or just a good laugh.  We “get” each other.  Each new conversation begins where the last one left off,A person sitting on the ground in front of water. even after years have intervened.   And yet it’s so easy to postpone that call or visit “until I’m not so busy;”   to tell myself I’m keeping in touch on Facebook or by text.  But I know better.  I’m cheating myself.  My friends  are not mine forever.  They are on loan.  Each moment with one of them  is a gift to be treasured.

    Hang out with animals.  No explanation needed.  

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.A person sitting on the ground in front of water.A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

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A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

 

A woman with red hair is holding her hands to her chest.

Betrayal


 

 

The unkindest cut.  The one we never expect because only those we A person sitting on the ground in front of water.trust can betray us.   It happens to all of us.

I hadn’t thought about her for years until I ran across an annoucement about an award she had recently received.  I was surprised at how quickly the old painful memories replayed themselves in my mind.  The initial shock and disbelief,  stabs of disappointment,  rushes of anger, and eventually, more in my interest than hers, forgiveness and acceptance.

She was my student, my star student at the time.  The one for whom I had such high hopes.   The one I rescued from the slums and nurtured. Supported, financially and emotionally.  Provided a network.  Advocated for.    Defended.

It was wonderful to watch her grow and flourish.  She was like a kid in a candy store.   Everything was magic for her; the university, her classes and research, the malls, the internet,  even the night-time sky.  She glowed with happiness.  We were a team.

Until she found a brighter star and  moved on to follow it, leaving behind a trail of lies and broken promises.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.
Shades Down Tight, Ashley Adcox

Painful as it was, and uncomfortable as the memories still are, I am grateful for the experience.  It taught me  that my expectations for her were a heavy and unjust burden.  No one has the right to require  loyalty from another person.  In spite of and maybe because of,  my good intentions, I caused her harm.   And probably more importantly,  it brought me face to face with my own past betrayals and the lies I told myself to justify my cowardly behavior.

She must have carried a heavy burden of guilt.  It’s the only logical explanation I can think of to explain the  smear campaign she launched  among the faculty and students.  I never knew the specifics or the extent of it, but the averted glances and hushed whispers told me all I needed to know.

Make no mistake; the release that comes with  betrayal exacts a heavy price.   A plausible justification for  cowardly behavior must be fabricated and a web of lies concocted.  The  guilt of my betrayals will always follow me,  nipping at my heels,  threatening to expose my lies,  until I finally face them and the people I harmed.

Each of us has the right and the responsibility to be true to our own convictions, even though acting on them may take all the courage we can muster.   And if this means severing ties with another human being,  we harm ourselves most of all if we hack them apart in the  dark corridors of betrayal.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.It’s been said that in order to know love, we must first know pain.  It follows that in order to trust, we must travel through  betrayal, be crushed by it,  burn in its crucible, and be released.

There will be another friend, lover, child, to love in the light of day, free from the dark spectre of betrayal.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

 

A tree with many branches hanging from it's trunk.

You Know You’re in the South When….


 

A person sitting on the ground in front of water. You order iced tea and your server responds, “Sweet or unsweet?

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.A stranger strikes up a conversation with you at the produce counter and you don’t look for the manager.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.It’s hard to find parking in the church parking lot on Sunday.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

The ONLY dressing is cornbread dressing.

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The  “ballgame” means football.

 

 

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.Mama is a force to be reckoned with.

 

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

Men look forward all year to a weekend on a freezing lake in an outrageous contraption hoping to bag a duck or two.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

If you visit, you have to eat.

 

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.And family is forever.

 

 

 

 

A little girl with blonde hair and purple shirt.

When everything goes wrong


An only child and the oldest granddaughter I was overindulged and sheltered by adoring  parents and relatives.  And  when things went A person sitting on the ground in front of water.wrong for me, I just picked up my toys and went home.

That didn’t work so well as an adult.

And things aren’t going so well these days.  Political turmoil, war and poverty,  mega fires,  devastating floods, social upheaval, financial instability.   And I must A person sitting on the ground in front of water.admit, my first reaction isn’t to charge headlong into the battle, but to hide, the adult version of  “picking  up my toys and going  home.”

I hear a lot these days about people  fleeing the country in desperation.  I understand  and share their  frustration.  We have a A person sitting on the ground in front of water.huge drug problem, our infrastructure is failing, our schools are falling behind, the middle class is struggling, our immigration policies don’t work, our racial divide is widening.  Not to mention mass shootings and  natural disasters.   I hear all that.

But  I have to wonder how many of those  thinking of leaving the country  have lived in or  visited other countries for extended periods of time.  One look at the nightly news shows us that these are not problems specific to us;  they  exist the world over.  No country A person sitting on the ground in front of water. is exempt from problems and even if there were such a Nirvana, there is no way to hide there.  Our community is global.

 

Besides, we have so much to fight for, so much we take for granted.   Our public education, flawed, but still a route out of A person sitting on the ground in front of water.poverty for  (I’m a case in point).   Freedom of speech.  No one is imprisoned  for criticizing the government or attending religious services. Our cities have clean water and our children are vaccinated against deadly diseases.  Our breathtakingly beautiful national parks are open to everyone.  For starters.

But it’s not free.  To quote Edmund Burke,

                     “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is  for good men to do nothing. “

 And it all counts.  Every thing we don’t say, every seed not planted, word not written,  neighbors’ pain ignored, adds to the turmoil, desperation and fear around us.  It might be uncomfortable, even dangerous to face our problems.  But we can’t afford to  pick up our toys and go home.

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A group of people standing around a table with food.

Southern Cookin’


Southerners love to cook.  Especially we love those community gatherings where everyone brings their favorite dish and we all sample “just a bite” of everyone’s.  My earliest memories of thisA person sitting on the ground in front of water. were “Dinner on the Ground,” and it literally was on the ground.  Thinking about it now, I’m amazed we kept the kids from stumbling into the spread – and maybe we didn’t..

I have such  wonderful memories of that food – and no matter how many times I try recreating their recipes, they just don’t comeA person sitting on the ground in front of water. out the same.  Uncle Henry’s fried chicken,  Miss Nina’s coconut cake,
Miss Ethel’s peach cobbler, Aunt Minnie’s A person sitting on the ground in front of water.chicken and dumplings,  Miss Edna’s buttermilk biscuits, and of course, Aunt Annie’s fabled deviled eggs.

Eventually we graduated to folding tables and chairs and finally to a real Fellowship Hall equipped with all the modern conveniences.  Much more comfortable but in nostalgic moods, I wonder if we were better off in those days.  We were blissfully unaware of the dangers of sugar, gluten, lactose, saturated fat, cholesterol, and vegetarians were, well, just weird.  There was no guilt associated with a hamburger and a coke for lunch.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

We had no idea the trouble we were in.

My rational self remembers  how it was   to lose relatives to diet-related disease, especially  heart disease and  diabetes.  These could be  devastating for a family, since health insurance  was essentially non-existent in those days; health care  was pay-as-you-go.

Southerners will always   love our  community food get-togethers, although today we make at least a token effort to prepare healthful food .  However, if  the occasional slice of coconut cake happened  to sneak in, well.. just a bite couldn’t hurt.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

 

You’ll get used to it!


A person sitting on the ground in front of water.A southerner waking up that first morning in Wisconsin, I was sure I had mis-heard the weather forecast: “-25 deg with wind chill factor.”  Whatever that was. Surely not – people couldn’t survive that!  I switched to another channel.  Sure enough, it really was  -25 deg with wind chill.  Certainly businesses were closed.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

But they weren’t.    Soon I saw neighbors faring forth, picking their way down the sidewalks.  Still incredulous,   I layered on most of  the clothes I owned, and slipping and sliding, eked  my way to the bus stop where  people  stood around casually talking or sipping steaming coffee from mugs,  like nothing was amiss.
A person sitting on the ground in front of water.
“Is it always LIKE this?” I chattered to the woman nearest me, hands jammed in pockets, feet stamping for warmth.   She flashed a knowing smile.  “You’ll get used to it,” she said.

And I did.  Which was a good and proper thing if I planned to stay in Wisconsin.

But “getting used to it” isn’t always the answer.  In fact, I’m wondering if it isn’t at the root of some of the turmoil in our country today.

For starters, when did interrupting not only become acceptable, but commonplace?  There is hardly a “news” show that doesn’t sound like a magpie convention.  This obviously rude and irritating behavior is now widespread, and since more and more anchors  adopt the practice,  apparently worthy of emulation.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.And  when did it become OK for politicians  to  lie  on prime-time TV?  When did we “get used to”  leaders that had nothing more to offer  than insults for their opponents and end up voting for  the lesser of the evils?   How would John Kennedy’s clarion call be received today? “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

I greatly fear we have lost our respect for each other and with it, our self-respect.   Perhaps  our cellphone-internet addictions have so immersed us in a  web-game-world of noisy anger and violence,  glorifying an insatiable need for power, appearances and possessions,  that we have come to believe that what matters is what the internet sells: the illusion of individual power.   In other words, “F You!”  But that is foolish. Our lives are utterly and eternally interlinked by immutable laws of nature. No  cell phone or internet game will change that.

And speaking of the “F” word,   when our kids were in college (OK, it was the nineties)  the commonplace word “suck”  was considered inappropriate in polite conversation, although its genesis was and still is,  disputed.  Use of the “F” word in public was practically unheard of.   Now it  is openly bandied about by teenagers in restaurants and  peppers conversations in popular TV shows.  Ironically, it is especially popular with young women.  Really?  Have we forgotten the connotation of the word for women?   And what if someone else simply doesn’t want to hear it shouted out on the street?   Wikipedia calls this phenomenon the “dysphemism treadmill, meaning former vulgarities become inoffensive and commonplace. Or simply, we “got used to it.”

So take it or leave it, but from where I stand, disrespectful language and behavior are just that, disrespectful.  And if  we allow ourselves to get used to disrespect, can abuse be far behind?   Don’t we deserve more?