Inspire Tuesday 3/22/2016

Who ever said it was going to be easy? I find myself thinking, why aren’t I further. Why does the light seem so far away? Why is this journey lasting so long?

The answer is simple, perspective or lack thereof. It’s easy to get caught in your own perspective of the world. It’s easy to stand still look left and right and feel that you are falling short. In the midst of Facebook statuses, new babies, pending nuptials and thriving careers. Your modest attempts may seem downright elementary.

I feel it every day. The race doesn’t have blinders instead it has constant reminders of the fast paced world we live in and all the people racing full steam ahead toward success.
Then I visit Broad Street Ministry and see the world through different eyes. I see siblings with no homes and sick people with no medicine. I see check boxes that make you choose between socks and underwear.

It helps me remember from where I sit my weight is just heavy enough for me. I couldn’t imagine carrying someone else’s weight. I couldn’t imagine no mailing address, no bed to sleep in, no place to sit and gather myself on endless days and nights. I thank the days I am able to see someone else’s burden. It reminds me that my own weight is not so heavy.

Inspire Tuesday 3/15/2016

One Sunday afternoon, my fiancée and I stopped by our local Aldi market. Posted on the sliding doors of Aldi there was a makeshift sign “No Bags” in permanent black marker. I was ready to walk away and go home. We were holding a famous footwear bag from earlier in the day. Of course, there was a pile of reusable bags at home. The idea to go grocery shopping usually strikes while we’re running a completely different set of errands and don’t have our shopping bags. Of course, tallying an additional 20 to 60 cent to buy more bags and add to the ever growing collection.

My body was poised to walk away, she stopped me “No, we’ll just pick up dinner. I can make this work for dinner.”

“How?” I’m looking down at the plastic bag currently holding a new shoe box.

“Come on you’ll see.”

I picked up the food for our Mexican-inspired dinner. In the bagging, I watched a small miracle happen. She removed box and her new shoes packed our groceries in the box. She replaced the shoe box in the plastic bag and we left with her pinching the heels of the new shoes between her pointer finger and thumb.

“If you feel awkward about shoes, I can grab a bag from Dunkin Doughnuts really quick.” We did purely for my comfort. Did we just buy and pack dinner on ingenuity?

I looked at all the other patrons shuffle with awkward grocery items in their arms shuffling to cars. The store didn’t have bags but they did have boxes. Why was it so easy to shuffle uncomfortably instead of seeing another way?

I’ve been a bit behind writing my inspire Tuesday. Honestly for fear of not sharing true inspiration. This Sunday reminds me of how important it is to see the world differently. Share your view with someone else even if it is just in passing.

 

Inspire Tuesday 2/16/2016

“I look to the future because that’s where I’m going to the spend the rest of my life.”  George Burns

 

Inspire Tuesday 2/9/2016

Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So, boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps.
‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

-Langston Hughes

 

 

Inspire Tuesday 2/1/2016

“Your life is you message to the world. Make it inspiring.”- Lorrin L. Lee

Inspire Tuesday 1/26/2016

“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.”- F. Scott Fitzgerald

“A row of tea candles” by Markus Grossalber is licensed under CC by 2.0

 

 

Inspire Tuesday 1/19/2016

“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”-Mother Teresa

Inspire Tuesday 1/12/2016

A Gal with a Pen and Plan

What has possessed me to partake in a 500 word a day challenge? I’m painfully shy after all and even writing offers a transparency that can be terrifying.

There is a practical and grounding reason to write 500 words every day. Other than that’s what writers do.

In truth, I want to lift the curtain for myself. Writing often feels similar to the Wizard of Oz. The magic is a result placed on display every day. While all of the planning, writing, typing and correcting happens behind this curtain where no one can see it.

Writers even fall prey to the idea writing. What writing “is supposed to look like” instead of what it actually is. Writing is a steady cadence, a scoop of chaos, and gut wrenching work. The craft engages every aspect of self from the physicality to the emotional and mental.

In the spirit of creating goals for this challenge. The first is the easiest and most necessary.

1. Commit: Commit to the process. Commit to the good, the bad, and the indifferent. Commit to the fall out whatever that may be.
2. Improve: I want to be great. Great is an extremely high order. While I’ve written all my life and feel that I am good. The best writer is one who writes consistently no matter what.
3. Tender Loving Care for My Blog: My blog is my baby. That sounds dramatic but it’s true. That is not because blogging is in right now. It also is not in the hopes of boosting client visibility (although that would be nice). It is because I want my audience to meet me. It’s easier to trust a source when you have an idea of who they are.
4. Patience: This challenge is a true development of patience. Often, I wish my jumbled free writes would turn into works of art simply by the flick of my pen. Where I am patient with delayed bus schedules, customers, friends and family. I am rarely patient with craft and my calling. Somehow “it supposed to all come together” which is an illusion. No one wakes up and runs a 5k without having trained for it. No writer wakes up and produces a novel or a well-read blog. It is all deliberate practice and application of patience.

I hope you stay tuned on this 31 day trek.

Tell me given the challenge, what would you want to get done in 31 days?

Farewell 2015

This is a week late. I needed to truly reflect on the past year. Think about what I wanted. My Facebook has been flooded with all of the memories from last year and the salute of new beginnings.

I’m not setting a resolution this year. New Year’s brings out the optimism in everyone. *Brace yourself for my witty pessimism* Often the new year all though placed with the best intentions are filled the empty promises of getting into shape, controlling the ship, navigating your own course. I know because usually that’s me. Nothing gives me quite as much relief as the countdown into a New Year.

Isn’t it all a bit unrealistic? By early March we have abandoned our resolve to reach they gym goal. We’ve given up on running that 5k, spending more time with family leaving us back in the same place we were last holiday fat and disillusioned about change.

Not to mention desperate, desperate for a new beginning, a fresh start and a new year.

This year in my high spirits I want to embrace a different mindset entirely. The reality which is I’m always at a crossroad. I am always caught between the future and the past. Often I am seduced by the clarity of the past and all of the circumstances that could have been different. While excited, fearful and hopeful for the still unclear future.

Why? Because it’s not hard to look back and see where you could make corrections. Likewise, it’s easy to idealize the future so new and untainted by the first sting of disappointment and experiments gone awry. In this very moment and all moments to unfurl before me, I am a compilation of both the building blocks of my past and the high hopes for my future.

All any of us have it this moment. As quickly, as I type the moment is torn away. I want to spend my New Year’s optimism in my present. 2015 was difficult. I could list the ways. 2016 may be amazing yet it has only began. In that reality all I can aim to be is the best I am in the moment. Second by Second. Emotion by Emotion. Word by Word.