Reflections

There is lots bubbling around in my mind this morning with very little time to write or process. I decided to share this peaceful (I think) reflection written on holiday as 2007 winded down. Enjoy!

Listening to the voice inside my head and outside in the world. The sunlight dancing across the veranda. The wind gently rustling the green vegetation. The "tink tink tink" of the fan. The call of the kiskadee. The voices of my loved ones. A veritable symphony in creation surrounds me. The blank pages of a new notebook await my thoughts and musings. My ponderings. A new year lies before me. Much will feel repetitive, but each day will be new. There will be no other exactly like it. No two moments are ever the same. They are each created in the instant they happen.

Fellowship

Yesterday while doing a little shopping, I ran into a woman who I have known for many years principally through our children’s school and more recently by attending the same church (which some of you may recall is no longer the case.) I could hear the question before it was even out of her mouth, so I was prepared to answer boldly.
“Where are you fellowshipping these days?” she asked.
“No where” I answered strongly, because I refused to feel guilty about our decision. I then, of course, hemmed and hawed around about how “It is hard and we are looking, blah blah blah.”

Walking away I felt like I had just told a big fat lie…not the “we are looking” part, but the “no where” part. It felt like such a falsehood, because in reality I am fellowshipping daily with the world; with myself; with my internet friends; on the phone with my sister; with my husband as we talk about our faith journey; with anyone really who wants to be even a little bit authentic or at least listen to me as I practice my often feeble attempts ☺.

So, what is fellowship? In the way this woman asked, it felt so confining...like a single building in which to perform ritual on a specific day and time of the week. Now don’t get me wrong, I believe in ritual and gathering together in relationship, but fellowship feels so much bigger to me than something we just do on Sunday morning.

As I thought about this I realized that this week alone, I have made new friends in Paris, Scotland and a number of other places around the world. I witnessed an amazing sunrise through the sharing of a man’s childlike drawing he made to remember the red of the sky flashing in house windows…that is fellowship. Strangers and friends from all over listened to my heart and said, “Go! Go! Go!!” rather than scoffing at me like I was a naughty child…that is fellowship. When my heart connects with the beauty of nature; the moon, the sun, the cold air on my face, the flowers at the market…that is fellowship.

Fellowship is not simply held inside four walls with a designated group of “believers”. It is life. The homeless man on the street. The laughing infant in the coffee shop. The "stranger" in Paris. So, back to the original question: “Where am I fellowshipping these days?” EVERYWHERE! And it feels really good to say that and mean it!!! So, my friends, I leave you with the same question to ponder…

Where are you fellowshipping?

photo by lucy taken on a recent neighborhood walk

a sign perhaps?

At the crossroads,
where one could go either direction;
she chose the road less traveled
and that made all the difference.
It might have been easier
to take a conventional path
of relative safety and comfort;
of predictability and routine.
But she wanted to fly to the far edges of things,
to venture beyond the horizon
where adventures beckoned,
curious and irresistible,
shaped by constant change.
No set boundaries
for this small town girl,
always longing for excitement
and new discoveries.
Even if the road proved bumpy and long,
pearls of wisdom produced along the way:
unexpected blessings.

© Tara Bradford @ paris parfait

see related post here as well as more visual journal pages at lucy creates!!!

Paris Perhaps?

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” --Mark Twain

Well, dear readers, you cannot imagine where this quote (seen yesterday at Anchors and Masts) has taken me in the last 24 hours. I read those words and my mind was off to the races. The long and the short of it is, I think I am going to Paris…in four weeks…potentially alone. Now for some this might seem like a normal event, however, I have never been to France (or any other European city except London and I am not even sure Londoners consider themselves European..somehow I think not.) But I digress. I have been talking of going to Paris for a few years now. It has been on my ‘short list’ per se.

Why now, you might ask? Well, why not?? I have had nearly two weeks blocked out on my calendar for several months for a trip with friends to Mexico. That trip fell through this weekend and I will be darned if I will let two wonderfully open weeks, set aside for pure enjoyment, go to waste! So, I checked airfare to London. Cheap! Then I checked airfare to Paris (which is where I really want to go). Cheaper!!! In fact, I can go on frequent flyer miles for a total of about $75.

The brave side of me says, “Go for it!” as does my dear, wonderful supportive husband who really has no interest in going to France nor can he disappear from work and home quite so easily. But the insecure side of me says things like, “Are you crazy?” “You only have two years of high school French” “Where would you stay?” “What would you do?” “You don’t even know which side of the Seine the Eiffel Tower is on!”

And then I think of brave, women like Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love), Alice Steinbach (Without Reservations) and Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Gift from the Sea) and I realize this could be an amazing adventure…And then the not-so-brave voice steps back in.

So, here I am with a ticket on hold and two weeks to make my decision and just over four weeks to plan a trip. It feels like “sailing away from safe harbor” and I can see my inner sails filling up with the trade winds. My inner poet is saying, “Yes, yes, yes!” My practical side says, “I need to put dinner in the crock pot.”

To be continued…

Shadows

I just lit my “candle for writing” and simultaneously I am thinking about darkness. The words ‘shadow side’ are bubbling in my head. Why do we avoid our shadow? Steer clear if we can. Think it is ‘bad.’ We hate to even acknowledge that we have a dark or shadow side to us, but guess what ...pretending it’s not there does not make it so.

Lucy Van Pelt represents my shadow side. People have come to see “My” Lucy as playful and creative rather than bossy and crabby. Is it because I do not let her ‘shadow’ side come out so much on the page? Or is it maybe things have shifted inside me as I have come to embrace what she represents?

Lucy is my inner (and outer) critic, but she also motivates me. This was a great productive and creative week for me with much of it driven by shadow and hurt. There were dark pages in my visual journal that I have not shared. And, my ‘darker’more challenging soul collage cards did not appear to be well-received (at least based on the lack of comments). Ironically, the process of making those cards helped me process some of the chaos and anxiety I was experiencing thus helping shed some light so-to-speak.

If you look closely at my collages there is always light in the ‘dark’ cards and darkness in the ‘light’ cards. (This is unintentional, by the way.) Just as initially Lucy Van Pelt was rejected by me as too crabby, bitchy & bossy, she has now become my greatest ally as I have learned to embrace her.

My greatest joys have come with much pain….(childbirth, for one.) Also, who has not experienced deep loss of some sort? If the hurt is acknowledged and processed, is there not some growth and healing that happens? Sometimes the best thing to be able to do is say, “I am sad” or “I am having a shitty week”, but in some ways I feel censored to be so honest. (My inner censor speaks loudly.)

One reader said I was in a “dark” period and subsequently quit commenting—resulting in more sadness over that loss. Others may consider overabundant joy and consecutive weeks of fabulousness to be too shallow and impossible to believe. So where is the balance? For some reason FDR's quote: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” comes to mind.

I need to be able to share when I am sad and when I am joyous without being afraid of the response (or lack thereof). My emotions produce great creativity from both sides. I do not believe that makes one better than the other. They are simply different, but it appears that “darkness’ is less appealing to many. It seems frightening perhaps.

The length of this post is beginning to 'frighten' me now ☺, (I do prefer shorter discourses). So, for today I am going to consider why you (I) run from the shadow side. Or maybe you don’t. Either way I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Why do you run or avoid shadow? How do you embrace it?

Wishing you lightness in your day, so you may also see the shadows ☺. Peace.

photo by h3images

collages by lucy. see related post here.