Note that it does not say “Lions do not take into consideration the opinions of sheep.” It says they won’t fret unnecessarily over them. They won’t take the out of context and will not blow them up to be more important than they are.
If you listen to the blithering buffoons on talk radio, you know their job is to get people riled up and wanting to come back for more. They want ratings so they do their best to push people into extreme positions en masse. They want followers, in other words. They want sheep.
A lion (metaphoric, not actual) doesn’t need to bend to every wind of opinion or every idea espoused by someone, especially someone who is obviously under the uneducated influence of one extremity or another. A lion sets his or her own course based on intellect, education, exposure, open-mindedness and experience, all the while listening and considering other’s opinions, just not overreacting to them.
Resolutions are best made regarding behaviors, not outcomes. In other words, don’t say “I will lose 25 lbs, that is an outcome. Instead say, “I will exercise 3 days a week”, or “I will reduce my meal portions by 1/3.” those are behaviors.
I’ve missed the crazy messy Christmas mornings that happen when kids are young. Luckily this year we have our 2 grandkids coming for the first time so we will have a very messy Christmas. And I can’t wait!
Here’s wishing you a very Messy Merry Marty Christmas!
There really is barely any other time of the year that can engender such high levels of stress among parents and families as Christmas. Why is that? It’s the same reason stress rears its ugly head at any other time, expectations of perfection. The tree needs to be perfect, the food, the presents, the living arrangements, the activities, the conversation, the travel plans, and more. The perceived need for perfection is the recipe for stress.
Less Stress
Then why do certain families not have the same level of stress as others at Christmas time? It certainly isn’t that they decorate less or plan less or do less. It’s because they have all those activities in their proper place, as secondary to love. Loving their family and friends is what drives them, not presenting perfection to them.
What is most important
That doesn’t mean you aren’t showing love by making a beautiful Christmas experience for them. Working hard to make it all be fantastic is great. What isn’t great is thinking that if everything isn’t perfect you have failed. Because failure comes from your family walking away from Christmas feeling stressed themselves. Success comes from them feeling loved.
Focus on that and you won’t let Christmas get your tinsel in a tangle.
Quote was contributed by @Lornaknits on Periscope for our monthly drawing giveaway. The Best Christmas Quote was this month and this one got the most votes. Congrats Lorna!
There are those who don’t pay any attention to Jesus during the year but certainly love being able to indulge in Christmas because of Jesus’ birth.
Their Truth
There are those who think celebrating a birthday, any birthday, is not to be done. They pay attention to Jesus but ignore Christmas as a Holy day from God.
Their Truth
There are those who do both. They are followers of Jesus in one form or another and they also celebrate Christmas. The like Christmas but they would follow Jesus whether Christmas came around each year or not.
Your Truth
Which truth do you live with? Or is there another truth you follow?
I used to think I didn’t have many friends. I used to think I was sort of like the typical male, a lone wolf sort that had friends here and there but no close friends. At least not like many of the women I know.
But then I thought back and I couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t have them. They weren’t always of the same intensity of feeling, and they weren’t always of the same frequency of interaction, but I have always had them nonetheless.
I tried to make a list of my friends over the years and realized I couldn’t always remember their names. But, I could always see their faces in my head and, more importantly, I could always remember the feeling I had being with them.
Church Friends vs Work Friends
Long ago I lived in California. I worked at a restaurant (among other places) and I went to church. I moved away and a year later came back to visit. I visited both my old workplace and my old church. It was nice seeing my church friends. But when I went to the restaurant I was REALLY excited to see my work friends. Why was that? The people at church were great. We had raised our kids together. We had done a lot of things, had a lot of conversations, been through a lot. Prayed a lot. So why was I so much more excited to see my work friends than my church friends?
The Comfort Spot
It came down to comfort. At work I was completely and utterly who I was, good and bad. My funniest, most serious, most stressed, most helpful, most sober, most drunk, most angry, most peaceful, most happy, most sad, most moral, most immoral, most ethical, most unethical, most creative, most boring. All of me was on display at that restaurant but only part of me was on display at that church.
And my work friends? They were the same. They showed every part of themselves to me. So, when I came back a year later, I yearned for that comfort of seeing those who knew me so well and still loved me. The church friends knew the best of me and love me. But the work friends knew all of me and loved me.
They were my comfort spot. They were my cushions of life.
Who are your cushions and where can they be found?
Quote by Kimberley Blaine – Therapist, writer, blogger, brand ambassador
Kimberley (left) and her sister, Jammie
Kimberley is a friend of mine from the world of blogging and social media. She wrote the words above in a blog post many month ago and I loved it so much I stole them (sorry Kimberley!)
She is well worth following because of her incredible honesty and insight into what it takes to be a mom, a spouse, a woman, a professional and yes, a friend.
You can find her everywhere but here are a few platforms that you should take a look at:
Do you believe this? It can be confusing, can’t it. As an artist I like to think I have a broad yet discerning eye for beauty. I think many things are beautiful. Many people, many objects, many places. But I don’t think everything is beautiful.
But I also know that what I find beautiful is not what everyone does. And what I find ugly someone finds beautiful. All you have to do is look at style trends in clothing and makeup for women to see how different the idea of beauty can be around the world. The same is true of music. Think of how dissonant music from other lands sometimes sounds to your ear. Then realize that same music is heard as sublime in the country of origin.
There is the famous story of Tchaikovsky’s first playing of the ‘Rite of Spring’ ballet. It was thought of as so terrible it provoked an actual riot in Paris, 1913 at it’s debut. You can read the story about it here. But when it was played a year later it was met with tremendous applause. Why the radical change in response? Because the dissonance heard the first night, so screeching and grating, was no longer heard the same way a year later. The listeners were able to hear the rhythms, the harmonies, the structure the second time around. The were able to hear the beauty.
And so, while as an artist I have my ideas of beauty, I also am wise enough to know that just because I don’t think something is beautiful doesn’t mean it’s not. It just isn’t to me.
Not Everything?
So, The question should be asked, if everything is beautiful, how can something not be? My take on it is not that something isn’t beautiful. It’s that it is more than just beautiful. Beauty is but one filter through which we see the world. We also have filters of love and hate, of statistics and science. We have filters of history and time, of biology and spirit. In other words, while everything is beautiful, it is not all it is. Everything is other things as well.
Transformation
What examples can you think of that show something ugly eventually becoming something seen as beautiful? What or who do you think is beautiful? What else are they?
Donna arrived early at the Doctor’s office with Betty, her friend, nervous about whether she would find the building, having never been in that part of town before. It made her nervous to go there because the area had the reputation of being a hot bed of gang activity. Every time she watched the news there was a report of a shooting or a drug bust or something like that in among the apartments. liquor stores and convenience stores that dotted the area.
Chapter Two
She almost backed out of going to the appointment but her friend really needed a ride and she had already backed out of helping her out earlier in the month. She didn’t really like Betty very much because she was so needy. It was always about her and her needs, never about anyone else. It irked her because she herself was needy and wouldn’t have minded a little attention being paid to her once in a while. Her husband gave her no attention unless it was as a prelude to sex. Even that attention dissolved as soon as her husband ejaculated, which usually took about 30 seconds (yes, she counted). Her kids gave her no attention, but that didn’t really bother her. She understood they were just being self-consumed teenagers. Her boss gave her no attention, which she liked for the most part. He left her alone to do her job and she did it well. She did wish for some recognition every now and then but she could live without it.
Chapter Three
She was waiting for Betty to be done when she noticed a man sitting across the aisle from her. He was older, maybe just a tad overweight, with a nice hat. He had a small book he was writing in. She wondered what he was writing about. She was reading an essay on immigration from The Atlantic Monthly on her phone and didn’t pay much attention to him. After she finished she looked up and saw him looking at her. He wasn’t looking directly at her, but at her shoes. She looked away but looked back quickly to see him looking down at his journal. He looked back up at her again, but once again, he wasn’t looking at her face, but lower. This time he seemed to be looking at her legs. She then realized he was not writing in a journal, he was drawing in a sketchbook. And he was drawing her.
Chapter Four
This made her self-conscious. She started wondering how she looked. Was her hair in place? Was she color coordinated? Then she realized her shirt was open, showing her tank top underneath. She hoped it wasn’t too low. She was always trying to find that proper line between showing off her girls just a bit (since she did like how they looked and was proud that while her friends had to have help from their favorite plastic surgeon to get theirs to look that good, hers were God given) and not wanting to look like a hootchie mama letting them all hang out.
As she looked down to check herself out she realized crumbs from the granola bar she was snacking on at landed on her chest. Should she wipe them off? They would go down into her bra if she did that, but at least she could do it quickly and quietly. Or should she pick them off like she usually would do if she were alone, not being watched? They wouldn’t get stuck in her bra that way, but she would be doing something much more conspicuous. She chose to quickly wipe them down into her bra. The man was looking down when she did it so she didn’t think he noticed.
Chapter Five
Knowing someone was drawing her also made her happy. She liked the attention, liked being looked at. It reminded her of the early days of her marriage when she would catch her husband looking at her when they went out somewhere. He always liked her face and figure, complimenting both frequently, and expressing physically that it was sometimes more than just admiration of her beauty. He had been quite the driven lover back in the early days. Those days weren’t nearly as frequent anymore, and she had accepted that as part of being in a longer marriage and in getting older.
But that didn’t mean she liked it. She felt a little thrill whenever she realized someone was admiring her, even if it wasn’t that frequent. There was a rush she felt when it happened and she was feeling that now. She wondered if her neck and chest were turning red, which it did when she felt that way. She hoped not, but then again she sort of liked that she had a signal from her body about what was happening inside show on the outside.
Having this feeling happen so randomly brought up all sort of emotions about her marriage, about her self-worth, about her compromises with family and friends (Betty being a perfect example). A switch flipped in her head and she decided she had had enough. It was a most unexpected epiphany out of the blue.
Chapter Six
She was looking down at her phone when a pair of running shoes appeared on the floor in front of her. She looked up to see the man smiling at her, about to speak. He said, “Hi, sorry to interrupt you. My wife just buzzed me to come into the Doctor’s office so I have to go but I wanted to show you the drawing I have been doing of you before I did.”
Donna looked at the drawing. It was of her with her head down looking at her phone. Her legs were crossed and sure enough, her shirt was open and a bit of cleavage was showing. She was glad it didn’t look too low. She looked up, smiled and said, “I was wondering what you were doing. At first I thought you were writing in a journal then I saw you looking at me and figured out that you were drawing. You caught me pretty good I think, thank you.”
He said, “No, thank you. I loved how still you sat, made it easy to draw you. You didn’t even uncross and recross your legs the other way, which is often what happens. Anyway, I have to go but here is my card. If you want me to send you a photo of the drawing now and when it is finished, just email me so I have your address and I will do it, ok?”
She took the card and said, “Yes, I will be sure to do that. Thank you.”
Epilogue
After she got home she went to her office and wrote out a plan. A year later she was divorced. She moved to the city she had always wanted to live in, San Francisco. She even moved to a somewhat scary part of town so she could get a good deal on a fixer-upper. She was renovating it herself. She went back to school, this time not to be an assistant to someone but to be an actual scientist, which had been her dream. She heard from Betty once in a while but no longer felt responsible for trying to solve her problems.
Four years later she emailed the man who had drawn her, asking if she could see the drawing. He sent her the finished version. She asked if he would accept a commission to do a large painted version of the drawing. He agreed and 6 months later she had it over her mantle in her remodeled home. She also bought the drawing and had it in her bedroom.
When friends came to visit they often remarked about the simple ‘slice of life, small moment in time’ feel the painting had. They liked that about it. She would smile and agree, all the while knowing not all moments in time are equal.
Have you ever started something and not finished it? Of course you have. We all have. Granted, some more than others. I am probably in the middle of the pack. I finish a lot but then again there is plenty I don’t finish. Most of what I don’t finish doesn’t ever get beyond the idea stage. If you are like me, even a little bit, the enthusiasm hits hard but implementation fails as the enthusiasm wanes.
Far is Easy
The goal is always so glorious, isn’t it? We all imagine the feeling of winning, or publishing, or fame, or wealth, or a secure relationship. It’s easy to imagine that joy. It’s easy to say you want that happiness. It’s easy to say you are going to do the work to get that wealth. But imagination and saying something aren’t what makes it happen.
In Between is Hard
So how do you keep going during those long stretches where the enthusiasm has waned, the money has drained and the relationship has pained? Of course you need to have that goal in mind. You have to have hope that you can reach it. But it is more than that. The truth is you aren’t always doing something for the feeling it gives you at the moment. You are living through that feeling so that you will reach a finish line where great feelings and great achievements will come to fruition. It might be a book you write, it might be a painting you paint, it might be a relationship you develop.
Making Hard Easy
You can’t make hard easy. But you can make it easier. You make it easier by practicing habits. The habit of getting up every morning and doing 10 push ups will make getting in shape easier, no matter how hard it is. The practice of writing that email to a business connection each morning will make the hard work of networking easier, no matter how hard it is. The practice of saying (and meaning) something loving and kind to your relationship partner each morning will make it easier to build the relationship, no matter how hard it is.
In other words, you aren’t trying to make something hard into something easy. You are trying to make it easier to do something hard. Making a habit of the things that help you along that path is one way to do that.
I had just finished with a dentist appointment and came here for lunch.
Chapter One
They were outside on the patio and I sat where I could draw them. I ate and drew at the same time. After a while the woman facing me realized I was drawing her. She leaned over to say something to her friend. I continued to draw until they were about to leave. I stood and walked over to them. I held up the drawing to the woman facing me and showed it to her. She said she noticed me looking at them and wondered what I was doing. I explained who I was and what I was doing. She said she really liked it. I showed it to the other woman and she said the same thing. I told her she could see it finished at my website or if she prefer I would send her the image via email when I was done with it. I gave her my card and she gave me her email address. I said goodbye and went back to finish my lunch.
Chapter Two
It has taken me about a month, maybe more, to paint and finish the drawing. Now I am about to publish it and send her the image and the link. Will I get a response? What do you think she will say and think about it?
I wonder, if closets could think, what would they say? Do you think they would be as indecisive as many woman (and men) are in deciding what to wear? Do you think they would make emotional decisions, or maybe aesthetic ones? Would they be practical, or maybe purposefully reactionary? Would they dress you with nostalgia in mind or maybe with an eye to impress the world. Would they fight you?
The Naked Human
Closets can’t think. But the idea is interesting because it illustrates so many of the reasons we dress. And for many of us, our possibilities are wider than they were 50 years ago. My father was going to wear a suit and tie to work, no discussion about it. For a night out my mother would wear a dress, no real consideration went into wearing pants. That just wasn’t going to happen. Even a trip to the market was cause to dress up, at least a little bit.
But now work clothes can, in many cases, be casual clothes. They can be fitness clothes even. And clothing designated for going out to a nice dinner can range from t-shirts (for either sex) all the way to a dress and suit and tie. That same market shopping trip? Now it can be done in pajamas.
The freedom make our choices harder, not easier. With all that freedom we have a lot more to choose from in every case.
Sort of dresser
What sort of dresser are you? Do you dress emotionally, practically, aesthetically, or maybe nostalgically?
I know there are many in the US who do live on the edge of tragedy most every day. But I don’t think I am ignoring or diminishing their plight to say that overall we are blessed to be safe, secure and sustained at a level that exceeds most of the world. I am grateful for that and don’t take it for granted.
What more needs to be said? Oh, I know. To make sure I am not doing this I remember it’s not about looking at others and saying, “They are the ones who think alike.” It about looking in the mirror and saying it.
I believe in good political correctness. That doesn’t mean I believe people shouldn’t be free to say what they think. It means I believe that if a group of people say they are offended by something then I am going to take a look at it. If I can be more respectful of my fellow citizens then I am going to be. If African Americans are offended by the Confederate flag being flown, I am all for having it taken down. Why? Because my fellow citizens don’t deserve to be offended on purpose.
The Bad PC
I do not believe in bad political correctness. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in being sensitive and respectful, I do. What it means is I believe people can hold an opinion that is in the minority and not also be an evil or bad person. I will not condemn them for holding an opinion I do not agree with. If the circumstances are right, I will disagree with them and argue as persuasively as I can against their opinion. But I am not going to declare they are ineligible for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness because of it. They also are not ineligible for making a living, having a family, being accepted into society.
Limits
There are limits to that position. For example, if a teacher does not believe the Holocaust occurred and tries to teach it to my children, I will do everything I can to have them removed. They are still free of course to believe it, but I am not willingly going to allow them influence over my children. But as I argue against them being employed by the school district I will still use good manners and treat them with civility.
Manners and Grace
Every person has an opinion you disagree with. The friend you invite into your home should be known to not be a terrorist, I agree. But they can’t be vetted for every possible disagreeable position they hold before you invite them in. If they were vetted in such a way, guess what? They won’t accept your invitation to visit because they will see you as a self-righteous, judgmental jerk, which is what you will have proven yourself to be.
Those in red have been directly attacked by ISIS. Those in white have had natural disasters befall them in 2015. Those in Blue have ongoing warfare happening.
Are there more to add to the list? Sadly, yes.
Some of you want to pray, then pray. Some of you want to donate, then donate. Some of you want to publicize and gather support, then do that.
But whatever you do, and for whomever you do it, do it with love. Because there is no use in overcoming hate, hurt or hazards if love is not what remains standing.
Why would endurance be associated with heroism? Maybe it can’t be understood unless we think about the opposite. Maybe it’s because giving up is so well understood as being the antithesis of heroism.
That would explain why we call people sports heroes. The push beyond what we think we could do. They endure longer and that endurance leads to the final run, the last leap, the improbable score.
The Rest of Us
So, how does that translate for us, the non-sports hero?
I see it in my wife, when she was a single mom. She went back to college, in spite of the hardship and got her degree. She had to make a decision to struggle and persevere instead of saying it’s going to be too hard and giving up. She endured and made a great life for her daughter as a result. She is a hero to me.
I see it in one of the runners I coach. She is the slowest of all our runners. It can be frustrating for her coach and for her. But she has chosen to keep at it no matter what. And as a result she is going to cross the finish line in a half marathon in less than a month. She is a hero to me.
I see it in my friend Lindsay who has Lupus. She has excruciating episodes where her body rebels against her in dumbfounding ways, blowing her face up into a balloon, making her unable to walk, or just putting her into terrible pain. But in the midst of all that she is planning her wedding and continuing to work every day. She is also continuing to show off on Facebook and elsewhere the most original and unique sense of humor that is both self-deprecating and uplifting, insightful and poignant. She is a hero to me.
Encourage Enduring
And that is what we all hope for other people, right? That they will find the will or ability to endure and accomplish their goals. Encouraging people to be heroes is a good thing.
Did you ever run away from home as a child? It took some planning and some guts, didn’t it. You probably got no further than half way down the block or more than a few hundred yards behind you home in the woods before you turned around or were found by one of your parents. But for most of us we actually never did get to the point of actually running away. We thought about it, we maybe even planned it, but we didn’t do it. Why not? Because we were afraid. We were afraid of danger and the unknown, afraid of starving or getting lost, afraid of not having any help and afraid of hurting those we left behind, especially if we had brothers or sisters younger than we were.
Run Away Adult
I remember my ex-wife at one point in our final throes of divorce saying there had been many times during our marriage she just wanted to run away. Just have it all be gone, have me gone. I have heard many other women since then say the same thing, and I have seen even more people say it on Facebook or Twitter. They say it with humor, but underneath they are serious in their desire to escape.
Why don’t they run away? In many ways the reasons are the same as for kids. They are afraid of danger, the unknown, starvation, getting lost, not having support or help, and abandoning those left behind. Hopefully for an adult the last item on the list is much more important. It is no longer about just what the person running away wants, it’s about the responsibility one has to those still remaining. The children who don’t deserve to be abandoned, the home, the neighbors, the family, the friends, the work, whatever it is. There is a feeling of obligation – I have to face my worries, my fears, my burdens and work through them the best I can.
In the end, that is what makes a soldier a true military hero, and it is what makes a parent an everyday hero.
I sometimes forget to post my photography here, thinking it’s only about the drawings. But I like showing you the other aspects of my creative exploration and I think this is a particularly interesting series I have embarked on.
Starting with a photograph (sometimes one I or someone else has taken, sometimes a screenshot from Periscope) I layer line drawing, color and original photograph. I use my finger and work in layers to create the effect I want. Most of these have been done in bed before I go to sleep.
When I was 13 I had just moved to a new town all the way across the country. My first day of Junior High I saw her. The most beautiful girl in school. She was a vision, a beauty, a mystery. I had a crush on her from 7th to 9th grade. I had recurring dream during that time of us being in a bus crash and me being the hero that saved her and helped her afterwards. I thought that is what it would have taken to get her to admire me, to look up to me, to fall in love with me. That is what being a hero meant to me.
Small Hero
Fast forward many decades. Facebook is reconnecting everyone from back in the day. And who should eventually be on it but her. I friend her, she friends me, but she isn’t on very often and we don’t actually talk or connect until one day I posted something about me participating in a control study for the aviation industry. I had to stay for 20 hours in a hyperbaric chamber as part of a test.
She saw my post and wrote to me asking me if I could connect her with the director of the organization I did the study with because she was writing an article on that topic. And so I made the introduction and she got her interview. She was very appreciative.
Practice Heroism
That is what being a hero means to me now. And that means I have moved from the fantasy, extraordinary effort definition of heroism to the real life, helping people definition. That doesn’t mean the first definition doesn’t exist, it does and is extraordinary. But most of daily life is not in that realm. If we wait for the extraordinary event for us to exhibit effort on behalf of another then we have no heroic muscle memory. Heroism is made up of thousands of small acts of kindness and love. Those are the practice runs that allow you to complete the race when it arrives.
They sat attentive, leaning forward, interested in what one another had to say. The coffee shop buzzed with noise around them but they were not distracted. I sat in the corner and drew.
The woman facing me had a green sweatshirt on with the logo of ‘New Life Ranch’ on the front. I knew the place well. It was a summer camp in Oklahoma, near the Arkansas border, and my daughters had gone there a number of times. We even went there for family camp twice.
It was the place I took two of the best photographs of my life. Both were of the creek that ran through the camp, early on a fog enshrouded morning. One was just the creek, but the other was of my youngest daughter reaching for a rope swing so she could swing and drop into the creek. We had heard the night before that there would be a sunrise swim in the creek. Chelsea wanted to go so we got up very early and I accompanied her to meet the others. I remember sitting with her on this little bench waiting for everyone else, talking about how exciting it was going to be to jump in the cold creek. No one else showed up. We decided they were all wimps and she was the most courageous of them all. She still wanted to do it so I took photos as she took the plunge.
Unfortunately, so far I have not been able to find the shot of her. I am still looking!
If you watch a baseball game, like I did last night as the Kansas City Royals won the World Series over the New York Mets, there is usually a ‘hero’ that stands out. He may score the winning run or perhaps he strikes out the side. However, without exception, if you hear an interview with that person after the game is won, he will say it was a team effort. He may say, “Yes, I had my good stuff on the pitching mound today.” But it’s also likely they will say a lot more along the lines of, “I was just trying to contribute to the team.”
The Servant
That got me thinking, what is it they are really wanting to do? They are wanting to serve their team. Yes, they probably like the glory of exalted newspaper accounts and TV reporting. But it’s their teammates who are actually counting on them and it’s into that locker room full of teammates that he must go after the game. If a player is too consumed with surpassing personal records and getting personal glory instead of serving the greater good, they will not be liked or respected in that locker room.
Walks of Life
Combat – It’s often said that the soldiers immediate mindset is to serve and protect his or her fellow soldiers, not to fight for glory or some abstract cause.
Family – Mothers and fathers are not vying for an actual ‘Parent of the Year’ trophy. They simply serving their children as best they can.
Business – A superior, if he or she is good, is suppose to be serving you, not the other way around.
Community – Politicians and activists who are best at what they do are the ones who are working to serve the community.
Examples
What personal examples do you have of those who work to serve instead of surpass?
