The Badge of Courage

Courage is truly under rated. When I think of courage, I picture an acrobat balancing on a biplane 1000 feet overhead or a rock climber on a mountain face clinging to rock with just a rope and some hooks.  These adrenaline junkies. no fear do or die athletes, are courageous but they are only a small percentage of what courageous looks like.

Today I was able to scrape up a minute to sit out on my front porch and take a breather. The view from my porch is mostly trees and woodland. My mind started to drift to the thoughts of the increasing number of snakes we are having lately and my ongoing avoidance of them.  The other day, in trying to overcome this fear, I headed out and walked anyway.  In telling a friend about my bravery, I stated “After thinking it over, I came to the conclusion that death by snake bite is much cooler than death by inactivity.”  I just earned my courage badge!

If you look around and really pay attention, you will find people doing courageous things every day. Courage is getting up in front of 10 people to give a presentation when just the thought of it makes you feel like you’ll pass out. Courage is running through a thunderstorm to roll your windows up.  Courage is a 17 year old bringing home a newborn baby. Courage is the woman at the grocery store who can barely push her cart through the isle.   For some, courage is just getting up in the morning.

When I think about all the times I have to muster up courage, I think of Peter.  How much courage did it take for him to step out of a perfectly good boat?  When Jesus said come, he was the one throwing fear out the window.  Anytime you have to overcome fear, you are asked to get out of your boat.  I think we all look a lot like courage.

Finding the Familiar

On the eve of turning half a century, I decided that last blog was really a bunch of whining.  I have had the last two weeks to really think about a lot of stuff. Is that normal for 49 and 99/100? I guess it would be.  I really starting counting all the things I am so grateful for and If I were to write them down I would run out of space.  The one concept that really stood out to me today is the human need to find all that is familiar.  We spend so much time talking about expeditions, blazing new trails, seeing things we've never seen and that’s all great but where we find joy is in those things that are familiar and personal.

I moved to Crossville just 15 short years ago.  This was a trail blazing move on its own.  I knew no one here except my husband and felt like I was starting from scratch.  I started working shortly after I arrived.  Every morning, I would stop at the local convenience store (Minit Chek) on the way for a cup of coffee.  This was a familiar tradition I enjoyed no matter where I lived.  I remember one day walking in and hearing, “Hey Cheryl, running late this morning?”  As a matter of fact, I was. Just about five minutes but not giving up the tradition.  They knew….  My Name.  Awesome.  That made my day and made me feel special and like family.  This in contrast to those businesses that see you and you walk in and they say “hi”.   You spin around to see who said that and you don’t recognize anyone and the person behind you bumps into you as they are saying “hi” to them too. 

Case in point here:  I was driving home one day and looked in my rear view mirror to see the blue lights flashing. I looked at my speedometer and it was right on the money for the speed limit.  I pull over and a policeman approaches my car and asks me if I had just got gas at the Minit Chek. I said, “No, I just got gas at this one up the street”.  Well, he said the car and driver fit the description of someone who had just filled up and drove off.  He determined I was telling the truth and life went on.  A couple days later, I stopped in at the Minit Chek where I had purchased coffee everyday for 7 years.  I said, “Hey Bob, they pulled me over the other day because they thought I might have stolen gas from you all”. He replied with,” If it had been you, we would have just wrote you up a slip and caught up with you next time”.  Familiar- I love it.  I seriously think the word familiar comes from the root word Family. It means about the same thing.

Freaks of nature

In a couple weeks I will be 50 years old.  I have bragged about the fact that I am ok with this.  Birthdays are really just a number, right?  Its only how old you feel, right?  Its how great you make each day, right?  Well, I have been telling myself this since I turned 49 just so turning 50 would be no big deal.  I just don’t think we have a choice in the matter.  No matter how hard or easy you try to slide through 50, its there.  In your mind there is something about it that has been looming since you were a teenager.

My poor husband.  He is younger than me and has no idea.  His turn will come.  Right now he gets to witness a self reflecting “whats-this-all-about-and-where-do-I-fit-in-the-big-picture-and-how-do-I-beat-the-game”  attitude.  Sorry dear.

I remember when I was 17 years old.  I would count the years until the year 2000 and think to myself, “wow, I sure hope I live that long”.  I was 36 that year.  I also at a young, inexperienced age  have watched some of my friend’s parents at 50 struggling with all the blows life had given them to the best of their ability and it touched my heart so much for them.  It also created a hasty generalization of the age in and of itself.  That was my picture of 50.  Struggling, chaos, traps and chains.  Decisions regretting and unable to overcome.  With this view came my thoughts of man, I hope I don’t have to live that long! 

Even though I am approaching the major turning point, I have learned so much, dealt with so much, and suffered so much, I would not trade a day or desire to leave this planet at such a young age as 50.  And for the record, AARP, you are evil in sending me that application which just arms my husband with all kinds of fun.   Now if I could just get this chart straightened out:

What does your 14 look like?

On the day my youngest son turns 14, I can’t help but sit here and reflect on what life was like when I was 14.  My mind immediately escapes to the times I spent with my grandparents.  In the little white house in the woods by the river near the railroad tracks encompassed all the wonders of life that any kid could ask for. We spend endless days jumping rocks through the river, trekking an adventure to the railroad tracks (which we were not allowed to do) and searching for lost treasure along the banks like explorers.  We never lacked for things to do outside.  One of our favorite activities was the hammock.  My grandfather had a navy hammock he hung between two trees across the spare driveway. This hammock was not your average hammock.  It was a thick heavy material like a canvas with thick rope on the ends that would attach to the trees.  It was the most durable non-kid friendly fun I have ever experienced.  It was so tough, my brothers and I would take turns wrapping each other up in this hammock like a cocoon and swinging it in full circle rotation.  Your turn ended when you couldn’t hold on anymore and were dumped onto the ground at centrifugal force.  First lesson learned from my grandparents was at this time.  As we each took turns coming inside with our scrapes and bruises, my grandfather never flinched and would say, “that’s all you got?” while my grandmother immediately pulled out the Bactine, covered us in it,  and sent back outside without as much as a worried look.  Life’s tough but nothing you can’t handle.

Over the years my grandmother continued to give me advice and become a role model for me.  We spent endless days delivering meals to people who were homebound. This was one of my favorite things to help her with. The blind lady that would pour us a glass of juice every time we came by was the only person I ever met that defied everything I thought about being blind.  She had a talking bird that entertained me while the adults talked.  I loved these people. The joy they always showed when I thought they should be sad because of their circumstances.  As a teenager, I didn’t understand it. We would then head to the library to pick up her endless amount of books she would read.  I asked her one time. “Don’t you get bored reading all those books?”  She turned to me and said very matter-of-factly,  “Cheryl, you better learn to love to read.  There is nothing better in the time you are alone than to have a good book.”  I shuddered at the thought.  Today, I am thankful for her wisdom.  A good book has brought me through some tough days and given me a way to slow down this super highway called life.  Along with the ever resounding “drink you orange juice and take a multivitamin everyday”, I cherish every word and thankful to have such an influence in my younger years that have continued to help me in my older years.

 Its been a long time since grandma passed away, but she still encourages me.  I’m sure she had no idea I was even paying attention being a teenager and all but I was. Just as your children and grandchildren are watching everything you do and say, know they will mold their lives around all they have seen more than what you say.  I hope to be that to my kids and grandkids and like my grandmother, I may never know.  14 was a good year.  I would do it again.

Is it LIVE or is it MEMOREX

This was a huge unforgettable slogan coined in 1972 when Memorex launched a campaign for their cassette tapes.  I remember hearing it constantly and applied to everything.  What it was really implying was “are you hearing what you think you are hearing? 

I love things that challenge my perspective.  Give me a current theory and I love to search my mind and soul, dig deep into the depths of my experiences and come out with a whole new way to interpret something.  I don’t really think we have opinion or controversy issues.  We have limited perspective with the inability to see the world from a new angle. To experience life in a way that stretches our comfort zone.

Our perspective is being challenged everyday and we are constantly being approached to see things in a broader sense to create the inner ability to love all things.

I thought about this on a smaller scale as I ventured outside in 3 degree weather thinking that a high of 42 tomorrow is going to be awesome.  But wait, just the other day, I recall specific complaints of the 40 degree weather when it followed a 60 degree day.  Perceptively speaking…. I can apply this theory to anything.

How do we enhance our view of the world we live in to create a community environment?  Be thankful for all things.  Celebrate the cold as well as the warm, the eccentric and the mundane, the rural and the city, the drug addict and the CEO.   No one is greater than the other; it just may be your perspective.

Fire and Ice and the Human Spirit

 Some say the world will end in fire,

 Some say in ice.

 From what I’ve tasted of desire

 I hold with those who favor fire.

 But if it had to perish twice,

 I think I know enough of hate

 To say that for destruction ice

 Is also great

 And would suffice.

Robert Frost, 1874-1963

I have a love affair with the literary arts.  Recently in our culture, this love has taken a back seat to the modern day world of technology.  This is sad for me.  Writing has always been a way to make sense of the world.  I was fascinated in school when we could analyze poetry and short stories.  It was like watching documentaries on the History Channel today.  They were not just being words written on a page to be read.  Let me explain in case your English teacher didn’t set you on fire for this.  Hang in here with me for a minute. Unless you’re a slow reading, then maybe a couple minutes.

In 1920 Robert Frost, a prominent New England Author, penned Fire and Ice for Harper’s Magazine.  Since the beginning of time, humanity has had the notion that all things are temporary and can’t last forever engraved in their souls.  The end of the world has been in contemplation since Adam and Eve.  The discussions came up frequently in circles in the 20’s.  Scientists for ages have been trying to answer this question in length as well.

This poem, in a searching thought out of the heart of the author, Frost encompassed all the theories, scientific opinion, and the 14^th century epic poem, Dante’s Inferno, and came to the conclusion that the end is not a physical problem, it’s a heart problem.

Wow. I've got goosebumps. Knowing all this, can you read the poem again and does it spark thought and emotion in your heart?  What was he thinking? What passions had he experienced could be right up there with fire?

A story or poem can touch my soul as deep as witnessing the Grand Canyon.  A true writer doesn’t write to a “target” audience of the masses.  He doesn’t write so his opinion will be accepted.  He is an artist where the canvas is his heart and the paint is his pen. He writes because he has an overwhelming story or experience in his heart that is busting at the walls to be put out into existence.  Every time a writer writes, he is vulnerably sharing a piece of himself. 

We need to fall back in love with this art form of self expression.