Meditations on Life and Parenting
“Kindness is love made visible.” – unknown
Somebody ate our Christmas cards and was feeling pretty good about it!
The elves busy working on Christmas gifts.
Sticking with the Christmas theme of this week’s roundup – going to The Nutcracker and Santa with my brother and sister-in-law.
Christmas lights on the Space Needle and the sign of the week.
“There are no ‘seven wonders’ of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million.” – Walt Streightiff
Christmas ships on Lake Union
Christmas Eve fun. I’m not sure how long I’ll get away with giving matching pj’s but it’s pretty sweet for now.
Mr. D mirrored how I felt by the time we got through opening presents.
Washington coast scenery and wildlife – and the animals were great too. 🙂
Heart and home of the week
Wishing that all of our signs for 2023 are more hopeful…
Before I had kids, I would walk my dog early on Christmas morning and notice all the houses with young children bustling with excitement. Now that’s my house.
The presents are carefully chosen and wrapped, there’s so much anticipation in the giving and getting that we might possibly burst and the energy in the air is both warm and electric.
There is no gift better than this for me. I’m so grateful!
Sending wonderful Christmas wishes to you all!
“The most effective medicine here on this Earth is unconditional love.” – unknown
I woke up this morning thinking of two types of people working on Christmas Eve. Healthcare workers and pastors. The former must be so discouraged to see the Omicron fears and anticipate the number of people who might overflow their beds.
And the latter must be so disappointed to see the Omicron fears, knowing that it’ll keep people away from services and reduce the number of people in their pews on Christmas Eve.
Growing up in a pastor’s house, Christmas Eve was a big deal. It was a chance to celebrate with the congregation and whoever else came along the hope, peace and magic of a story. It was a chance to hear silence because regardless of anyone’s particular beliefs, it is a day we close our stores and change our schedules.
It makes me wish on this day where our bodies might not be able to go where we want to be, that at least our hearts can be in the right place. May the spirit of Christmas with its hope, peace and generosity fill us wherever we are!
“We are only as blind as we want to be.” – Maya Angelou
For an outing this weekend, I took my kids to downtown Seattle to see the Christmas decorations and we rode the bus, my toddler’s first time. He was wide-eyed by being able to be inside the vehicle that he admires too much. Â
It’s been a while since I’ve taken that bus so I selected a stop too early and we had to walk a ways down one of the streets downtown. My 6-year-old daughter found this distressing because of the homelessness. Eventually stepped into a Starbucks to get out of the cold and have a moment of reprieve from humanity.
Eating our snacks outside, my daughter got worried again. We were in Westlake Center park sparkling beautiful Christmas lights but someone was cooking heroin 10 feet away. Not that she knew that specifically but she has an eagle eye for anything out of the ordinary. And a woman stopped us to ask for a couple of dollars to get something to eat. I didn’t have any cash accessible so I said “no” and she started yelling at us.
I am completely aware of my hypocrisy of feeling like our adventure to see the Christmas lights and decorations was in part spoiled by the presence of such need. In the gentle way that meditation often shows me where I need work, I realize it is so unkind of me to say that and is completely antithetical to the Christmas spirit not to help.
When it was just me and my dog, we walked everywhere in the neighborhood and got to know all the homeless in our area. I used to prepare Christmas cards with $20 in them to give to people I’d encounter on my walks this time of year. I also had time to do things like to volunteer for an organization that fed homeless teens.
Now I’m so challenged these days about how to help. Now that I’ve had kids, I have fewer resources both in time and money. And the homeless problem has gotten so much more visible in the COVID era when the shelters reduced capacity and the mayor decided to stop enforcing the laws not to camp in parks. Also for the part of the population who is suffering from addiction, empathetically I have a harder time relating to people suffering from opoid addiction as opposed to alcohol addiction, probably simply because I’ve never dreamed of trying heroin but I had many years when I drank too much.
With all that said, the incongruity of this weekend when I felt angry that the homeless were spoiling my kids’ Christmas celebration instead of the Christmas spirit I should have felt has spurred me that I need to find other ways to help. My protective instincts are too overwhelming when I have my kids in tow but turning my back is neither what I want to be nor what I want to teach my children. “There but for the grace of God” rings in my head as I try to fix my heart on some solution of what I can do to help.
(featured photo from Pexels)
We were driving home from visiting my mom at her apartment. My 6-year-old daughter said to me, “It’s so odd that Nana puts plates up on her wall and calls them Christmas decorations.”
“Right, we all do things so differently” I replied as we pulled into our driveway greeted by our Christmas slug inflatable.
“If peace comes from seeing the whole, then misery stems from a loss of perspective.” – Mark Nepo
The year after I’d summitted Mt. Rainier for the first time with a guided group, my friends and I put together a team of four of us to make an attempt on our own without a guide. We left on a Friday afternoon, climbed three and a half hours to ascend about 3,500 feet in altitude and started to make our camp.
It was dark by this time and as we hurried around with our headlamps on, I went to pull the tent poles I was carrying out of my pack. One of the poles slipped from my hand and started to slide down the mountain. Panicked by my mistake, I leapt forward and fell on it before it could disappear out of the spotlight of my headlamp.
I was thinking about that pole as I hurried around making Christmas plans yesterday. In a season where it seems like there are a hundred things to do, some things can’t be dropped.
The slipperiest sometimes is the whole point in all we are celebrating. In my family, we celebrate the birth of Jesus and the promise that love, light and kindness spread generously can make a difference in this world. As we celebrate the delight of this year, we also recognize that there are many ways we can do it better next year.
On that climb twenty years ago, fortunately I caught that tent pole because without it, there wasn’t going to be a tent. At 9,000 feet of altitude on a dark night with a whole lot of mountain to search, we weren’t going to find it if it slipped out of sight. But with it, we went on to climb and summit the mountain safely with a warm, dry tent as our base.
I keep coming back to that story as a way to keep me centered this Christmas season. With the point of all we are celebrating in the spotlight, it gives us a solid base from which to attempt everything else we are doing.
Last year we couldn’t visit my mom’s apartment in her retirement community because of COVID regulations. That makes this year all the sweeter as she explains all the Christmas treasures she’s collected over the years to my 2-year-old!
Surprised By Joy 