EBB & FLOW

 The seasons change.  The clocks wind back and forth.  The things that bloom and grow do so according to their time and place.

There is an ebb and flow in time and tide.

Life is a constantly changing, circular motion until it stops.

One of the things that keeps life going on is the work of ordinary people, living ordinary lives, doing ordinary work.

Just regular.

Increasingly, it seems that our culture is becoming one of extremes where a very small percentage of the population is holding sway on the world at large.  They seem bigger than they are and more than they are because they are so strident in their behavior.

I've noticed a growing distinction within the group.  They view themselves as one of two things...A) Heroic or B) Victims.

Exactly when did it fall out of favor to just be a regular person trying hard.....failing some, succeeding more and happy in the exercise of being a part of the human race as a whole?

Deciding you are a victim will run you straight into a box canyon from which there is no escape.  The more you feel victimized, the more you allow yourself to be so.  It is a mindset that is poison to free thinking and personal responsibility and it will kill your desire to ever be anything else.  Because let's face it, there is all kinds of help and pretty words for victims offered by people who don't give two flying figs about you as a person.

I rarely see a true victim ever paint themselves with that brush.  I know some people who could easily succumb to victimhood of their situation but they do not.  They choose to persevere, they choose to be more than their circumstance, they endure.  

Heroes.

First of all, I've come to hate that word.  We have neutralized it down to water by hanging it on every body who simply did the right thing every day by going to work, living their lives, taking care of their families.  I will accept some of them were indeed brave....but heroic....I'm not so sure.  Words of power lose their force when they are over used.  When everything is heroic....nothing really is.  When everything is AMAZING...not much really applies.  And, when everyone and everything is racist, homophobic, xenophobic, anti-female, blah, blah, blah.....somewhere there is someone that is going to lose a true and righteous fight who has truly suffered from those situations.

I've also known some true heroes in my life (they didn't wear capes or have super powers.)   Some of them sacrificed themselves for a country and people only to be spat on and maligned for what they were willing to give.  Everyday heroes have a talent for "seeing" other people in their moments of unrest and giving of themselves all  they could.  They don't leap from buildings, or fly through the air.  My heroes are hand holders, people with wise words and open hearts.  They are givers, not takers.  They are listeners, not talkers.  They are lovers, not haters.

If whatever group you classify yourself with does not subscribe to giving, listening and loving....you are in the wrong group.  If your first response to someone with an opinion different from your own is to label them with words designed to sting....you are not being open to anyone.  If you cannot step away from your own feelings of misuse and hurt little feelers, you will never ever be the person we are called upon to be.  And if you simply cannot see, recognize or care about the "stuff" other people have gone through...there will always be that hard little black knot of spite inside you.

If you view the entire world through a lens of your own distinction you will never learn anything.  Learning and listening doesn't mean you must embrace a different ideology it merely enhances your own knowledge that might serve you well on down the road.

There is freedom and peace in forgiveness.  I hear people say everyday "I can forgive them but I will never forget."  So, really.....have you really been in a place of genuine forgiveness?  Or are you simply checking a box thinking that is going to get you through to the other side?

Where will we all be on that glorious day with the Lord weighs our lives in the balance?  What if HE were to look at us and say "Meh, I forgive you but I will never forget and because I cannot forget, you will forever be outside my fellowship."  Wow!

Because life is the ultimate ebb and flow we will all have moments of great joy and devastating pain.  Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean that every single person you encounter isn't struggling with something that seems insurmountable.  And, I cannot say this enough.....people process things differently.  Grief is experienced differently, rejection takes many forms, anger can be paralyzing for some and so can love.  Every human being is dealing with a problem and it might be something that you could help with if you stepped outside your own righteousness and simply said "come here with me....join us...be part of us....we love you and we've missed you."  Now that just might classify you as an honest to goodness modern day H E R O.

I wish you all joy, love, contentment, peace and fulfillment...and on the days they are not present, I wish you strength.  And, know this.......if I know you, I love you and I want you to take comfort in it.  But, most of all....God loves you....He loves the Victims, the Heroes AND the Regulars all the same.  It is God that makes the EBB and FLOW and so we must embrace it all.

MOM

 My mother.  I spent a lifetime thinking I would never be a card carrying member of the Children Without Mothers club.  

The idea of her being mortal lurked somewhere very deeply hidden in my being, but the eventuality was not prepared for.

How can you?  How can you allow yourself to believe that the person that carried you inside their own body and brought you forth in pain could ever NOT continue to be present in your life?

Sometimes, it happens slowly.  We barely see it coming.  It's like that first gray hair that wasn't there yesterday, but today....there it is.  And tomorrow it brings friends until it overwhelms what was with what is.

Sometimes it hits us like a freight train and we are smashed flat by the realization that there is no changing anything, no fixing anything.  No time to say all the things we thought we had years, months.....even days to say.  And we think to ourselves..."please God, give me one more day to right any wrongs, express the unexpressed (because after all....she's your mom....she should know.")

But, would another day make a difference?  Really?  I'm betting it wouldn't because there would be a part of us that was thinking "after lunch", "later today"....."before she goes to bed."  Because one thing is for sure a mother will lose herself waiting for phone calls, visits, words of love and affirmation.  She will wait.  And she will understand.  She understands you're busy, you're tired, you have other obligations, you're having a bad day......she understands all of that because she has lived those times as well.

And guess what?  Most of those times were because of you, her child.  But she would never say so.  She would simply wait and then be revived with a singing heart with the simplest of gestures to express you acknowledge her and her worth and value to  you.

Everyone grieves the loss of their mother in very individual and personal ways.  That grief is built by the relationship (or lack of one) that we share with the one who gave us life.

Being a mother myself, I have come to realize that the best way I can honor my mom and still grieve her loss is by coming to terms with myself as a daughter and a mother.

I am inherently flawed and yet miraculously perfected by my faith in God.

I would love to the person that others write soaring tributes to about my virtue as a mother.  Those will not happen because I have made boatloads of mistakes with the people I love the most.  And I know they recognize it and that's okay.  I know this in the same way I now can see the person behind the curtain that was my mom.

She was forged in the fire of her childhood and to her credit, she overcame a lot.  She was not effusively affectionate with me but she told other people glowing things about me.  She was quick to point out shortcomings and while they stung and I was not happy about it, she was always on point and when I was over my "pissy feelings" about it, I saw the wisdom in her words.  And, I also saw and felt the love it must have taken for her to do something she knew would make me angry.

She was brave enough to face my wrath.  She was the person who taught me that you can love someone with everything you are but not be accepting of everything they are.  Love simply equated only equates to Love.  Love does not mean acceptance.  The same way acceptance does not equate to love.  

I may accept the behavior of my neighbor but I do not love him (except in the manner God instructs us all to love one another).

My mom had her demons, she had her disappointments, she had unfulfilled expectations, she had secrets.  My mom was human being who was navigating life with her tool box.  She came from dirt poor but she carried herself like a queen.  She laughed easily and she was quick to anger too.  She was generous with her things.  By living life the way she did she left the world with one biological child that is a competent person.  She made it clear to me that when I left home, she would always listen but she would not be a place I could run to and hide.

I had to face the things I caused and figure out how to fix them.  Her voice still rings in my memory when I would call her crying about a problem......"you'll figure it out...you always do."

And you know.....I think that might be the best gift she ever gave me was me knowing she felt like I could handle anything.

I wasn't ready to lose her, it happened oddly and suddenly and it crushed me.  I retreated into myself taking all my unresolved feelings and holding them closely.  So closely, I allowed very few people to penetrate the sorrow.  For almost 6 years, I reveled in my misery and when I was done, there were less people in my corner.  I understand.  Until you feel it, you can't understand it and you can't tolerate it.

But, I came out of a place of brokenness finding the shattered pieces had welded together so tightly I am stronger and better for the process.

If you no longer have your mom...know this....she still hears you.  Because the cells that formed you remain in you....listening.

If you still have your mom.....she wants to hear you.  Don't wait....don't think that you have unlimited tomorrows.  She is waiting....and she will wait forever.

Mom, I love you and I miss you everyday.  I still would like to talk to you and try to make you laugh with stupid jokes you never remembered and would laugh at every time.  But, you are here....living and breathing inside me making me tougher, making me stronger, making me better.  I hope you are proud.