Tag: everyday life

Current Events, Reason to Believe

Climbing Smooth

Madeline Lund

“If the mountain was smooth, you couldn’t even climb it!” unknown

I was watching a YouTube video about the hymn Amazing Grace with Wintley Phipps yesterday.  What an inspiring bit of film and song!  But I was struck by the proverb above that Wintley quoted in the beginning of  the clip.  How profound 10 ordinary words can be!

What are the mountains in your life?

Webster says:  “Adversity: (noun) a state, condition, or instance of serious or continued difficulty or adverse fortune (see adverse).                  Synonyms:misfortune, ill, knock, misadventure, mischance, mishap, tragedy Antonyms: fortune, luck, serendipity”

Did you ever try to climb up the slide at the playground?  I have.  Tough.  I remember a group of us kids daring each other to make it to the top.  There were dozens of attempts without touching the sides.  All unsuccessful.  It wasn’t until we used our hands to grip the edges of the slide that anyone made it to the top.  A smooth mountain would be like that.  Think of trying to climb the perfect triangle, we would crash every time.

Real mountains are not smooth.  Craggy, rocky, difficult, dangerous, murderous, majestic, beautiful, lofty and huge are words we use to describe them.  Rock climbers know that it requires the gear, the skill, the perseverance,  and the courage to undertake it all.  The climbers that tackle the big ones–K2, Everest, McKinley all know it takes planning and serious preparation to accomplish the task.  Most will also tell you it takes teamwork.  Your climbing partners and your base camp support folks they all have to be committed to the effort and work together.

K2 in summer.
Image via Wikipedia

Watching the news the other night I felt like the kid in the playground, surrounded by the “Super Committee”  trying in vain to climb the slide.  No one was successful.  No one worked together.  Everyone wanted to blame someone–someone else.  It was discouraging!

My own mountain right now has many sharp obstacles.  Kind of like the picture of K2 in Summer to the right.   After a long career of sitting in an office, I am doing retail sales and my body is revolting big time!  My bank account and my retirement account and my real estate are like team mates that are pulling the ropes that keep us together in all different directions.  How can we reach the summit with problems like these?

That’s when it hit me that the craggy bits and the sharp outcroppings and the difficulties with sore tired muscles and stiff joints are part of what makes reaching the summit the true achievement that it is.  The base camp team is vital–family and friends–cheering you on and making the assent possible.  If the way was smooth, how could you climb?

The other thing that hit me is that if you don’t work together, you can’t work at all when it comes to climbing.  The climbers that reach the summit know they did not get there on their own.  The guy at the peak had to have faith in the team, each one contributing their part and all contributing to the achievement.

So what then is the problem–how do we plan to achieve the summit here?  How can we get the team to work together so we’re not climbing smooth?  What can we do to conquer that adversity mountain that our country confronts?  The mountain that represents all the debt and loss of confidence in government and in ourselves?  How do we gain the courage to climb despite the partisan fear and destructive mistrust and being pulled in every direction by special interests?

Ideas?

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Just Because

Tidy?

Madeline Lund

I hate to clean!

I am using the word hate here!  Strong emotion.  Why?

Abandoned_gas_station_Melvin_Illinois
Image via Wikipedia

As important and even healthy as it is, it is also usually frustrating.  If you have a family that includes small children, then you know what I mean.  I could clean the bathroom 100 times every day and it would still look like the worst off-brand, no locks on the doors, gas station “restroom”!  Nothing restful about that.

Perhaps I should be happy about that–it means that the space is getting the use for which it is intended.  I just can’t work up the enthusiasm for it.

Seems to me that life is like that “restroom” too.  We usually don’t clean-up until we’re totally disgusted, fed up and have no alternative.   Then, in typical human form, we wait two more years before we start.  How in the world did we ever survive to 2011?

What makes change so difficult for everyone? 

My dad used to say that growing up is a lot harder than anyone tells you.  He was right–and it never stops being harder than anyone tells you!  Change is the unknown.  We think we figured out a way to survive the familiar, so we cling to it like a life raft.  We are all caught up in that mess that won’t be tidy, clinging to the life raft.  In my social service work, I regularly encountered people for whom life resembled the never tidy restroom.  Addiction, loss, isolation and fear are the mess that won’t be tidy.

It is messy in my life sometimes.  What are the untidy parts of your life?

The last couple of years have been filled with change.  Change in living situations, change in employment, change in family structure, change in economics, change in politics…….. Even the earth itself is shaking and changing, quaking and erupting!  We cling to the life raft tighter and tighter.  Nothing restful about all that.

One of the things that I have learned (the hard way!) is that the cleaning part helps.  As much as I hate to admit it, it does!

I have done some renovations to this blog site and will continue to make more.  I want to thank my friend Richard Kraneis for pointing out the most obvious issue yesterday.  He’s been around the blog block a few times and knows what he is talking about!  Thanks Richard!           I am inching my way towards tidy!   

I think it has to do with the engagement of a different part of the human brain.  By doing the mundane things that cleaning requires, you burn calories, release endorphins, focus on manual tasks and then the other processes of the brain have a chance to “reboot”, “resort” and “rework” the problems that can preoccupy us.  The end result is that not only will the cleaning give some satisfaction in the measurable change, you may be able to get some of the answers when you give the brain a chance to do it’s thing in the background.  Bonus!

We can let go of the life raft and find rescue and rest, even if it only lasts until the next kid rushes into the house.  Bonus!

What is the cleaning you need to do bring that “Bonus!”?

Article:  http://stress.about.com/od/tensiontamers/a/cleaning.htm

Uncategorized

Here and Aware

Madeline Lund

Never dreamed I’d be here, but I’m glad I am! Saw an interesting quote on the web a while back by James Thurber, the American writer best known for Walter Mitty.  He wrote: “Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.”  What are you aware of today?  What made you aware?

For me, it is the little things–sunshine, smooth traffic, good coffee–

Coffee mug
Mmmmmmm....!

in this regard I am pretty easy to please.  The ordinary every day passage of life is pretty fascinating when you stop to think about it.

I try not to carry the baggage from the past–it just weighs me down and holds me back.  That is hard to do because life can be hard too.  I also remember waking up one morning about 3-4 years ago thinking–I am done being afraid of the “them” that the TV wants us to be afraid of.  It was a very liberating feeling!  Yes, everyone gets afraid at times.  When there is a health scare.  There’s too much month left at the end of the money.  Your kids are out later than they should be. etc etc etc……. But if we give that full reign then we make our own world very small indeed.

So I am lifting my mug of hot creamy coffee to say–Hey there–I’m looking for a bigger world, one that keeps me curious and excited to haul it out of bed in the morning.  Part of the purpose of this blog will be me trying to stay aware.  I invite you to share your awareness and I will share mine.  Have a lovely summer day!