I like traffic lights

I like traffic lights

I like traffic lights

I like traffic lights 

but only when they're green"

Today's meditation, yes today's meditation comes by way of Monty Python. How's that for a meditation?

I love my family. I love my in-laws. I love the state of Texas. I love my job. I love my monkeyboy.

And yet, working in the same space my family lives, from my in-laws home, living in weather 2 degrees cooler than the surface of the sun, not having an actual office from which to conduct business and living with hormonal tweeners brings anxiety levels all of it's own.

How do I deal with it and where is Jesus in all this mess? Oh, most definitely its a mess. It's unsettling and it's raw and rough. I most definitely don't like it. It doesn't feel right. It feels like wearing underwear two sizes too small. You know it's there and it's pinching and chaffing sensitive areas making it tough to breathe.

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me - Psalm 22:1

and yet, in the midst of this I can still take solace in the same psalm that says in a few verses later

For he has not spurned or disdained the misery of this poor wretch, did not turn away from me, but heard me when I cried out - Psalm 22:25

Monty Python and Psalm 22, who else is going to give you a meditation like that???

O where is my hairbrush!

Long hair is the bane for the mother of this peach. I've begged her to chop it short. I don't need a prissy little girl with long hair who knows more about fashion than I do but have one I do (sans the prissiness. God is merciful!). The whole time we were looking for the hairbrush we sang the hairbrush song because who isn't amused by that song?

It made searching for it so much more tolerable. Veggies of the world, Thank you!

Suits - "If he goes I go!"

Anybody a Suits fan? This is a great show and it's on Thursday nights on USA. The language as far as damning everything in sight is a bit dubious and gets tiresome. However, it is a great show with deep characters.

In an age when no one has morals or scruples, Harry Specter the lead attorney and closer may still not have them but he's a fascinating character. At the end of the last episode he stuck his neck out for Mike, his associate who lacks a very key component in being a lawyer, a law degree. One can argue that Harry doesn't make a move that's not calculated and where he's not assured of the outcome but still, it was admirable and maybe for all the wrong reasons but it was still admirable.

Happy hump day!

Does the wonder of balloons ever cease to amaze me? Fill a balloon with a substance that you can't see, smell or touch and it lifts not only the balloon but brings a bit of joy into your world. Take an empty person, fill them with the love of God, which you can neither see, smell or touch and it changes not only the person but the whole world as well.

Go be that balloon for the world!

Extraordinary ordinary moments

You've heard the statement: The more you give, the more you get.

If you've ever volunteered or given from the heart, you know it's a true statement. Everyone knows my inability and my ineptitude of giving of myself because I've spoken ad nauseam how I struggle just to tuck the kids into bed. Why? Let's be honest, I hate prying myself away from anything that I am doing, even if that is sitting and breathing- to give my attention to anyone not me. Selfish - absolutely. Appalling - yep. Shameful - mmmhhmmm. Embarassing - sure is. I confess it in the little box I never sit in to the guy who's so familiar to me he knows my sins before I confess them and for some reason he never gets quite as weary of hearing it as I get of confessing it. Grace I'm sure. He's dealing with me so grace, for sure.

Anyway funny things happen with seemingly perpetual faults that I keep confessing and praying for and keep trying to avoid but fail miserably at. I have to call this a miracle because I had absolutely nothing to do with it.

The kids are going to bed - Are you going to tuck them in? Absolutely! So off I go to do the one thing I don't want to do and I sit with monkeyboy and we pray. We talk. I admire his room. I make him get back out of bed to brush his teeth. He's back in bed. I make him get back out of bed to floss. Then I notice Peach is not in her jammies so I ask her to get in jammies. Get the boy back in bed, we talk. What are you thankful for today buddy? - the usual, family and friends. I bless him and go to talk to the Peach who is still not in jammies. Ok, let's take care of that. Sweetie, did you brush your teeth? - ok off you go. I use the intermission to pick up her room a little. Finish the whole jammie experience and then we talk about her day, what went well, where were the epic fails, what do we want to ask Jesus for most today and such. After this dissertation we do a little prayer, a little kiss and a little hugging. Nothing special but everything extraordinary.

Later, when I asked Jesus where he was that day, I saw he was right there in my arms being kissed, hugged, learning how to pray, learning when to brush. He was in the ordinary and that is precisely what made it extraordinary. I didn't see it at the time. Why do we never notice the miracles when they happen? You see I didn't realize at the time how much joy there was in the  buttoning of the jammies, the folding of the clothes, the intimate time spent together with the kids. I didn't notice the inconvenience to my 'whatever it was that didn't matter that I was doing' beforehand. All I noticed was the joy and peacefulness (yes even in the protestations of teeth brushing) of those extraordinary ordinary moments.

Letting go

I learn every day anew how to let go. It seems it becomes clearer to me just how much I need to let go and how so much is out of my control anyway so why not just release it?

Monkeyboy is so incredibly handsome. He looks out with his deep carmel eyes intently at me. What is he saying? I haven't a clue. I just get lost in those eyes thinking soon he'll be setting out on his own. He'll have his own directions, goals and mission. He's not mine. Just as Jesus didn't belong to Mary. Yes she was his mother and yes he loved her but he also turns to those telling him his mother is asking for him , and just about denies her any earthly filial devotion. He says 'Who is my mother? Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of the Father are my mother, sister and brothers' Filial bonds are formed in union with the will of the Father.

Letting go.

How Mary must have let go. What son today would have the nerve to say something like this in front of his mother or at least within hearing distance? Seriously. It almost sounds like Jesus has a severed relationship with his mother and perhaps he does but not like most protestants assume. Mary is reminded yet again that Jesus was meant for the world, not for her. God the Father demands complete detachment from Jesus and he gives it on the cross. He detaches himself from his comforts and adheres to the Father's will. Jesus demands complete detachment from his disciples. Is there any disciple more detached than Mary? Isn't she the model? She never denied her son his place on the cross. Her focus was ever on the Father's will.

When he was born, his birthday shower gifts from the magi were essentially funeral gifts. How happy would you be if you received embalming fluids for your baby's shower? What would you respond? Mary responds - 'He is for the world' in every act she makes as mother. Her attitude was 'He is not mine. He's been entrusted to me.'

As I age I find I have to let go of all sorts of things. My kids are one of those things but so is my fertility, the bouts of angry feelings, of changing metabolism, of slowing down. I could get hormone therapy, plastic surgery, botox, whatever. I could hang on as tight as I can to what I have here and now but is that all there is?
I have to remind myself that my place is not here. My home is somewhere else and to get there I have to be prepared to let go.

You only need one!

Herm Edwards was asked this morning about his pep talk to the NFL Rookies, so I paraphrase: 'You only need one. Once car. One wife or girlfriend. Guys if your married and you travel from San Francisco to Boston, you've still got a wife so don't get a girlfriend.'

Aside from the humor that football players need to be reminded that when they travel, the reality continuum still exists and so do their obligations and commitments, sometimes we all need a coach to help us out at times and remind us that things haven't changed regardless where you happen to find yourself.

I need to be reminded that my moral compass always needs to be pointing in the right direction. Where do I look to find where that moral compass needs to point? I look to the standard bearer, Jesus, to God the giver of all good things who asks  us to be holy as He is, to His church and the teachings of the church. If it was up to me, my moral compass would veer off into selfish directions and sometimes I go in those directions. However, I always know in which direction I need to go. Jesus and his gift of the church never cease to stop calling me towards holiness, towards greatness, towards humility, towards self-less self-sacrifice. I only need one, one God, but God is so generous that even when we only need one He gives us 3: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. He will NOT be outdone in generosity!

Sins of omission by the ordering clinician

I'm a doctor, not an MD Dr. but a PhD Dr. who trains and works with clinicians and radiologists. So I was highly amused with this article I read on Diagnostic Imaging.
In my experience I tend to get a whole lot more respect from Dr.'s then I do the general public. In general the public can downplays a PhD as tantamount to nothing more than just a whole mess of studying and bookwork. "That's nice dear, but you don't really know anything." or "Wow, you're really smart" or "Oh, you're not a real doctor". -Thank you. Thank you very much!

Those statements reflect the thought that I can't relate to anyone or anything else whose not scholarly. The message conveyed is 'You know too much and it's all useless stuff' (ok sometimes that's absolutely true).

Colleagues who have PhD's tend to relate to each others much like the Dr's in the article, which is just hilarious! However, physicians speak to me as an admired and respected colleague which honestly is just humbling and blows me away each and every time it happens. Maybe it's because I'm one of the ones that provides them the tools and techniques that allows them to accomplish their job.

Just like those who have been gifted with wealth, some people are gifted with knowledge and learning. The knowledge and gifts I was given are not my own. They are for you. I am to give of my gifts back to humanity. When I give of myself completely, using my knowledge, skills and talents, is when I find I'm the most fulfilled and content, regardless how I'm treated, respected or addressed.

Jesus' eclectic taste in candles

We have a small altar at home. It's not something I set out to have (Ok I wanted one but I thought it would be  planned and elegant), but the one we have just sort of happened. Initially I put the kids baptismal candles on it as decoration. Then one of the rosaries that I used to pray with when my brother was dying found it's home there. The day a relic (on loan) came to us was when it turned into an altar. This very precious Madonna and child that came to us was the last addition.
Prayers are said here every morning. I reverence the relic every time I pass it and a funny thing has happened. The kids stop here to pray too, especially when it's a rough day. When Peach came home with a very special candle creation, she wanted to find it a home.

Apparently Jesus is now into very eclectic candles because she was very excited to place it on the altar!