I wasn't told, were you?

The word support continues to swirl through my thoughts.
I think of how the women before me used this word. There were many pearls of wisdom we all wished our mothers might have shared with us about what it meant to be a woman, not a girl. What we might need to get through each day, despite what we thought the day might be like.
No generation invented friends who became critically ill, friends whose faced each day in a marriage that was like living on Mars, friends who needed financial help, friends who suffered from depression, friends whose child would never "straighten up and fly right". It is in everyone's world; maybe it is happening to you.
Somewhere in the annals of my memory, there are times I saw and overheard those women friends talking to each other about the pain in their lives and how it was good to talk to someone right then. Someone who would come when the bottom fell out and needed someone to help clean up what had left litter all around. I knew my mother was praying for her friends and sisters. I obviously learned something in watching and listening.
Support is being there. Asking the question when someone calls (not emails) "Is everything alright?" Never diminish the power of the human voice.
Often everything is not all right. It can be a topsy turvy day, week, month, year, years. Be prepared to have something happen which can turn your world upside down, inside out.
Friends trust us with the most intimate parts of their lives. When they need us, they truly need us. Stay tuned and know all the powers of the faith you embrace are there to guide you when you are called upon by a friend.
I was never told by women, of the generation of my mother, how they stayed standing when they often had been falling through pain and confusion and complexity. They stood in magnificent grace; but they never told me the secret to their balance.

Defining Moment

Recently a modern day guru has offered this example as a way to define a decision you might need to make.
After you make the decision, go and fill a clean bowl with warm water and wash your hands, then dry your hands with a clean towel to complete the decision making process.
A couple of thoughts entered into my brain; one, this might be a good thing to do to help embrace and follow through on a serious decision you need to make. Second, this is what Pontius Pilate did after making his historical decision.
Pilate was washing his hands to separate himself from the grave decision he felt he had been pushed into making by a mob (Matthew 27:24). To demonstrate he was not responsible.
Putting away this advice for the future, then on an early Sunday morning filling a bowl and looking into it trying to weigh a decision worthy of this ritual, I was caught with the binding future this
decision may hold me to if I indeed made a decision and then washed my hands in the bowl.
We think "decisions" pretty much abound in our lives. Should I go or stay? Should I call or ignore?
Should I stop hurting myself with useless thoughts or take a step which makes sense?
The desicison demanding a ritual is deep...... it is so important, we must be prepared for the consequences in our life after we make this decision. We might not have control of what will happen if we make this decision.
Humans have made the decisions to marry, to have children, to unmarry, to separate from our children, to stand for a principle when our family members and many friends would walk away from us.
Serious matters for which we did not wash our hands; but possibly should have.
The symbolic washing of hands has power beyond what I could commit to on a Sunday morning.
Every thought of a decision to make bounced in my mind as trite, simple, even only transparent to the decision the bowl of water was worthy of consummating.
These thoughts would not translate into a decision strong enough to wash my hands for.
These thoughts were details compared to a decision with true and trusted consequences.
A decision with a true point of no return in the vast universe of fear versus knowing.
Denial, detachment, derailment.......
I can shake your hand, pinky swear, cross my heart hope to die, sign with my own blood - yet,
wash my hands in a bowl of clean water to seal the myself to a decision?
I confess, I was not able to.

Amazing but true

A very interesting occurrence happened when posting my last writing.
I am now the member of a blog for my job and this personal blog space.
Surprise, surprise, but last Monday, when viewing the job blog, there had
landed my personal blog. It was mind blowing to see this mistake.
It was removed - deleted - by the person in the office who set up the blog, and
no one could understand how it had slipped on to the job blog.
I have therefore been a little timid to write again and try posting on this site not
knowing what cyber space had tricked me into last week.
As they say, "this is a test" and I am going to post this to see if it ends up where I
am hopeful it will, on the Restless Life Syndrome Blog.
Testing 1,2,3..........

Where have you been all your life?

This is a simple question if your life is in order.
If crucial elements are not in line, security on any level not balanced, then this question is more of a threat to life as you may have sown it. Yes, as you may have sown it.
Order is not perfection; it is more like having the feeling you can put your hand on something in the exact place you left it.
Surprises and unplanned life occurs whether we know where we have been all our lives or not.
Happiness and grief invade a moment; at times, simultaneously.
Coasting rarely lasts for very long; but oh what a glorious feeling to not have to be engaged in the obstacles of life for a period of undetermined time.
"Where have I been all my life?"
Does it matter more than where we could be going?
The romance of "Where have you been all my life?" is a step towards accepting someone in your life who may initiate great change......hopefully for the better.
If you find out where you have been all your life, perhaps it will ignite a fire to compel you to think deeply about where you want to go next and take the steps to arrive there......safely.

How many times?

There was a time in history when the parents said, "Why do you listen to that music? You can't understand a word they are saying!" Music, since the 1950s and 1960s has changed enormously.
Often, not only are the lyrics hard to understand, the music is head (ache) banging. Yet, perhaps because I am of the generation which needed to listen closely to hear the words being sung, I can pretty much understand the artists of today's words. "How many times can I break til I shatter?"
This pretty much is the question of the day. Are we broken or are we shattered? Is there a difference between the two states of being? If an object of value to us breaks, if it seems reparable, we attempt to put it back together. If this same object shatters, not likely to be put into a recognizable state. If broken once, we have a chance to reinstate ourselves, if broken over and over again until shattered, what next? What can be found of value to repair? Often a magician, to demonstrate his power will tear up a piece of paper or brake a vase into small tattered pieces.
Place the pieces into a hat, they say magic words and remove the shattered pieces into whole.
There are times, when believing this power is within ourselves, we survive broken pieces of our lives and dreams. You hear over and over, "just pick up the pieces and start all over again".
Is this possible when our lives and dreams are shattered? There is a difference. Without the magician hat and words of sorcery, what does a mere mortal do in a state of shattered?
Can we love ourselves when we are shattered? Do we even recognize our soul when we are shattered? Who can we turn to? Most shattered objects are swept up and placed into the garbage.
Possibly the phrase for self protection should read: "HANDLE WITH CARE, BROKEN IN THE PAST; NEXT TIME, LIKELY TO SHATTER".
Believing it is possible to rise from shattered pieces..........may depend on the time and place we are in our lives. I am not a fan of what does not kill us, makes us stronger; one door shuts another opens; because, if we do not become stronger or find an open door, we live on a fragile lifeline and more likely to shatter than break. There is a chance we take each time we bring a beautiful object into our lives. We place it in/on a safe area. The unexpected turn we take near it may leave it standing, toss it to the ground to break, or crash into a shattered mess. I can only come to one suggestion. Try with all your might, faith, hope and fear, to pick up the shattered pieces and create a mosaic out of a chaotic shattered life.

To express or suppress, that is the question

It is often said, some cultures are suppressive and others expressive. Is this true? I know, in my experience, when emotion would erupt during a family gathering, we would yell, throw the plate down, then once the voices were done with the "love" they would refill the plates and continue with the meal. At another table, I discovered the least little bit of edge would cause silence and a discouragement of recognizing someone had a problem (for discussion? never). The people gathered would ignore the voice in the wilderness until it no longer felt worthy of existing. Can these two opposing voices learn to coexist in a room, much less the world? If the old pearl "opposite attract" makes any sense at all, then the suppressor and the expressor would be the best match ever. Life is never this simple. Most of my interaction with people of the opposite persuasion (suppressed - they were) always involved someone telling me the poor human assumed I was upset at them when I would only be using a clear, strong, controlled voice to tell them my feelings; I was rarely in "throw the plate down" mode at the time. I was only attempting to make a clear statement. The suppressive culture was so sensitive, so insecure, so out of touch on what it meant to express feelings and feeling expressed around them was like a direct hit. A blow to their delicate cultural condition. Culture is not only a form of ethnicity, each family has an intimate culture which dictates how feelings are viewed. In some families, there are no feelings allowed; and in other families, only feelings are placed out there, in every breath they take. I once said, when you decide you have found a person you might want to start your own family with, look at their culture. Stop and remember, they bring a father and mother from two different cultures, and you bring the same. Stopping there, six people exist in the neat little nest of what should seem like only two. In truth of those who exist in a frienemies, an enemies or a marriagies relationship are living a complex reality of suppression and expression. Bless us all for attempting to succeed, and please hide the dishes!

The right to choice

Contrary to my last writing, I have not been having a gin martini every night - or - even since that night. Yet, I could so choose to do so, if I wished to.
Choice is a complicated action in life. "The right to choice." What does it mean? If we can purely choose for ourselves, we obtain sovereignty. In today's world, this seems almost impossible.
Though you may choose to fix a cup of coffee, go out side on the porch and enjoy a cool morning peacefully, the neighbors have made the choice to hire people to come and tear up their yard on the very same morning. It is the positive and negative of life. A simple choice for self indulgence turns into a tug of rope. Does sovereignty only apply when it is a most important decision we are in the position of making? Believing we have a choice is a step towards sovereignty. Being and claiming to be the one who directs our own life is empowering and lonely at the same time. I can fully understand why the Queen of Hearts shouted "Off with their heads!" Our personal choices are in the direct path of another's personal choice. When you only wish to have it work out, become simple, not a war; what can a person do when faced with the choice of my way or no way? Most fables and parables reflect the life condition of choice. Does a peson choose to be the rabbit or the turtle? Does a person choose to be the responsible "son" or the prodigal son?
Are we both? Is it even possible to be both at the same time? Unfortunately, the norm is to combine the ying and the yang. Without making a clear choice we do not obtain a life of sovereignty. Sovereignty allows us self respect, self understanding and self dignity. Possibly even a bit of self indulgence. Take care of you; it will be the right choice.