Communication – no words needed

I watched in fascination as the two men worked together in near silence. They walked from one piece of furniture to the next and with a nod, a grunt or a one word question like, ‘good?’, they moved every piece out of three rooms in less than 30 minutes, easily fitting it perfectly into nooks and crannies of other rooms in the house.

How did they know what to pick up next, where to place their hands and when to move? Is this what true team work is all about? When you’ve worked together for so long, you don’t need words to communicate?

I Give Thanks

I am thankful for every gift of friendship.
Where are my friends?
I’ve lost touch with so many.
Yet they remain in my heart.
I pray they forgive my lack of contact.
My list is long for those who receive my thoughts and prayers. And each who has befriended me is named.
I thank the Lord for every one. And ask Him to bless them where each is needing His touch.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Absolute Joy

How does a child receive? With joy and anticipation and delight. A child receives with no strings attached and with openness and thankfulness and appreciation. They receive in their innocence.

Oh, that we as adults would recognize the gifts of life that enter our days – shelter, food, the ability to communicate, our jobs, our friends and families, the very air we breathe – and that we would receive these gifts with that same childlike thankfulness. Then we, too, could abandon our days to absolute joy. I  wonder what the result would be in my life and in the lives I touch. I wonder what it would be like if everyone abandoned themselves to that intense childlike thankfulness.

Oh, Say, Can You See?

How come everyone else can put their videos off to the side on their blogs??? Anyway, here comes another one right in my post list. But, it's a good one. You may have already seen it because it's making the rounds this week pretty quickly. And for a very good reason.
Here's to a great nation worth singing about and fighting for!

Moments in Time

…now it’s 10:15 p.m. and I’m taking this time, sitting in bed with my writing pad and a cool glass of Chardonnay, just for me. Besides my morning prayers, I so rarely have time alone. This feels good.
Perhaps these hectic days will teach me to cherish and savor every wonderful moment of my life. And to enjoy every not-so-wonderful moment. Because each one passes into all eternity, never to return.
If there was no time before this life, and there is no time beyond this life, and if God knows the end from the beginning, and if time is of no essence to Him, then is the time just passed actually past or is it still part of the before, now and future? Does all time exist in a before/during/after state? So that one moment past has also not yet occurred?
Maybe I’m just tired. Too tired. Regardless, back to my original thought:
I need to cherish every moment. Especially the good and wonderful and joyful moments, the complete and fulfilling and fulfilled moments. Because whether or not time was/is/will be, there is no doubt that my experience of that moment will never occur again.

Fall is More than the Morning Chill

Fall is the morning chill as we leave for work or school,
when the sun has not quite come out of it’s sleepy hiding.
It’s needing a sweater – but not yet a coat –
to feel perfectly comfortable.
And gazing up at noon
to the deepest and clearest
sapphire sky painting the heavens.

And, of course, it’s watching the leaves turn -
bright magenta, royal purple, dazzling yellow and orange.
Then seeing them lightly make their way to the ground.
It’s listening to them rustle as we walk through them.
And imagining their piles in lawns and fields and roadways
as giant hideaways for four legged creatures.
It’s laughing when the wind picks up
and the piles disband, taking off,
running wildly down nature’s corridors.

It’s windows open during daylight hours,
and smiling to hear my many window wind chimes tinkle gaily
as the breeze enters and tickles them.

Fall is keeping the windows open through the night
and nestling under a soft blanket –
wondering how long before I’ll be cuddled under
my thick down comforter.

Fall is crisp air.
And change.
And clarity.
And new beauty.
It is the final preparation
for the end of yet another year.

Shaklee Videos: Shaklee Baby

I am trying to find the way to post videos in a separate column on my blog! In the meantime, please excuse the posting of this as a blog post! If you enjoy, then that's great! If not, mea culpa.
Shaklee Videos: Shaklee Baby

Shared via AddThis

I Can Be a Better Hostess

I love having house guests. But I often wonder what kind of hostess I am.
When I welcome people into my home, whether it be for an hour, a night or a week, I tend to treat them as family. In the big picture, that is probably best. But when it comes to the chemistry of the relationships between guests and hostess, it can be awkward.
Family to me means, what’s mine is your’s. If it’s here, you are welcome to it. If you’re hungry, open the pantry or refrigerator door and eat what you find and like. If you are thirsty, open a cabinet door, find a cup, fill it with a thirst quenching beverage that’s on hand. If you’re dirty, I have plenty of extra soap and shampoo and clean towels on hand, so take as long as you like in bath or shower. Don’t wait to ask me for any of those things, just do what needs to be done as though you live here all the time.
Not that I don’t also serve them by cooking meals, cleaning up the dishes afterward and vacuuming if they’re here long enough; it’s just that I also want them to have a sense of freedom while visiting.
But my guests are still guests. They are respectful of my home and my place in it. Unless they are ‘legally’ family, they may feel as though they are intruding on my privacy and are cautious as to how far they move on their own.
Perhaps my gift of hospitality is not so well-defined afterall. Perhaps I need to better hone the skills of servant when my guests enter my home. Perhaps then they will feel more welcome. Like family.

Simmie - the Next Step

“Now I feel like crying,” Simmie’s eyes filled to the brim even while they lit up brightly.
“So, cry,” I said.
“No.”
At least not yet, I thought.
“You cry enough for me.”
It doesn’t work that way, of course, but I’ll let it go for now.
She smiled broadly, realizing how well she could hear and how fast she was progressing. She said, “Truly, the sky’s the limit.”

Today is July 22, a mere twenty-one days after Simmie received a Cochlear Implant in her left ear. Her assimilation into the hearing world provided by this miraculous invention is progressing rapidly. Just now, audiologist Lisa increased the number of active electrodes from 16 to the maximum 120, at least two weeks ahead of the average schedule. Simmie now has access to the full range of hearing available through the CI. Lisa dialed her own recorded message on her telephone and let Simmie take the receiver. She could understand every word. She listened to sentences, not just words as previously, spoken by Lisa behind a screen and heard them all. A hearing test given in a sound booth a little while later revealed that her sentence recognition of Lisa’s voice was at 85% and of a recorded male voice at 51%. Before surgery, with her old hearing aid, sound booth test showed a 38% sentence recognition in that same ear.

After her processors were re-programmed and we prepared to leave, I asked, “I wonder what Myra will think about this.” Myra is the main character in Simmie’s semi-autobiographical novel who visits the consciousness of her great-great-great grandmother Simeona aka Simmie.

Simmie stopped in her tracks. “Oh, yes! Myra.”

We shall see how God weaves the story through the consciousness and gifts of His child Simeona who has now entered a new world.

“Myra,” she whispered as she closed her eyes.

A Wagging Tale of Jasmine & Gypsy: Constancy

I was at work one day when my mother called. “Please go to the animal hospital as soon as you can. Pebbles is not recovering properly from her surgery and the vet is concerned. She’s not eating. She seems depressed. The vet thinks that if she sees her family, she may perk up.”
My brother, sister and I met at the animal hospital late that afternoon with a small serving of browned ground beef. We went in to see Pebbles, our family dog of about 9 years. When her eyes lit up, her head lifted and her tail wagged, the vet said it was her first sign of healthy recovery. We sat about an hour with Pebbles, talking to her and rubbing her, and feeding her the beef which was a treat for a dog never allowed to have people food. She came home the next day, happy and fully recovering.
About seven years later I lived in the city, away from home. The call from my mother in a hushed tone brought me to instant tears, “Pebbles is gone.” I could barely eat for days. I couldn’t fall asleep at night. I was numb with visions of the past 16 years of constant faithfulness in the form of Pebbles, a black and white, 35 lb. Springer Spaniel Mix.

A family dog in a loving home truly becomes a part of that family. The longer they live with that family the harder it is for everyone when they leave this earth. (I always like to think that when they leave us they're with St. Francis and the animals he loved and also with that big white horse that Jesus rides in the Book of Revelation).

As I consider my devoted Jasmine and Gypsy, I’m beginning to realize that the reason for that deep sense of loss which is often profound must be related to the fact that in our ever changing lives, it is our dogs who remain constant. They might slow down a bit with age, but the only real ‘change’ is that they also become more loyal as time goes on. The family changes in size and it may even change location. But our dogs are always there - the same today as they were yesterday. We can always count on them. Partly because they are creatures of habit. Partly because it’s their very nature to be devoted and to accept us as we are. Pure and simple, they love us.

Besides God in our midst, there are few others we know who can boast such faithfulness even when we are faithless. It’s no wonder that when it’s their time to cross over we are so devastated. Our constancy has been replaced with a perception of uncertainness; life moves on unsteady ground once more. Thank God, we do truly always have Him.

One Little Adjustment

I close my eyes.
I hear the wind as it quietly rustles the leaves above my head and in the many trees surrounding our property. I can feel the wind better on my bare arms when my eyes are closed. When my eyes are open, I tend to focus on what I can see, not what I can feel. The breeze is gentle as it moves across me. It reminds me of a soft caress.
I can hear thousands of tiny bugs making eensy teensy tiny beeping, clicking and chirping sounds, each pulsing rhythmically to its own beat. With my eyes open, I am hardly aware of them.
I hear more birds singing and alerting each other with my internal hearing system tuned in.
I sit this way for some time, basking in my new reality, enjoying my new space. Letting it take me to places I had not dreamed of yet.
I open my eyes.
Aha. The sun is brilliant all around. I wasn’t aware of the sun with my eyes closed because the temperature of my skin is so cool today. I sit under an enormous umbrella that provides ample shade for my body and shields my eyes from glare. Brilliant sun surrounds the deck. I am actually engulfed in hot sun, not cool shade as I imagined with my eyes closed.
Amazing how one little adjustment we make will completely change our perspective.
Reflect.
How many times a day do we find ourselves changing perspective because we opened our eyes or ears or mind to a new idea, thought, person or place?
How many times should we?

Simmie Enters a New World

“What’s that sound?”
“It’s the car shifting gears.”
“Do you mean people actually hear that?”
“Yes.”
“What do I hear?”
“That’s water running in the other room.”
“Oh, my goodness. I can hear that all the way in here.”
Time to fix dinner. Time to wash the snap peas. Snap. Snap. Snap.
“It’s fun to snap peas when you can hear them snap!”

Today, July 14, 2009, my friend Simmie said goodbye to the self she has known for 57 years and hello to a brand new Simmie. She was not baptized in water. Nor did she today begin a new life of marriage to her wonderful Brent. Or enter into the fullness of her faith in the Roman Catholic Church. Those events of her past cannot be separated from her.

No. Today my friend who was born profoundly deaf, and who did not receive her first hearing aid until age 11, had her Cochlear Implant activated. Forever, profound deafness is behind her. The world of hearing is now open before her. And it is an entire world.

She has not known the sounds of the small bird in the nest crying for it’s mother, water quietly moving over rocks in a brook, leaves rustling gently to soft breezes, or distant thunder. She has not known when a faucet is dripping behind her, or the tap tap tap of the computer keys as she composes her literary works. She has not heard the wee small voices of her grandchildren as babies, or even her own children. She has not known the whisper of her husband saying, I love you. The list of unknown sounds is, literally, unending.

Simmie entered this day with hope and expectation. She entered with certainty that the dreams not yet fulfilled which God has written in her heart will become reality through the path of the Cochlear Implant.

Today Simmie is a new creation.
***********************************************************************************

Do you know anyone with a similar story?
Have you been on this journey?
Were the initial hopes met? Was it more difficult than expected?
I have another friend whose journey is heading in the opposite direction. At the age of 27, nine years ago, she began losing her hearing. She is now nearly totally deaf. She is learning Simmie’s courage and strength to go forward from another point in life. It has not been easy, to say the least. But she is stronger for it and is changing lives around her because of her will to move ahead and continue to make a difference in every way possible.
Do you know anyone experiencing my friend Shanna’s changes?