Finding beauty and light

 I spent a bunch of hours the other day reading old blog posts on my original blog, Anne Marie's Musings.  I started that blog when I retired, thinking I would share leadership messages for use in the workplace.  It didn't take me long to realize that format was too limiting, and I expanded to just musing on life.

I wrote over one hundred entries in 2015, and over a hundred in 2016.  Then fifty-ish in 2017, twenty in 2018, and two in 2019.   I did greatly increase the number of entries in this author blog, but never to my pre-2016 volume.  What happened?

Lots of ingredients.  One ingredient was the increased focus on writing my books.  Another ingredient was lack of response.  But the biggest ingredient?  I lost hope.

I allowed the trajectory of the social landscape in America to steal my hope and steal my joy.  When I read my old posts, I see presenting the case for tolerance, for inclusion, for acceptance.  All my pontificating didn't stop society from moving in the opposite direction.

I was rejected by people who I had thought were my friends, simply because I wanted to continue to "love my neighbor as myself".  It turned out many people had rules for who deserved love.

I started only speaking of love and tolerance and acceptance through the characters in my books.  I wasn't influencing anyone else, so I just stopped trying.

But today is Easter.  The impossible has happened.  Christ is Risen!  As a Christian, I have to hope.  Hope is one of the gifts of the Resurrection.

I'm going to try harder to find beauty and light.  I am going to try to be more hopeful and grateful for the beauty in life.

I have realized that the harder you have to work to find the light, the more it illuminates beauty when you find it.

The only way to have a better world is to never stop trying to create one.  Keep trying my friends.  Every bit of light you add illuminates us all.

Loneliness

There are so many things that can isolate us and create loneliness.  Being lonely and being alone are far from the same thing.  

Alone time is good and necessary for some people.  Being alone can be a good opportunity for self-reflection, for prayer, for reading, or thinking.  Being alone can be restorative.  It can allow healthy selfishness.

Being lonely is hard.  Being lonely when surrounded by others is harder still.  

There are many conditions that create and sustain loneliness.  The presence of disease or illness for yourself or a loved one is isolating, and can create loneliness.  A lack of resources, so that you can't participate in activities to the same measure as your peer group creates loneliness.  Discord and disharmony create loneliness.

None of us have the power to remove disease, illness or lack of resources from all of the people we care about.  But we can do our best to remove or reduce discord or disharmony.  

We all have opinions.  Most of us have strong feelings about certain subjects.  When the things we care about don't matter to the people we care about, it can be very hurtful and isolating.  Sometimes, there are things that are so important, we have to accept discord and disharmony, but how many things are that important?

There are those among us who love to sow discord.  I see people expressing strong opinions on subjects that have no bearing on their everyday lives.  Complaining and being angry are habits that become harder and harder to break.

Before you take a strong position on something that has little personal impact, before you potentially hurt someone in your world, why not ask yourself why?  Why do I care enough about this to hurt someone who is vulnerable?  Because face it, we are all vulnerable, just more or less at any given moment.

Do you want to drop the straw that breaks someone's back?  Because as long as there is someone in the world who cares about you, you can be the person that drops that straw.

"Love one another as I have loved you." Jesus' words are simple and incredibly hard to live up to.  Love tries to do no harm.  Love doesn't shun, love embraces.  Words are powerful tools of inclusion, but also of exclusion.

Are those words you long to share loving?  Can they add to the pain of someone who is already hurting?  We all have the power to act in love and promote accord and harmony.  What are you going to choose?  And are you willing to take responsibility for the consequences of your choices?

Life is hard.  We don't have to make it harder.  But every day, every word, every action we all make a choice.  I want to look at my choices and see that I have tried to live up to Jesus' expectation.  I want to choose love.

Perspective

I broke a tooth.  Probably during sleep on Sunday night.  I woke up with my jaw aching, and when I water flossed my teeth, a piece of tooth came out.  I went to the dentist this morning.

Breaking a tooth is not a good thing.   But luckily for me, visiting my dentist is a good thing.  He is a kind and wonderful faith-filled person, and I actually love seeing him.

Today was a really good visit.  He filed the sharp edge off my broken tooth, and we made a repair plan.  And we talked.  And shared joy with each other.

I know I left his office in a better mood (which I expected) but I think I brightened his day too.

You know I believe God is active in my life every day.  Today, it felt like he sent me to tell my dentist the story I told him, and to share the video with him I shared with him.

God is ever present!  He will work through you - all you have to do is notice.

Lead with love, seek the joy, cling to hope.  

Every day is another opportunity to find perspective on our lives, and to discover the good we can do.

Never be afraid to tell stories that share and spread joy.  Our love of God and His love of us is a joyful love.  The best ministry of all is sharing that joyful love as much as we can.

Change of Address

One of the inescapable truths about life is that people you love will die.  It is always hard when they do.  In the last couple of weeks, someone I dearly love has died, and family members of people I love have died as well.

There is no way to avoid death.  There is no road map to navigate the grief that accompanies death.

Love never dies.

My Catholic faith has informed me that this life on Earth is merely a prelude to eternal life.  I believe that wholeheartedly.  I believe that those I love who have died are waiting for me in Heaven.

Because I believe this, I now look at death as a change of address.  I may not be able to see the people I love who have died, but they are still there.  I can pray to them to intercede for me.  I can talk to them about my worries and my joys.  

In my stories, for some of my characters, the veil between heaven and earth is very sheer.  They receive messages from their loved ones on the other side, and freely talk to them.  I remain open to the possibility of communicating with my loved ones on the other side.

As I navigate my own grief, and feel the grief and pain of my friends, I hold on to my belief that I will see the people I love again some day, and that my friends will also be reunited with their loved ones.

Until that reunion, I will hold on to the love that those who have died brought to my life, and continue to love them with the same intensity that I loved them with when I could see them and touch them.

Love never dies.  I may miss the people I've loved for the rest of my life, but I will never stop loving them.

Acceptance

I've been working on this post in my mind for the past couple of days.  I know what I want to convey, but I'm not sure of how to put words together to help a reader understand my thoughts.

There is a difference in my mind between acceptance and endorsement.  There is also a difference between acceptance and approval.  For me, acceptance is very limited in meaning.  For me, acceptance means receiving someone or something as adequate.

Humans can greatly test our ability for acceptance.  Often, we want the people who we allow into our lives to pass certain criteria.  They have to be one thing or another, or not one thing or another to be acceptable to us.

One of my core beliefs is that we are all worthy, we are all children of God, we all carry the Divine within us.  We are perfect, imperfect creatures.  We are unique creations of a loving Creator.

That belief demands that I accept you as you are.  It demands that I find the divine in you, and treasure that.

It doesn't mean that I allow people who would harm me in my life.  It doesn't mean I endorse destructive behaviors in people who exhibit them.

It means I accept you as you are.  There may or may not be room in my everyday life for you, but I will never ask or demand that you change for me.

Because we are all unique, and all wonderfully made, humans are incredibly diverse.  It is not my job as a human to rate others, or to scale their value.   It is my job as a human to appreciate the wonderful creation you are.

I can fall into the trap of being judgmental.  Of thinking I know best what decisions someone should make.  I can fail to see the pain someone is in because they don't match society's expectations, and add to that pain with my thoughtlessness.

Working on acceptance is and will remain a constant process for me.  Life is hard, and harder for those who are not accepted for who they are.

I will continue to strive to see everyone I meet as who they are.  Because I will never be able to benefit from the beauty they bring to the world if I don't.