Category Archives: Community

Christian Life, Community, General, One Word 365, Uncategorized

I’m Firing Olivia Pope

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(Right off the bat, let me assure you: this post has NOTHING to do with politics.)

If you’ve seen the TV drama ‘”Scandal”, you know Olivia Pope as the fictional “fixer” who averts or minimizes crises for the President of the United States. She swoops in and manages his reputation, spins events to his political advantage, and helps him avoid embarrassment. She can reframe the most compromising situations so he always looks respectable. (Of course, in the show, she also does other things – and so does he – that indicate questionable character, but I’ll limit my analogy to the “fixer” part of her role here.)

Here’s the thing: I often feel like I would like my own Olivia Pope. Someone who can run interference,  polish me up, and make me seem like a better version of myself than I really am. And you know who I’m inclined to appoint to that position? Me.

I laughingly tell people all the time that my life’s goal is to: “Never humiliate yourself; others are far too willing to do it for you.” I’m only half kidding when I say that. But I don’t think I’m alone in this, am I? I think we’re all control freaks to some extent when it comes to how we want to be perceived by other people.

For example: Continue reading I’m Firing Olivia Pope →

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Community, General, Uncategorized

The best question I’m asking myself these days

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I woke up in pain. My right hand felt like a water balloon that was about to burst. “Must be a new iteration of carpal tunnel syndrome,” I thought as I tried every possible position to get the throbbing to stop. Finally, I lifted my hand in the semi-darkness to look at it and instantly saw the problem. 

FullSizeRenderI had one of those coated ponytail elastics on my wrist where I had placed it the night before after picking it up off the kitchen floor. I meant to put it away, but forgot and slept with what turned out to be an actual tourniquet on my wrist. I yanked it off and immediately began to feel relief. Then I wondered how much permanent damage I might have done to my hand (because if you know me, you know I tend to go to the worst case scenario in my mind.)

Obviously, I didn’t intend to put a darn tourniquet on my wrist and then leave it on while I slept. But who thinks of those little ponytail thingies as potentially dangerous? They seem so harmless . . . 

I think I sometimes do that with my thinking.

What starts out as a practical framework for my ideas turns into a flawed and possibly dangerous assumption. Instead of wisdom or insight, I default to an interpretation that constricts and risks damage to my relationships, to my attitude, even to my own personal peace.

Here’s an example: A couple of weeks ago, I was walking in my neighborhood at dusk and three people rode by on bicycles — a 50-ish man in the lead followed by a woman around his age and then a younger woman. Probably a family, I thought. As they rode by, the man was holding forth on how much to inflate their tires for maximum comfort and how to regulate their speed to conserve energy. The two women looked miserable.

My first thought was, “What a know-it-all gas bag. Why can’t they just go for a leisurely ride? Why does he have to preach them a sermon on how it’s done?” I felt myself getting ramped up.

Continue reading The best question I’m asking myself these days →

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Christian Life, Community, General, Uncategorized

Gosh, people are a mess

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Do you ever feel that way? I find myself saying, “What is WRONG with people?” when I’m frustrated for any of a variety of reasons.

  • Did they really think cutting me off in traffic would gain them an advantage of more than one car length?
  • Can they seriously not hear how they just interrupted to turn the conversation back to themselves . . . again?
  • Don’t they get it that the promises of that politician are empty?

As if I’ve got it together and they don’t.

jigsaw puzzleMy husband’s uncle is a great lover of jigsaw puzzles — the 1,000 piece, really challenging ones that, as we used to say in the South, “could make a preacher cuss”. He can spend hours focused on one of these things, not giving up until he finishes it, which by the way, he always does. And then he starts another. He’s amazing.

There’s something about interacting with and understanding people, especially those I care about (and even those I don’t), that reminds me of those puzzles. Continue reading Gosh, people are a mess →

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Christian Life, Community, General, Prayer, Uncategorized

The holiness of a four-way stop

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It’s rush hour on my usually-quiet suburban street. Well, maybe not rush “hour”, exactly. It’s really only about 15 minutes.

From around 7:10 to 7:25 most every morning during the school year, the street in front of my house is bumper to bumper with high school students trying to get to classes on time.

IMG_3496bfree-largeSchool starts at 7:30 and they’re lined up at the four-way stop, struggling to properly yield the right of way to each other (as they oh-so-recently learned in driver’s ed). Now and then, I hear someone sound their horn over whatever perceived infraction just took place. That usually happens as it gets closer to 7:30 and the possibility of being late becomes more real.

Oh, and sympathies to you if you have to back out of your driveway during that time frame. Taking turns and being nice apparently only applied to kindergarten. I may have muttered about this from time to time over the years…

Interestingly, I’ve found that there’s something positive and even holy about this brief traffic jam in front of my house each morning. It gives me an opportunity to see the individual young faces in those cars and wonder if anyone has prayed for them yet today. Maybe not. (I’m thinking, most likely not.) So lately, I’ve started praying.

I start with the obvious prayers like,

Lord, please keep these young people safe at school today, encourage them to be responsible and make wise choices, protect them from peer pressure, help them learn and grow into good citizens.

Then it goes a little deeper:

Let them know that they have value, surprise them with encouragement today from an unexpected source, give them courage for whatever battle they face, make them sensitive to the pain of the marginalized around them.

Ultimately, and arguably most important, I arrive here:

Let them recognize Your hand on their lives, soften their hearts toward faith, welcome them into a relationship with You.

Even if you don’t live near a high school or have teenagers in your life currently, they’re out there–I see them every day from my living room window–and they could use your prayers. Adolescence is a tumultuous time, you may recall, and this rough world isn’t getting any better any time soon.

For sure, if you have a student at the high school in my town and they drive past my house in the morning, you can know they’re going to get prayed for. Maybe running late and getting stuck in traffic at the four-way stop isn’t the worst thing for them, after all.

And for me, it beats muttering.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Christian Life, Community, Faith, General, Uncategorized

But only if you don’t hold hands

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filename-1Funny, the things you remember. When my younger sister and I were really little – I’m talking maybe 4 and 5 years old – we went to the nursery at the seminary where my parents were both students. We didn’t know anyone, of course, and we were scared, so we clung tightly to each other after our parents dropped us off.

The large room was divided into two, with a low partition between the sides. One area was for the younger children; there were the usual coloring books and stuffed animals and puzzles with giant pieces.  On the other side of the room was the area for the older kids. I’m sure there were lots of toys there, too, but all I remember is the blocks. There were dozens of wooden blocks in every size and there were even those sturdy cardboard ones painted to look like bricks.

Oh, how I wanted to play with those blocks, but it would mean being separated from my little sister, since she belonged on the other side of the room. I was torn between my protectiveness of her and my desire to build a “house” out of cardboard bricks. It was agony for a little kid.

One of the teachers, apparently sensing my dilemma, offered that we could both stay on the big kid side, but “only if you don’t hold hands”.

Continue reading But only if you don’t hold hands →

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Animal lessons, Christian Life, Community, Faith, General

Choosing to gulp, not sip

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I stood transfixed on the lanai, watching a river otter cavort on the opposite bank of the small pond behind my rented condo. It rolled on its back in the grass, stood up, then threw itself down and rolled some more before finally slinking back into the water and swimming away.

Now I don’t know if otters feel joy; I kind of doubt it. For all I know, its back was itching and that’s how otters scratch. But that creature was so playful and unguarded, so totally in the moment, I couldn’t help but smile.

32 Curious DolphinI’ve felt the same pleasure watching dolphins frolic alongside a boat or kayak. They leap out of the water with those ubiquitous grins and seem for all the world to be truly enjoying themselves. Are they? I don’t know, but something about them makes my spirit soar.  Continue reading Choosing to gulp, not sip →

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Christian Life, Community, Faith, Grief, Uncategorized

People are starving – and not for food

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I’ve been told I must have “talk to me” tattooed on my forehead in a type of ink easily visible to the lonely. It must be true because apparently Karen (not her real name) could read it.

IMG_3126It was only about a ten minute ride on the water taxi from the marina to the beach, but that was long enough. By the time we got off the pontoon boat, I knew Karen’s entire story: Where she’s lived for all 41 years of her marriage, how much she paid for her last three houses, the nature of her latest ailment, what she and her husband disagree about, the names and ages of each of her grandchildren, and … well, you get my drift. Me, a complete stranger.

The next day I went to an outdoor art festival with two friends. As I browsed the jewelry booth, a nearby shopper found earrings to match the necklace she was admiring. To my casual comment, “Must be your lucky day!”, she blurted out that she could use some good luck; her husband had died unexpectedly last week of a massive heart attack. She said she had come to the art festival hoping for a distraction from her crushing grief. Stunned, I touched her arm as I told her how sorry I was, my voice cracking. Again, I was a complete stranger.  Continue reading People are starving – and not for food →

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Christian Life, Community, Faith, General

That Day Worrying Finally Paid Off

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I was at breakfast with a friend this past weekend who was fretting about her daughter. Her adult, intelligent, capable daughter. My friend was worried about a project her daughter was planning to take on the next day and the potential complications that could arise. The fact that she had no involvement or control over the outcome herself didn’t stop her from being genuinely concerned.

Only half-kidding, I said, “Well, it’s good you’re worrying about it because one of these days that’s going to pay off for you.”

We both laughed at the absurdity of such a statement; who really thinks worrying is anything other than a complete waste of time?

IMG_2498I’m one to talk. I recently drove 23 hours to spend two months in Florida. Balmy, snow-free, palm-trees-gently-swaying-in-the-breeze Florida.

The night I arrived, you know what I did? Continue reading That Day Worrying Finally Paid Off →

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Community, General, Law Enforcement, Uncategorized

Please Don’t Kick the Sheepdog – a reminder

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWe are a law enforcement family. My great-grandfather, George L. Bryant, was a small-town sheriff who died in the line of duty in 1908 and whose name is emblazoned on the National Law Enforcement Officers’ Memorial in Washington, DC. My older brother, my husband, and I are all retired “sheepdogs”. My sister-in-law spent her career as a police dispatcher and my younger sister began her working life as a member of this same tight-knit law enforcement community.

Perhaps you will understand, then, why this divisive climate in our country right now between the protectors and the protected deeply troubles me.  

For that reason, instead of posting something pensive and timely about Christmas today, I’ve decided to revisit a post I originally published in April 2013 after the Boston Marathon bombings.

The following perspective is taken from a book by Lt. Col. (Retired) Dave Grossman, Ranger, Ph.D., and author of On Killing; the Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill. Some of the statistics may bear updating but the sentiment remains valid. I hope it’s helpful: Continue reading Please Don’t Kick the Sheepdog – a reminder →

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Christian Life, Community, General

I Don’t Remember Saying This

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As I rounded the corner last week, I happened upon my neighbor unloading groceries in her driveway. We engaged in some idle chat and for whatever reason, she reminded me of something I had said to her when she was diagnosed with cancer ten or so years ago.

The day I heard of her health struggles, I stopped by to deliver a meal to her family on my way home from work. She specifically recalls me reassuring her during that visit that, “Everything will be okay.”

IMG_5786I said that? What in the world was I thinking? That was kind of a happy-clappy thing to say. Looking back, it seems downright presumptuous.

Thankfully, my friend derived comfort from my words then and apparently still values them today.

And I don’t even remember saying it.

By God’s mercy, everything did turn out okay. There was surgery, chemo, and all the miserable stuff that goes along with it, but she eventually went into remission and continues to live her life with contagious joy.

I started thinking: That forgotten comment at least had a happy ending. How many other things have I said along the way that didn’t have such a positive result?    

~~~~~~~~~

I thought of another instance, a few years earlier, when my words had a much less desirable outcome. In this case, I remember what I said, it’s just that at the time I failed to consider how it would be taken in by a very tender heart. Continue reading I Don’t Remember Saying This →

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