Thursday, May 31, 2007
ok....seriously
Pics as promised...Mark at the Arches park(you can't see it, but Mark is setting on a cliff that drops off the edge of the world!), Autum the Harley dog, Bear Heart the 89 year old Indidan Shaman posing on my bike (his request!), mom and dad by the Colorado River in HITE Utah?, end of the trip photo with the group in Enid, Mark getting ready to snow ride in Monticello Utah. I will try to post more later because this thing only lets me download so many....i took over 215 pictures on this trip!!! In case something happens to us kids, I scrapbook ALL of our bike trips!! For my enjoyment now and yours in years when I am not around!!!
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Pictures Later...
You know, today I was going to post pictures of our trip, but when I woke up and was catching up on some reading, this seemed a more important thought to post. This is for everyone of us who reads this blog, and for no on in particular..it's message is vast and even pertains to me...as a lowly housewife....children raised...it is lengthy but worth it.
"The world is full of people who seem to have listened to the wrong voice and are now engaged in life-work in which they find no pleasure or purpose and who run the risk of suddenly realizing someday that they have spent the only years that they are ever going to get in this world doing something which could not matter less to themselves or to anyone else. This does not mean, of course, people who are doing work that from the outside looks unglamorous and humdrum, because obviously such work as that may be a crucial form of service and deeply creative. But it means people who are doing work that seems simply irrelevant not only to the great human needs and issues of our time but also to their own need to grow and develop as humans.
In John Marquand's novel POINT OF NO RETURN, for instance, after years of apple-polishing and bucking for promotion and dedicating all his energies to a single goal, Charlie Gray finally gets to be vice-president of the fancy little New York bank where he works; and then the terrible moment comes when he realizes that it is really not what he wanted after all, when the prize that he has spent his life trying to win suddenly turns to ashes in his hands. His promotion assures him and his family of all the security and standing that he has always sought, but Marquand leaves you with the feeling that maybe the best way Charlie Gray could have supported his family would have been by giving his life to the kind of work where he could have expressed himself and fulfilled himself in such a way as to become in himself, as a person, the kind of support they really needed.
There is also the moment in the Gospels where Jesus is portrayed as going into the wilderness for 40 days and nights and being tempted there by the devil. And one of the ways that the devil tempts him is to wait until Jesus is very hungry from fasting and then to suggest that he simply turn the stones into bread and eat. Jesus answers, "Man shall not live by bread alone", and this just happens to be, among other things, true, and very close to the same truth that Charlie Gray comes to when he realizes too late that he was not made to live on status and salary alone but that something crucially important was missing from his life evevn though he was not sue what it was any more than, perhaps Marquand himself was sure what it was.
There is nothing moralistic or sentimental about this truth. It means for us simply that we must be careful with our lives, for Christ's sake, because it would seem that they are the only lives we are going to have in this puzzling and perilous world and so they are very precious and what we do with them matters enormously. Everybody knows that. We need no one to tell it to us. Yet in another way perhaps we do always need to be told, because there is always the temptation to believe that we have all the time in the world, whereas the truth of it is that we do not. We have only a life, and the choice of how we are going to live it must be our own choice, not one that we let the world make for us. Because surely Marquand was right that for each of us there comes a point of no return, a point beyond which we no longer have life enough left to go back and start all over again."
"The world is full of people who seem to have listened to the wrong voice and are now engaged in life-work in which they find no pleasure or purpose and who run the risk of suddenly realizing someday that they have spent the only years that they are ever going to get in this world doing something which could not matter less to themselves or to anyone else. This does not mean, of course, people who are doing work that from the outside looks unglamorous and humdrum, because obviously such work as that may be a crucial form of service and deeply creative. But it means people who are doing work that seems simply irrelevant not only to the great human needs and issues of our time but also to their own need to grow and develop as humans.
In John Marquand's novel POINT OF NO RETURN, for instance, after years of apple-polishing and bucking for promotion and dedicating all his energies to a single goal, Charlie Gray finally gets to be vice-president of the fancy little New York bank where he works; and then the terrible moment comes when he realizes that it is really not what he wanted after all, when the prize that he has spent his life trying to win suddenly turns to ashes in his hands. His promotion assures him and his family of all the security and standing that he has always sought, but Marquand leaves you with the feeling that maybe the best way Charlie Gray could have supported his family would have been by giving his life to the kind of work where he could have expressed himself and fulfilled himself in such a way as to become in himself, as a person, the kind of support they really needed.
There is also the moment in the Gospels where Jesus is portrayed as going into the wilderness for 40 days and nights and being tempted there by the devil. And one of the ways that the devil tempts him is to wait until Jesus is very hungry from fasting and then to suggest that he simply turn the stones into bread and eat. Jesus answers, "Man shall not live by bread alone", and this just happens to be, among other things, true, and very close to the same truth that Charlie Gray comes to when he realizes too late that he was not made to live on status and salary alone but that something crucially important was missing from his life evevn though he was not sue what it was any more than, perhaps Marquand himself was sure what it was.
There is nothing moralistic or sentimental about this truth. It means for us simply that we must be careful with our lives, for Christ's sake, because it would seem that they are the only lives we are going to have in this puzzling and perilous world and so they are very precious and what we do with them matters enormously. Everybody knows that. We need no one to tell it to us. Yet in another way perhaps we do always need to be told, because there is always the temptation to believe that we have all the time in the world, whereas the truth of it is that we do not. We have only a life, and the choice of how we are going to live it must be our own choice, not one that we let the world make for us. Because surely Marquand was right that for each of us there comes a point of no return, a point beyond which we no longer have life enough left to go back and start all over again."
Friday, May 11, 2007
What's in a DAY!
“Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs... since the payment is pure love.”
“Other things may change us, but we start and end with family”
"There's a lot more to being a woman than being a mother, but there's a hell a lot more to being a mother than most people suspect”
'Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. "
"Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.'
These are just a sampling of what others have said about mothers. Kind and true. I am not a "believer" in "Mothers Day" in the traditional sense as you well know, but instead have had to learn that for ME, Mothers Day is ANY DAY that I either see my children, or speak to my children, or read their blogs, or an email is sent to me specifically. Each one of these moments in time holds so much meaning now for me.....I am sure that this is an evolutionary thing since all my kids live 10 or more hours away. But I believe, now, that it is a good evolution. One from dependency on expectations to delight in the experience. The shackle of Hallmarks "Days" are at times, emotional bondage! Not only upon the receiver, but upon the giver as well. I have long told my children that I am not fond of "days" where people feel obligated to "remember" someone for a something! I love it when I am "remembered" when dad and I go through a hard time in our marriage. I love it when I am "remembered" with a phone call or email to just see whats up! I love it when I am "remembered" by being very welcomed into your homes and fed great meals and good conversations! I love it when I am "remembered" enough to be trusted keeping your children in my care, whether it is for one evening while you are out, or while you are out on vacation for a week! This does NOT take away ANY of the offerings of love you sincerely give me for Mothers Day!! Those have always been and always WILL be very sacred and treasured by me. I just wish there was no added pressure of a certain calender "day" with which all of us are somehow, no matter HOW we try to deny it, slave to. Yes, yes, I am psyco, but ....... we all know the obligation of a "day". A day to work, a day to mow the yard, do the laudry, pay the bills!! There are certain days and feelings you should not clump together on a DAY! Too many have been too hurt for too long by either being obligated to a day, or being hurt because OF a day, or been riddled with guilt because of a dadgum DAY!!! Love because you DO. Live because you CAN. I love you ALL and "happy each- and- every- day -any- of- my -children- touch -my- life -DAY"!!!
p.s.I LOVE BEING A MOTHER/IN LAW/NANNY/MEME
“Other things may change us, but we start and end with family”
"There's a lot more to being a woman than being a mother, but there's a hell a lot more to being a mother than most people suspect”
'Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. "
"Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.'
These are just a sampling of what others have said about mothers. Kind and true. I am not a "believer" in "Mothers Day" in the traditional sense as you well know, but instead have had to learn that for ME, Mothers Day is ANY DAY that I either see my children, or speak to my children, or read their blogs, or an email is sent to me specifically. Each one of these moments in time holds so much meaning now for me.....I am sure that this is an evolutionary thing since all my kids live 10 or more hours away. But I believe, now, that it is a good evolution. One from dependency on expectations to delight in the experience. The shackle of Hallmarks "Days" are at times, emotional bondage! Not only upon the receiver, but upon the giver as well. I have long told my children that I am not fond of "days" where people feel obligated to "remember" someone for a something! I love it when I am "remembered" when dad and I go through a hard time in our marriage. I love it when I am "remembered" with a phone call or email to just see whats up! I love it when I am "remembered" by being very welcomed into your homes and fed great meals and good conversations! I love it when I am "remembered" enough to be trusted keeping your children in my care, whether it is for one evening while you are out, or while you are out on vacation for a week! This does NOT take away ANY of the offerings of love you sincerely give me for Mothers Day!! Those have always been and always WILL be very sacred and treasured by me. I just wish there was no added pressure of a certain calender "day" with which all of us are somehow, no matter HOW we try to deny it, slave to. Yes, yes, I am psyco, but ....... we all know the obligation of a "day". A day to work, a day to mow the yard, do the laudry, pay the bills!! There are certain days and feelings you should not clump together on a DAY! Too many have been too hurt for too long by either being obligated to a day, or being hurt because OF a day, or been riddled with guilt because of a dadgum DAY!!! Love because you DO. Live because you CAN. I love you ALL and "happy each- and- every- day -any- of- my -children- touch -my- life -DAY"!!!
p.s.I LOVE BEING A MOTHER/IN LAW/NANNY/MEME
Thursday, May 03, 2007
HELLO?
Oh my GOSH! I started my own mobile blog thingy .....I think! I have been enjoying Micah's pictures from his phone and so decided I would try it out for myself!! Sweet. Now, hopefully, if I can remember just how I did it, I can take pictures from our trip on the 18th to Utah and post them!! I tell you loud and clear that Grandma Ethel would have been very proud of me!!! I am not great at these high tech things, but I truly believe, as with most things in my life, that it is easier than my MIND tells me it is!!That plus I have sons who ARE technowhatever! So....stay tuned!!! Now back to the job....grocery shopping.....
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