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5 Friday Faves – Beyond the Guitar’s Latest, Parenting Pearls, Aging Well, Words, and War

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Quick take on favorites of mine over the last couple of weeks:

1) Beyond the Guitar’s Latest – Enjoy!

2) Parenting Pearls – So thankful for wisdom of others…especially in parenting and raising children to be mentally healthy and resilient. How other cultures parent is also intriguing. Below are some of both.

Mom blogger Becky Mansfield wrote a great piece on things we don’t want our kiddos to forget.  Please share in the Comments what you hope your children don’t forget.

What Really Matters: Things I Never Want Our Kids to Forget – Becky Mansfield

Photo Credit: Facebook, Becky Mansfield, Your Modern Family

First, You Decide that Kids Belong in School – Carrie McKean – a writer friend of mine in Texas; everyone won’t agree with her, but she writes well and with reason for us as parents during our time with COVID.

A Top Researcher Says It’s Time to Rethink Our Entire Approach to Preschool – Anya Kementz

It’s Easy to Judge Until It’s Your Kid; Let’s Try Compassion – MaryBeth Bock

The Secret of Arctic ‘Survival Parenting’

3) Aging Well – Start young. Start young to age well. If you have to catch up (like me), there is still time.

The Seven Habits That Lead to Happiness in Old Age – Arthur C. Brooks

Forgiving People Is Good for Your Health. Here’s How to Do It. – Rachel Feltman

Forgiving People Is Good for Your Health. Here’s How to Do It – Rachel Feltman

Photo Credit: John & Julie Gottman, Yes! Magazine

4) Words – As much as I love words this quote from Jesus’ teaching gives pause: “But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned.”  – Matthew 12:36-37
Words matter. Words mean things. We should be generous with life-giving words and sparing with words that destroy.  Silence and restraint have their place.
What If– A poem by Malcolm Guite
What if every word we say
Never ends or fades away,
Gathers volume gathers weigh,
Drums and dins us with dismay
Surges on some dreadful day
When we cannot get away
Whelms us till we drown?
What if not a word is lost,
What if every word we cast
Cruel, cunning, cold, accurst,
Every word we cut and paste
Echoes to us from the past
Fares and finds us first and last
Haunts and hunts us down?
What if every murmuration,
Every otiose oration
Every oath and imprecation,
Insidious insinuation,
Every blogger’s aberration,
Every facebook fabrication
Every twittered titivation,
Unexamined asservation
Idiotic iteration,
Every facile explanation,
Drags us to the ground?
What if each polite evasion
Every word of defamation,
Insults made by implication,
Querulous prevarication,
Compromise in convocation,
Propaganda for the nation
False or flattering persuasion,
Blackmail and manipulation
Simulated desparation
Grows to such reverberation
That it shakes our own foundation,
Shakes and brings us down?
Better that some words be lost,
Better that they should not last,
Tongues of fire and violence.
O Word through whom the world is blessed,
Word in whom all words are graced,
Do not bring us to the test,
Give our clamant voices rest,
And the rest is silence.
Then, on a lighter note:  there’s this sweet game that is all the rage right now. Wordle created by Josh Wardle (launched in October 2021). I love it because it is not time-consuming. You get one word puzzle a day that is challenging but doable. So fun.

What to Read About Wordle While Everybody’s Still Talking About It – Alex Dalenberg

Twitter, Karen Swallow Prior (Click to read the full thread)

Wordle App (different game, different creator)

5) War – We have all read and watched about the current invasion of Ukraine by Russia. How to respond? Who to respond? I won’t pose an opinion here because we have so many, and they don’t help really. Praying is the most important thing we can do. Below are some links I found interesting this week (well, links that weren’t behind a paywall). Praying…

Photo Credit: Facebook

War in Ukraine: Essential Reading

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky: the Comedian President Who Is Rising to the Moment – Stephen Mulvey

Wendell Berry’s Advice for a Cataclysmic Age – Dorothy Wickenden [Lengthy biographical piece on Berry’s advice – also includes an audio file which you can listen to instead of reading the story.]

Here are a few quotes from the piece above:

“Think Little. Nearly every one of us, nearly every day of his life, is contributing directly to the ruin of this planet.” Berry went on to say that he was “ashamed and deeply distressed that American government should have become the chief cause of disillusionment with American principles.”

In a Jefferson Lecture in 2012, he quoted Stegner’s description of Americans as one of two basic types, “boomers” and “stickers.” Boomers are “those who pillage and run,” who “make a killing and end up on Easy Street.” Stickers are “those who settle, and love the life they have made and the place they have made it in.” They are “placed people,” in Berry’s term—forever attached to the look of the sky, the smell of native plants, and the vernacular of home.

He told the crowd that, as a member of the human race, he was “in the worst possible company: communists, fascists and totalitarians of all sorts, militarists and tyrants, exploiters, vandals, gluttons, ignoramuses, murderers.” But, he insisted, he was given hope by people “who through all the sad destructive centuries of our history have kept alive the vision of peace and kindness and generosity and humility and freedom.”

“A properly educated conservative, who has neither approved of abortion nor supported a tax or a regulation, can destroy a mountain or poison a river and sleep like a baby,” he writes. “A well-instructed liberal, who has behaved with the prescribed delicacy toward women and people of color, can consent to the plunder of the land and people of rural America and sleep like a conservative.”

“If two neighbors know that they may seriously disagree, but that either of them, given even a small change of circumstances, may desperately need the other, should they not keep between them a sort of pre-paid forgiveness? They ought to keep it ready to hand, like a fire extinguisher.”

“Jesus said, ‘Take no thought for the morrow,’ which I take to mean that if we do the right things today, we’ll have done all we really can for tomorrow. OK. So I hope to do the right things today.”

Wendell Berry – Americans Who Tell the Truth Website

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Any favorite finds you’d be willing to share? Post them in the Comments and thanks so much for stopping by.

Bonuses:

Setting a Valentine’s lunch for our grandchildren:

The Real-Life Diet of Kenny G, Who Learned to Cook to Set an Example for His Son – Mick Rouse

YouTube Video – Jesus’ Heart – Eric Gilmour and Dane Ortlund

Three Encouraging Quotes

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Monday Morning Moment – A Cause for Celebration and a Celebration Culture – in Pictures

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Photo Credit: Unlocking the Bible

What do we celebrate?

Kids’ birthdays, weddings, babies, anniversaries. For sure.

How about mileposts in our careers? A job well-done?

Have workplace celebrations (even micro-celebrations) gone by the wayside? Even before COVID? Too expensive? Too hard to keep up with? Considered frivolous and unaligned with a stream-lined cost-saving workplace? Have these cost-savings cut losses or added to them? If this is your situation, consider re-instituting celebrations. Omitting them may have cost you more than having them.

I’m not going to go into the particulars (links below will support those). However, I want to give a shout-out to one recent celebration which we got to attend and soak up the joy of it all.

[This had to do with a church celebrating the 10th anniversary of their pastor couple. The elements of a beautiful milestone recognition follow in the pictures and brief description. Enjoy.]

Andrew and Marcie came to this job after a catastrophic health event forced them to leave the international work they were deeply committed to. A redemptive story followed in these 10 years since.

They are not the kind of people who are ambitious for center stage, but they find themselves there because of what (and who) they bring with them. They take the hard and display the good and the God in it.

We had the opportunity to be one of the out-of-town guests for a surprise celebration of Andrew and Marcie’s work (10 years so far).

This church covered all bases in celebrating them and drawing all of us into that circle of deep gratitude. #Snacks and #giftbags for the travelers (you planning milestone celebrations – keep this! – for all involved as far as your budget allows).

The surprise actually happened (for Andrew anyway. Marcie helped to keep him in the dark). The sweet first sightings were emotional.

Milestone celebrations must always have food. No need for it to be elaborate, but special is nice. From eating at local specialty restaurants to a potluck. There is something about eating together from time to time (and especially to celebrate a person or progress) that creates a bond between people. When is the last time you ate with your team? Your boss? Make it happen.

Then the words. They matter. Words of affirmation. Words of inspiration. Vision. Purpose. However, not just for the big picture but how the pieces fit together. Celebrations are about the pieces…and the pieces are people. If I may add: God puts the puzzle together. [Because this was a church celebrating their pastor, the Sunday service included all us life-long family and long-time friends – joining their local church family who love them with us. This celebration was a beautiful demonstration of that love. No holds barred.]

Celebrations are meant to honor both the person/project and the larger purpose that holds us together. If it’s work or family or something other. For Andrew and Marcie, it would have been very awkward for them if they were the focus of the 10-year anniversary. Their church family knew this and kept in view what mattered most to them all.

That was our weekend with all the feels of a celebration. It was inspiring. I’m looking forward to being part of a force that celebrates more. The doldrums of this cubicled and isolating season almost put me to sleep. This weekend woke me (back) up!

5 Reasons We Should Celebrate Milestones – Julie Baumgardner

Back to Basics – What Are Community Celebrations? – Aaron Kinne

Creating a Culture of Celebration – Don Rheem

Commentary: Importance of Life’s Milestones – Doug & Lynn Nodland

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5 Friday Faves – Beyond the Guitar’s “Halo”, Best Film Scene, Secure Attachment, Letters to Children, and Birthdays

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Happy Friday! It’s been a sweet week around here with birthday celebrations, snow, and so many captivating discoveries. Hope your week has worn well for you. Here are this week’s faves of mine (please share yours as well, in Comments, below).

1) Beyond the Guitar’s “Halo” – For twenty years, Halo and its sequels are wildly popular videogames (first person shooter). I don’t know it personally but first saw it played by son Nathan and his high school buddies. Halo Infinite came out before Christmas 2021. It is the latest rendition of the game. The theme is beautiful as you’ll hear with Nathan’s arrangement and performance below. Another amazing feat of taking a gorgeous orchestral piece of music and rendering it beautifully and a single instrument. His classical guitar.

 

2) Best Film Scene – Full disclosure: I haven’t seen the 2021 film CODA (“children of deaf adults”), but I will. It came to my attention from Josh Larsen’s tweet below, looking for fan favorites:

Several folks replying to his “scene of the year” question posted “CODA (2021) – The Audition”. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched that scene. Goosebumps. Every. Single. Time.

[The song “Both Sides Now” was written and first performed by Joni Mitchell in 1967.]

In mid-life, my mom began working in a printing company. It was a loud workplace and everyone wore earplugs and communicated often with hand signals while on the floor. She made friends with a deaf woman named Mary. Mom didn’t have to learn sign language to communicate with Mary on the floor, but their friendship grew as did my mom’s determination to learn how to truly be a friend to her. I can’t tell you how proud and enthralled I was at Mom’s learning sign language at her age…just to truly know and understand her deaf friend. They had a long beautiful friendship even after retiring from their work. Both have since died.

We have a hearing-impaired son (whose hearing is assisted with hearing aids, but who still engages with the world a bit differently because of his hearing issues. He struggles learning languages and depended more on lip-reading early on before we knew for sure he had hearing issues. He amazes us still how he has dealt with life in the hearing world.

This scene…this movie…captures some of this tension. Also the tension of the blue collar work world juxtaposed with the arts symbolized in the young [CODA] Ruby’s pursuit of admission to Berklee School of Music. You see the beauty of both.

Josh Larsen and others like him are why I stay on Twitter. I follow the most remarkable people and they open up ideas to me that are life-giving. [I don’t follow people otherwise.] Josh is a podcaster but has also written the book Movies Are Prayers. Check it out. Here’s a review.]

[P.S. I LOVED the review of the film CODA by some deaf moms. Oh my goodness! How rich and tender. Can’t wait to see the film myself.]

3) Secure Attachment – The flourishing of relationships is strongly impacted by the nature of attachment from infancy. The baby with her parents/caregivers. Was (s)he seen, truly seen, by the adults caring for her and was she soothed, kept safe and secure, in ways that communicated the same to her? Or was the attachment more geared to the caregivers’ needs or emotional strain at the time?

Photo Credit: Gabor Mate, dr_anniephd, Instagram

Psychiatrist, research, and educator Daniel Siegel has given us so much help in parenting our babies. His work on attachment-based parenting is ground-breaking and foundational to how we look at the role of the adult caregiver in raising resilient children into adulthood.

When parenting our little ones, we need to be aware of how our own stress (including the past experience of our own being parented) is affecting our attachment to them…how we communicate our care for them. Then how ever secure our children’s attachment to us might be, when hard things happen to them (trauma later in life), they can fall back on the security of their early childhood attachment. Let’s say, these young people, even young adults, did not have a close attachment to their parents, they can psychologically “walk those memories back” such that they can become more secure and flourishing adults.

This may make some wonder why I pose these ideas. “We’re all doing the best we can”, right? My parents were divorced when I was little and I have huge gaps in my memory. I wonder at that. My mom was super loving and understanding of our needs, but she had to work long hours and just wasn’t there much.

Also, in my family and friend groups, there are those who have endured terrible trauma in relationships, both as young children and into their teen and young adult years. Are they flourishing? I hope so, but it isn’t always clear. Reading and thinking through AND talking together about attachment (having reading so much of Siegel’s work) have been helpful and made me more hopeful.

Monday Morning Moment – As Adults We Still Need to Feel Safe, Seen, Soothes, and Secure – Deb Mills

The 4 S’s of Attachment-Based Parenting – Daniel J. Siegel – Podcast

I just read his brief but illuminating paper “The Verdict Is In – the Case for Attachment Theory”. Siegel and his co-author Alan Sroufe

The Verdict Is In — The case for attachment theory

The Verdict Is In – The Case for Attachment Theory – Alan Sroufe and Daniel Siegel – pdf

Photo Credit: Dr. Dan Siegel & Dr. Tina Payne Bryson

The Power of Showing Up – Daniel J. Siegel, MD & Tina Payne Bryson, PhD

Mindful Parenting: 4 S’s of Secure Attachment – Esther Goldstein

The Neurobiology of Attachment to Nurturing and Abusive Caregivers – Regina M. Sullivan, PhD

How We Come to Define Ourselves – Attachment Research Over Decades with Guest Alan Sroufe – Therapist Uncensored Podcast

4) Letters to Children – Author C. S. Lewis felt great responsibility in answering the many letters he received through the years. Especially replying to the children who wrote him. The small book C. S. Lewis’ Letters to Children is especially delightful as he writes both eloquently and playfully to them With respect for them as fellow readers and a certain peership with them in loving the characters and stories in his books. In particular The Chronicles of Narnia. No question was treated as childish. In fact, we can learn quite a lot about Lewis in his correspondence with these children.

For this blog, I’ve screenshot just a few of the letters. They were magnificent. In fact, in one of his letters he shared with a child the two favorite books he had written: Perelandra and Till We Have Faces. What a wonder to have a letter from this great storyteller! Lewis wrote hundreds of letters over the course of decades of his life, right up until the day before he died.

[I have saved letters…especially from my mom and a few other adults in my life. Letters these days are a treasure. Are you writing any? Are you young people saving any?

5) Birthdays – This is my birthday week.

Photo Credit: Samantha Reynolds, Instagram

The weather here has been quite cold and wet. A small snowfall stayed with us due to temperatures remaining below freezing. This kept me wanting to stay inside, except for one trip to Cracker Barrel for a birthday breakfast. In the country store attached to the restaurant, you can always find word art, images of which you will find below.

My love languages are words and acts of service. Blessed with both for my special day. Cards. Grandchildren drawings. A dinner at home with the kids taken care of completely by them. Sweet birthday. Thanks to many of you for your greetings, and I hope your 2022 birthday is a good one.  

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That’s it for this week. Please do add any of your favorite finds or experiences of the week in the Comments below. You are a blessing!

Bonuses:

The One Unexpected Sign You May Be Gaslighting the People Around You – Anna Brech [Hint: Beware of unintentional use of gaslighting.]

The Angel of Patience

https://www.nicabm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/page1.jpg

https://www.nicabm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/page2.jpg

https://www.nicabm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/page3.jpg

Photo Credit: NICABM

Photo Credit: Instagram, K. J. Ramsey

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5 Friday Faves – One Small Step, A Father’s Good Gifts, Gossip, Blended Families, and Mission BBQ

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Happy New Year! Whew! May 2022 be a reprieve from the struggle of 2020 and 2021. May we see the fruit of new wisdom and sound actions taken toward a healthier future and a closer community across our world. Thank You, God, for this new year and getting us through the last. Here are my favorite finds from this first week of 2022.

1) One Small Step – A couple of years ago, Dave and I had the privilege of listening to Dave Isay, the founder and president of Storycorps. He is a strong advocate of the power of telling our stories (to each other, face-to-face). [See his TED Talk on this here.] Given what we’ve been through the last couple of years (with our country divided over politics and trying to keep our balance with COVID), his One Small Step Initiative has been incredibly timely. Isay has a vision of bringing our country together (and maybe yours as well if you live elsewhere) through the experience of face-to-face dialog. We may have some sharp disagreements and consider ourselves enemies, but we can find common ground and common values…if we keep (or start) talking to each other. StoryCorps has made a platform where strangers can engage. Strangers who would not usually, given their differences, talk together. This One Small Step Initiative is actually being highlighted on this week’s CBS TV show 60 Minutes. Don’t miss it (or catch it later).

Photo Credit: RVA Library, Ben Himmelfarb 

P.S. Two phrases that speak to the above…and positive, healing communication, in general, are contingent communication and contact hypothesis. They are both worth taking note of and considering:

Contingent communication – Face-to-face conversation with a determination of deep listening, strong affirmation, and the mutual sense of “feeling felt”. Dr. Curt Thompson describes it as “communication, in which two individuals, through both their spoken dialogue and non-verbal cues, each affirm the other as they interact”.  (Anatomy of the Soul, p. 139)

Contact hypothesis – “suggests that prejudice and conflict between groups can be reduced if members of the groups interact with each other”. In this article, Dr. Elizabeth Hopper goes on to say that “One especially promising possibility is that contact between groups might encourage more powerful majority group members to work as allies”. Instead of talking around each other, we come together. One conversation at a time.

2) A Father’s Good Gifts – This week I discovered an article by Jon Bloom entitled A Father’s Good Pleasure. Bloom talks about the joy we as parents have when we participate in generating joy in our children’s life.

One example of this for me is how my sweet step-dad continued to travel overseas to see us after Mom died. This was not a thing on his bucket list He came because he loved us and he came because he knew the joy it would bring to us.

“Which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” – Jesus (Matthew 7:9–11)

“Give them [your children] good things — things they value as good and really want. And really, authentically enjoy doing it. It has God’s endorsement, since he too takes great pleasure in giving good gifts to his children…Become, through your joyful, affectionate generosity, an opportunity for your children to experience [and you with them…what C. S. Lewis calls] transposition  — to see and savor the higher, richer pleasure of God in the natural pleasure of their father giving good gifts to them.

Become a student of what gives them joy.” – Jon Bloom

I love that Jon posted this piece the first week of January – when we are reeling with all the “stuff of Christmas”, including the credit card bills coming in this month. It is a joy to give our kids what they want when we can (and that is carved deeply in our western Christmas culture). It is also a joy to give our kids joy in deeper ways.

Our youngest son eats lunch with us on some Sundays. Often it is just him and us; his older siblings and families joining us occasionally. When Dave and I are most attuned to him, we just take the opportunity to affirm him and take joy in him. He feels that joy.

Have you Buried Your Gifts? – Jon Bloom

[Sidebar: The piece above talks about the gifts that we have and how our abilities and capabilities (the strength to operate out of our abilities) go hand in hand. Don’t want to bury my gifts because of a lack of gumption.]

Photo Credit: Nancy Tillman, Facebook

3) Gossip – What we may consider processing (with a friend or spouse) could be just plain old gossip. Pastor, writer Scott Sauls calls it in a recent tweet.

Photo Credit: Scott Sauls, Twitter

Such a wake-up call about gossip helps us think about the damaging impact of it on relationships. Gossip (which we too often call processing or ranting) makes us think we’re doing something about the dysfunctional relationship we have, when really we’re causing it further harm. What we’re doing is something called triangling. When we have a problem with one person but complain about that person to another. It is passive-aggressive and if we aren’t coached to go to the person missing from the conversation, then it just remains complaining. The relationship continues to be dysfunctional.

We aren’t to just bury a struggle, but we can deal with an offense with care and respect…even if it feels undeserved. This is the beginning of a healthy connection in the place of dishonoring and dismissing complaining.Photo Credit: Heartlight

A Gentle Answer: Our ‘Secret Weapon’ in an Age of Us Against Them – Scott Sauls

Beautiful People Don’t Just Happen: How God Redeems Regret, Hurt, and Fear in the Making of Better Humans – Scott Sauls (Publish date June 2022)

4) Blended Families – Step-families, or blended families, can provide safe and loving refuges for children of divorce. As an adult child of divorce, I remember well the shame of being a child whose dad just seemed to forget his children over time. When Mom remarried a man also divorced (with children of his own), we experienced the positive (and negative) of being in a step-family.

Photo Credit: Pixabay, John Hain

As older adults, both children sets have issues of parental neglect mixed in with loving relationships. Every step-family is different, of course. Many are healthy. For those who struggle, there is always help and hope…if we reach for it.

[Just some of my large blended family…including some friends who are family…for which I’m so thankful.]

A podcast I would recommend for step-families who have had broken or painful relationships is therapist Ron Deal‘s Family Life Blended. The podcast (and other resources) is a help for any family but especially for blended families. The link below is an excellent example.

Ridding Your Soul of Shame – Family Life Blended Podcast – Ron Deal with Curt Thompson

Photo Credit: Pixabay, Ben Kerckx

5) Mission BBQ on a Mission – Mission BBQ is one of our favorite restaurants in Richmond. Their generous customer service (even in this era of COVID) and consistently delicious food are super special. http://debmillswriter.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_6824.jpg

We are members of their birthday club and receive a free barbecue sandwich when our special day rolls around each year. Besides that, we will get an email occasionally inviting us in for another free sandwich. Today we redeemed our “Merry Christmas” freebies.

The food is great, but it’s also an uplifting in-restaurant experience. Mission BBQ sets the bar high in honoring first responders and members (and families) of the military. In fact…they make all their customers feel honored. Sweet. And very unique.http://debmillswriter.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_6827.jpg

In fact, if you’re in the Richmond area (or have a Mission BarBQ in your area, and are thinking about heading over on Monday, they will be closed.  It’s their National Day of Service when they feed homeless veterans around the city.

The Restaurant Dishing Up Patriotism with a Side of BarBQ 

If you have one in your town, don’t miss it. If you don’t, can you suggest your own exceptional business (in Comments below)?

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Those are this week’s Faves. How about you? Please also use the Comments to share some of yours. Thanks for stopping by. You are a blessing.

Bonuses:

Endangered Attention: How to Guard a Precious Gift – Scott Hubbard

One big mistake people repeatedly make is focusing on proving themselves right, instead of focusing on achieving the best outcome. This is the wrong side of right. — The Wrong Side of Right

Top 10 Surprising Lessons on the Genealogy of Jesus – Joshua Infantado

A Facebook post by a friend of mine in January 2020 – still speaks:

Photo Credit: John Williams, Facebook

“I make my bed every morning because it’s a gift that I get to open at the end of every day. A gift that not everyone has. So while I’m wrapping my bed in the morning and I’m unwrapping it at night I’m reminded of what a great blessing my bed really is in my life. When we stop viewing what we have as little, insignificant or not enough then we get to see what we do have as gifts we get to enjoy, great blessings in our lives and provision for our needs.” – Theresa Nicely McCoy, Facebook

 

 

 

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5 Friday Faves – New Year’s Resolutions, Habit Planner, Year-End Review, Word for the Year, and the Last Days of 2021

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2021 is rapidly winding down. Whew! Here are my Friday Faves to get us ready for the new year…hopefully a joyful one!

1) New Year’s Resolutions – 2021…the end is in sight. What do we do with this new year ahead? Do we revisit those habits we thought about changing up in this tumultuous year? Maybe so. Or maybe we didn’t alter course so much for good reason. Let’s give pause a moment and consider…

Photo Credit: David Lose

Monday Morning Moment  – 2021 Come On! – New Year’s Resolutions

Are We Doing New Year’s Resolutions After a Year as Lousy as 2020? There’s One I think We Need More Than Ever – Heidi Stevens

How to Make Healthy, Attainable New Year’s Resolutions During COVID-19 – Ashley Welch, Healthline

Are You Making a New Year’s Resolution This Year? Readers Weigh In – Sarah Fielding

I take New Year’s resolutions very seriously. They have served me well through the years in shaking up troublesome habits as well as galvanizing better ones. New (or restored) habits that nurture the body, the spirit….and, when possible, family and community.

New Year’s resolutions are not always exercises in futility. They can be excellent pathways to help us get off to a strong start into the next year. Some of my family and friends treat resolutions with disdain…they never work; they never last. Oh, but not always!

They are really very energizing. Whether we meet our goals or not, there is great promise within the resolution for resetting our thinking. A keen sense of self, or self-awareness, aids in our understanding of habits and true habit change.

Without knowing it, I have actually used a practice of habit change that Ken Sande writes about on his blog, Relational Wisdom 360. He first influenced my life years ago with his work on conflict resolution through his Peacemaker Ministries. He is a gentle guide in many of the issues that complicate our lives.

His article on Seven Principles of Habit Change came at a great time. Sande talks quite kindly about how we develop habits and what it takes to change them. His first principle of habit change gives us a look at the cycle of habits – the cue, the routine (or response), and the reward. I actually followed Ken Sande’s principles below (without knowing the wisdom of it).

  1. Every habit has three parts: a cue, a routine, and a reward.
  2. You can change an undesirable habit by keeping the cue and reward but learning a new routine.
  3. The best way to overcome the temptation to revert to old routines is to have a detailed action plan.
  4. Habit change builds momentum if you can change a single “keystone habit” and then continue to build on consecutive “small wins”.
  5. Will power is like a muscle: it can be strengthened and yet needs to be exerted strategically.
  6. Faith is an essential part of changing habits.
  7. Habit change is more likely to occur within a community (even if it’s just two people). – Ken Sande

Self-awareness is a huge factor relating to habit change. I can see that more now having come through seasons of looking at my own habits.

“Self-awareness is defined as conscious knowledge of oneself; it’s a stepping stone to reinventing oneself, learning to make wiser decisions, and helps you tune into your thoughts and feelings. So often we place blame on externalities because it’s the easiest excuse, when in fact we should be thinking about our thinking, reflecting, trying on different perspectives, and learning from our mistakes.” – Paul Jun

It is possible to affect true habit change if we are willing to take a studied look at ourselves – our awareness and our engagement with making choices/decisions and within relationship. I used to think that self-awareness was morally charged, i.e., it drove us to become more self-centered. That doesn’t have to be the case. When we take time to really examine where our minds go, through the day, we can train our thinking toward what matters most – related to people, resources, and life purpose.

New Year’s Resolutions and Reality Checks – Wally Bock

When we are willing to do that, New Year’s resolutions can become much more transformative than just a few weeks of good intentions. These habit change principles can apply to anger issues, pornography, other addictions, and pretty much any habitual process that negatively affects your work, relationships or general peace of mind.

Consider these questions as you think on resolutions for 2022:

  1. What do I want to keep from the changes I made to cope with the pandemic?
  2. What do I want to reclaim from the pre-pandemic time?
  3. How would I “build back better” if I were in charge of the world or my neighborhood? – Katherine Arbuthnott

Four years back, our pastor Cliff at Movement Church challenged us to commit to some resolutions to the Lord…together [podcast of 12/31/2017 here].  I have kept the resolutions made that day in a visible place, to be reminded of the good change in life, and the struggle… I still have them in view…four years out. Still relevant to now. For 2022, on it again…plus prayer for wisdom how to be creative and intentional, given COVID’s continued intrusion. And also added this year: writing my life’s story (capturing the memories and maybe restoring/refining some as I write).

Jonathan Edwards, the great 18th century preacher and theologian, definitely understood the importance of praying through and writing out resolutions that would inform his daily life. Over the course of several months, he composed seventy resolutions for life. You can read them here. The five resolutions I made during church on a New Year’s Eve are weighty enough for me…can’t imagine 70! Edwards just gives an example of a man who, even as deeply devoted as he already was, did not want to miss God in a busy life of ministry. Nor did he want to miss the people God placed in his life.

Resolutions help us to keep the main thing the main thing. Sure, we may struggle to keep our bodies and houses in order. Those are temporary situations. Where we hope most to be successful is in keeping our hearts tuned to what matters most. Going deep with God and others. Even in the face of a continuing pandemic...if we are ruthless and wise, and don’t give in to another year of listlessness and waiting.

We’ve already enough of that…coming up on two years.

I am resolved…

Photo Credit: Reformed Outfitters

Resolved – The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards

Do You Want to Change Your Habits? – Relational Wisdom – Ken Sande

Habit Change is a Team Project – Ken Sande

Seven Principles of Habit Change – Relational Wisdom – Ken Sande

Make Habits, Not Resolutions – Justin Whitmel Earley

Why Self-Awareness Is the Secret Weapon for Habit Change– Paul Jun

RW Acrostics in Action– Relational Wisdom – Ken Sande

Ten Questions for a New Year – Don Whitney – Desiring God

Need Help With Your New Year’s Resolutions? – David Lose

Understanding True Habit Change and Rocking Your New Year’s Resolutions – Deb Mills Writer

2) Habit Planner –Anyone who knows the writing of Justin Whitmel Earley knows his commitment to a life well-lived. He is determined to live intentionally, not leaving the substance of his life to outside powers or sloppy habits.

“Unlike resolutions, we actually become our habits. There are no changed lives outside of changed habits. And if we want to actually change, we need to take a sober look at where our habits are leading us.” – Justin Whitmel Earley

“Habits are the little things we do over and over without thinking about them. And the tiny and subconscious nature of habits makes them powerful. Why? Because they create our “normal.” Normal life is what stays with you from January through December. Normal life is what shapes your kids, your body, your schedule, and your heart.” – Justin Whitmel Earley

His two books – The Common Rule and Habits of the Household – lay out a simple path for examining our current lives and then setting strategy for habit change. So accessible and engaging whatever our preferences for methods are. If spreadsheets help, he has one for you. If you need a more fuzzy-boundaried approach (that would be me), you can glean from his wisdom, and alter course accordingly.

Below are his own examples of the habit planner. I appreciate his heart so much. He helps us all he can (in his books and free resources):

Photo Credit: Justin Whitmel Earley, Screenshots

Habits of the Household – Habit Planner – pdf – Justin Whitmel Earley

Make Habits, Not Resolutions – Justin Whitmel Earley

Unlock the Power of Family Habits in 2022 – Justin Whitmel Earley

3) Year-End Review – Business writer Stephen Jones shares author Tim Ferriss’ practice of doing a quick past year review. Ferriss prefers this over new year’s resolutions, and Jones gives a quick snapshot of his 5 steps.

Below is Tim Ferriss’ guide for a past year review from his own blog (and podcast):

  1. Grab a notepad and create two columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE.
  2. Go through your calendar from the last year, looking at every week.
  3. For each week, jot down on the pad any people or activities or commitments that triggered peak positive or negative emotions for that month. Put them in their respective columns.
  4. Once you’ve gone through the past year, look at your notepad list and ask, “What 20% of each column produced the most reliable or powerful peaks?”
  5. Based on the answers, take your “positive” leaders and schedule more of them in the new year. Get them on the calendar now! Book things with friends and prepay for activities/events/commitments that you know work. It’s not real until it’s in the calendar. That’s step one. Step two is to take your “negative” leaders, put “NOT-TO-DO LIST” at the top, and put them somewhere you can see them each morning for the first few weeks of 2022. These are the people and things you *know* make you miserable, so don’t put them on your calendar out of obligation, guilt, FOMO, or other nonsense.

We do a year-end review but not in order to plan out the next year. Mostly to celebrate the year rapidly coming to an end and to reflect on how we might reorder the course of the next year (re the negatives).

A creative friend of ours put his “year-end review” into a cool video:

Photo (Video) Credit: Todd AO, Facebook

4) Word for the Year –A year ago, I read Debbie Macomber‘s book One Perfect Word. She tells fascinating stories of persons’ choosing a word to guide their year. Finishing her book and praying a bit, the word compassion became my focus. 2021 was a good year for that as we dealt with so many divisions over COVID, race, politics, etc. Compassion for all on both sides of each issue.

At first I wasn’t going to do “a word” for 2022, and then a rapid series of “coincidences” drew me to the word: joy. As this year ends, I’ve become negative and even a bit cynical. Still having faith in God but not so much in humans, including myself. Even after a year of compassion!!

It dawned on me that I haven’t been “counting it all joy”. Or remembering that “the joy of the Lord is my strength”. Now my heart is resolved to be set on joy in 2022…no matter what.

Lord, help us to be people of joy,

to notice joy in this day and to hope for joy in days to come,

to look for light and share it with others this Advent season,

to see beauty in creation and the people we encounter,

to laugh heartily with childlike glee,

to feel true joy in your presence.     Amen.

Photo Credit: Prayer @inthecoracle, Instagram

5) The Last Days of 2021 – As may have been many of your experiences, we had people we know and love dealing with COVID in this last week of 2021. Still managed a sweet end-of-year. Hope yours was as well.

 

Now on to 2022!! Thanks for stopping by. It means a lot to me.

Bonuses:

Vimeo Video by Rodrigo Souza – Heart – with Nathan Mills, Beyond the Guitar

How to Stop All Procrastination: Dear You Trying to Do that Hard Thing in the New Year – Ann Voskamp (great piece on procrastination and perfectionism – both keeping us from presenting the gifts God’s given us)

Photo Credit: Samantha Reynolds, @Bentlily, Instagram (w/ permission)

52 Week Bible Reading Plan – Michael Coley

What is an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) and Tips for Building One

Photo Credit: Facebook

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5 Friday Faves – Epic Spanish Romance Guitar Cover, Languishing, From Sad to Mad, Christmas Events, and I.O.U.S Acronym on a Divided Heart

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Christmas week is upon us! This past week’s Friday Faves finally:

1) Epic Spanish Romance Cover– Get ready for one of the most beautiful pieces ever written for classical guitar. The composer is unknown. The arranger for this piece is  Nathan Mills, at Beyond the Guitar. Enjoy.

[One of his subscribers on YouTube asked him to do for Niel Gow’s Lament what he did to the Spanish Romance. Here in his college days, Nathan plays that piece. Hope he does put his own touch to it again…all these years later. A funny sidebar to the piece below: Nathan’s sister wanted him to play this for her wedding. He said something to the effect that the whole title of the piece is “Niel Gow’s Lament For the Death of His Second Wife” so Nathan played other pieces instead. Didn’t seem a good fit for a wedding day. ]

2) Languishing– Who even knows what this is?! Well, author and organizational psychologist  Adam Grant does. He defines it as:

“Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re looking at your life through a foggy windshield. And it may be the dominant emotion of 2021.

As scientists and physicians work to treat and cure the physical symptoms of long-haul COVID-19, many people are struggling with the emotional long haul of the pandemic. It hit some of us unprepared as the intense fear and grief of last year faded.

In psychology, we think about mental health on a spectrum from depression to flourishing. Flourishing is the peak of well-being: You have a strong sense of meaning, mastery and mattering to others. Depression is the valley of ill-being: You feel despondent, drained and worthless.
Languishing is the neglected middle child of mental health. It’s the void between depression and flourishing — the absence of well-being. You don’t have symptoms of mental illness, but you’re not the picture of mental health either. You’re not functioning at full capacity. Languishing dulls your motivation, disrupts your ability to focus and triples the odds that you’ll cut back on work. It appears to be more common than major depression, and in some ways it may be a bigger risk factor for mental illness.

So what can we do about it? A concept called flow may be an antidote. Flow is that elusive state of absorption in a meaningful challenge or a momentary bond, where your sense of time, place and self melts away. During the early days of the pandemic, the best predictor of well-being wasn’t optimism or mindfulness. It was flow. People who became more immersed in their projects managed to avoid languishing and maintained their pre-pandemic happiness.” – Adam Grant

There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing – Adam Grant

I’m very thankful to come across this article by Dr. Grant. He has much more to say both in the above piece and in his TED talk below. We can learn how to move from languishing back to flourishing.

The links below point to a varied and fascinating reach into languishing. Worth your time.

The Neglected Child of Mental Health – Bruce Isdale

The Neglected Child of Mental Health – Caron Leid

The High Cost of Calm – Why Relaxing Is So Much Work

I’m a Short Afternoon Walk and you’re putting way to much pressure on me – Emily Delany

How to Describe Our Pandemic State(s) of Mind – WNYC Podcast

Why You Need to Address Languishing to Retain Your Talent

3) From Sad to Mad – In the midst of a sweet time of year for some of us folks, I have found my capacity for sadness stretched super far. With a background in cancer nursing where loss was always part of life, and with all the hello-goodbyes in our overseas season as a family, and finally having lost very significant people in the last few years…sad is stretched. What has surprised me of late is how fast my “sad” goes to “mad”. I get angry at the losses – deaths to COVID, marriages broken, families estranged from each other, moral failures…and more. Mad is not where I want to be. “Righteous indignation” never stays righteous. It gets mean way too quickly.

Photo Credit: Pexels, Serkan Goktay

From Sad to Mad: How Suppressing Your Sadness Invites Anger – Joshua Nash

The piece above helped me immensely. Therapist Joshua Nash offers helpful steps (go there if this has become an issue for you as well). The main take-away for me is that I shift from sadness at a loss to anger at the injustice of it. What is better for my emotions, body, and relationships is to stay in the sadness. Feel it, examine its impact, mourn the cause. Sadness will subside. Moving into anger (as natural as it is in grieving a loss) mucks up the sadness. Anger is punishing (to yourself and others). As hard as staying in the sadness is, we (and our relationships) will be better for it.

Christmas Bitter and Christmas Sweet – Tim Challies

4) Christmas Events – December is practically glutted with events to celebrate Christmas. In a month when meditating on the mystery of a virgin birth and the long-anticipated coming of a Savior King, quiet is hard to come by. We make room for it…alongside all the fun of this month. Below is a photo array of just some of this past week for us.

  • Christmas Cookie & Ornament Exchange (us women):
  • Old-fashioned Carol Sing (mostly in our own basement):
  • VCU Holiday Gala with our favorite alum and his little son: 
  • Tacky Lights RVA:
  • Ethnic lunch out (#Mezeh) with our youngest:
  • Quiet times in front of the fire (quiet on the schedule AND with cookies & coffee):
  • Christmas with The Chosen:

[If the recording of Christmas With the Chosen: The Global Live Event becomes inaccessible, you can find it on The Chosen app.]

5) I.O.U.S Acronym on a Divided Heart – This morning I was struck afresh how little undivided attention is exercised in my day. Even my introverted husband will spill out all sorts of wise and wonderful words – when I am wholly there. Fixed. Not leaving the room mentally. These moments are more rare than I’d like to confess…all because of the struggle to focus.

Author theologian John Piper tackles this issue with our heart toward God. We struggle with all sorts of noise and clatter pulling us in directions that leave off the wonder of deeply knowing Him.

Photo Credit: John Piper, Quote Fancy

Piper uses an acronym that is hugely helpful in this (setting us in a positive direction for the New Year):

I.O.U.S. – [From John Piper’s Divided Heart article linked below]

“The embattled heart is typical of the Christian life. None of us has a consistently united heart in longing for God.”

  • “The letter I stands for incline. “Incline my heart to your testimonies,” we pray with Psalm 119:36. We ask God to take away resistance. We ask God to incline us toward God and his Word instead of away from God. And so we admit all our inclination toward God is a work of God. The psalmist would not be praying like this if the inclination was ultimately within our own power. If it were, he wouldn’t be asking God to incline his heart. We plead with God to take our hearts in his hands and to incline them, bend them, toward his Word.
  • Then the letter O stands for open. Psalm 119:18 says, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” We need God to work a miracle on the eyes of our heart so that we can see the truth, beauty, value of who he is right there in his word. If we are left to ourselves while meditating on God’s word, we will see nothing of his spiritual beauty and worth.
  • Then comes the third letter, U. It stands for unite. Psalm 86:11 says, “Unite my heart to fear Your name.” What an amazing prayer: “Unite my heart.” So what’s the problem that this psalmist is praying to solve? The problem is a divided heart.”

Plead Psalm 86:11 in prayer: ‘O God, unite my heart to fear your name.’ – Is It Normal to Have a Divided Heart? – John Piper

___________________________________________________________________________

Bonuses:

The Last Word – A one-minute video speaks volumes about our country, the media’s impact on us all, and one decision to step away. 62 y/o news commentator Brian Williams stepped away from a 28-year career with NBC/MSNBC. His last show was December 9, and he announced his resignation in this powerful short statement. We can all take something away from this, whatever our politics or nationality. There comes a time…

How to Engage a Parent Who Has Harmed You with Autumn – Podcast 23 – Adam Young Counseling

Photo Credit: Instagram, Adam Young Counseling

Women & Work Book Club – The Common Rule by Justin Whitmel Earley – Check out previous books reviewed and discussed with the authors.

Did Chevrolet Have to Make America Cry With Its New Christmas Ad? – Joe Cunningham

The Great Challenge of Every Marriage

9 Habits that the World’s Healthiest and Longest Lived People Share – Dan Buettner

Photo Credit: Pinterest

Photo Credit: Contemplative Monk, Facebook

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Worship Wednesday – Thanksgiving Songs to Fill our Day

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[Adapted from the Archives]

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.  – James 1:17

Music through the ages reminds us of truths larger than ourselves. Hymns and songs celebrate the great God of the universe. Creator God also our Father. Christmas and Easter both have holiday songs that draw us into worship. Thanksgiving songs, however, aren’t usually sung in more contemporary evangelical churches, and I miss them. My favorites are “We Gather Together”, “Come Ye Thankful People, Come”, and “All Good Gifts”.

Two other Thanksgiving songs by Mary Chapin Carpenter and Brianna Haynes are also lovely.

Maybe updated versions would bring them back into our worship services. For sure we can sing them in our homes and teach them to our children.

Worship with me to “We Gather Together”. [Lyrics in the link.]

Now, “Come, Ye Thankful People Come” – again lyrics in the link.

Finally,  “All Good Gifts”. This comes from Godspell, a little Broadway musical first performed 50 years ago and then adapted into film. It depicted the life of Jesus according to the Gospel of Matthew (interpreted in the culture of the 70s). There’s a wonder and delight in the young followers of Jesus in the musical.

All the songs in the musical Godspell are lovely. Composer and Lyricist, Stephen Schwartz, beautifully captured some of Jesus’ teaching and the depth of love and rightness between Him, His followers, and creation, in general. All Good Gifts, adapted from an old hymn, is one such song and is a pure and proper doxology of praise for Thanksgiving.

Again, worship with me.  [Here’s the YouTube video from Godspell to give you the melody.]

All Good Gifts*
We plow the fields and scatter the good seed on the land..
But it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand..
He sends us snow in winter, the warmth to swell the grain…
The breezes and the sunshine, and soft refreshing rain…

All good gifts around us
Are sent from Heaven above
Then thank the Lord, thank the Lord for all his love…

We thank thee then, O Father, for all things bright and good,
The seedtime and the harvest, our life, our health, our food,
No gifts have we to offer for all thy love imparts
But that which thou desirest, our humble thankful hearts!

All good gifts around us
Are sent from Heaven above..
Then thank the Lord, thank the Lord for all his love..

I really wanna thank you Lord!
All good gifts around us
Are sent from Heaven above..
Then thank the Lord, oh thank the Lord for all his love..

Goosebumps, y’all?

God is so good to us. That’s what Thanksgiving is about. The food is super nice. Being together is amazing…but God…God is due our deepest, unfettered, no holding back, thanks. He deserves our very lives. Our surrendered, loving and forgiving, and being forgiven lives. He gives the grace for all of that.

“I really wanna thank You, Lord!”

Happy Thanksgiving…

Oh…just in case Thanksgiving is a struggle…and it isn’t all happy family fun…I pray you take courage and rein in your heart to remember that God sees and loves you. We can be a Thanksgiving blessing to each other…you are a blessing to me. Wish you were at our table…maybe one day you will be. You are definitely welcome at God’s table.

YouTube Video – Take Courage – Kristene DiMarco

*Lyrics and Story Behind the Song – All Good Gifts (Godspell)

YouTube Video – All Good Gifts (Godspell 1990)

Wikipedia article on original hymn/lyric – We Plough the Fields and Scatter (1862)

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5 Friday Faves – Work Songs, People Who Inquire, Fall’s Breathtaking Beauty, a Rightful Memorial, and a Christmas Tree

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Here we go: this week’s Friday Faves. Thanks for reading.

1) Work Songs – On a walk in the neighborhood this week, I pulled open the door of the little free library near us and discovered a tiny book. Its title and cover art were intriguing. It was Matt Johnson‘s Work Songs.  I tucked it in my pocket and finished my walk, thinking about some of the work songs of my day: The Eagles’ Get Over It or Bachman & Turner’s Takin’ Care of Business or Sam Cooke’s Chain Gang or Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 or Rose Royce’s Car Wash. However, it is not a volume about work songs, per se, but more about the lack of them in our current culture. Johnson has written a book of true stories of notables through decades. People who may have been considered ordinary to begin with but who persevered in the work of their day. He (and they through these short essays) teach us lessons on the impact possible when both individuals and connected groups stay at it and refuse to be dissuaded from their task or their vision. 

Podcaster and leadership trainer Laurie Ruettimann had a fascinating conversation with author Matt Johnson on the topic of his book Work Songs. The title of her piece is “Modern Work Has No Song – How Stories Create Perseverance”.

“For as long as we’ve had language as a species, we’ve actually had music for the work we do,” he says. “We’ve actually, for a long time, had music that actually created meaning — not just unify the sort of actions in the job of the people, but it actually gave them a bigger context for the work they were doing. And what’s interesting is, if you look at the evolution of that, modern work absolutely has no song.”  – Matt Johnson

Work Songs – Matt Johnson – Buzzsprout Audiobook (narrated by Matt Johnson, in individual essay chunks)

This Is How a Book Can Change Your Life – Matt Johnson

2) People Who Inquire – Psychiatrist Curt Thompson preached a sermon in the Spring of this year on the topic “Generational Trauma, Shame & Redemption”. While on errands, I was listening and actually had to pull the car over to capture one quote in particular.

“One of the most important developmental experiences for us, not only as children but that continues for us as adults, is to have others inquire of us and teach us to be people who do the same…Who is inquiring of you?” – Curt Thompson, MD – Generational Trauma, Shame & Redemption

We are told as parents of adult children not to give unsolicited advice. Same actually with friends and coworkers. I get how wary our grown children might be to seek advice because then there is the perceived expectation they must follow it. What happens when young people (and older ones) inquire of others  about life and what their experiences have been? Instead of going straight for the advice offering, our inquiring and listening can be a springboard can encourage and embolden toward wise decision-making. It is a joy to see people inquire of others – wanting to know them in deeper ways as well as wanting to know how more deeply to follow God in life.

In his sermon, Thompson used a passage out of the book of the Prophet Jeremiah.

Thus says the Lord , “Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way is, and walk in it; And you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.'”– Jeremiah 6:16

In the text, Jeremiah is challenging the people of Israel to take four actions as they proceed in life, especially in situations when they aren’t sure of the direction or struggle with making a sound decision. He says to:

  • Stand – when we come to a fork in any road (relationally or situationally), we should stop. We don’t have to have a knee-jerk response. We are not bound to take a direction we always have in the past. We stop…we stand…and
  • Look (or examine) – we take a breath. We count the cost. We consider.
  • Ask (or inquire) – Inquiring in this passage is done as a people not just an individual. We inquire of each other. We inquire of the Lord. We seek counsel. We explore the thinking of the others. We consider.
  • Walk in the good way. – Then, and only then, do we continue on. We do so with confidence and hopefully with peace and a pure heart…that we have considered God’s definition of what way is good, and we have considered those on the paths with us…not making assumptions but inquiring what is their thinking on the paths before them.

Jeremiah tells the people, if they will “stand…look…ask/inquire …and then walk (in the good path…God’s path, not our own self-serving or impulsive path) – we will have “rest for (y)our souls“.

The sad part of this verse is the last phrase: “But they said, ‘We will not walk in it’.” What makes us break with each other and/or with God? What makes us determined to go our own way, no matter where it leads?

In our culture today, the inclination is toward self-sufficiency and self-determination. We don’t know each other as we might if we would but lean in and inquire of (get to know, truly know) each other. We might do this on a small scale with those very closest to us, but on a larger “people of God” scale, we are what? Disinterested?

What are your thoughts? Please comment below.

The Conversational Habits that Build Better Connections – David Robson

3) Fall’s Breathtaking Beauty – Just a few shots from our neighborhood and Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden:

4) A Rightful Memorial – A dear friend of ours died recently and his family arranged a fitting celebration of life. This 91-years-young man was a delight to his family and friends. He took so much joy in the people in his life and the work he relished in his long career. With faltering health and mounting years, his family knew time was precious and did all they could to be very present in his life. I wish I could provide an image of his crinkly, smiling eyes. All I can say is that he took joy in life. His family and friends took joy in his.

Funerals these days aren’t always treated as the opportunity to salute these passing figures entering into eternity. It’s a pity. Our friend (who I don’t identify by name to protect privacy) would himself have been pleased and humbled by this one. Military honors (including an honor guard, presenting the flag, and the shooting of three volleys) were an appropriate part of his funeral, given his military service, followed by his long years as a deep sea tugboat captain. The reading of Scripture and singing of hymns and remembrances from friends were all a part. The pastor spoke of his life and our friend’s relationship to Christ. We prayed and wiped tears away and counted ourselves blessed to know this friend, gone too soon at 91. See you again, dear Brother.

 

5) A Christmas Tree – For many, an early start on Christmas is just wrong. Sorry, not sorry. We start listening to Christmas music in October. Starting to decorate by mid-November is not to laud this holiday above all others. Simply, it is hard to pack in all the joy and remembering that come with Christmas in just the confines of one month. Our main Christmas tree is still stored. It will be covered with white lights and ornaments celebrating the birth of Jesus. [It actually stays up right through February 14 – Valentine’s Day – changing out the nativities to hearts and snowy winter ornaments.]

The Christmas tree we do have up (see images below) is one of a vintage feel. Colored lights (LED but reminiscent of my childhood). Ornaments depicting eras gone-by, storybook characters, and symbols of the past that continue to lift our hearts.

My parents’ names on quilted ornaments

Is your tree up? There’s still plenty of time… The lights have been a sweet respite from the darkness coming so early these days.

AND…for those who would appreciate a nod to our American Thanksgiving – the Hot Turkey Bowl at Wawa’s is amazing!

Photo Credit: Pinterest, Wawa Hot Turkey Bowl

Until next time…thanks for stopping by.

Bonuses:

Nokia to Release New Version of Its 6310 ‘Brick Phone’ – Andrew Court – This is so exciting if you are really wanting to get less screen intrusion in your life and just use your phone as a phone. It does have a camera but less than what we’ve become used to. Watching for its arrival in the US after its introduction to the UK market.

[With permission, the Instagram post below made me smile all over. That sweet girl and the amazing breakfast displayed. I miss Moroccan cafe breakfasts!!!]

Your 9-Step Strategy to Maintain Your Weight During the Holidays – Darya Rose

11 Mental Tricks to Stop Overthinking Everything – Scott Mautz

Leaders, Talk About Power to Protect the Vulnerable – Chris Davis

How to Maintain a Healthy Brain to Reduce the Risk of Dementia – Kailas Roberts

Watching Children Learn How to Lie – Gail Heyman

Gandalf’s Best Lord of the Rings Line Explains the Trilogy’s Magic – Susana Polo

How Anxiety and Depression Can Take Years Off Your Life

Photo Credit: Facebook, Gods Armour

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5 Friday Faves – “Fly Me to the Moon” Finger-style, Costly Grudges, Building Focus, “Don’t Leave Crumbs”, and Fall & All

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Hi All! Friday Faves on a Monday after a busy Friday-Sunday weekend. Go!

1) “Fly Me to the Moon” Finger-style – After Nathan posted his Squid Game medley, he was asked to do a stand-alone “Fly Me to the Moon”. Here it is! The jazzy, up-beat rendition is so fun!

2) Costly Grudges – Is there someone you struggle to like or be in their company? Would you say it’s a grudge, either originating from you or that person? Grudges rupture relationships. They have a negative impact not just on that relationship, but potentially on others as well. Not to mention, their impact on your own health.

Photo Credit: Pinterest UK

Writer Tanner Garrity has written a list of 100 Ways to Live to Be 100. #66 is “Don’t Hold a Grudge”. Here is his take below:

66. Don’t hold a grudge

“Happy people live longer. Improve your happiness by practicing “epistemic humility,” an intellectual virtue predicated on the idea that one can’t ever know something for sure. It’s meant to help us admit our imperfections and forgive others. Sounds too good to be true in the 2020s? All the more reason to give it a try.”

When we start to feel a grudge brewing, or we make the first strike and cause the rift with another person, the situation is greatly helped by some measure of humility. We don’t know everything about what just happened. In the midst of a quarrel, assessments are feverishly being made and the tendency is that they favor one over the other. If we treat a disagreement with humility, with the understanding that we can’t fully know what is going on with the other person in the argument, then we stand a better chance of some sort of resolution.

Worth the effort…including the perk of adding to one’s longevity.

What Is Family Estrangement? A Relationship Expert Describes the Problem and Research Agenda – Kristina Scharp

3) Building Focus – Focus is like muscle; it has to be built through exercise. I struggle with attending issues. To come across some simple tasks to add to life and aid focus is a happy occurrence.

Photo Credit: Pexels

Author Eleanor Morgan presents How to Retrain Your Frazzled Brain and Find Your Focus Again. In her piece, she introduces the scholarly work of scientist Amishi Jha, author of Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day.

“We can learn to focus better, but we need to think about attention differently. It is not something we can just choose to do. We have to train the brain like a muscle. Specifically, with short bursts of daily exercises.” – Eleanor Morgan

Morgan posts some of the mental exercises that Dr. Jha prescribes, including the 5 tips below:

  1. Pay attention to your breath, and where on your body you feel it most: direct your focus like a beam of light. Do this for three minutes a day, for a week.
  2. Integrate this technique into everyday life – for example, brushing your teeth. If you’re thinking about your to-do list as you’re scrubbing, bring the light back. Focus on the sensations.
  3. A lot of people report that their mind is “too busy.” Your job is not to stop it – your job is to exist with it, and to place your attention back where you want it.
  4. Ignore “mindfulness myths”: you are not “clearing your mind.” This is an active mental workout.
  5. There is no “blissed-out” state you are aiming to experience; in fact, the whole point is to be more present to the moment. – Eleanor Morgan

How to Retrain Your Frazzled Brain and Find Your Focus Again – Eleanor Morgan

I love the idea of being present in the moment…rather than the angst of the past or the unknown of the future. Sure, we have to plan, but the present is a much-neglected experience, and it’s really the only one we truly have. Right this very minute.

I am focusing in on the now.

These Navy Seal Tricks Will Help You Perform Better Under Pressure – Stephanie Vozza

4) “Don’t Leave Crumbs” – So crumbs aren’t anything we want to leave behind (unless you are the fairy tale pair, Hansel and Gretel. The wildly successful actor and author Matthew McConaughey talked about “crumbs” in a university commencement speech he gave in 2015.

“Don’t leave crumbs,” he says. “What are crumbs? The crumbs I’m talking about are the choices we make that make us have to look over our shoulder in the future….They come in the form of regret, guilt, and remorse – you leave ’em today, they will cause you more stress tomorrow, and they disallow you from creating a customized future in which you do not have to look over your shoulder.” – Matthew McConaughey

Matthew McConaughey’s 5 Rules for a Good Future – Niklas Göke

Relationally, this reminds me of an adage “Keep your accounts short”. This means that your name is safe on my lips, and that I will make a practice of refusing to think ill of you. Keeping accounts short. Leaving no uncomfortable crumbs behind us in relationships or work/play practices.

In McConaughey’s speech he also gave 5 pieces of wisdom:

  • Don’t fall into the entitlement trap.
  • Never say anything is “unbelievable”.
  • Seek joy, not happiness.
  • Define success for yourself.
  • Make decisions you’ll be happy about tomorrow.

He gives more rationale and commentary in the larger speech (linked above). He also used these same points in another talk, incorporating his faith as well. The messages of both seem blended in an artful (10 minute) video. Below.

5) Fall & All – It is my favorite season – Fall or autumn. I just want to close with some images of this brief and beautiful repose between Summer and Winter. It goes so fast and I am savoring it every way possible (except for adding anything pumpkin-flavored to coffee. I just can’t).

   

For me, Fall ushers in Christmas (American Thanksgiving sitting right in between), so I’m completely ok with the mix of all this beauty.

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That’s the Faves for this week. Thanks so much for stopping by. You encourage me…put your own Faves in the Comments below. Until next time.

Bonuses:

Photo Credit: Facebook, Hallmark Channel

6 Steps to Better Communication – Mental Health Mama

The Good Part About “Waning” Immunity – Katherine J. Wu

Interoception: The Hidden Sense that Shapes Wellbeing – David Robson

How to Identify Your Shadow Emotions and Why You Should – Rachel Fairbank

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5 Friday Faves – Shame Revisited, Classical Guitar & Squid Game, Cartoons & Classical Music, Left Brain/Right Brain, and Beach Food

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Friday Faves! Go!

1) Shame Revisited – [Posted here previously] Author Andy Crouch has written an essay on how our culture has changed. For most of our history as a country, we have been a guilt-based culture. By that, I mean we measured ourselves and others as being “right or wrong” in our thinking, choosing to do right or wrong.

This is how we raised our children. We determined not to measure our children up against (compared with) other people, but to raise them up with a standard of right living and making right choices (for us, it was based on the Bible…on the teachings and life of Jesus). “Right” was not legalistic or moralistic; “right” was loving, kind, serving, non-judgmental.

Only in recent years has our culture been moving toward more of a shame-based view on life. Here the difference is how our character and behavior reflects on a larger community (“how others see us”). This is somewhat different from the traditional shame-honor culture. In that culture, honoring your family, country, religion was all-important. If your behavior did not comply with those values, you were shamed, even ostracized.Photo Credit: The Rise of Shame in America, Honor Shame

Today’s American culture has definitely moved away from a guilt orientation. We hear it all the time in statements like “Well, that may be OK for you.” “You have the right to believe that way.” “Don’t try to put that guilt on me.” However, our culture is not moving toward the traditional shame society, but more a shame-fame culture. Fame over honor. Social media has driven this in recent years. We want to be “seen” a certain way. In fact, a young colleague of ours once said, “It’s my job to make you look good.” I was shocked at that. One, “looking good” was not even on my radar. Either I was “good” (competent, responsible, dependable, etc) or I wasn’t. It demonstrated the culture shift and generational disconnect.

Shaming continues to happen in our culture. Children can be shamed for not behaving in ways that make their parents “look good”. Public shaming of people who don’t agree with each other can be as brutal as real ostracism. And so it goes.

I miss the guilt culture. Where, whatever your religion or political ideology, you could tell the good guys from the bad guys. Or maybe we were naive, but I hope not. Today, it seems all about how we portray ourselves…how we are received by those that matter to us.

Sigh…any thoughts? Please.

[Don’t forget to return and read Andy’s essay and David Brooks’ review of Crouch’s essay and this whole social phenomenon.]

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Postscript: I’m just today beginning to dig into Curt Thompson‘s book The Soul of Shame. So excited really to glean from his wisdom on the subject.

The Return of Shame – Andy Crouch

The Shame Culture – David Brooks

The Rise of Shame in America – HonorShame

When Shame Shapes Our Stories: Five Tips for Rewiring Negative Neural Pathways – Tricia McCary Rhodes

2) Classical Guitar & Squid Game – So whether you’re a fan of Korean cinema or creepy TV shows (insert Netflix’s popular Squid Game), you’re going to love the latest arrangement by Nathan Mills at Beyond the Guitar. It’s a medley of Squid Game themes, including the classic melody “Fly Me to the Moon”. So gorgeous.

3) Classical Music in Cartoons – Recently I was reading (again in Curt Thompson book – this time the recently published The Soul of Desire. He encouraged an intentional pursuit of beauty (a right brain renewing). He mentioned Dvorak’s 9th Symphony. I’m not a big fan of classical music, although every single time I attend a symphony performance, it slays me. So…I searched out thia particular piece on YouTube and clicked on this performance of the second movement of the symphony. Profoundly beautiful. Then…oddly familiar.

The first time I ever heard this symphony was on Saturday morning cartoons. In those days (late ’50s, early ’60s), cartoons had classical music as their soundtracks! In fact, this practice goes all the way back to the cartoons of the 1930s. Ingenious.

Cartoons and Classical Music – Bring Bach the Good Stuff – Nuriyah Johar

Classical Music in Cartoons

I’m learning later in life how the beauty of music, tucked in the background, can actually enrich what the eye sees on the many screens of our childhood and now that of our children’s children.

15 Pieces of Classical Music That Showed up in Looney Tunes – Mark Mancini [Some of the links are broken in the article but the information is preserved.]

YouTube Video – 10 Classical Music Pieces in Cartoons

YouTube Video – Most Iconic Classical Music Masterpieces Everyone Knows in One Single Video

4) Rain Brain/Left Brain I’ve written on the brain several times (as a learning layperson).

Again, thanks to Curt Thompson‘s recently published book The Soul of Desire, I’ve been learning about these two very different but inter-connected hemispheres in our brain. Thompson talks about how God made our brain for connection, but with trauma and shame, the two hemispheres become less integrated. Neural pathways are hijacked. [Talking very simply here because that’s about the level of my understanding.]

He delineates the two in many ways, but one that really spoke to me was how the right brain (the seat of our emotions and the space where we create and appreciate beauty) is very much focused on “here and with”. Being in the moment and preferably with others we care about. The left brain (our center for reasoning, analysis, and logic) favors more a “separate from” state. Standing back, evaluating, referring to the past and imagining the future.

Photo Credit: Janice Tarleton

Trauma and shame steal the easy flow of having fear and anxiety that is checked by rational reasoning. We can become stuck. Isolated from the healthy thinking we were made to have…and from each other. Thompson gives some excellent helps in his book on how to strengthen pathways between each side of the brain. Much of this is in community. Also upping our intentional appreciation of what is beautiful around us. Left brain activity is rewarded in our culture, to the detriment of right brain activity. We need both…and the beauty and community that comes with such integration.

Want to Sync the 2 Hemispheres of Your Brain? Neuroscience Says to Do This Daily (It Only Takes 4 Minutes) – Melanie Curtin

I Met Jesus in My Right Brain – Janice Tarleton

Photo Credit: Custom Writing

5) Beach Food– A long weekend in Virginia Beach this past week was lovely. Much-needed. Rain and a gusty wind kept us from as much walking as we would have liked, but it did not deter us from eating from favorite restaurants. Every year, we change that list up a bit. 19th Street Italian Bistro has been our #1 go-to restaurant every year and it is not budging from that position of honor.

Two new favorites for the year are (in the #2 spot for beach favorites) C. P. Shucker’s Cafe & Raw Bar

and (#3) Ray Ray’s at the Mayflower.

[Chef Ray is Filipino and adds all sorts of yummy island touches to the menu.]

And dessert? Always Dairy Queen Butterfinger Blizzard.

You don’t want to miss these if Virginia Beach is your destination.

How about you? What is your favorite beach food restaurant? Tell us in the Comments.

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That’s it for this week. Hope you’re able to get some time with those you love in the days ahead. Never take time together for granted. Life is such a gift. Thanks for stopping by. It means a lot.