Home is where you find your heart the happiest. Sometimes it's a place, but mostly, it's a feeling.
I have many homes. I am so happy when I am taking care of my family in our house. But, I am equally happy when I have a chance to visit our little spot on the lake in Minnesota. When we trek to Michigan to see my family or Florida or Texas to see loved ones, it's all the same. Even a hotel room can feel like home when it's the place you use as the starting point for visiting with friends and family.
I've never really felt like an owner of property; rather I feel as though I'm the custodian. No matter how much we may wish it, we cannot literally 'own' the earth. We can receive title that indicates we are allowed to use a space, but once we no longer breathe, the title and point, are moot. Like many ancient tribes realized, we are the guardians...responsible to nature to provide the care for our space as long as we occupy it. Perhaps that is one reason I feel closer to the land when I'm in Minnesota or Michigan. It seems that there, the spirits still exist. In the fullest, most succulent manifestation of life, it feels like home when I stand there.
The same feeling holds true wherever I garden...if I plant seeds and harvest fruit after a season of caring for this life, I feel like home. While I cut and store the fruit for the coming winter, I feel like home. When I share that fruit with those I care about, it feels like home; and home...feels like love.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Hope, Love and Trust
Three feelings essential to positive, constructive human relationships include hope, love and trust. Having one doesn't mean the other two will be present. It also doesn't necessarily exclude the others.
Hope comes first...born of dreams and our innocent belief that they can come true.
Most of us hope we will find a special partner in life; someone to share our deepest feelings and experiences; the things that make us who we are.
If and when we do, Love is the largest of the feelings we generally experience.
Nonetheless, our problems, experiences and feelings are not always easy to handle for another person. We may have already come to grips with what has happened to or because of those events and emotions, but the person we want to share our life with may not find it a simple task. Perhaps they don't even want to. There's only one way to find out.
Ask them.
Love doesn't always mean sharing every tiny detail of all we think, live and go through. Love, if it is true and honest, however, should allow for whatever level of sharing that we need. If our partner cannot or will not allow that sharing, there must be allowance for other relationships that can. Whether a counselor, sibling or best friend; there must be people we can go to when we are so troubled that solutions to difficulties elude us.
That is where Trust comes in. Intimacy is essential to that. There must be open and ample opportunity to share with your beloved, face to face, when you are troubled, without fear of anger, judgment or reprisal.
Those things that cause us suffering are most often things we are afraid we cannot control; sometimes we think they are things we can't do anything about.
Hope, Love and Trust, we must find first,
within ourselves.
Hope comes first...born of dreams and our innocent belief that they can come true.
Most of us hope we will find a special partner in life; someone to share our deepest feelings and experiences; the things that make us who we are.
If and when we do, Love is the largest of the feelings we generally experience.
Nonetheless, our problems, experiences and feelings are not always easy to handle for another person. We may have already come to grips with what has happened to or because of those events and emotions, but the person we want to share our life with may not find it a simple task. Perhaps they don't even want to. There's only one way to find out.
Ask them.
Love doesn't always mean sharing every tiny detail of all we think, live and go through. Love, if it is true and honest, however, should allow for whatever level of sharing that we need. If our partner cannot or will not allow that sharing, there must be allowance for other relationships that can. Whether a counselor, sibling or best friend; there must be people we can go to when we are so troubled that solutions to difficulties elude us.
That is where Trust comes in. Intimacy is essential to that. There must be open and ample opportunity to share with your beloved, face to face, when you are troubled, without fear of anger, judgment or reprisal.
Those things that cause us suffering are most often things we are afraid we cannot control; sometimes we think they are things we can't do anything about.
Hope, Love and Trust, we must find first,
within ourselves.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Untold stories
No matter our age, we have stories. The truth and legend that created us. There is more to all of us than meets the eye.
If we are so old we can no longer make sense or so young we cannot yet form the language of others, the stories belong to us. We own almost nothing in this life except for our stories.
My stories jump for joy. Some of them writhe in pain. Only I know one from the other. Unless, that is, if I share them.
Sharing our stories is a blessing and a curse. Sometimes they are a way to share and thus divide the pain of horrors or fears. Others, when shared, are blessings to those who hear them. At times, our stories burden others.
Often in the sharing, others come to share their stories with us. The sweetness of that trust is a treasure beyond compare.
But there are those stories that only we will ever know. Those tales are most often buried deeply. Sometimes, we don't even know they exist until some demon wakes the sleeping giant. Like a fable, there is a lesson to be learned, but only if we find the courage to open the curtain and release the demon.
We all want to know the truth and none of us wants to die with regrets. The only way to create that life is to live it. The story is yours and only yours; until you share it.
If we are so old we can no longer make sense or so young we cannot yet form the language of others, the stories belong to us. We own almost nothing in this life except for our stories.
My stories jump for joy. Some of them writhe in pain. Only I know one from the other. Unless, that is, if I share them.
Sharing our stories is a blessing and a curse. Sometimes they are a way to share and thus divide the pain of horrors or fears. Others, when shared, are blessings to those who hear them. At times, our stories burden others.
Often in the sharing, others come to share their stories with us. The sweetness of that trust is a treasure beyond compare.
But there are those stories that only we will ever know. Those tales are most often buried deeply. Sometimes, we don't even know they exist until some demon wakes the sleeping giant. Like a fable, there is a lesson to be learned, but only if we find the courage to open the curtain and release the demon.
We all want to know the truth and none of us wants to die with regrets. The only way to create that life is to live it. The story is yours and only yours; until you share it.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Beauty
Our grandchild is singing in the room as she makes pictures for everyone she loves. She asks "what color is yours?" of grandpa and he says purple and orange. She brings him his gift...the perfect color match.
She gets more crayons, continues to draw - singing..."B.I.N.G.O. and Bingo was his name-o!" She draws the first letter of my name. "R"
"OH! (a broken crayon!) I need TAPE!" she says, asking if I can fix it. I explain it will still color even if it's broken. Uncertain, she experiments with it and decides I have given her correct information.
Singing and humming...."hmmm..hmmm..hmm...hmm, don't worry! It's just a crayon," she says to herself aloud. "I will make Luke a birthday card...I will make your tape or my tape. Can I write the name?"
She races down the hall to her desk and returns with a handful of new crayons, announcing, "These are not broken!" with a devilish grin.
I think...this life is the best life.
She gets more crayons, continues to draw - singing..."B.I.N.G.O. and Bingo was his name-o!" She draws the first letter of my name. "R"
"OH! (a broken crayon!) I need TAPE!" she says, asking if I can fix it. I explain it will still color even if it's broken. Uncertain, she experiments with it and decides I have given her correct information.
Singing and humming...."hmmm..hmmm..hmm...hmm, don't worry! It's just a crayon," she says to herself aloud. "I will make Luke a birthday card...I will make your tape or my tape. Can I write the name?"
She races down the hall to her desk and returns with a handful of new crayons, announcing, "These are not broken!" with a devilish grin.
I think...this life is the best life.
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