EVIL FACEBOOK?

EVIL FACEBOOK?

Life is flying by! Like that saying about the toilet paper roll—“As it gets closer to the end, it goes by much faster!”

If you know me at all and are my “friend” or see anything I post or write about, I celebrate life! I try to soak up all the good stuff and share “Good News!” because…”Life hits you hard, Bro!”

Summer is winding down, school is back in session and life is busy! It is only 118 days until Christmas!–Life can turn into a constant doledrum (if you let it) and the good stuff gets pushed aside.

Guilty! Here is my typical day: get up, post Tweet on Twitter, exercise, check e-mail and Facebook, go to work, check Facebook, lunch, play a word on Words with Friends, check Facebook, back to work, check Facebook, drive home, make dinner, check Facebook…You get my point. I rarely have time to pencil in lunch with an old friend, a lengthy conversation with my mom, the car breaking down, taking my new husband to work, let alone the doctor appointment for that lump that hasn’t gone away…

Sometimes life is just about getting back to the simpler things. Unplug for a moment. Go and sit on a park bench and enjoy the cool breeze. Or, if you’re like me and you live in the desert (and it’s still summer here!), go sit in front of or under a fan and enjoy that sensation.

Like being hypnotized by the stripes on the freeway when driving a long journey, I find it mesmerizing to watch a fan in action; the symmetry of its cylindrical rotations, the control I have over it, the soothing white noise it creates, the refreshing movement of the air in my surroundings.

Try it and tell me what you observe…

 

 

Whirring Fan

“Because I am happy does not mean that everything is perfect. It means I choose to look beyond the imperfections of life.”

 

– I saw this quote/ book on Facebook and it resonated with me.

 

FACEBOOK can get a bad rap. I’ve heard many people tell of how “Facebook ruined my marriage” or, “I just don’t have the time,” or, “I don’t get on there because I know it isn’t real—it’s just everyone’s “highlight reel!”

I also know that some people post waaaay too much information; and that can be dangerous.

I confess, I didn’t do FACEBOOK for many years and I had a list of my own reasons, including some of the above.

I heard that the creators of Facebook initially had a “thumbs down button,” but then they removed it. That got me thinking about the intent and motives of the creators of this popular social media platform.

 

But I still have questions-

Why a “like” button and not a “LOVE” button?

Facebook –It does have its limitations.

But does Facebook really ruin marriages? Or was the marriage already in trouble?

Do “Facebook people” posting a highlight reel have better lives than you? Or is the thief called comparison stealing your joy?

Of course, be careful of what you “put out there.” This life may be temporary, but the internet is forever! 😉 😉

–—

Mid-monsoon summer heat is in full force here in Arizona.

In this sticky and exhausting heat everything turns indoors. I “unplugged” and sat mesmerized in the coolest part of the house and stared up at the fan whirring hypnotically overhead. I remembered back to childhood when I used to love to yell into a spinning fan to feel the simple joy of my voice reverberating through the blades. Lost in my reverie of simpler times, I have to blink my eyes so they don’t dry up and pop out of their sockets; and I am struck by what I can see in the fan when I do this—

It’s as if I can stop the fan with the power of a BLINK!

I think about those people posting good stuff on Facebook’s–those “highlight reels”

Isn’t life a bit like this? A succession of events that whir by us so quickly that often we don’t see that it is made up of lots of individual “snapshots” of significance.

Without those individual parts, the power wouldn’t be so strong or able to push the air from the vaulted ceiling to reach me all the way at the bottom.

But life stops for no one. We don’t have the power to blink away earthquakes, tornadoes or tsunamis. When we are paralyzed by the devastation of a divorce, or a loved one’s death, or a diagnosis, or depression—no matter how much we blink or how loud we yell into the whir—it just keeps on.

Sometimes the posts I see on FACEBOOK haunt me—heartbreak, divorces, family illness and tragedies all shared at the arm’s length of social media.

And also there is such beauty shared; artistry, new beginnings, celebrations and stories of triumph that jolt me out of my depths.

Maybe FACEBOOK is simply the snapshots that people think will reach others? Maybe FACEBOOK is just a bunch of noise trying to be heard beyond the whir of life?

It isn’t perfect and we all know that each and every person who posts on FACEBOOK isn’t either. Not a single one.

But what if the power of the story, picture, post or whatever it is, truly reaches someone in need? We’ve all witnessed the power of FACEBOOK in creating awareness of ALS…What if a post impacts someone’s life in such a way that it reaches them at “their bottom” and brings them a little coolness, refreshment or hope? Or maybe just an ice bucket poured over their head?!

Isn’t that the idea behind FACEBOOK? That we would share? That we would “like?” That we would reveal stories and interact with each other in a way that today’s technological society that has embraced and which has become the norm? That a difference could be made, if even for just one person?

 

 

 

 

 

If you are one of those who is against “EVIL FACEBOOK” or who hasn’t embraced technology (this is me and was me fully just over a year ago!) it doesn’t have to be FACEBOOK (or Twitter, or Instagram, or Pinterest or e-mail, or ANY social media for that matter!)

Maybe what you are doing right where you are–experiencing that snapshot in life: the tragedy, the illness, the new life or new beginning– Maybe someone needs to hear your whir?

Reaching out

 

“He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.” 2 Corinthians 1:4

 

Maybe someone needs to lean on your shoulder; feel your hand reaching out (not to press the “like” button!) but to be helped up! Maybe someone simply needs to hear an encouraging word, smile, or story and to feel the refreshing breeze of hope that rushes through a soul when you realize you are not alone in your struggle.

Maybe you need to SHARE your story to witness to someone who has gone before you and will help guide you through.

“I will go before you and make the rough places smooth…” Isaiah 45:2

You don’t need to have access to a “LIKE” button to go out in the world and share a little love.

And to that I say–

 

LIKE!

 

Please share! 😉

PROFESSIONAL ZUMBA DANCERS

(“One of these things is not like the others!”)

I think something tragic happens when we try to be something we aren’t meant to be.

Actually, I KNOW it is tragic.

Take, for example, when a runner attempts something like ZUMBA.
Seriously tragic.
And, you know what they do in those dance places? They place mirrors at every turn. So, even if you could fake it in your mind that you don’t look like a puppet/marionette gone wild–on crack–there is the visual evidence slapping you in the face! It screams at your flailing arms and at every hip shake and misstep saying, “YOU WERE NOT MEANT TO BE A PROFESSIONAL ZUMBA DANCER!”
I didn’t give up; but I wanted to! (-And a few people around me wanted me to!) AND, after two days of recovery, I was actually glad I tried something new!
But, then there is my old Jr. and High school buddy, Kelly. You put her in those mirrored rooms and she blossoms like a flower in spring! Her arms are in perfect sync with the furious steps below and the hips in between, making most blush who witness the ease of her rhythm.

She was meant to dance.

(See if you can pick her out in the photo above—she has this knowing look—like, “These others shouldn’t quit their day jobs!)

It’s truly something to witness when you see someone “in their element;” pursuing a dream; excelling in their passion. Like a well orchestrated song, perfectly pulling together the individual sounds of each instrument, joining up with lyrics, rhythm, melody and it all flowing together like it was always meant to be exactly that way.
But, what when we are forced/or stuck in something that we don’t excel in? That we loathe doing day after day after day…After a while, life turns from musical harmony to a clanging cacophony of unbearable noise.

I get that there will always be things that we struggle with wanting to do–homework, paying pills, Mondays, etc.,—that’s part of life; but it shouldn’t BE your life.

We are promised something more…

“…I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10)

And when you invite Jesus into your life and allow him to direct your path and your plans…

“Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” (Ephesians 3:20)

More than we can even imagine??!! Hmmm…I like this idea…A LOT!

As I was struggling with what to blog about this week, I realized…I LOVE to write. I am not pretending that it is easy for me to do—there are many things that get in the way (like two other jobs, laundry, eating, the voices in my head saying, “You can’t,” or “No one cares.”) But I always return to it—the desire to be at my computer, or with a note pad jotting down something that struck me during an interaction. I yearn for the spare minutes to get the “pen to paper” and I get a rush. It is almost like that marionette on crack, or probably more like the runner’s high when I feel God nudging me to write something. It often happens when I am out on a run and when I am undoubtedly at the farthest point from home!

As I write, I am smiling. My hope is that, whatever it is you spend the majority of your day doing, or dreaming of doing, that you will DO IT! –Pursue it. Don’t give up on searching for your “thing;” for what makes you blossom; the fire in your belly; the passion that you can’t get out of your mind. Try it. Don’t give up on it. Keep trying; keep searching and keep pursuing until you find it. Continually ask the Lord into your plans and, I am willing to bet on it, that “it” becomes more than you can imagine!

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

FREEDOM

anonymous freedom

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy…” (John 10:10)
Have you ever been afraid? And not just afraid, but truly fearful. I’m not talking about what I will call “scary movie” fear. –Who didn’t feel this type of fear in the movie “The Exorcism?”–The original one–Linda Blair and the pea soup. Scary stuff. I’ll admit my fear in that movie. But it wasn’t the fear that paralyzes. Thinking back, I’ve really just barely touched this type of fear.
True fear.
The paralytic kind of fear in which your brain sends sudden large amounts of adrenaline to your muscles and it either moves you into heroic action—the mother lifting up the car to free her trapped child, the soldier propelling in to saving his or her comrades in the heat of battle—OR the opposite occurs and fear overpowers you–your muscles are immune to the new fuel they’ve been flooded with and they simply freeze up. Not a chilly “goose bump” freeze, but absolute loss of function. The massive pounding in your chest blasts sound waves of blood pulsating throughout your head and eardrums. Your breathing is nearly non-existent and shallow in your chest, your body poised to strike, yet no amount of will can budge the load of bricks that have become your legs. Your nearly catatonic body that has become utterly non-responsive as deadly rigormortis settles around your soul. Surely you know this by now as the “fight or flight” response. It is (or at least, it can be) life changing. It is where the proverbial “rubber meets the road.”
What will you do in those circumstances? Action or paralysis?
We all would like to think that we would experience that “hero” response and be moved to achieve something transporting us beyond our human capacity. But if you have never been in one of these situations, how do you know?
When a friend of mine told me of her sister’s experience, I realized my fear experiences, though terrifying to me at the time, only skim the surface of this “true fear” that I am referencing. My true fear experiences were ones in which I could’ve lost my life. At least that is how I felt when I was knee deep in the experience. Really, it felt like any future I conceived turned completely moot and void. Nothing but that moment mattered because I didn’t think I’d survive past it. Falling out of the two man raft in a level five rapid on the upper Animas in Colorado. In retrospect, my life seemed in jeopardy but I wasn’t as close to losing it as I thought. That hike up the tallest mountain in Arizona when I freaked. The recurring nightmares haunting each of the 40 years of my life: the dizzying vertigo, loss of control at life’s edge of whatever chasm, bridge, or ledge it might be, the accompanying nausea, paralytic muscles, brain lock, shallow breaths, heartbeats quick rabbit-like but pounding like blare drums. All of this–nothing like what she details. Nothing. –Not to spoil the ending of my true fear story, but, SPOLER ALERT– I survived! I didn’t fall off that mountain and I was pulled back to safety by an experienced guide on the Animas River. However, I did experience momentary paralysis. Frozen in that moment and left with a choice. I will never forget the experience. But it just skims above the depth of what she tells.
Back to my friend.
I use that term judiciously because I see her as so friendly that I think she’d make friends anywhere. Or, it could be that I perceive her differently. Most people in my generation are keenly aware and sensitive to what she must’ve gone through to be here in America. She doesn’t always get this reaction. She’s a U. S. citizen and 23 years my senior. My friend, choosing to be unnamed, is one of five children born into extreme poverty in a small village less than 30 miles from Saigon. As a child, she saw a war-torn Vietnam, blossoming like a fungus as incomprehensible confusion, chaos, unnecessary death and lack of compassion overtook the scenic beauty of her birthplace. To this day, upon her return visits to try to help her village and her remaining family, she still sees the devastating, flesh-eating effects of Agent Orange on the civilian population left there and the health horrors that poverty permits.
We met at a food bank where we both volunteer. Often times the bank is low on food and with no other jobs to do, there is time to chat. My friend, who retired from a nearly 25 year career at Motorola, as she learned English in her spare time, is always one of the hardest workers and rarely is involved in chat time. If she isn’t marking foods or carrying out boxes, she is mopping the floor, sweeping or cleaning out bins. Today, except for the occasional carry-out, all is done.
Time for a rare chat.
Today she proudly wears a red, white and blue embroidered touristy shirt from her most recent trip to Vietnam. She is bubbling over with conversation and telling of her bravery at the doctor’s office. Yesterday she received a cortisone injection directly into her spine to help her deal with the pain and the numbing and tingling in her knees and legs brought on from work-related injuries through her career at Motorola. Yesterday. She refused anesthesia so she could drive herself.
She pounds her chest Tarzan like, “I so brave!” and smiles her huge toothy smile. Did I mention it was just yesterday?
A huge needle, (aren’t they all?) that could actually truly paralyze if moved just millimeters in the wrong direction, was inserted into her spine while she was awake and aware. She avoided burdening anyone for a ride. She’s a master at the self-sufficiency we Americans pride ourselves on. And ready to be working at the food bank today.
“Hey, Mrs. Saigon!” Buddy, who has been around longer than any volunteer (and most human beings! *wink*wink*!) razzes her, “You’re looking quite spry this morning!”
Her big smile erupts again.
She’s been married to an American soldier now coming up on 40 years. With two children and two grandchildren, this woman has more drama in her life than in most incident reports I read from the police department’s “ripped straight from the headlines.” (Can you hear the Law and Order “bong-bong?”)
Several weeks ago she told me one of her memories while living and working in Vietnam. She worked at the Vietnamese military base located just across from the American military base. She often walked between the two. She, totally in character, made friends with many of the Americans. The Vietnamese Military Police didn’t like this.
“Feel ‘dis.” She nods at me, picks up my hand, places two of my fingers on the top of her head, just to the left of her black hair’s part-line. My fingertips register the sheen of her soft hair. She pushes down on my finger and I feel it. Rough and uneven through skin, scalp and silky hair: granite.
Unaware, while walking between the two bases, she was stoned. Not that kind; an actual stoning. Out of the blue, she felt something smack into her head. Confused, disoriented, tears stinging her eyes and in pain, she realized her own countrymen were hurling rocks at her. Bloodied, and too embarrassed to tell anyone about her pain (and too poor to do anything about it,) a quarter-sized stone is still lodged in her scalp to this day.
I felt it.
Other drama in her life story includes very unwelcoming parents-in-law. It wasn’t until ten years ago (only 30 years in to her marriage) that her in-laws, still skeptical, admitted their continuing mistrust in her relationship with their son. They believe she is using him for her “green card.” For the record: she obtained her citizenship outside of marriage and on her own. They are from a different generation that is immune to her style of cooking, refusing her food at family gatherings and refusing the overwhelming kindness in her heart, and apparently severely lacking in the compassion department for what this woman has experienced and overcome. She is proud. Their treatment of the overly compensating, foreign daughter-in-law borders on the criminal.
—
The Pastor of the food bank, who missed being drafted and serving in Vietnam by answering God’s call to serve those back home, asks her to delve into her experiences. Being the same age as my friend, he is very curious about her time in Vietnam and her journey to here–right now.
The three of us stand in an alcove and she diverts the focus from herself and chooses to tell us about her sister.
Both her and her sister dreamed of escaping the poverty, the confusion, and the madness of what overtook their country. She–newly enamored with a young G.I.–has been offered (through this new love) an opportunity to leave.
She takes it.
She is in the U.S. just two years and then– April 30, 1975. The day she describes as “the day the world ended.” The U.S. attacks Vietnam. Through her new connections, her military husband is willing to help her sister and sister’s entire family to come to the U.S.—The sister must simply collect her five children, her husband and, at the predetermined rendezvous point, at the designated time, there is an arrangement for them to get out for free. All can make it out. Freedom. Opportunity. A new start. A new place. No more war in your backyard. But she must choose it.
The designated time and place come and go.
My friend and her husband-to-be wait for her sister and the family at the rendezvous point. All the while, the sister is crouched low, in the dark of the dirty walls of the one room that is home for her family of seven. Paralyzed. Tears of terror escape eyes that have seen too much. The tears run down this mother’s face as a sick example. She doesn’t heed their message. Her body is frozen in the crouch. Paralyzed at the opportunity. Paralyzed about a new place. A new start. The unknown. Freedom?!?
The depth of the fear that must’ve permeated this mother’s soul as she crouched there.
Maybe true fear isn’t what I comprehend it to be. Maybe this fear is actually a more subtle enemy. Maybe true fear is simply the doubts that cloud our minds when we are about to step off a ledge into the unknown. Maybe it’s more about choices. My friend’s choice to move to a country that doesn’t understand her, mistreats her and yet, gave her opportunity and freedom to live without fear. Maybe this explains why she is so friendly. She lives without fear. She lives in the chasm of opportunity that was opened to her when she took the leap into the unknown.–To work hard, to live fully, to give unconditionally, to forgive hurts, and to live with the rocks that have been embedded in her soul. And later, to return to the fears of her birthplace as she visits her sister and family who live in an abyss of regret each day in the country of their birth. She returns to try to understand and to try to change her remaining family by giving whatever she can.
But she can’t stay long on her visits there.
“My heart bleed too much there,” she explains to the Pastor and me tilting her head to the side. Her eyes drift away from us and her brows crease in confusion.
“…I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
(John 10:10)
Where does your heart bleed? Are you courageous enough to re-visit those places? Are you ready for the leap of faith or are you crouched in paralysis?

THE BEAR

Columbia River Gorge

Getting ready to head out on a “maiden” run along the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon, we stopped to look at the map and trail. What we found was a warning—Just two weeks earlier a black bear had been sighted in the area.
We set out anyway.
By the time we had meandered up the winding trail, viewing massive scenic expanses of water sparkling like diamonds across the sky, greenery reaching up, up, up into the billows of blue overhead, that bear was all but forgotten. I don’t take my camera on most runs—I like to capture the moments in my heart and my mind’s eye—like taking the time to try to capture the AWE will scare it away like the mist of breath on a cold night.
Seven and ½ miles later we had witnessed a skunk blaze the trail ahead of us and two deer bravely traverse a cliff. Our senses were mildly alerted to the wild life, but our perception of danger was overpowered by the beauty of this place.
Then we heard it.
Straight from Friday the 13th, the crisp and foreboding break of a branch on the forest floor—broken by something heavy and halting our journey.
“The bear!” it was a hush that felt like a scream to me.
I stopped dead in my tracks for just one moment that felt like eons.
“There –just to the right—about 50 yards up from us—“
That’s all I need to hear. My sights never locked on that bear, but I didn’t need to. The ominous echoing crack of that branch and the sudden memory of every bear mauling I had ever read about, heard about and seen on TV. came pushing through my body propelling me toward the safety of the trailhead and the protection of the car.
It was easily a quarter of a mile before my more adventurous bear seeker caught up with me. “Did you see him!? Did you see it!? I didn’t see any cubs…I wish I would’ve taken its picture!” The words came out in excited bursts…
We continued our escape and warned all below us of the sighting. The rest of the trip I heard about how much he wished he would’ve taken that picture.
Hindsight is 20/20—especially from the safety of your car.
What if? What if he would’ve got that perfect shot?
I am glad he didn’t. Like I said earlier, I am okay with not having the photo— Seriously; it is okay to miss some shots in life. I have the story to tell.
What if he’d stayed just long enough for the bear to get pissed at us in his territory…What if?
I have a picture of another bear.
It was mid 1980’s and my father spent three years bear hunting in the woods of Colorado. Three seasons of baiting, waiting, re-baiting, more waiting and nothing, nothing, nothing.
All the hours spent preparing: practice shots at the range, canvassing the perfect area, months spent reading about the most aromatic and appealing black bear baits. And then–the season comes and all that waiting–crouched for hours, with black bear shot gun loaded and ready–finally pays off.
His first black bear! Large nose sniffing the air and moving ever closer to that perfect bait, branches breaking beneath the weights of those grandiose paws getting closer and closer and closer!
Breath is suspended, muscles peak and moving ever so silently (especially after three years of practice!), he prepares to shoot. There is something untold that happened right then. What will all the men say! The pride of shooting this creature, the pelt, all that meat for black bear burgers…I think not. I think it was awe.
He shot it. With his 24 exposure Fuji disposable camera. Got three wavering shots off before the rest of her cubs came into the view–two babies trampling behind her. (This was way before digital, so there was an actual wait time before we could see the evidence!) The film was so fuzzy and the pictures only showed the mother’s behind and the babies’ beginning.
I know my dad got a lot of crap about that moment. The moment he made the choice to not shoot—it was the last year of his preparing, baiting and waiting.
I was never more proud of my dad for shooting his first (and last) black bear.