Seeing Life As Whole

Someone who offered a prayer recently included these words attributed to Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen:  “Helping, fixing, and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul.”  As I internalized the words of her prayer, I began to think about my own tendencies.  Am I more inclined to help, fix or serve?  Likely, I have ventured often over my life toward the first two.  So-called helping and fixing are the easier to do.  But, in the future, I will seek to focus my energies on the third.  By being in service to others, I will see wholeness in them and possibly in myself, too.

Gut Reaction

I work in an industry that is fact-based.  One of our individual employee competencies is to be able to make decisions based on data and facts.  While I work hard to embrace such a way of doing things, I must admit that I tend to base my decisions on intuition.  I follow my "gut", so to speak, and when I do, it doesn't fail me.  The point was driven home recently when I was called onto the stage at a large-group meeting for work to be part of a "Let it Snow" Contest.  The contest was designed like a game show where the contestants had to answer multiple-choice, winter-theme questions.  Whenever I relied on my intuition, I got the answer right.  If I over-thought the question, I got it wrong.  It was a fun way to remind me that my inner wisdom doesn't fail me, no matter what.

Whipped Cream

Last Sunday, Larry and I celebrated the anticipated new year by purchasing our 2013 Wisconsin state park stickers at Devil's Lake State Park.  It was a quiet afternoon at the lake with just a few people seen engaging in winter sports there.  We saw a couple of people ice-fishing and another couple snow-shoeing.  Even the birds were silent.  The hush and the snow made the park spectacular.  Temperatures have been cold enough that the snow we'd received a few weeks ago during our pre-Christmas blizzard and the flakes that followed had not yet melted from the rocky surfaces, the picnic tables or the trees.   Everything looked pristine and white with mounds of snow covering them.  I likened the landscape to a giant hand having taken an equally giant spoonful of whipped cream, flicking the wrist just so to cover the entire park with white dollops.  I can certainly understand the philosophy of those human snowbirds who crave the sun and warmth of the south at this time of year, but this snowbird of a different kind found the mounds of snow on the rocky outcroppings, deciduous tree branches and every other surface at Devil's Lake to be nothing short of breath taking.  I wouldn't have wanted to miss the sight.

The Un-Decorators

Last evening after work, six friends and I removed the Christmas decorations from our church. The weeks of Advent had gone by quickly. It seems as if it was only a couple of weeks ago when we were busy putting up the tree and wreaths. The putting-up is always filled with anticipation and excitement, while the taking-down seems to lack the same spirit of merriment. Despite the somewhat-sadness of putting everything away, my six friends and I took on our tasks with gusto and good humor. Before you knew it, we were done and Mark and Gloria were asking us to their home for hot beef sandwiches. A quick stop at the grocery store rounded out our meal. We sat around the kitchen table for nearly two hours, catching up on life, telling funny stories and reveling in the familiarity of long-time friends, while feasting on our delicious meal. Mark and his brother have assumed the task from their late grandmother of making fruitcake, so we all had at least one delicious slice after dinner. How fruitcake has gotten such a bad reputation, I'll never know, for the fruitcake that Mark and his brother made was moist and sweet and chocked full of nuts, candied fruit and flavor. Granted, our celebration tonight may not have held the same sense of awe that preparing for Christmas brings, but it did hold a great deal of joy for these un-decorators.

12 Days of Christmas

It made me sad that Christmas seemed to end so abruptly this year.  All of a sudden, there were no more Christmas carols on the radio.  As early as Christmas evening, the Christmas television shows and movies were replaced by the normal fare.  Then, at church last Sunday, our deacon reminded the congregation that Christmas continues for 12 more days after December 25 in the Christian faith, concluding with Epiphany on January 6.  In fact, according to our deacon, December 25 is when Christmas begins.  So, today, if we follow the lyrics to "The Twelve Days of Christmas," we're into Christmas Day #9, when the day would be celebrated by nine ladies dancing.  Thinking about "The Twelve Days of Christmas" reminded me of a hilarious program on that theme that I saw on television as a child.  I've only seen it once since then, but it tickled me as much then as it had when I was a little girl.  As I recall, the program was absent of audio except for the song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas."  An overly enthusiastic lover showers his true love with the partridges, lords a'leaping, pipers piping, etc. until she is completely overwhelmed by her gifts.  I don't expect to be showered with nine ladies dancing today, but I am heartened to know that Christmas still lives on for a few more days and then must reside in my heart the rest of the year.

Photo Finish

During the Christmases of my youth, my mom and her mother would spend one evening during our holiday visit sitting at the kitchen table, looking at old photos.  As a child, I couldn't imagine what was so fascinating about looking at the same old pictures year after year.  Now that I've added years to my life, I find myself doing the same thing -- looking at the same old pictures over and over and deriving great joy from it.  I have pictures of my parents as children, young adults, newlyweds and later as a family with me.  I have photos of Larry's family, of him as a young lad and of the two of us aging "gracefully" over the past 20 years.  There are photos of friends and photos of special events. I fondly remember good times and good people by looking at those pictures from days gone by.  They are picture-perfect gifts, memories that will stay with me forever.

Just Wiggy

I recently finished reading The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling, a book required for work.  One of the main messages of the book is to define a Wildly Important Goal (also called a WIG, for short) that will help transform your business, bringing it to a new level of excellence.  WIGs and their execution (as laid out in the book) can also be applied to one's personal life, according to the authors.  The book got me to thinking about the possible WIGs in my professional and personal life.  What better time of year to look at one's goals, one's wildly important goals than at the close of one year and the promise of a fresh, new year?  I'm glad to have read the book and to now begin defining my WIGs and developing the plan to properly execute them -- charting a new path for the new year.