NOTHING MORE HELPFUL THAN WORDS

 

Other than a soothing bath or a massage or a close embrace, what is more helpful than words?  We live by them.  The Bible says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1  We read books and write them,  we listen to preachers and orators,  until we talk to eachother nothing is clear.  "We have to talk," begins many a crisis (or its resolution).  We define ourselves with words:  I am an optimist, I am gender non-conforming, I am a cancer survivor, I am the person who will love you for life, I am a child of God . . . . 

When meaningless words fill up our TV screens we call it "talking heads."  We have phrases for those we think talk too much:  he won't let me "get a word in edgewise" or,  she "runs at the mouth."  We look for sound advice, we tell eachother stories, we make ourselves heard, we listen carefully.  We recite mantras and  seek out inspirational quotes.  We cross-stitch them, paint them, needle-point them, collage them . . . .  

Words have super powers.  Think of when you've been hurt, crushed even.  Words did it.  Or been restored,  again by words.  "It's not your fault."   "I love you."  "I didn't mean it."  "It won't happen again."  "Forgive me."  "I forgive you."  

Maybe because I am an English major, I am always finding words to help me live my life.

• It's normal to feel validated when someone shows us respect or wants our opinion.  But it's also easy to be manipulated, to go astray because the validation produces a glow.  Recognize the need for admiration, for relevance.  We can make wrong decisions under their spell.  I have seen that.  
• Emotions can be triggered.  Behind every emotion lies a thought.  A profoundly disturbing response is tethered to a profoundly disturbing event.   This is OK.  Our minds protect us.  They remind us to take care of ourselves.  They remind us that the event is over.  They remind us that we have already survived it.  We need to recognize the difference between incomprehension and sadness and actual suffering.  They are not the same.  
• "You alone are enough.  You have nothing to prove to anyone."  Maya Angelou
• Influencers are narcissistic.   It involves excessive arrogance and the need for admiration.  Self-promotion.  Couching it as religious makes no difference, absolutely none.   
  
• Respect how you spend your day.  Given all you've been through, you can choose to take it easy on yourself. 
  
• Fill-in-what-you-want-here.  What I write are nothing more than examples.  Be yourself, trust yourself.  

                                                                  Nina Naomi

 

 

FEAR OF THE FUTURE

It's so easy to fear the future right now.  Especially if you're a person with empathy and you keep up with the news.  

We fear for women and girls of child-bearing age.  Don't we wish that no person alive ever needed an abortion?  But that has never happened.  

We fear for school children and churchgoers and Black people and anyone simply living their days peaceably until they become the next victim of gun violence.   We fear for Ukrainians still defending their homeland.  We read that fifty migrants were found dead in a tractor-trailer in San Antonio today.  What have I missed?  What comes tomorrow?  And if there's sorrow within your own family, how much harder then to cope.  When my mother was dying of cancer, as I shopped for fresh night clothes for her, I couldn't stop crying.  Grief can be brutal.  

What might we do?  Experts say that any act of self-love helps our mental health.  This could be noticing and accepting how we feel.  "I feel sad.  That's OK," we might say to ourself. Or angry.  That's OK too.  Or hopeless.  "Others do too.  I'm not alone in my feelings."  Perhaps I need sleep, or a walk outdoors, or a break from the news.  Or to talk with others or help in some way. There's always a way to help.  Or to give it to God if we can.

This writing I am doing right now is self-care for me. Many say that writing is emotional processing, much like talk-therapy I think. 

It's true that not every storm is followed by a rainbow.  There's debris, downed limbs, flooded homes and clean-up.  But it is also true that after every storm we clean up together.  It's never me against the world.

We can even use our negative emotions as reminders to take care of ourselves.  Something that triggers a PTSD response can help me remember that I haven't been defeated before.  Devastated I'll admit, but not defeated. 

Right now my personal life is good and there's that disconnect, living on two levels: the one that makes the nightly news and the one that makes dinner.  You may be the same, that's the least we can hope for.  So we go forward, trying to avoid overthinking and to accept what we cannot control.  And all the while looking for ways to take care of ourselves, small and large.  A cup of tea, a vacation, play-time, letting love blossom, talking with a friend, spending time or money working for good.  Maybe even looking at history and knowing that the McCarthy Era ended.  So did the Vietnam War.  We've endured 9/11 now, and January 6.  Post-Roe will not be the same as pre-Roe.  There are good people in government too.  

Let's do the next right thing, as the psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961) originally said, and our fear of the future will be manageable too.  

In peace, Nina Naomi    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE LONGEST DAY. LET US REJOICE

 

Today is our longest day.  Every summer since the earth began to turn and the sun began to shine we have had our longest day and then, in December, our longest night.  In the southern hemisphere, where our friend Peter lives, today is his shortest day and in December will be his shortest night.  He is tucking in early while we stretch with the hours of extra light.  For friends vacationing in Iceland this week, the sun sets at 1 a.m. and rises at 2--one brief hour of twilight.  The warmth of sun and the chill of the moon, equally embraceable. 

Now I catch myself--why did I say "our" and "his"?  The summer solstice isn't mine.  Even the few acres of meadow and woods that have my name on the title in the local register of deeds don't belong to me.  How could a 100-year-old shaggy bark hickory be mine? It has its own history, its own future. How could the boulders of the Triassic Basin that hunker down in my yard belong to naught but the ages?  Or the grove of beeches?  We are care-takers with fiduciary duties to our progeny for generations to come. Almost everything that matters predates us and lives on beyond our passing.  The psalmist says, "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." Psalm 90:12.

But then I think again.  Today is ours, isn't it?  

We have on average just under 29,000 days on earth. This may seem like many or or it may seem like few. But each of them is ours.  I'm spending my summer solstice day at the coast, as luck would have it.  The sun doesn't set in the ocean this time of year, but the sunset will be late and brilliant, the way it is on a mostly cloudless day.  Otherwise nothing special.  Maybe a bike ride or fresh-caught fish for supper; my husband is out now with rod and reel.  Most years we are at home, but one special anniversary year we were in Fairbanks, Alaska.  A little dusk and then the sun reappeared. 

The psalmist also says, "This is the day that the Lord hath made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it."  Psalm 118:24.  That's so easy on a day like today.  Some days I'm pessimistic.  Aren't we all?  Some days we feel frail and tattered from the news, or a dreaded doctor's appointment, or one of those things that can crack a heart.  But today the light sings without ceasing, telling us that the day is blessed because it is the one we have.  Dear God, help me remember this tomorrow.  

Nina Naomi

MAYBE TIME STOOD STILL

 

(I found this at Barnes and Noble)

 Don't let yesterday take up too much of today.

After Bonfire day (Post: A Bonfire Day, 3/21/22) when I set my thoughts and prayers to flame to free the future from the past, I bought A Journal for Self-Discovery in Nature; a charming little book with sketches, prompts and space.  It is a most inviting place.  It begs for stories and goals, things imagined or true, the random or the persistent . . . .   A place to make so fine that it could slow your breath. 

Perhaps you have a special place to write too.  Here is what this workbook pulled from my heart this morning. 

• Keep love alive.  Offer it, accept it, take care of it as something fragile.  Friendship the same.  Good things are fragile; like plants they need water and a tender touch.  Love doesn't thrive if neglected. Or usurped.  It may change into habit or routine or even die. We know the phrase, "a wandering eye?"  Even companionship needs a watchful, not wandering, eye.  Think how your companionable dog attunes to every sign of what you want. 

• Accept the past, bad and good, what you would change and what you would never.  We can not win a fight with the past.    Acceptance is admitting the truth of whatever happened, whether by me, by someone else, or to me.  As simple as that.  The most unbelievable things happen; believe them.  There's no way out but there is something better:  a way forward. 

• When something wonderful happens savor it, prolong it, let it spread and give it a special place in your memories.  Today nestled in sleep I heard loving words and woke smiling.  Not words from a dream or a memory, but words being whispered.  Today I lived for the moment, the shining warm moment of requited love.  Today I let those words permeate me with no other thought intruding.  Today is never yesterday.  Today is always now.  

• Seek out the places where you find yourself.  Where is your place?  I go into the woods to find myself.  I go into the woods to find God.  I go into the woods to find peace.  To be delighted by soft green moss, spreading clover and variegated  pine cones.  What words fill-in-this-blank for you? By a lake?  On a hill top?  Under the open sky? On a walk?  Into a church?  There is no one who doesn't have a place.  

• Be vulnerable in love.  Say words that show trust.  Some words of love come trance-like from the soul.  "Love me," is a deep request, a beautiful admission.  The feeling is one of air--fresh, clear and warm.  Or like a circle of lamplight inside the night.  Words of trust make us feel clean as from a shower, soft from the soap, ready for bed.  Windows open, moths hitting the screen.  It could be years ago. Or maybe time stood still.   
  

 

 

 

SO MUCH ROOM FOR KINDNESS

 

With so much going on many of us need to be kinder to ourselves.  For many kindness to others comes naturally.  We're parents, teachers, health-care workers, pastors, good neighbors, volunteers, caring spouses.  Our days are not relaxing or self-centered.  Firefighters, power-line workers, doctors and nurses are all trained to work 24/7 for the good of the community. They choose that job.

Then why aren't we kinder to ourselves?  We might feel that kindness to ourself makes us weak or self-indulgent. But studies show that's not so.  Studies show that self-compassion and inner strength are linked.  

Especially when we feel inadequate or insecure or are in emotional or physical pain, it's important to be tender with ourselves.  I might feel inadequate to affect the changes the world needs, offering only lamentation and prayer for Ukraine, for school shootings, for the girls and women who need abortion health care.  I might feel insecure about something personal:  for me my gait--which is no longer an arm-swinging stride--makes me self conscious; or becoming older, which equals less relevance. 

Someone else might feel insecure about their education, or underemployment or job loss; or their children's achievements or their own. Look at what we've learned about how social media affects self-esteem.  Or a trauma has left us in emotional pain.  So many reasons to need gentleness.  At the extreme are people with suicidal ideation. Hardly ever sure that they want to die, but certain that they don't want to continue living in such pain, emotional or physical. 

How do we get rid of the feelings that we aren't enough or that we are alone in the world? Certainly conventional therapies and medications.  But other tools too.  Mindfulness helps us make friends with ourselves.  In pottery class I made a tile decorated with a little acorn and the saying, "Nothing is missing; you are already whole."  Any hands-on skill  is a way to show ourselves kindness.  Anything where we disappear into what we are doing.  

Self-compassion doesn't mean turning away from what hurts.  It means turning toward it and asking ourselves, "What, dear friend, do you need in this moment?"  It's warm, and yet both gentle and fierce--the way we protect a child, or pet, or the vulnerable--anyone who needs us to stand up for them.  

I love the idea of softening toward ourselves.  We should sleep that way, in an embrace that shows love.  My husband sleeps like that, yes hugging me, but also hugging himself when I turn to my other side.  I tease him, but he wakes renewed.  

Let's never loose these ways of healing.  Earlier today I published a post written out of pessimism. I'm accepting that emotion.  What do I need when I feel that way?  What do you?  This post was sitting, waiting to be completed.  It lifts my soul to think how we can both face whatever we have to and show ourselves kindness at the same time.  In that way we remember how to be kind to others as well.         In love, Nina Naomi

 

 

 

HOW HAVE YOU BEEN SHAPED?

 

So many people shape our lives.  When we ponder why we act in certain ways, what we have learned from others and who influences us, we end up being thankful.  It's a lovely way to spend some stolen minutes.  I'm thanking Bella Grace magazine for this idea.  

Here's the prompt:  Who are you a product of? In what way?  As habitual or meaningful as you like.

I dry my cast iron skillet over the burner because that's what my mother did.   My grilled cheese sandwiches are just a tad burnt because my father made them that way for me.  Grandpa Jake dug worms for fishing.  From watching him, I'm careful of each worm the spade turns up in my garden.  Because Grandma Viola loved jewelry, I have her rings to cherish.  From my mother I inherited the diary her father kept during WWI.  With a friend we traced everywhere he went during his four years in France; my interest in that history grows from the diary.  The cranberry-orange nut bread we eat at Christmas is my Aunt Ruthie's recipe; I'm named for her.  My father took us to the St. Louis Art Museum as children and I enjoy nothing more than a day at a city museum.  My mother's exuberance for life was catching.  Mr McCormick got us 8th graders to sing Faure's Requiem  and inspired an ever-after love for that piece and classical choral music. But for him I would have no idea what a 16th century madrigal or motet is; do children learn that these days?  I found the benefits of expressive writing in Ms Beyer's 9th grade creative writing course.  In college our Milton professor introduced the class to the serious Christianity of Paradise Lost.  I was baptized the semester I took that course.  And this just touches the surface. 

I bet you're thinking of who has influenced you as you read this. Why you love music or fishing or baseball.  Who taught you to knit or kick a soccer ball or repair just about anything that's broken.  Why you value education or treasure our National Parks.  Whose recipes are your favorites?  Who told you Bible stories as a child, or helped you find faith?      

Our responses to the prompt are likely much longer than any reader of a post could bear.  Once begun the writing flows.  But thinking about what we're thankful for, or as a gratitude exercise, or just riffling through the trunk of our past for the good things that have touched us . . . why not take time for that?  

                         In peace, Nina Naomi  

 

 

 

THINKING ONLY OF THE GOOD

Letting go of the rest I try today to think only of the good.  

In our meadow grow daisies the size of a quarter, not too big, not too small.  But tall, taller than the carpet bugle-weeds that grow in their shadow, ladders of small blue trumpets named ajuga, a deer-resistant ground cover on steady stalks.  Neither is fragrant; their beauty is in their abundance.  We don't cut the meadow till I've brought buckets full indoors. On every surface the little bugles fall, the daisies bow after a day or two.  But we never run out, not till the grasses outgrow the flowers and they nestle down and wither.  Then the mowers come.  

What can we learn from the daisies?  Never mind if we weren't born a rose.  A meadow of wild daisies is preferred by many, strong roots, reliable year after year, each with a cheerful countenance.  We might want a few roses, but for bounty daisies are best.  A bouquet of wild flowers is an entirely good thing.

Shackleford Banks, feral horses

We got to spend Memorial Day at our North Carolina beach with family, the youngest a 4-year-old.  All morning she kept repeating, "It will be my first time on a boat," excited about the ride out to Shackleford Banks where the wild horses roam. Once settled on the ferry she looked around and said, "Who's going to keep me safe."  One of her big sisters said, "I'm right here Lily" and wrapped her arm around her.  We were accompanied by young dolphins in the no-wake zone, which made Lily's first time just that much better.  Lily may have been born a rose.  It felt like it this weekend, I think to her too.  

The three teenage cousins, all strong, reliable, with luminous faces like daisies, tended to eachother with love and humor.  They scooted off together at every opportunity, keeping late nights.  One night they set an alarm to rise for the meteor shower, then fell asleep together in one bed.  They have deep family roots.  One can be nothing but proud and hopeful in their presence. A bouquet of cousins is an entirely good thing. 

We were at the beach May 15 as well, just weeks ago, on the night of the Super Flower Blood Moon lunar eclipse.  Right out the open door high above the live oak, hovering, we saw the super moon rising full and pink in the dark sky.  It was a night to love the moment no matter how foul the news.  

Times there are when the good outweighs the bad, when we savor and store memories like summer peaches for the winters of our discontent. Never should these be neglected or disparaged.  Today, letting go of the rest, let us pick a time to live in our meadows (wherever we find them); or with the moon and the tides, married for eons, sleeping like spoons as cousins might do.  

Nina Naomi