::Tuesday's Tea With Me::

Come outside with me this morning. I was checking out the apple trees in the backyard and they are just beautiful right now. Look at the pink blooms. Aren't they just so delicate and pretty.

I've been thinking lately... I think as much as I enjoy all the newness and excitement of technology... It seems to wear off quickly. My iPhone was like the coolest thing for a few months. But now it is just my normal phone AND it doesn't even have Siri. Don't get me wrong I like to stay with the times, but I also like to step out of the times. Is that even making sense? I don't know how else to word it. I like to pick up an "old fashioned" book with actual pages made of paper, just for the experience of it. I know it's not as efficient to pay more for a paperback and lug boxes of books around when I can pay less and keep them all on this Kindle... but I like to feel the pages. I like to smell them and highlight things, and write down the definitions of the new words I discover there.

And it's the same thing with cooking I have discovered. Sure I can use the microwave and nuke up a quick tasty (albeit chemical laden) meal. But if my health is important to me at all, I can also spend several hours cooking up something from scratch that tastes delicious. And here is the real cincher... it is filled with the time and effort that earmarks true love. My meal is filled with Love that way. You mean I can actually eat love? Amazing.

I think that is what I love so much about my record player. I turn that thing on and I am transported to a different time. A slower pace. A healthier rhythm. In the warm light of my great grandmother's lamp, with my cup of hot tea, curled up with an "old fashioned" book, in a blanket that took me 3 years to knit... I am REALLY living. Truly living. Undistracted, unhurried, and frankly unavailable to anyone else but my own heart and the heart of my Father in Heaven. It is when I unplugged from the freeway of modernity, that I discover hidden treasures the lay just off the beaten path.

How about you? Are there places you can find to pull off the freeway and have a little adventure today?

:: Tuesday's Tea With Me ::

Is there a place you go to in order to take refuge -- a safe space to sort yourself out?

Everyone needs to know how to take refuge. No matter how much you love your life, no matter how strong or motivated you may be, you will be overwhelmed at times. Maybe you'll be trying to pick yourself up after a hard knock, or losing your house or your job, or you may simply have a hard week. At these junctions in life if you don't have a habit of taking refuge, life can begin to feel like an endless treadmill.

But there is more to life than everything going smoothly all the time. And boy have I ever learned this in life. That's not what it's about. It's not about being comfortable. It's about being in relationship with the being who created it all. And if you've been in any sort of relationship, you know.... it's not always a bed of roses.

The word "refuge" means "place of shelter." But I don't mean the basic physical shelter that every human being needs. I'm referring to the kind of shelter that shelters your spirit. A shelter in which you can tuck yourself away safely for a time and get in touch with your deepest heart's cry. This is especially important when you feel lost or overwhelmed, tossed about by external pressures or inner turmoil.

Alright so what defines a refuge? First, it should help your mind calm down. Second, it should help you feel safe and protected. On a normal day, it helps you stay connected to your center, to keep your peace-level at a 10, or to feel that other human beings share your concerns. On a bad day, your place of refuge can restore your soul. It can also function as a kind of cocoon, where you retreat to do the sort of self-examination that leads to inner change. There you can shed your masks, process your failures, and savor your joys. 

:: Tuesday's Tea With Me ::

I was talking with one of my best friends the other day. We were reminiscing about all the harrowing things we have been through in our 30 years of life and how they have all turned out to be catalysts. Between the two of us there have been some very painful and traumatic experiences. And also some choices we've made that really cost us. And I imagine that if I were to gather even a handful of friends I have grown up with, that there would be so many many trials of which to share. I know I have had friends that have passed away, some that have had cancer, car accidents, lost their homes, gotten pregnant sooner than they'd like, I mean... we ALL have something, if not many challenges in life. 

That's life right? Some of us got married young, some of us have been divorced, some of us have never been married and want to so badly, while others are married and would sure enjoy those days of singleness and freedom. Some of us are pulling our hair out because we have little muchkins running everywhere, and some of us are pulling our hair out because we haven't been able to conceive a little munchkin. And I have had several close girlfriends miscarry and it just tore my heart out for them. 

I personally have had a surgeon cut the wrong part of me during a routine operation and I nearly died. I spent years healing from that. That sheer physical pain was utterly unbearable. In my mid-20s I lost someone very dear to me to a drunk driver and saw his crushed body beneath a yellow sheet on TV. Life is really painful. And I think I have said this before but its worth saying again.... You know what you do with pain? You sit through it. I've grown to see pain as free college. Truly. If it's painful, it means you are the lucky winner of an opportunity to grow deeper and wider.

Who wants to reach our forties or fifties and be shallow? Still partying and aimlessly skipping from friendship to friendship, relationship to relationship? I don't. I want to be deep. Which means... I can count on more hardships. I find that each of these experiences has taught me to interact with and rely on God in a new way. 

Like my friend said, 

"When I get worried or overwhelmed I try to reflect back and see all the issues God has been with me through and the outcome of those.  I realize that He has delivered me out of every issue without fail. And His outcome is always sweet."

::Tuesday's Tea with Me::

I decided I would share some of my favorite quotes on forgiveness today. Sometimes I feel like I could meditate on just one of these for a long long time. That is what is so interesting to me about knowledge, it's the application thereof that gives it worth.

Forgiveness: The power to change the past.

"Forgiving is rediscovering the shining path of peace that at first you thought others took away when they betrayed you."

~Dodinsky

"The sole means to rid the soul of anger... is to forgive."

~Anonymous

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."

~Mahatma Gandhi

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you."

~Lewis B. Smedes

True

A Leisurely Pace

"Take time to rest by the way side, for I am not in a hurry. A leisurely pace accomplishes more than hurried striving."

-God

Healthy Energy

I learn so much from this show about life. I hope it never ends. I love the part where Cesar says, "He needs to work on calm and assertive energy. He can't really be assertive because he feels bad. And feeling bad is weakness."

It taught me that our energy that we carry, is directly correlated to what we believe. If we feel shame, guilt, etc. that is unhealthy. That is an unhealthy state to be in, and yet so many of us remain in this state for a long time. It harms our spirit to believe things that bring shame and guilt.

Conviction is one thing, but it is for a time and then intended to move us forward into repentance. We must live in the moment. Live day by day and release those things which we have repented for. Guilt and shame mean we have stayed in a moment too long. The moment is over, but our spirit it stuck there. The only way to move the spirit forward is through either repenting, or forgiving.

I hear Cesar say certain things and it just connects for me in life.

"I am not here to tell you that you cannot be aggressive. But I am here to tell you that you have another choice."

"I was really apprehensive at first (I didn't trust), because of past experiences, but little by little that feeling ebbed away. In the end it was a joy."

I love this stuff.

And I quote...

"I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers."

~Henry David Thoreau

Signs

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Words of Wisdom

Slow-Down Therapy {7}

"Quit planning how you're going to use your gifts and talents. (what you know, learn, possess) God's gifts just are. Be grateful and their purpose will be clear."

Break Loose from a Cultural Fog

Every once in a while I break into an intellectual clearing and run around in a field of revelation before re-entering the forest of daily life. One of my deepest desires is to live more of my life in the meadows and glades. You know what I mean? When the fog clears and you have ah-ha moments. As I get older I have begun to realize that I can actually choose to live my life in a manner that is more conducive to open space. I can live unhurried and peacefully if I pursue it.

Be all you can be. Just do it. Dare to dream. We try harder. Breakfast of champions. These slogans and philosophies of our day sound appealing on the surface, but they are tied to a consumer model of life's purpose that never brings us the whole hearted satisfaction we inwardly crave. Do I want to live life as a consumer? Is that my role in life? Wait a minute...

"Consumerism--- while promising satisfaction at every turn --- relies on our never being satisfied." Beneath its masterfully crafted images and compelling slogans, this life view is about selling products.

This is what I call "double-minded." The bible says that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. How can you promise satisfaction on one hand, and require dissatisfaction on the other? We're all being conned right out of our happiness.

I will be satisfied when I choose to be content with what I have. To value the wealth I already possess. I may need to even re-define what I consider to be wealth or success. But I'm sure as heck not going to find contentment from a culture that promises me a full glass of water while ripping the bottom right off the glass.