Hokey pokey

I had a rather stressful day yesterday! I am a member of the local Junior Auxiliary Chapter. Junior Auxiliary is a national non-profit organization that encourages members to render charitable services which are beneficial to the general public, with particular emphasis on children! It is a beautiful program that I feel very privileged to be a part of. Saying that there are times when it requires a LOT of my time. For me and one of the committees that I am involved in (actually Chair) that CRAZY time is NOW! Which really is not a “good” time (if there really is such a thing) with family, FINALS, kids activities, FINALS, church, FINALS, I think you get the picture.

Well back to my yesterday. I was up way before the sun preparing for a committee meeting, getting all my materials together, dressing, make-up, hair, kids up, kids dressed, baby up, breakfast…ALL before 7:30 AM! I was what some may call a SPAZ-OID! Actually some do call…my hubby to be exact! See I really don’t deal with all that stress too well. I begin to shut-down mentally! I yell! I shouldn’t! It is inevitable that when I have to be on a schedule that my children seem to be “schedule-less” is this God teaching me patience? I get so caught up in “I HAVE SO MUCH TO DO!” Do you know what I mean? Am I the only one?

The way I “handle” the situations really is unnecessary I realize that when I am “sane”, but when I am blinded by my schedule I am a spaz! All I can focus on is NOW! I always end up having to apologize to my family, especially Billy! He is so good to me all the time but he is especially good to me when I am CRAZY! He follows me around, doing for me, helping me anyway that I will “allow” him to! He tries to talk to me and help me to re-gain consciousness, but this usually does not happen. Then I am hateful to him, MY VERY BEST FRIEND. How awful is that?

See I saw a sign yesterday that was intended to be funny but rang so true to me it read “What if the Hokey-Pokey is really what it’s ALL ABOUT”

You may be saying “WHAT?” But, yeah, it was profound to me! The now, the crazy schedule, the deadlines, they aren’t WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT! If I alienate everyone that I care about to get things done then what have I accomplished? It, being life is bigger than now! I want to be productive, don’t get me wrong, but at what cost?

So, I am making a resolution, in April instead of January, to CALM DOWN! I want to be proud of my day at its end and not have moments of temporary insanity to apologize for! I am reminded of Mark 8:36 “What benefit will it be to you if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?” Help me Lord.

Rabbit Trails

It’s funny how we are sometimes inspired. Have you ever been in the middle of a conversation with someone and asked “how did we get off talking about this?”, and then you back track through what I like to call “rabbit trails” of conversation to see just where you took that turn that ended you here.

A few days ago I was looking going through my friends’ pages on myspace catching up and seeing who was up to what. Well I came across the old song (on a page) by Tom Petty “You don’t know how it feels” (I assume this is the title). I’m not real found of the song simply because of the whole joint aspect but I do like the song, if that makes any sense. Anyways (rabbit trail LOL) when I heard the line “you don’t know how it feels to be me” it made my mind begin to “run”, which leads me to my blog!

If you watch any news, Fox News is a favorite at our house by the way (yet another rabbit trail), then you have heard all about Barack Obama and this whole race issue with his pastor Rev. Wright. My point really has nothing to do with politics, race, or the Democratic party so all of my liberal readers please don’t automatically shut me out. It’s back to the song “you don’t know how it feels to be me”.

Several years ago I enrolled (and completed by the way, another rabbit trail) in a leadership/coaching clinic. This was a great learning experience for me. Almost every time I am asked for advice and/or counseling I find that I pull most of my knowledge for the situation from that clinic. I learned all about personality profiles, paradigms and communication.

I still remember the analogy used to convey paradigms. Our speaker told us that if you set down to program a computer and told that computer that 2+2=5 then that computer was innocently told/programmed incorrectly. Its very foundation is ultimately distorted and wrong. You could argue all day with that computer that 2+2=4 but that computer BELIEVES differently, that is not what it was taught/programmed from its “birth”.

There has to be a “paradigm shift” a change in the programming/thinking. If we were computers believing that 2+2=4 then we will never know what it is like to believe that it equals 5. How could we, we weren’t programmed that way.

Which once again brings me back to Tom and “you don’t know how it feels to be me”, it’s true, YOU DON’T. Just like I don’t know how it feels to be you. I will never know how it feels to be a man, a person of color, a post abortive woman etc. Just as many of you will never know how it is to be a woman, Caucasian, child epileptic, from a divorced home, mother of a still born, and wife of a minister.

We all have a different story. That is what makes this world so wonderful. Surely we can find a common ground, chose to see the world through another’s eyes. I do believe in absolutes, please don’t get me wrong, but even in that I believe that the “greatest of these is love” 1 Cor. 13:13