Category Archives: My personal journey

Love never fails

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Forty years ago today, I married my best friend.

We met at work, where I plotted to make sure my cute new colleague’s desk was placed next to mine. The scheme worked. Before long, we were doing lunch together, then hanging out after work, then introducing each other to our respective families. Besides being handsome, he was charming and witty. I was smitten.

When we vowed to take each other for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, we embarked on a journey. And what an amazing journey it’s been!

Pete and I have been lucky to experience lots of the “better” over the years – good times with wonderful friends, successful careers, a beautiful home, amazing vacations. We’ve also weathered our share of the “worse” – workplace drama, health problems, the loss of loved ones – and survived stronger than ever.

In our early days we were “poorer than church mice,” as the saying goes. Since we both worked several years for small faith-based not-for-profit organizations before retiring, we were fond of joking, “Actually, we are church mice!” But while we were never filthy rich, we’ve always had enough.

Like a gazillion other couples before us, Pete and I chose 1 Corinthians 13 as a reading for our wedding. And the more anniversaries we’ve celebrated, the more I’ve come to appreciate the standards this Biblical passage sets for the kind of love that makes a marriage last.

Love is patient. Pete’s taste in clothes and home decor is strictly “plain vanilla,” while mine tends toward “hot fudge sundae with a cherry on top.” I love carrots and beets, but detest peas and green beans. Pete thinks peas and green beans are at least okay, but would eat beets only if truly starving. And has anyone ever noticed how compulsive neatniks inevitably wind up with people whose standard of neatness is decidedly more … um … casual? At some point, we figured out these differences were not about right or wrong, but were simply preferences. The way to work out differing preferences was through compromise. And compromise, as we’ve learned over the years, takes considerable patience.

Love is kind. I first fell in love with the man who would go considerably out of his way to give me a ride to work when my car broke down. (I was driving a real lemon in those days, so it was always breaking down.) Little kindnesses have continued to be part of his charm. I still adore the man who serenades me with his dulcimer or harmonica when I’m doing morning meditation in front of the fireplace.

Love does not envy. Pete and I do have a bit of a competitive streak. We’ve been known to laugh as we sing to each other, “Anything you can do, I can do better!” And I’ve always suspected he was secretly charmed by the fact that I wasn’t the kind of girl to let the boys win at checkers. But underneath the friendly competition, we have always supported each other’s career choices. We take genuine pride in each other’s accomplishments.

Love does not boast. If there is one thing our marriage journey has taught us, it’s humility. Part of humility means that sometimes we must give up our insistence that our own way is the only right way to resolve a contentious issue. In fact, there have been times we needed to s-t-r-e-t-c-h our thinking enough to acknowledge that the other person might have a point.

Love does not dishonor others. From the time my sibs and I were old enough to date, our mother warned us to watch how a prospective partner treats other people besides us. Why? Because that’s how this person is going to treat us once the newness wears off the romance. Fortunately, one of the things that impressed me most about my sweetie was how much of a gentleman he was. He has always been unfailingly polite, diplomatic and respectful in his interactions with others, no matter who they are.

Love does not insist on its own way. During a required prenuptial counseling session, the minister who officiated at our wedding said, “I always tell young people they’ll need to compromise more than they’re used to doing.” He turned to his wife of 60 years. “One of the things I learned to do early on was say, ‘yes, dear.’ Isn’t that right?” His wife promptly replied, “Yes, dear.” To this day, Pete and I chuckle at the memory, and have been known to say to each other quite often, “Yes, dear.”

Love is not easily angered. This can be a hard one at times, since we both have a bit of a temper. When I hear a couple claim they never fight, I suspect one of two things is true. Either someone is not being quite honest about their genuine needs, or they’ve been together long enough to work through most of their differences. Luckily, over many years, we’ve gotten pretty good at not pushing each other’s buttons – at least not too hard.

Love keeps no record of wrongs. If we must “have it out” occasionally, we try to avoid “kitchen sink fighting.” (A tactic where one brings up everything, including the kitchen sink, during an argument – as in, “Whose turn is it to do the dishes, anyway?”) And forgiveness is mandatory. Few things sink a relationship faster than holding a grudge. Ephesians 4:26 reminds us, “Don’t let the sun set on your anger.”

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. While we may disagree from time to time about politics, standards of neatness, or which vegetables are tasty and which ones are gross, we thankfully agree on the important things. We’ve shared similar values from the beginning on everything from moral issues to priorities in life to the importance of giving back to the community. And we both love cats.

Love always protects. One nice thing about being married to one’s best friend is that we can be relied on to have each other’s back. Pete likes to call me his therapy skunk, and he’s taken his turn playing that role for me as well. As the designated therapy skunk, our job is to accompany each other to doctor appointments, where we provide emotional support, ask the hard questions and insist that medical people take our needs seriously.

Love always trusts. I must admit, trust came a bit hard for both of us at first. We had each been hurt in prior romantic or family-of-origin relationships I can only call “challenging.” We each had to learn not to punish the other for someone else’s failings. I was not the overly demanding parent, and Pete was not the ex with the roving eye.

Love always hopes. Over the past three years, Pete and I have both faced life-threatening health conditions. Pete has survived Stage 4 cancer treatment – chemotherapy, radical surgery, immunotherapy and multiple hospitalizations. I’ve survived a heart attack and two heart surgeries. While we’ve gotten amazing support from family, friends and our spiritual community, possibly the one biggest thing we’ve needed is hope. For hope to happen, we’ve had to lean on a health care team we can trust, and more importantly, we’ve had to lean on and trust God to get us through.

Love always perseveres. It’s fairly easy to make a marriage work when we’re experiencing the “better” and the “richer” and the “in health” part of our wedding vows. It’s when we experience the “worse” – the terrifying diagnoses, the loss of loved ones, the COVID pandemic with all its stressors – that the rubber hits the road in a relationship. If the challenges of the past few years have done nothing else, they’ve convinced us of this: We’re an unbeatable team.

Love never fails. One can often hear couples say they love each other more after decades of marriage than they did when they first got together. That’s certainly true for me. After having been through both the “better” and the “worse” together, my love for this amazing man just gets stronger every day. I don’t think I truly understood real love when I was a starry-eyed twenty-something. Of course, I remember with fondness the heady infatuation I felt in the early days of our courtship. But real love? For me, anyway, that’s come with age and maturity. The initial idealization has become a deep connection built on trust, understanding, and a long history of shared experiences. Or, as Pete and I like to say, we had an office romance that grew up.

I do have a bit of a confession to make. If anyone reading this is thinking, “Haven’t I read this blog post before?” – it’s because I posted an earlier version of it two years ago in honor of our 38th anniversary. At that time, our medical issues were so precarious and scary, I wasn’t entirely sure we would both make it to our 40th. And I wanted to make sure I got the chance to let both Pete and others know how much I appreciated him and our relationship while I still could.

But God is good! Pete’s condition is now “stable” and there has been no sign of cancer on his CT scans for almost two years now. After a couple years of cardiac rehab, I’m actually healthier than I was before. So we’re both still here, and right now, I consider myself one of the luckiest women alive.

After 40 years of marriage, Pete is still at the very top of my gratitude list. He’s kind, generous, decent and caring, my best friend, the wind beneath my wings, proof positive that there are good men, and the best thing that ever happened to me. I love that man to the moon and back, and I truly consider him to be a gift from a kind and loving God.

And I pray every day for God to please watch over us and take care of us, because I want us to have many more years together!

Update: Some good news

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Over the past year and a half, several of you who follow my blog have been generously keeping my husband Pete and me in your prayers. So, on this very blessed Easter Sunday, I’d like to take this opportunity to offer an update.

Pete was diagnosed with bladder cancer in October of 2022, and in December of the same year, I had a heart attack. I got the easier part of the bargain – two stents for Christmas, followed by cardiac rehab therapy, a healthier eating plan and more exercise. Pete’s journey has been far more grueling – chemotherapy, followed by major surgery to remove his bladder, then several hospitalizations due to infections and other complications, and finally, immunotherapy treatments.

There were bright spots, like the major milestone moment when Pete “rang the bell” upon finishing chemo last spring.

But much of 2023 was a chaotic roller coaster ride of repeated hospital stays, juggling medical appointments (sometimes as many as 15 in one week between the two of us) and frustrating efforts to navigate the health care system – not to mention an abundance of anxiety and uncertainty about the future.

So it’s with much relief, joy and thanksgiving that we’re finally able to report some good news. In mid-March, Pete went for a complete follow-up CT scan of his lungs, abdomen and pelvis. Nothing scary was growing and several previous “areas of concern” had either shrunk or disappeared entirely. Last week, Pete’s oncologist confirmed that his current regimen of immunotherapy seems to be keeping his “bad-boy cells” under control.

Because it’s Stage 4, there is no cure at this point. But the oncologist assures us the cancer continues to be treatable, and so far (knock wood!) the side effects from the immunotherapy have been minimal. These days, a LOT can be done – even some advanced cancers are now being treated like a chronic illness rather than an automatic death sentence. As Pete said a few days ago in his Facebook update about the CT scan results: “This stuff never goes away, and doctors deal with probabilities, not certainties. But I’m taking this as very good news indeed!”

Meanwhile, my heart attack was definitely a wake-up call. My heart – quite literally – was telling me I really, really needed to establish better eating habits and address my mostly sedentary lifestyle. My cardiac rehab program offered nutritional advice, a personalized exercise plan and educational classes on how to live with a heart condition. So we’ve established a healthy eating plan and have added yoga and walking to our routine.

This, of course, has me singing: “Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah, hallelujah, hal-le-e-lu-jah!” (Picture a choir singing the “Hallelujah Chorus” from The Messiah.) And I do have much to be thankful for.

I have been impressed and humbled by my dear husband’s strength, courage and persistence as he has plowed through his endless treatments.

I’ve taken to calling Champie our furry little comforter. Our sweet kitty kept Pete company and rubbed noses with him as Pete was recuperating from surgery and other complications. Our fur baby cuddled up with me on those lonely nights when Pete was in the hospital and I had to sleep alone at home. Even at the ripe old age of 18, he continues to be his sweet, ornery, adorable self.

We are both beyond grateful for the mountain of get-well wishes, the delicious meals sent to our house by special angels when we didn’t feel like cooking, the offers to assist with transportation and other needs, the cat photos and baby goat videos and bad puns posted to our Facebook pages to cheer us up, and the many other things our wonderful family members and friends have done to help us feel supported and loved as we’ve traveled through this uncharted and often frightening and frustrating territory.

Everyone’s continued prayers have been especially appreciated!! Our church congregation has kept us on their prayer list for well over a year now, and friends and family members have put us on the prayer lists at their own churches. The Dominican Sisters in our community have enveloped us in prayer and provided us with spiritual direction. Several dear readers who follow this blog have assured us that we’re in your prayers as well. The steady stream of prayers, cards and visits have helped more than people know!

We’ve even gotten support from complete strangers who probably have no idea how much of an impact their small actions are having. When we’re out and about, especially when we’re on our way to doctor’s appointments, we make a point of driving by the house on MacArthur Boulevard with this sign in their yard.

While we’ve gotten amazing support from family, friends and our spiritual community, possibly the one biggest thing we’ve needed is hope. For hope to happen, we’ve had to lean on a health care team we can trust.

Over the past year, we’ve assembled a good medical team that is helping both of us get the ongoing physical care we need. As exasperating as our health care system can be to navigate, we’ve been blessed with competent and dedicated health care professionals, from Pete’s oncologist and my heart specialists to the overnight nursing staff who helped keep Pete and me comfortable during hospital stays.

We mustn’t forget to mention the amazing staff at the Simmons Cancer Institute’s infusion center, the interventional radiology team at St. John’s Hospital, the folks at the Prairie Heart Institute’s cardiac rehab center, and the home health team who came to our house throughout the late winter, spring and early summer of 2023.

More importantly, we’ve had to lean on and trust God to get us through. The “Prayer of Good Courage” was written in 1941 by Anglican priest Eric Milner-White, and is a favorite at Holden Village, a Christian retreat center in Washington state. It has become a favorite for Pete and me as well, especially during times when we’ve found it hard to trust where God might be leading us next.

So … Pete and I finally seem to be turning a corner. I hope!! For those who have been keeping us in your prayers and offering a million other kinds of generous support — thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Happy Easter, everyone! Christ is risen indeed.

Love never fails

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Thirty-eight years ago today, I married my best friend.

We met at work, where I plotted to make sure my cute new colleague’s desk was placed next to mine. The scheme worked. Before long, we were doing lunch together, then hanging out after work, then introducing each other to our respective families. Besides being handsome, he was charming and witty. I was smitten.

When we vowed to take each other for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, we embarked on a journey. And what an amazing journey it’s been!

Pete and I have been lucky to experience lots of the “better” over the years – good times with wonderful friends, successful careers, a beautiful home, amazing vacations. We’ve also weathered our share of the “worse” – workplace drama, health problems, the loss of loved ones – and survived stronger than ever.

In our early days we were “poorer than church mice,” as the saying goes. Since we both worked for small faith-based not-for-profit organizations, we were fond of joking, “Actually, we are church mice!” But while we were never filthy rich, we’ve always had enough.

Like a gazillion other couples before us, Pete and I chose 1 Corinthians 13 as a reading for our wedding. And the more anniversaries we’ve celebrated, the more I’ve come to appreciate the standards this Biblical passage sets for the kind of love that makes a marriage last.

Love is patient. Pete’s taste in clothes and home decor is strictly “plain vanilla,” while mine tends toward “hot fudge sundae with a cherry on top.” I love carrots and beets, but detest peas and green beans. Pete thinks peas and green beans are at least okay, but would eat beets only if truly starving. And has anyone ever noticed how compulsive neatniks inevitably wind up with people whose standard of neatness is decidedly more … um … casual? At some point, we figured out these differences were not about right or wrong, but were simply preferences. The way to work out differing preferences was through compromise. And compromise, as we’ve learned over the years, takes considerable patience.

Love is kind. I first fell in love with the man who would go considerably out of his way to give me a ride to work when my car broke down. (I was driving a real lemon in those days, so it was always breaking down.) Little kindnesses have continued to be part of his charm. I still adore the man who serenades me with his dulcimer or harmonica when I’m doing morning meditation in front of the fireplace.

Love does not envy. Pete and I do have a bit of a competitive streak. We’ve been known to laugh as we sing to each other, “Anything you can do, I can do better!” And I’ve always suspected he was secretly charmed by the fact that I wasn’t the kind of girl to let the boys win at checkers. But underneath the friendly competition, we have always supported each other’s career choices. We take genuine pride in each other’s accomplishments.

Love does not boast. If there is one thing our marriage journey has taught us, it’s humility. Part of humility means that sometimes we must give up our insistence that our own way is the only right way to resolve a contentious issue. In fact, there have been times we needed to s-t-r-e-t-c-h our thinking enough to acknowledge that the other person might have a point.

Love does not dishonor others. From the time my sibs and I were old enough to date, our mother warned us to watch how a prospective partner treats other people besides us. Why? Because that’s how this person is going to treat us once the newness wears off the romance. Fortunately, one of the things that impressed me most about my sweetie was how much of a gentleman he was. He has always been unfailingly polite, diplomatic and respectful in his interactions with others, no matter who they are.

Love does not insist on its own way. During a required prenuptial counseling session, the minister who officiated at our wedding said, “I always tell young people they’ll need to compromise more than they’re used to doing.” He turned to his wife of 60 years. “One of the things I learned to do early on was say, ‘yes, dear.’ Isn’t that right?” His wife promptly replied, “Yes, dear.” To this day, Pete and I chuckle at the memory, and have been known to say to each other quite often, “Yes, dear.”

Love is not easily angered. This can be a hard one at times, since we both have a bit of a temper. When I hear a couple claim they never fight, I suspect one of two things is true. Either someone is not being quite honest about their genuine needs, or they’ve been together long enough to work through most of their differences. Luckily, over many years, we’ve gotten pretty good at not pushing each other’s buttons – at least not too hard.

Love keeps no record of wrongs. If we must “have it out” occasionally, we try to avoid “kitchen sink fighting.” (A tactic where one brings up everything, including the kitchen sink, during an argument – as in, “Whose turn is it to do the dishes, anyway?”) And forgiveness is mandatory. Few things sink a relationship faster than holding a grudge. Ephesians 4:26 reminds us, “Don’t let the sun set on your anger.”

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. While we may disagree from time to time about politics, standards of neatness, or which vegetables are tasty and which ones are gross, we thankfully agree on the important things. We’ve shared similar values from the beginning on everything from moral issues to priorities in life to the importance of giving back to the community.

Love always protects. One nice thing about being married to one’s best friend is that we can be relied on to have each other’s back. Pete likes to call me his therapy skunk, and he’s taken his turn playing that role for me as well. As the designated therapy skunk, our job is to accompany each other to doctor appointments, where we provide emotional support, ask the hard questions and insist that medical people take our needs seriously.

Love always trusts. I must admit, trust came a bit hard for both of us at first. We had each been hurt in prior romantic or family-of-origin relationships I can only call “challenging.” We each had to learn not to punish the other for someone else’s failings. I was not the overly demanding parent, and Pete was not the ex with the roving eye.

Love always hopes. Over the past year, Pete and I have both faced life-threatening health conditions. While we’ve gotten amazing support from family, friends and our spiritual community, possibly the one biggest thing we’ve needed is hope. For hope to happen, we’ve had to lean on a health care team we can trust, and more importantly, we’ve had to lean on and trust God to get us through.

Love always perseveres. It’s fairly easy to make a marriage work when we’re experiencing the “better” and the “richer” and the “in health” part of our wedding vows. It’s when we experience the “worse” – the sickness, the loss of loved ones, the COVID pandemic with all its stressors –that the rubber hits the road in a relationship. If the challenges of the past few years have done nothing else, they’ve convinced us of this: We’re an unbeatable team.

Love never fails. One can often hear couples say they love each other more after decades of marriage than they did when they first got together. That’s certainly true for me. After having been through both the “better” and the “worse” together, my love for this amazing man just gets stronger every day. I don’t think I truly understood real love when I was a starry-eyed twenty-something. Of course, I remember with fondness the heady infatuation I felt in the early days of our courtship. But real love? For me, anyway, that’s come with age and maturity. The initial idealization has become a deep connection built on trust, understanding, and a long history of shared experiences. Or, as Pete and I like to say, we had an office romance that grew up.

After 38 years of marriage, Pete is still at the very top of my gratitude list. He’s kind, generous, decent and caring, my best friend, the wind beneath my wings, proof positive that there are good men, and the best thing that ever happened to me. I love that man to the moon and back, and I truly consider him to be a gift from a kind and loving God.

And I pray every day for God to please watch over us and take care of us, because I want us to have many more years together!

My priorities as I walk through the valley

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In what has become a birthday tradition, I like to start my “personal new year” by reviewing my priorities. Are they the same as they were last year? How well have I honored them? Does anything need to change? For more than a decade, this annual exercise has helped me stay focused so extraneous clutter – material, mental or spiritual – doesn’t crowd out what truly matters.

The past couple of birthdays, however, have found me deep in “midnight of the soul” territory. In a very real way, my husband and I have been walking through the valley of the shadow of death spoken of in the 23rd Psalm.

This period of trial, upheaval and loss started in 2019, when my mother passed away and I was hospitalized three times – once in ICU. I remember actually looking forward to 2020, which I assumed couldn’t possibly be as much of a ring-tailed monster as 2019. The pandemic, of course, upended our lives in ways I’m only now beginning to completely absorb. We’ve also lost an unbearably long list of loved ones in a very short time – at least a dozen family members, close friends and mentors, and even one of our beloved cats.

Then, in late 2022, our lives turned upside down again when I had a heart attack and Pete was diagnosed with cancer. Much of 2023 so far has been a chaotic roller coaster ride of hospital stays, medical appointments (sometimes as many as 15 in one week) and frustrating efforts to navigate the health care system – not to mention an abundance of anxiety and uncertainty about the future.

In short, to say that the past few years have not gone as originally planned would be the understatement of the century. I’ve slowly begun to accept that our lives aren’t going “back to normal” – that is, pre-2019 – anytime soon. If ever. So how do I continue to keep my priorities front and center in the face of our changed reality?

Most years, I’ve devoted my birthday weekend to prayer and reflection – sort of a personal retreat – as I evaluate my priorities and set goals for the coming year. This time, the process has taken more than a month, and I’m not finished yet. Instead of my usual practice of reviewing the previous year’s priorities to see how well I did, I went back through a decade’s worth of journal entries. This turned out to be an eye-opening experience.

First, I realized my stated priorities hadn’t changed at all in several years. The priorities I’ve listed for 10 years running are my relationship with God, self-care, family and friends, a clean house, my writing, service to others, eliminating backlog tasks, and serenity. I asked myself, “After everything Pete and I have been through, shouldn’t something change? Am I really meant to do nothing but fight to preserve the status quo going forward?”

Another thing I couldn’t help noticing: My efforts to stick with my priorities have often met with only limited success, even before our lives turned topsy-turvy. I’ve allowed stress or incessant busyness to derail my healthy eating and exercise plans too many times to count. My goal of a perfectly clean house with a place for everything and everything in its place continues to elude me and probably always will. And some of the tasks on my “backlog” list have literally been there for years. I asked myself, “Have my priorities and goals perhaps been good in theory, but ultimately unrealistic?”

Finally, given the nerve-wracking unpredictablity Pete and I live with these days, and the frequency with which my priorities end up sidelined or completely hijacked, I asked myself this question: “Is it even worth it to have priorities, set goals or plan ahead at all?”

On the other hand, the past several years have seen some worthwhile accomplishments, despite the barriers created by the pandemic and our ongoing health issues. Beginning spiritual direction. Completing major landscaping work to make our yard environmentally friendly. Setting up a donor-advised fund with our local community foundation. Leading an adult faith formation group at our church. Participating in an anti-racism task force. Starting and maintaining my blog.

I’ve also discovered that, in the face of our current crises, some of my priorities have become more crucial than ever, even if I haven’t always been able to honor them the way I wish I could. So, over the past month, I’ve been using my daily meditation time to identify what remains most important to me and what needs to change.

Priorities definitely worth hanging onto include improving my relationship with God, maintaining contact with family and friends, and continuing with my writing. Several times in the past year, I’ve found myself wondering how anyone gets though the challenges Pete and I are facing without faith in God. Family and friends have been there for us in a huge way, and I want to let the people I love know how much they mean to me while I still can. Writing has been therapy for me.

I’ve decided that some of my other priorities remain essential, but could use a bit of refining. For example, I’m learning I can do a better job serving my community if I pare down my commitments and focus my energy in one or two areas rather than trying to spread myself too thin. Maintaining our home as a sanctuary for ourselves and our loved ones has moved beyond keeping everything neat and clean. If we want to stay in our home long-term, we’ll need to make it more handicapped accessible. And I no longer think of “self-care” simply in terms of buying myself a new outfit or spending a day at the spa. This year, it’s meant assembling a competent medical team and learning to be assertive with health care professionals.

There have also been some unexpected lessons, so – for the first time nearly a decade – I’m actually changing a couple of my priorities.

Instead of “eliminate backlog tasks,” I’ve made “unfinished business” a priority. Unfinished business is more than getting my tax returns done on time and checking items off an endless to-do list. I want to include “bucket-list” items. I’ve decided it’s time to seriously ask myself what I want to do with my life in the time I have left to me. I need to develop the self-discipline to keep my priorities front and center, so I don’t get bogged down in constant trivial distractions like computer solitaire or culture-war drama on the cable news networks.

And, instead of “serenity,” I’ve made “emotional health” a priority. One might say this was the year I took off the pasted-on smile. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t felt true serenity in a long, long time. In the aftermath of the pandemic and our medical issues, I’ve struggled to establish new routines and ward off exhaustion, depression and despair. Serenity and gratitude are good things, of course, but I’ve decided what I really need is to be in touch with all my emotions. Being able to acknowledge when I’m not fine and to reach out for help is essential. “Serenity” is only the first part of the Serenity Prayer. We also ask God for courage and wisdom.

So, here are my revised priorities:

  • Relationship with God. Develop a better understanding of God, so I can fulfill God’s purpose for my life, discern what my core values should be and live accordingly.
  • Self-care. Restore myself to health as much as possible, with help from God and our medical team, and support Pete in doing the same.
  • Family and friends. Stay in contact with the people I love and care about, and continue to nurture good relationships with them.
  • Our home. Stay in our own home for as long as possible by making it handicapped-accessible and maintain our house and yard as a sanctuary for ourselves, our family and friends, and the wildlife that shares our space.
  • My writing. Write articles and create photo essays, make my blog reader-friendly and keep plugging away at my book.
  • Service to others. Use a portion of my time, money and talent to help others and create positive change in the world.
  • Unfinished business. Seriously ask myself what I still want to do with my life in the time I have left to me, then eliminate clutter and backlog tasks that drain my energy, render my life more chaotic than it needs to be, and distract me from achieving these long-term goals. 
  • Emotional health. Achieve peace of mind by keeping prayer and meditation in my daily schedule, practicing mindfulness, being my authentic self and finding at least one thing each day to be grateful for. 

For each priority, my next step is to ask myself where I’ve been, where I am now and where I need to go from here. Whatever happens in the days, weeks or months ahead – especially with our medical issues – I’m asking God for courage, wisdom, healing and hope for both Pete and I as we move forward.

Meanwhile I can remind myself, in the words of the 23rd Psalm, “I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.”

Grateful for an amazing program

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Today, I’m celebrating a major milestone: 30 years of continuous sobriety.

I was what many would call a “functioning” alcoholic/addict. I was married to a wonderful man. I had a nice home. I had a successful career as an award-winning journalist. I never got a DUI. But my life was nevertheless full of the needless complications that came from denying a problem I desperately needed to get real about.

I’ll spare readers the “drunk-a-log” one occasionally hears in 12-Step meetings. Suffice it to say the recreational drug use my friends and I engaged in may have been considered normal at that time among many people of my generation, but it certainly was not healthy. I referred to the endless round of political fund-raisers, Chamber of Commerce cocktail parties and Happy Hour gatherings with colleagues as “networking” and convinced myself these alcohol-soaked events were essential to my job … until I wound up in detox.

When I embarked on my recovery journey in 1992, I immersed myself in the 12-Step movement – one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Recovery from alcoholism/addiction has brought with it many gifts, both simple and profound, but perhaps one of the greatest gifts was the 12-Step program itself.

Rigorous honesty was a hallmark of “the program,” and the first thing that appealed to me was a refreshing level of openness of a kind I hadn’t seen before. People “around the tables” talked frankly about their private problems in ways we usually don’t do in a society that encourages us to paste on a smiley face and edit the details of our lives for public consumption. My own issues didn’t make me as unique as I thought they did.

The program turned out to be an amazing training course in basic life skills. By sharing our stories of experience, strength and hope with others in the group, we taught each other how to acknowledge problems rather than sweeping them under the rug, look for our own part in these problems rather than blaming everyone around us, promptly admit when we were wrong and make amends, and reach out for help when we needed it.

Meetings gave me the chance to practice relating to all kinds of people without a drink in my hand. My fellow travelers often observed at meetings, “We are people who ordinarily would not mix.” And the diversity was amazing – young and old, male and female, janitors and CEOs, every race and ethnic group, every conceivable religion and none.

Some of the positive changes in my life showed up almost immediately.

Mornings were much more pleasant. In fact, when I first got sober, I was amazed to discover I was actually a morning person. Instead of waking up with a hangover, I started the day sitting in my favorite recliner with a cat in my lap and a cup of freshly-brewed coffee at my side while I journaled about everything from spiritual questions to daily priorities. This meditation ritual remains a vital part of my prayer life to this day.

Our house stayed cleaner. I can’t say it stayed perfectly clean 100 percent of the time (we’re talking progress rather than perfection here), but it was at least presentable. That, and my housekeeping standards got a bit more realistic. 

Our financial situation improved even before I started getting better jobs and pay raises. I was surprised to find out how much more money we had left over at the end of each month. I could actually pay all the bills, in full, and even put something into savings.

Instead of sleepwalking through most of my waking hours as I crossed one item after another off my endless to-do lists, I began to take notice of beautiful sunsets, the first crocuses of spring, wildflowers along road banks, fall leaves, and the birds, squirrels and other wildlife in our backyard.

Some changes came more gradually.

I began to have more real relationships, as opposed to the merely transactional ones that were so much a part of my professional life. My marriage improved. (I’m still married to the same wonderful man, who I truly believe is a gift from a kind and loving God.) I visited my family more often. I got better at holding up my end of friendships.

I was increasingly in a position to give back to others.  I became active at church, where I sang in the choir, and did volunteer work in the community. I was able to contribute time and money to organizations that help others less fortunate than I was. (And I learned how to stay off the pity pot long enough to realize there were people less fortunate than I was.)

I got a master’s degree and transitioned from journalism and public relations to a career in human services, where I worked with people experiencing disability issues, addiction, mental health issues, domestic violence, homelessness, human trafficking and involvement in the criminal justice system.

Every so often in those early years of recovery, I’d have little epiphanies.

One morning after I’d been sober a couple of years, I woke up feeling nauseous and achy all over. The first thought that came to mind was, “Should I call in sick to work or will I feel fine by noon and be embarrassed?” Then I burst out laughing as it dawned on me that having symptoms like that now meant I really was sick. There had once been a time when I woke up with flu-like symptoms day after day and considered this normal. How lovely that I didn’t have to live like that anymore!

Another such epiphany came when I suddenly noticed the absence of something – constant fear. I no longer worried about who I might run into at the grocery store, or what they might see in my cart. I no longer risked embarrassing myself in public by announcing to a friend in front of 50 people that her new outfit made her look fat. I no longer panicked when I saw a squad car behind me in traffic because I no longer risked the prospect of shelling out thousands of dollars to pay for lawyers, fines and other expenses associated with a DUI or drug possession charge. I no longer lived in dread that I might do something truly awful – like killing somebody while driving impaired. Or worse, a whole carload of somebodies. Nor did I l have to live with the nagging suspicion that I was doing irreversible damage to my own body.

I know some Christians express concern about certain aspects of 12-Step programs, especially when participants use them as a substitute for church. The 12-Step movement in all its incarnations (A.A., N.A., Al Anon, CODA) does label itself “spiritual but not religious.” The people I met “around the tables” came from a wide variety of spiritual/religious backgrounds with wildly diverse understandings about God. For me, however, the program was what brought me back to God, and eventually back to church.

I was able to deconstruct and reconstruct both my faith and my life in ways I probably wouldn’t have done otherwise. (One might say 12-Steppers were “deconstructing” before deconstruction was cool.) Among other things, my 12-Step friends encouraged me to fire the perpetually angry God of my childhood understanding and get in touch with the real one. On issues of spirituality, folks at the meetings advised me, “Take what you need and leave the rest.”

At this point in my life, I do consider my church congregation to be my spiritual community. And in a way, I think that is one of the things a good 12-Step group can do – it can bring people back into a spiritual or even religious community who wanted nothing to do with any of it prior to their recovery journey.

I certainly don’t mean to imply my life has been perfect since I got into recovery all those years ago. Pete and I have experienced the loss of both sets of parents and several beloved friends. Right now, as I write this, we are living through chemotherapy (for Pete) and cardiac rehab following a heart attack (for me). And, of course, there’s been all the disruption and craziness brought on by the pandemic.

But the program has taught me how to face these crises one day at a time. “The Promises” beloved by the 12-Step community assured us that we would begin to “intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us.” And, “we will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.” Both of these promises have largely come true.

Perhaps most importantly, I’ve learned that help from supportive people – and from God – is always available in times of trouble. There is no problem so big I have to drink over it, and I never have to face any problem alone.

My priorities as I adjust to a new reality

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23

In what has become a birthday tradition, I like to start my “personal New Year” by reviewing my priorities. The annual exercise helps me stay focused so various types of clutter – material, mental or spiritual – don’t crowd out what really matters.

This birthday, however, found me in a “dark night of the soul” kind of mood – trying to make sense of and recuperate from a period of upheaval and loss that started even before the pandemic.

In 2019, I was hospitalized three times – once in ICU. Meanwhile, my mother was placed in hospice care in the spring and passed away in the fall. I remember actually looking forward to 2020, which I assumed couldn’t possibly be as much of a ring-tailed monster as 2019 …

COVID-19 has upended our lives in ways I’m just now beginning to completely absorb. Pete was hospitalized twice – for a week in 2020 and then for two very scary weeks in 2021. I’ve lost what feels like an unbearably long string of loved ones from various causes – at least a dozen family members and close friends, a much-admired mentor, my spiritual director, and even one of my beloved cats.

As the endless pandemic rages on in our community, I’ve struggled to establish new routines and ward off exhaustion and depression. I’m ready to turn a corner!!

So this year, I devoted my birthday weekend to prayer and reflection – sort of a personal retreat. Only instead of isolating myself in the house, I spent as much time as possible outdoors, including a trip to Jubilee Farm, where I walked their prayer labyrinth for the first time.

I’ve decided the overall priorities I identified in previous years are still important to me, so they will remain the same for now – my personal relationship with God, self-care, family and friends, our home, my writing, service to others, elimination of backlog tasks, and serenity/gratitude.

For each priority, I’ve set a long-term goal, evaluated my progress for the past year, and created an intention for the coming year. 

Priority: Relationship with God

Long-term goal: Develop a better understanding of God, so I can fulfill God’s purpose for my life, discern what my core values should be and live accordingly.

Progress/changes this past year: In my grief and anger at God over the loss of so many loved ones, I allowed my daily meditation sessions to go by the wayside for several months. Pete and I did make progress in other areas, however. After a year’s hiatus following the death of our previous spiritual director, we began working with someone new. We’ve also spent more time outdoors – mostly in our backyard and walking around the neighborhood – where nature’s majesty reassures me of God’s continued presence.

Intention for the coming year: I want to resume the meditation sessions that have been a vital part of my daily routine for more than a quarter century. I’m also working with my new spiritual director to address my grief issues and find a way to move forward from the disruption wreaked by the pandemic.

Priority: Self-care

Long-term goal: Stay healthy for as long as possible and help my husband do the same.

Progress/changes this past year: I must admit my healthy eating plan flew out the window for much of the year, and by spring, my cholesterol had gotten sky high again. During the height of the pandemic, especially before the vaccine became available to us, I was skimping on all but emergency medical care. This past year I was fortunately able to resume routine dental and eye care and regular visits with my primary care provider, and I completed a round of physical therapy for chronic pain issues.

Intention for the coming year: Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit – pandemic or no pandemic – and I seriously need to get back on track with my healthy eating plan. And keep going on those walks with Pete.

Priority: Family and friends

Long-term goal: Keep in contact and nurture good relationships with the people I love and care about.

Progress/changes this past year: During the spring and summer, we finally got to visit face-to-face with family and friends for the first time in a couple of years – outdoors and mostly in our backyard. We’ve also continued to get together via Zoom and FaceTime.

Intention for the coming year: More and more, I’m confronted with the reality that I’m not always going to have my loved ones with me. Hopefully we’ll be able to do more in-person gatherings, especially outdoor activities. But now that we’ve learned the technology, I’d like to continue the Zoom and FaceTime visits as well. With family and close friends scattered all over the U.S. and in three different countries, staying connected was a challenge even before the pandemic. Why limit visits with far-away loved ones to once every five or ten years?

Priority: Our home

Long-term goal: Maintain our home as a sanctuary for ourselves, our family and our friends.

Progress/changes this past year:  We had extensive landscaping work done in the spring and I planted lots of new native perennials. I’ve found gardening to be especially therapeutic, and the yard is looking beautiful! The inside of the house stays mostly presentable after I deep-cleaned it from attic to basement last year just before my birthday.

Intention for the coming year: Now that our house and yard are looking spiffy, the trick will be keeping them that way. I would like to commit to one hour each weekday for maintenance cleaning. I want to continue adding native plants to our flower beds and turn the yard into one big pollinator paradise. And hang some more pictures on our walls.

Priority: My writing

Long-term goal: Write articles, essays, blog entries and at least one book.

Progress/changes this past year: I kept up with my blog and got some more book excerpts written. Writing and photography have also turned out to be therapeutic. Doing blog posts every other week is working out well. I post often enough to keep readers engaged, but spread out the posts enough so I don’t feel pressured.

Intention for the coming year: I’d like to commit at least one hour per weekday to my writing. I want to re-design my blog a bit to make it more user-friendly, and start working on an overall book outline, now that I have several excerpts written and have a better idea of where I want to go with the book.

Priority: Service to others

Long-term goal: Use a portion of my time, money and talent to help others and create positive change in the world.

Progress/changes this past year: At this point, Pete and i have definitely gotten re-involved in the community despite COVID. We began facilitating “Sundays@6” – an adult faith formation group at our church conducted via Zoom – which has proven to be quite successful. I continued to serve on our congregation’s community service committee and have committed to helping keep their micro food pantry stocked. We became Dominican Associates (who assist, among other things, with the Dominican Sisters’ social justice activities) and we plan to get involved in their anti-racism and environmental efforts.

Intention for the coming year: I plan to continue these activities. I’m content to maintain the “status quo” here, since it’s important that I not allow my schedule to get overloaded the way it constantly was prior to the pandemic.

Priority: Backlog

Long-term goal: Eliminate clutter and backlog tasks that drain my energy, render my life more chaotic than it needs to be, and distract me from achieving my long-term goals. 

Progress/changes this past year: Pete and I finally set up a donor-advised fund with our local community foundation. The fund, created in honor of our parents, will make small grants to local charitable organizations and provide scholarships for needy/underserved students at our local community college. We’d been talking about doing this for years, so I’m pleased.

Intention for the coming year: I’d like to commit to completing a couple more backlog tasks I listed as goals for last year. The first one: Getting together with Thrivent Financial to help us find some socially responsible investment opportunities. The second one: Getting solar panels on our roof. Let’s see if I can actually get them done this coming year!

Priority: Serenity/Gratitude

Long-term goal: Achieve serenity by practicing mindfulness and finding at least one thing each day to be grateful for. 

Progress/changes this past year: To be honest, I haven’t felt a lot of serenity in quite some time. I’ve been discussing my grieving process with my spiritual director, and she’s encouraged me to take whatever time I need to mourn my losses. I’ve discovered it is possible to feel gratitude and grief simultaneously – I certainly feel gratitude for the lives of the loved ones I’ve lost, which is one reason the grief is so strong! Pete and I are finally taking walks. We need to keep this up. 

Intention for the coming year: My spiritual director has suggested doing something to honor my lost loved ones. Pete and I have established the above-mentioned donor-advised fund with our local community foundation in honor of our parents. I planted a Rose of Sharon tree in memory of Little Oley Cat and scattered his ashes under it. I want to find ways to honor those others whose lives I’m grateful for as well, including those I’m lucky enough to still have with me. I’ve also started to experience some spiritual healing through gardening and taking walks with Pete.

As much as anything in the coming year, I’ve decided I need healing and hope. Fortunately, I have a wonderful new spiritual director and some great support from my family, friends and spiritual community to help me on this journey. For this, I am grateful.

I also have a favorite prayer I can recite whenever the need arises:

Amen.

My priorities as I rejoin the world

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In what has become a birthday tradition, I like to start my “personal New Year” by reviewing my priorities. Are they the same as they were last year? Or does something need to change? I use my morning meditation time to identify what is most important to me. For each priority, I set a long-term goal, evaluate my progress for the past year, and create an intention for the coming year. 

This annual exercise helps me stay focused so various types of clutter – material, mental or spiritual – don’t crowd out what really matters. And this past year has definitely been a year for clearing out clutter of all kinds. 

The overall priorities I’ve identified in previous years are still important to me, so they will remain the same for now – my personal relationship with God, self-care, family and friends, our home, my writing, service to others, elimination of backlog tasks, and serenity/gratitude. But the past year has brought some unexpected lessons, along with changes in how I approach my priorities. 

While the pandemic created an enormous amount of disruption, the prolonged quarantine forced me to slow down, which in turn gave me an opportunity to evaluate how I spend my time. If nothing else, the pandemic reinforced my desire to actually live my life rather than sleepwalking through my days while I rush-rush-rush through deadlines and appointments.

At first, I struggled to establish new routines and ward off mild depression, but with a bit of creativity, I began finding ways to turn the enforced downtime into a surprising level of genuine productivity. With so many activities cancelled, my schedule opened up and needless “busyness” disappeared. 

Frankly, I’d like to keep it that way, which raises the question: What changed during the pandemic, and which changes would I like to hang onto?

Priority: Relationship with God

Long-term goal: Develop a better understanding of God, so I can fulfill God’s purpose for my life, discern what my core values should be and live accordingly.

Progress/changes this past year: Our church building remained closed for a good part of the year, which meant no in-person Sunday services. However, my husband and I did “attend” our church’s online service nearly every week, and we participated in a weekly Bible study group, a book group and committee meetings via Zoom. Since the ongoing quarantine almost entirely prevented us from leaving the house, I had time for meditation sessions nearly every morning and added some evening sessions as well. I also spent more time outdoors – mostly in my backyard and walking around my neighborhood – where nature’s majesty constantly reassured me of God’s presence.

Intention for the coming year: As Pete and I rejoin the outside world, I want to make sure my indoor and outdoor meditation sessions remain part of my daily routine. Sadly, one of my losses in 2020 was the death of my spiritual advisor last fall. I had engaged her three years earlier to help me sort through my bushel basket full of questions about everything from what my life purpose should be in retirement to my occasional doubts about the existence of God. She was completely nonjudgmental, and encouraged me to be honest about the questions I had. In her honor, I plan to keep asking those questions as I move forward in my spiritual journey.

Priority: Self-care

Long-term goal: Stay healthy for as long as possible and help my husband do the same.

Progress/changes this past year: With our twice-weekly Stay Fit exercise program cancelled and my healthy eating plan off the rails because of emotional binging on too much comfort food, I started the year well on my way to gaining the dreaded Quarantine 15. However, I reminded myself that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit – pandemic or no pandemic – and I mostly managed to get back on track. Pete and I added yoga and regular walks to our routine and, with our favorite restaurants closed except for takeout and delivery, I spent a lot more time cooking.

Intention for the coming year: Before the pandemic, Pete and I ate out at restaurants way too often – usually several times a week. Worse, we consumed many of those meals at all-you-can-eat buffets. I’d like to keep our new eat-at-home habit in place, since it’s much healthier. 

Priority: Family and friends

Long-term goal: Keep in contact and nurture good relationships with the people I love and care about.

Progress/changes this past year: All face-to-face gatherings with family and friends have been off the table since March 2020, and we are just now beginning to plan in-person visits. Thank God for Zoom and FaceTime. Learning new technology – new to me, I should say – really helped me stay in touch with everyone.

Intention for the coming year: With family and close friends scattered all over the U.S. and in three different countries, staying connected was a challenge even before the pandemic. So I plan to continue scheduling regular online “get-togethers” with family and friends even after our quarantine ordeal is a thing of the past. Now that I’ve learned how to use the technology, why limit visits with far-away loved ones to once every five years?

Priority: Our home

Long-term goal: Maintain our home as a sanctuary for ourselves, our family and our friends.

Progress/changes this past year: I’ve come tantalizingly close to achieving my goal of a perfectly clean house with a place for everything and everything in its place. While quarantined, I cleaned out drawers, cupboards and closets, and tackled the basement and garage. We even got our trees trimmed and some new landscaping completed. 

Intention for the coming year: Now that our humble abode is looking pretty spiffy, the trick will be keeping it that way. I would like to commit to one hour each weekday for maintenance cleaning. I will also be adding several native plants to our flower beds this fall and next spring. I already have the fall flowers ordered.

Priority: My writing

Long-term goal: Write articles, essays, blog entries and at least one book.

Progress/changes this past year: My writing is another priority that has actually seemed easier to achieve under quarantine. I kept up with my blog pretty well, posting nearly every week. I also completed several book excerpts. The pandemic, with its ever-present threat of mortality, reminded me that I don’t have forever to write that book – an item I’ve had on my bucket list since age 10.

Intention for the coming year: I’m now well on my way to actually writing the book and I intend to keep going. I’d like to commit at least one hour per weekday to my writing. I sincerely believe my writing ability is one of God’s gifts to me. If I can discipline myself to stay off the Internet – unless I’m doing something useful such as research or communicating with real people – I could really start to produce an abundance of writing.

Priority: Service to others

Long-term goal: Use a portion of my time, money and talent to help others and create positive change in the world.

Progress/changes this past year: In our online book group and Bible study sessions, members of my congregation extensively discussed ways to “be church” even with our building closed. I personally found creative ways to contribute to that effort from home, including joining our church’s community service committee via Zoom.

Intention for the coming year: I intend to keep participating in the community service committee, which coordinates a variety of outreach activities ranging from highway clean-up and collecting new books for a local elementary school library to preparing meals for a homeless shelter and keeping our church’s new micro pantry stocked.

Priority: Backlog

Long-term goal: Eliminate clutter and backlog tasks that drain my energy, render my life more chaotic than it needs to be, and distract me from achieving my long-term goals. 

Progress/changes this past year: In addition to the massive housecleaning project, I actually got our tax return done on time. I got some new landscaping done. I got the attic fixed. This last one was a huge undertaking – some raccoons got into our attic and wreaked extensive damage. Luckily, our homeowner’s insurance covered most of the repairs and we got new energy-efficient insulation out of the deal.

Intention for the coming year: I’d like to commit to completing a pair of backlog tasks I’ve been putting off for years. The first one: Getting together with Thrivent to help us find some socially responsible investment opportunities. The second one: Getting solar panels installed on our roof.

Priority: Serenity/Gratitude

Long-term goal: Achieve serenity by practicing mindfulness and finding at least one thing each day to be grateful for. 

Progress/changes this past year: Despite all the disruption and stress caused by the pandemic, I do have a lot to be grateful for. Unlike so many essential workers, my husband and I had the luxury of being able to shelter in place and stay safe. I’m so grateful I’ve had Pete and our kitties hunkering down with me. We also have some amazing delivery services in town, which reduced our need to venture outside for high-risk activities. Most of all, I’m grateful for the vaccine!!! My fear level dropped by several orders of magnitude once I got that second jab in my arm. Thanks be to God for inspiring the scientists who developed this life-saving vaccine so quickly.

Intention for the coming year: Pete and I are finally taking walks. We need to keep this up. And each morning for the coming year, as we re-enter the outside world, I plan to start my day by reminding myself, “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!”

My priorities in a time of pandemic

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21

In what has become a birthday tradition, I like to start my “personal New Year” by reviewing my priorities. Are they the same as they were last year? Or does something need to change? This annual exercise helps me stay focused so various kinds of clutter – material, mental or spiritual – don’t crowd out what really matters. I use my morning meditation time to identify what is most important to me. For each priority, I set a long-term goal, evaluate my progress for the past year, and create an intention for the coming year. 

To say this past year did not go as planned would be a huge understatement. The COVID-19 pandemic has upended every familiar activity and routine in my life. Dulcimer group – cancelled until further notice. Choir practice – cancelled until further notice. Stay Fit classes – cancelled until further notice. Visits with family and friends – cancelled until further notice. Groceries – delivered to our home. Church, Bible study, book group and even some doctor appointments – all online.

However, I’ve decided the priorities I identified last year are still good ones, so they will remain the same for now: my personal relationship with God, self-care, family and friends, our home, my writing, service to others, elimination of backlog tasks, and serenity/gratitude.

Since it looks like the pandemic will be with us for a while, my challenge is this: How do I continue to work on my priorities in the face of the restrictions and disruption? When the lockdown began in March, I spent a lot of time spinning my wheels, struggling to establish new routines and warding off mild depression. But with a bit of creativity, I’ve begun finding ways to turn this quarantine experience into productive time. 

Priority: Relationship with God

Long-term goal: Develop a better understanding of God, so I can fulfill God’s purpose for my life, discern what my core values should be and live accordingly.

Progress/changes this past year: I continued to meet with my spiritual director, but due to the pandemic and underlying health conditions for both of us, we’ve begun meeting by phone rather than face to face. Fortunately, we’ve developed enough of a relationship over the past three years that the phone meetings work just fine.

Intention for the coming year: In addition to sessions with my spiritual director, I need to make sure I keep morning meditation part of my daily routine. Since the ongoing quarantine almost entirely prevents Pete and I from leaving the house, there’s really no excuse not to do this every morning, except for Sunday when we “attend” our church’s online service. We also participate in a weekly Bible study group via Zoom.

Priority: Self-care

Long-term goal: Stay healthy for as long as possible and help my husband do the same.

Progress/changes this past year: Ugh. Our Stay Fit exercise program has been cancelled since March, and my healthy eating plan went off the rails about the same time. The lack of exercise – except for an occasional walk – coupled with way too much comfort food has me well on my way to gaining the dreaded Quarantine 15.

Intention for the coming year: Our bodies are still the temple of the Holy Spirit – pandemic or no pandemic – and I’ve resolved to take better care of mine! Doctor appointments have definitely gotten more complicated, and I no longer have access to the spa for the massages that were so helpful in relieving arthritis pain. But if anything, this makes routine self-care more important. I need to focus on eating healthy food, getting the right exercise, and getting enough sleep.

Priority: Family and friends

Long-term goal:  Keep in contact and nurture good relationships with the people I love and care about.

Progress/changes this past year: All face-to-face visits with family and friends have been off the table since just before Easter. Thank God for Zoom and FaceTime.

Intention for the coming year: Learning some new technology has been really helpful. I plan to schedule regular “get-together” FaceTime sessions with family and friends while we’re under quarantine. And, of course, we can continue to stay in touch via Facebook. 

Priority: Our home

Long-term goal: Maintain our home as a sanctuary for ourselves, our family and our friends.

Progress/changes this past year: Alas! The goal of a perfectly clean house with a place for everything and everything in its place eludes me at the best of times. But now we can no longer use the services of our marvelous cleaning ladies because we can’t safely let them in the house. Yes, I know this is a First World problem, but it does create some extra work I wasn’t expecting.

Intention for the coming year: Now that so many of our regular activities are on hiatus, I have no excuse not to commit to one hour each weekday for cleaning and sorting. I’d love for this to be the year I finally sort through all the accumulated STUFF in our house, recycle or give away anything we don’t need, and find a place for whatever we decide to keep. And get some more pictures up on the walls.

Priority: My writing

Long-term goal: Write articles, essays, blog entries and at least one book.

Progress/changes this past year: I’ve actually been keeping up with my blog pretty well, posting nearly once a week. I’ve also finally begun writing my book. Believe it or not, this is one priority that actually seems to have gotten easier to achieve under quarantine.

Intention for the coming year: I’d like to devote at least one hour per weekday to my writing. I sincerely believe my writing ability is one of God’s gifts to me. If I can discipline myself to stay off the Internet unless I’m doing something useful such as research or communicating with real people – and avoid the kind of mindless surfing that wastes hours and hours of time – I could really start to produce an abundance of writing. We’re not going anywhere for possibly the next year, so I want to come out of this enforced hibernation period with a BOOK! No excuses. This needs to happen. 

Priority: Service to others

Long-term goal: Use a portion of my time, money and talent to help others and create positive change in the world.

Progress/changes this past year: For the first half of the past year, my volunteer work involved a lot of church activities, along with participation in a musical group that entertained residents at a local retirement center. That all ended when the lockdown began in March.

Intention for the coming year: My congregation has extensively discussed ways to “be church” even with our building closed. Pete and I have decided to adjust some of our charitable contributions upward since we’re less able to contribute volunteer hours and we can afford it. And I plan to volunteer for a couple of my favorite candidates in this year’s election by writing postcards and letters, something I can do safely from home. 

Priority: Backlog

Long-term goal: Eliminate clutter and backlog tasks that drain my energy, render my life more chaotic than it needs to be, and distract me from achieving my long-term goals. 

Progress/changes this past year: Quarantining threw a monkey wrench into my best-laid plans. For example, doing my taxes got more complicated, so we’ve had to ask for an extension for the first time in years.

Intention for the coming year: I need to make a list of tasks that are hanging over my head and commit to crossing off one thing each week. This is a perfect time to get some of those backlog tasks done that I’ve been putting off for years, like going through our financial records and cancelling subscriptions we no longer use.

Priority: Serenity/Gratitude

Long-term goal: Achieve serenity by practicing mindfulness and finding at least one thing each day to be grateful for. 

Progress/changes this past year: I’ve experienced quite a bit of stress for the past several months. But the good news is, I do have a lot to be grateful for. Unlike so many essential workers, Pete and I have the luxury of being able to shelter in place and stay safe. We have some amazing delivery services in town, which reduce our need to venture outside for high-risk activities. And I’m so grateful I have Pete and the kitties hunkering down with me.

Intention for the coming year: If nothing else, this past year has reinforced my desire to actually live my life rather than sleepwalking through my days while I rush-rush-rush through deadlines and appointments. The quarantine has forced me to slow down and evaluate how I spend my time. Pete and I are finally taking walks! We need to keep this up. And each morning for the coming year, even as the pandemic rages on, I plan to start my day by reminding myself, “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!”

When Martha Stewart becomes a verb

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During a recent church service, I heard the familiar story of Mary and Martha from Luke 10:38-42. The two sisters open their home to Jesus as he travels with his disciples. While Martha busies herself with preparations, Mary sits at the feet of Jesus and listens to his teaching. Martha complains to Jesus, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me!” Jesus answers, “Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Now, I don’t need to take any of those Are-You-Mary-Or-Martha quizzes on Facebook to figure out which sister I am. As someone who struggles constantly with perfectionism in areas ranging from my diet and my housekeeping to my writing and my spiritual life, I seriously relate to Martha. 

In fact, the Mary-versus-Martha story reminds me of a visualization exercise my spiritual director recommended shortly after we began working together. She instructed me to imagine myself in my ideal spiritual state. As I did this exercise, I realized I’d been imagining my “idealized state” (not to be confused with “ideal spiritual state”) for most of my life. I have daydreams that would rival Walter Mitty’s about an amazing woman I facetiously call Super Me. This marvelous creature is a slightly older version of myself, and she has her life TOTALLY UNDER CONTROL. 

Not only can Super Me leap tall buildings in a single bound, she has a meticulously ordered household, with a place for everything and everything in its place – even in the garage and the basement. She frequently invites family and friends to splendid gatherings, where she serves up a banquet better than anything Martha Stewart could produce. She has managed to achieve a svelte figure by adhering to an eating plan that is not only healthy, but painless, because she has re-educated her palate to prefer vegetables over chocolate-covered peanut butter cookie bars and she never misses her Stay Fit exercise class even during an ice storm. She volunteers for various organizations that work to make the world a better place, and she even serves on the board of directors for a couple of them, but she never gets burned out because she’s learned how to set appropriate boundaries without people getting mad at her. Her recently published book sits atop the New York Times bestseller list. And she never loses sleep at 3 a.m. wondering who God is and what God wants from her, because she has finally discerned ALL the answers to life’s “ultimate” questions.

The Super Me fantasy is particularly potent when I’m working on New Year’s resolutions, or engaging in my annual birthday tradition of evaluating my priorities and setting goals for the coming year. Coupled with the Super Me fantasy is what I’d call the Ultimate Rejection fantasy, in which people wrinkle their noses in utter disgust when they find out what my house really looks like if I’m not expecting company. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Luke had told us that Martha harbored both of these fantasies from time to time.

I’m relieved whenever I discover I’m not alone in having “Martha” tendencies. I laughed out loud when Alicia, author of the blog For His Purpose, used “Martha Stewart” as a verb. “I like to say I can just Martha Stewart everything,” Alicia confessed in one of her posts (link HERE), as she expressed her fear that the exchange student coming to live with her family would decide that her whole household was nuts and run screaming back to Russia in response to the chaos. In my own case, I feel compelled to warn houseguests not to venture into my basement or garage lest I find it necessary to file a missing persons report and organize a search party to rescue them.

“As an overachieving Martha myself, I am trying to understand Mary doing the better thing first,” said Elizabeth, author of Saved By Words (link HERE), in response to my birthday blog post, in which I outlined my priorities for the coming year (link HERE). “Not that Martha is doing anything wrong. Just that at the time sitting at Jesus’ feet was more important.” In the ensuing discussion, she and I agreed we both might possess some Martha-like traits.

The dilemma is real. 

I struggle with the advice Jesus gave Martha. I agree that we need to keep what’s really important at the forefront. This was brought home to me rather painfully over the summer. With my beloved mother in hospice, the past few months represented my last chance to “visit with her more often.”

On the other hand, doesn’t Galatians 5:22-23 remind us that one of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control? In my mind, self-control equals the self-discipline to maintain healthy eating habits, family obligations, a clean house and active participation in church and community, among other things. 

And then, of course, we women have the Proverbs 31 Woman often held up by fellow believers as an example to emulate. If the Proverbs 31 Woman were transported to the 21st Century, I can imagine her having Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s career, Christie Brinkley’s looks and Martha Stewart’s homemaking and entertaining skills. For starters.

Besides, I’ve found that several of the priorities I identified in my birthday post are really no longer optional for me. For example, with my newly-diagnosed diabetes, healthy eating is no longer simply a worthy goal, but a medical necessity.

While perhaps less crucial, crossing backlog tasks off my to-do list actually makes my life easier in the long run. Certain things really do need to get done, like it or not. Keeping the fridge and pantry in order reduces food waste – better for both our budget and the environment. When the clutter around the house gets out of control, my whole life feels out of control. It’s stressful to have deadlines hanging over my head all the time.

And I have one priority that hasn’t changed since I was 10: Write a book! The fact that I’m retired means I have never been in a better position to achieve this dream, and the time to do it is now, not some future date when everything will have settled down and fallen into place so I can start living my life in earnest.

All of this requires some level of the self-control spelled out in Galations 5:23 as a “fruit of the spirit.”

The good news is, my life does not feel nearly as out of control as it did prior to my retirement, when I was juggling the 24/7 demands of running a social service organization. And I do like to think my current priorities are a vast improvement over the ones I had in high school, when being popular was my number one goal, or even in my 40s and 50s, when my top priority (judging by my behavior) was chasing after brass rings and fancy job titles. 

Before I retired, it seemed as if my life had been reduced to crossing items off endless To-Do lists: my To-Do List for work, my To-Do List for household chores, my To-Do List of personal self-care routines, my To-Do List of urgent matters, even a Master List to keep track of all the To-Do Lists. This elaborate system of lists was suggested by the day-planner I carried around constantly and jokingly called “my conscience.” I constantly juggled so many balls in the air, I was convinced I had to keep these multiple To-Do Lists or I wouldn’t remember to do simple things like brush my teeth. Despite all the To-Do lists designed to help me hold myself accountable for how I spent my time, I couldn’t seem to keep up with all the demands.

Even now, however, repeated efforts to get my life under better control often leave me feeling more frustrated than ever. I’m reminded of the Apostle Paul, when he says in Romans 7: “I don’t understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. … I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.” 

So yes, I do need to practice some reasonable self-discipline. But at the same time, I also want the next chapter of my life to amount to more than eating, sleeping, dodging other people’s dramas and crossing items off To-Do lists. In other words, I’d like for my life to include a few more “Mary” moments.

It’s nice to be able to find things when I need them without sorting through mounds of clutter. But I probably need to face the fact that our home will always look like real people (and pets) live here, no matter how much time I spend cleaning. There will never be a time when my house is in perfect order inside and out, including the closets, the garage and the basement. The perfectly clean house exists only in Better Homes and Gardens – and then only for the hour or so needed to photograph it. Unless you’re Martha Stewart, who probably not only has a full-time housekeeper, but a full-time housekeeping staff. (Speaking of Martha Stewart, is she the ultimate “Martha” in the Mary and Martha story?)

 “Baby steps,” my spiritual director often advises when I complain of my life feeling out of control. “That’s what matters.” The baby-steps advice does seem to work when I heed it. In the past month, I’ve finished cleaning the fridge (one shelf at a time), the freezer in the basement (one shelf at a time) and the pantry (one shelf at a time), as well as sorting through several weeks’ accumulation of junk mail. I’m finding ways to make the food preparation required for healthy eating easier – batch cooking, for example. 

Meanwhile, I try to muster the self-discipline to include morning meditation in my daily routine as often as possible. This reminds me to keep my relationship with God “in the #1 slot,” as the folks around the tables in 12-Step groups would say.

Of course, when it comes to Super Me, I’m in no danger of achieving that exalted state anytime soon. One thing coping with multiple medical issues over the past few months has done for me is, I’ve stopped trying to Martha-Stewart anything. At least for now, while I’m healing. And maybe, as Martha Stewart herself would say, “That’s a good thing.”

As I write this, it occurs to me that if I really did manage to achieve the level of perfection I fantasize about in my Super Me daydreams, people might not necessarily like me. After all, I personally find other people intimidating when their lives seem too perfect.

Fortunately, I’ve learned that God loves me the way I am – not because I’m perfect, but because God is perfect. Good news, indeed, even if I have to remind myself of this from time to time.

There’s a secret part of me, however, that still hopes Mary helped Martha wash the dishes after Jesus left. After all, food preparation and clean-up don’t happen by themselves.

An abundantly extravagant greeting

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When people read John 10:10, we may be tempted to think of abundance in terms of wealth or possessions. But I sense that Jesus had something entirely different in mind.

This past Sunday evening represented the tail end of a bruising week that began with my spending the night in a hospital emergency room and ended with my mother’s funeral.

Needless to say, the week had left me feeling both emotionally and physically exhausted.

In a show of support, some longtime friends of ours invited my husband and I to join them at an all-you-can-eat buffet for a feast of serious comfort food.

As I stepped out of the car and walked through the restaurant’s parking lot, God greeted me with a stunning display of abundantly extravagant beauty. The photo below doesn’t begin to do it justice.

But it does offer evidence that the “abundance” Jesus talks about in John 10:10 has to do with much more than money or material goods.