HomeSpunHealers

“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”  ~Babe Ruth

You know, wouldn’t it be great if that were true for all aspects of life?  But I fear that maybe it isn’t true for trying to establish healthy eating practices or getting out of the recliner and exercising.  I think maybe all I’m doing is just getting lots of good practice at eating things that are not healthy for me and practicing being lazy and lethargic.  It’s tough, but it’s truth.  And sometimes we just need to admit the truth.  The good news is that it doesn’t have to be a lifestyle choice forever.  I can do something different tomorrow or even at my next meal. I can “get up off of that thing” at any given moment.  I don’t have to wait for an exercise class or a friend who wants to walk with me.  That’s the difference between me and Babe Ruth.  Babe Ruth always had to wait for the next baseball game to make that strike or homerun.  I can hit my own homerun at any instant that I decide to.

You know what makes exercise tolerable until you can get back in the swing and make it an enjoyable habit again?  MUSIC!!  I plug in my earpieces and I don’t even realize how long I’ve been moving or feel how tired I am.  I’m just rocking and rolling along!  It’s great!  Did you know that there is something in music that elevates our endorphine levels?  It’s true.  And endorphines are probably the source of the best legal natural high you can get!  Here’s what elevated endorphines can do for you:

So, plug in your favorite tunes and “get up offa that thang and dance til you feel better; get up offa that thang and try to release the pressure!”  By the way, you can’t sit still when you’re listening to James Brown sing that tune!

“The past is an illusion. You must learn to live in the present
and accept yourself for what you are now. What you lack in flexibility and
agility you must make up with knowledge and constant practice.”  ~Bruce Lee

Tuesday, I lost my wallet.  I didn’t realize it was lost until someone informed me that she had it.  As it turned out, Tuesday, when I was shopping at a grocery store, I left my wallet in the seat part of a shopping cart.  That’s always where I place it while I’m shopping, and I always put it back there when I wheel the groceries out to my car and then after I load the groceries into my car, I place the cart in the proper return area, get my wallet out, and go back to my car.  I have done that so many times that I don’t even think about what I’m doing. It’s my routine.  But Tuesday, something interrupted my routine.  On the way to return the cart, I saw that someone had left a shopping cart in the middle of an empty parking space.  I had to walk right past that cart sitting there, and even though I didn’t have to, I stopped, pushed my cart into that one, and pushed them both to the cart return area.  When I shoved my cart into the other one, it caused the little seat area on my cart to fold up, hiding my wallet from my view.  When I pushed the carts into their place at the return, I didn’t think about my wallet because I didn’t see it.  I just went back to my car and drove home, never even considering that I didn’t have my wallet.  I was really surprised when the manager of the grocery store called and told me she had it in the safe there.  I was really grateful that the person who found my wallet had done the right thing and turned it in.  It could have just as easily ended up in the hands of someone who might spend the measly three dollars I had in there or worse use my bank card or credit card.  But I was fortunate enough to have someone kind and decent find it. 

I was relating that story to my office mate, and she said, “No good deed goes unpunished.”  I had to ask her what she meant, and she said, “If you hadn’t returned someone else’s cart for them, you wouldn’t have left your wallet.”  True.  But I never once had thought that I shouldn’t have returned that cart for someone else, only that I was grateful the person who found the wallet did me a favor by turning it in.  I think that’s generally true about me.  I don’t usually dwell on what I should have done or not done.  I don’t think backwards much anymore.  Although I used to live in the past a great deal.  Living in the past made me miserable, so I stopped it.

I did think about the future, though.  I told my office mate that I was glad the wallet was found before I knew it was missing.  If the weekend had arrived, and I had needed my wallet to buy gas or for some other reason, I would have panicked, wondering why it wasn’t in my book bag where I always keep it.  I might have even wondered if someone on campus had come into my office and taken my wallet when I was in a classroom.  I might have imagined all kinds of bad things because it wouldn’t have occurred to me that I had willingly left it in the shopping cart on Tuesday.  I might have become fearful of all the students who are in or around my office or even the maintenance crew who helps me by emptying my trash and fixing the heating and air conditioning when I’m too hot or too cold.  I might have mistrusted all those innocent people because I wouldn’t have been able to explain why my wallet was gone. 

Living in the past made me miserable.  Projecting into the future and imagining what might happen can also make me unhappy.  I had a wise counselor who once told me that all guilt comes from living in the past.  All fear comes from living in the future.  And so I just choose to live in the moment, and I am grateful that I have my wallet with me due to the kindness of some stranger.  And the next time I pass a shopping cart left in a parking space, I’ll probably return the stray cart with my own.  But I’ll check the basket to see if I have my wallet with me!

There are lessons to be used for our benefit in all the day to day circumstances that we encounter.  I’m glad I’ve learned to look for the positive lesson.  I’d rather be grateful for someone’s kindness than to regret my own.

I had a very eventful day yesterday.  It was my marathon day at work when I start at 8 a.m. with my first class, so I have to be in my office even before that, and then I have 7 1/2 hours in the classroom, with only one break from noon to 1:30 in which I eat lunch at my desk while I grade papers and get things ready for the next class, the next day, on and on.  So, today, I decided to squeeze into that 1 1/2 hour break an opportunity to donate blood since we were having a blood drive on campus.  I had already planned ahead for this, and I had made an appointment, which they seemed to have no record of when I came down, but that was okay because there were only two folks waiting in line ahead of me.  Then after I had read the required materials, I was about to go into a little cubicle and start step two of the process when a fire alarm sounded, and we had a fire drill.  Fortunately, the drill didn’t take too much time, so I rushed back in to get back in line.  Another delay happened when the nurse who was hooking me up to the needle couldn’t get the blood pressure cuff around my upper arm because I needed the “large” cuff.  She didn’t know where to get one, and another nurse offered to get it for her, but only after she finished doing what she was doing, which was taking a long time.  Now, the only thing that was keeping me calm from the fear that I would be late for my class, which might make students think I wasn’t coming, and they might escape before I got there, was the music that was playing rather loudly in the background.  It was my favorite kind of music, old school R&B. It’s hard for me to get upset when I’m listening to “How Sweet It Is to Be Loved By You.”  So, I just lay there on the lounge chair and waited patiently for the larger cuff.  I must admit that I did have a slight moment where I tried to feel embarrassed about the larger cuff, and one tiny little negative comment internally when I said to myself, “Self, if you didn’t have such a fat upper arm, she wouldn’t have to go get one to fit you.”  But I quickly stopped that because there is nothing wrong with having to use a larger blood pressure cuff.  They wouldn’t make a larger cuff if people (not just me) didn’t need one.  Everyone’s arm is not the same size.  Some are smaller, some are larger.  That’s all.  So, I’m glad I didn’t lie there feeling bad about something stupid.  I wanted to give the blood because I feel it’s my civic and humanitarian duty to do that once in a while.  Besides, they were begging for type O blood, and I’m a Type O Hero!  I was able to successfully give the blood, drink some water and munch some pretzels while they checked to make sure I wasn’t going to swoon, and I got to class right on time.  No escape for the students yesterday.

This just illustrates two things for me about me. If I truly and honestly want to accomplish something, in spite of excuses or circumstances, I will do it.  It’s that way every time I truly want to do something.  I do it.  I push until it’s accomplished.  I’m proud of myself for that.  The second thing this illustrates for me is that I can choose to be ashamed of myself or I can choose to be proud of myself.  I can choose negative messages or positive messages inside my own head.  And because I know how harmful negative messages can be, and because I know that the spoken word is vital to creation, I am so much more careful these days about what I say to myself.  And if something negative slips in there, I quickly squash it and send it away. 

So, I left campus this afternoon, hurrying on so I could go vote with my husband (a tradition we’ve kept since we were married) because I wanted to be there even if it was going to make me rush.  It was another thing I wanted to accomplish yesterday.  It was the first day of early voting here in North Carolina, and I wanted to make sure I voted at the very first opportunity, which happened to be 5:15.  He was there waiting for me and smiling.  And we went inside and voted in a monumental election and cast our ballots for a monumental choice:  we both voted for the very first African American candidate representing his party for the office of President of the United States of America.  We didn’t vote for him because he’s African American although that is very cool.  We voted for him because we know he is the smartest candidate, the candidate with the most vision for our time and for our country, and the candidate who has the most optimistic solutions for the majority of Americans in a time when things are bad for a lot of Americans.  We voted for him because the time has finally arrived when, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, we can “judge [him] for the content of his character” and not in spite of his skin color.  It was a powerfully moving moment for each of us.  And we discovered later when we talked, that both of us had paused and thought about the amazing thing we were about to do, and both of us were a little choked up when talking about it.  But you know, I left that polling place with the lightest heart and most jubilant, genuine smile I’ve ever had when casting my vote for President.  I had been waiting for that moment since 2004 when I first heard Senator Obama speak, and I asked myself and the group that was gathered in my home, “Why can’t he run for President?  Why can’t we have the opportunity to vote for someone like him?”  And against all odds, I finally had that pleasure yesterday.  My husband and I both agreed that going and casting that vote was as if it was our sacred honor and duty.  It was more than just voting.  It was an affirmation that we can accomplish anything if we really want to.  YES WE CAN!

So, I should just end this piece with that mighty declaration, but I want to admit that I am still not taking action to get out there and exercise and to eat healthier food that truly nourishes me instead of junk that fills me and then leaves me more damaged.  But, I did get a video this week called “Heavyweight Yoga:  Yoga for the Body You Have Right Now.”  And I intend to use it, and I intend to start walking, and I intend to start back making healthier choices in my food.  And when I report here in this journal that I did my heavyweight yoga and walked at least three times a week, then you’ll know I’ve made up my mind that I want to do it.  The Scriptures say, “you shall know them by their fruits.”  So, I guess it’s true that the proof’s in the pudding, good, juicy, fruity pudding!

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It’s our Light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.”

~Marianne Williamson

I was reminded of this quotation that I know so well as I was reading Ellen Besso’s newsletter this week.  Ellen was speaking about living with intention, and reminding me (yes, it seemed that the article was written just to me!) that I have not been living my life with much intention at all, and thereby causing myself to flounder instead of making any real progress.  Living with intention means that I consciously direct my energy toward specific goals or outcomes instead of just randomly meandering through life with no real purpose.  Sometimes you will hear the term purposeful living or living consciously used instead of living with intention .  All of these terms mean the same thing:  Deciding what my desired outcome is and then consciously making choices each moment of the day to move myself toward my desired goal.  The opposite of living with intention or purpose or consciousness is floundering, meandering, flailing, spinning my wheels, and going nowhere.  It’s so easy to get caught up in my busy life and just have as my purpose to get from point A to point B.  That’s normal in a busy life, but while I’m getting from point A to point B, I could be doing it consciously and making decisions along the way that get me to my ultimate goal, which is to lose some more fat from my body, gain some more muscle, and try to get off some more medications. 

So, why have I not been living consciously or living with intention?  Perhaps it is because I am afraid of succeeding.  Perhaps it is because I am afraid that when I’m successful, I will be required to follow through and help others to achieve success in the same arena.  Perhaps it is my light that scares me, and I had rather hide in the dark, covered by layers of unhealthy fat, inhibited in my movements with weak muscles, and continuing to take my medications for high cholesterol and diabetes.  Why would I possibly want that?  It is a very good question.  And the truth of the matter is that I don’t want to remain hidden in the darkness, but I don’t particularly want to be exposed in the light either.  Out there, with my light shining and illuminating me, I become more responsible.  I have no excuses.  I can’t say that I can’t mop the kitchen floor because I am strong, healthy, and robust.  I can mop the floor and vacuum the house and cut the grass!  Being unhealthy gets me out of some of that when I don’t want to have to do it.    I have no excuse to avoid going with my friends to the state fair.  Now, in the dark of my disease, I can say that my knees are bothering me too much to do all that walking.  Out in the light of health, I can go with them.  Being healthy takes away all my excuses to not live my life to the fullest. It was difficult to admit this, but I finally am willing to admit it.

Dr. Phil asks this question about being unhealthy:  what purpose does it serve?  He claims that I won’t be unhealthy if it doesn’t serve me in some way, if I’m not getting a reward for it. I have never been able to answer that question before.  But I know the answer now.  I am protected from life itself under this blanket of fat.  I think in order to finally let the blanket go, I have to be ready to face life squarely and embrace all that it offers.  I have to be willing to face the Light, my Light.  I’ve seen glimpses of it.  It feels good, but it is also terrifying.  My light requires much of me.  It’s just like the saying:  Ignorance is bliss; knowledge brings sorrow.  My Light is that knowledge that I am not everything I can be and not everything I want to be.  With that knowledge and my Light comes great responsibility.  I am meant to be a beacon for others who are traveling in my path.  I’m meant to show them the way through the darkness.  That’s a lifetime commitment to others.  Wow.  Am I ready for that?  I’m not so sure I am.  I think I’m proving what Marianne Williamson says about our deepest fear is that we are all powerful. 

What will happen if I choose to embrace the knowledge that I am all powerful?  It’s really something to wrap my mind around.  But even more than that, it’s worth acting that way until I believe it.  Another old adage applies:  fake it until you make it.  I will.  I will step out on faith and act as if I’m all powerful until I can truly embrace it and live it every day.

My mother’s birthday is Sunday.  She will be 76.  She was born in 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression.  I thought it would be kind of fun to look back at the year Mother was born and see what else was going on besides her auspicious birth.  I found out some rather amazing things:

January 12, 1932:

Hattie W. Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate.

I think that’s incredible considering that women only were allowed to vote when the 19th amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1920.  Women had been seriously fighting for the vote since 1848.  So, it took them 72 years to get the right to vote and only 12 years to elect the first female US Senator.  And just think:  this year we had a female US Senator as a serious candidate for the Presidency.  I predict it won’t be too much longer until we have our first woman President of the United States. 

February, 1932:

The son of Charles Lindbergh, Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, is kidnapped.

I can’t even imagine what my mother’s parents would be feeling for the Lindberghs in their despair since they had a little 3 year old daughter and were expecting another child (my mom).  I wish MaMa was still alive, so I could ask her about that.  I had never made the connection before that this tragic event was probably very upsetting to her.  Come to think of it, I wonder if MaMa even knew she was expecting another child when this news first came out.

April 28, 1932:

A vaccine for yellow fever is announced for use on humans.

Despite having the vaccine available for humans for over 75 years, yellow fever still is rampant in some parts of the world today.  In fact, in 2001, it was estimated that yellow fever causes over 200,000 illnesses and over 30,000 deaths every year in places that remain unvaccinated.  We have the means to alleviate this problem, but still we allow at least 30,000 people to die every year from something that could be wiped out of existence.  That’s really sad.

May 21, 1932: 

Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey just a few miles from the Lindbergh’s home.

Again, I imagine my grandparents had to know that they were expecting another baby by the time the dead infant was found.  How terrible for the Lindberghs and for all families who clutched their children closer and feared something happening to their families.  I’m sure I would be thinking that if a prominent family such as theirs was hit with this kind of tragedy, then surely my family would be even more susceptible.  That’s not really accurate thinking, though.  Scripture tells us that the rain falls on the just and unjust.  Bad things happen to bad people and good people, regardless of fame or wealth.

May 21, 1932:

Amelia Earhart, because of bad weather, lands in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

 Again, a woman makes history!  1932 was quite a monumental year for women.  I wonder if my mother ever looks back at the year of her birth and thinks that she could have been famous for something accomplished.  I’ll have to ask her.  Of course, she did give birth to me, and it’s not a bad thing being knows as my mother!  But it probably won’t go down in the history books.  Unless I become famous!

June 6, 1932:

The Revenue Act of 1932 is enacted, creating the first gas tax in the United States, at a rate of 1 cent per US gallon (26 ¢/L) sold.

And just this campaign year, one of the hottest issues during the Democratic primary was whether the government should waive the federal gas tax to help alleviate the consumers’ pain at the gas station.  Of course, even if that was enacted, it wouldn’t make that much of a difference to me as I fill up my tank with gas.  But all of that unlevied tax would be another reason for our government to achieve a higher deficit.  Just as the gas tax was enacted to help out the government back in 1932 and thereby stimulate the economy, our U.S. Senators and Representatives are arguing about whether there should be a quarter percent tax on the sale of stocks, to allow the Stock Market to aid in its own rescue.  I personally don’t think that’s a bad idea at all.

July 20, 1932:

In Washington, D.C., police fire tear gas on World War I veterans part of the Bonus Expeditionary Force who attempt to march to the White House.

July 28, 1932:

US President Herbert Hoover orders the United States Army to forcibly evict the “Bonus Army” of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, DC.

 I’m not a real student of history, not as I should be.  Until fairly recently in my life, I never “liked” history.  But now I’m interested in finding out about the history of the world, and particularly about my own country.  This is an event in history that I was never taught about in any history class I ever took, and I find it appalling and scary.  To make a long story short, the Veterans of WWI were awarded Bonus Certificates, which were basically worth the difference in pay the veterans could have been paid if they had not enlisted because soldiers are never paid the kind of wage a civilian is, which is a sad thing.  After WWI, the certificates were given out, but they weren’t redeemable for the full amount until they matured in 1945.  When times got so hard during the Great Depression, Veterans were allowed to get loans of up to 50% the value of their bonus certificates.  The only problem was there was not enough money to make all the requests for loans.  Veterans banded together and marched on Washington, DC to demand that the government pay them what was rightly theirs.  There were over 3,000 of these Veterans and their family members in this self-named Bonus Army.  President Hoover ordered the U.S. Army to disperse the Bonus Army and make them leave Washington.  Led by General George Patton, the Army ended up charging against its own veterans, wounding many and killing several.  Civil employees lined the streets to watch this incredulous battle against American citizens by the American Army.  They shouted at the top of their lungs, “Shame! Shame!”  Eventually, to make things right, the Veterans Administration was created to make sure Veterans are treated fairly.  Even today, we see how our Veterans of the Iraqi war do not get adequate medical care.  Sooner or later, hopefully sooner, our country will stand up and take better care of our Veterans.

August 23, 1932:

The Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd is renamed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is one of the few Middle Eastern Muslim countries in modern times where women are forced to cover themselves in public.  They are also prohibited from talking with men in public and participating in business activities.  Saudi Arabia is also home to a well-known terrorist group, the Wassabis.  And, Osama bin Laden is a renegade member of the Saudi royal family.  Many rumors of Saudi financing for Al Qaeda exist.  Yet, we are “friends” with Saudi Arabia.  We really do need to overcome our dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

October 3, 1932:

Iraq gains its formal independence from Great Britain, but British troops remain in the country, and the country is split into competing factions –tribes and cities, Shiites and Sunnis, Arabs and Kurds, pan-Arabists and Iraqi nationalists — which makes it difficult for one political group to gain enough support to lead.

Sound familiar?  Now its mainly U.S. troops there!  The current death toll for U.S. soldiers in Iraq is over 4,000.  Over 30,000 U.S. soldiers are wounded.  I really do hope we can exit from Iraq as quickly as is safely possible.

October 5, 1932

Caroline Jean Smith is born.  (My mom)

Happy birthday, Mother!  I love you and I appreciate all you have done for me over the years.  You’ve always been there to support me since I’ve been an adult.  Every single crisis I’ve ever experienced, you have been faithfully by my side.  Thank you so much.

November, 1932:

U.S. presidential election:  Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats Herbert Hoover in a landslide victory.

 Can we hear a rousing chorus of “Happy Days Are Here Again”?  I certainly hope that the same thing happens this November in our election.  Roosevelt brought hope and rebirth to the United States during a very troubled economic time.  We desperately need that hope again.

November 24, 1932:

In Washington, DC, the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens.

And I bet they would have never dreamed that when TV was invented and widespread in the U.S., that CSI programs would be so prevalent and so popular!  I do love a good CSI episode.

 December 5,1932:

 German physicist Albert Einstein granted a visa.

Eventually, Einstein became a U.S. citizen in 1940.  One of the most interesting things about Einstein to me are his views on religion. I really connect with him as he discusses God.  In writing about religion, he distinguished three styles which are usually intermixed in actual religion. The first is motivated by fear and poor understanding of causality, and hence invents supernatural beings. The second is social and moral, motivated by desire for love and support. Einstein noted that both have an anthropomorphic concept of God. The third style, which Einstein deemed most mature, is motivated by a deep sense of awe and mystery. He said, “The individual feels … the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves in nature … and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.” Einstein saw science as an antagonist of the first two styles of religion, but as a partner of the third style.  So do I.

 December 27, 1932:

Radio City Music Hall opens in New York, City. 

I’ve been there, but I’ve never seen a show there.  As a little girl, I always wanted to go see the Rockettes perform.  I still have that desire on my “bucket list.”  What’s not to like about a group of dancers performing in unison to lively music?  It’s just one of those things that makes me smile.

So, as you can see, 1932 was a pretty monumental year for a lot of reasons.  There were some disgraceful things that happened, some scary things, some sad things, and some joyous things.  But isn’t that just like life?  It surely is.