10. I AM NOT AFRAID OF COOKIE DOUGH

True, I do not fear raw cookie dough. I even freeze it in nice little rolls so I can cut chunks off and nibble whenever I want. I also do not mind it cooked. I am no respecter of doughs.

If you've lived as long as I have you might remember the era when people were convinced that butter was more fattening than margarine. I think the farmers and the ranchers did battle in the television commercials of my youth, convincing housewives who did all the shopping that the product of dairy cows was  harmful and the product of corn and other vegetable oils was gonna make us thinner and healthier. 

Boy, am I glad they got that one worked out by the time I was the housewife. I am partial to good butter.

Then there was the era when all fats were going to kill us and we were told to avoid any of them at all costs. My uncle went on a no-fat bender... for about a year or so... and we almost lost him. Turns out we do need a little fat in our daily lives.

Glad they figured that one out, too, though I courageously used fats all along.

And now, joy of joys, we are told dark chocolate is actually healthy. No courage necessary.

Cheers.

 

9. FIBS IN HAPPY FONTS

 

Cliche. 

I remember distinctly learning about cliche in Mrs. Sonnanberg's seventh grade Language Arts class. She told us that things become cliche because they are true to begin with then get overused. She also told us to be careful with  the use of cliche in our own writing.

Today's quote is not only cliche, but its untrue, which kind of shakes the foundation of the term cliche. 

When a cliche is really a fib, it can border on dangerous. The phrase DO YOUR BEST in the brain of a struggling soul can do more harm than good.  I use the term fib here because in general there isn't real malice in suggesting someone do their best. 

The word fib is thought to have begun in the 1600's and is based on the term feeble-fable: an unfounded or untrue statement not intended to cause harm.

I typed the words "DO YOUR BEST" into the subject line in an internet search engine. Up came countless images in cute fonts, all of them cheerily pumping their palms in the air like size 2 cheerleaders. 

I understand the enthusiasm. 

Here's my trouble with it:

I frankly do not know what my best is. I'm better with "see what you can do." Asking me to push myself beyond my complacent level is a better challenge for me. It allows the concept of me being a work in progress to enter the equation.  Doing my best presumes I know what my best is... and I don't.

Also, what is "best"? That's a relative term. My definition of best changes daily, because I change daily. My best guitar playing in the studio is going to be rhythmically and dynamically on the mark so every other instrument and singer isn't thrown off. My best guitar playing live will push and pull the lyric as I'm singing. My best guitar playing when I am grieving will sound too slow and melancholy to someone unaware of its purpose, and when I am angry and need to regulate my feelings it will sound ridiculously loud and offensive to the ear. To evaluate if the use of my instrument is the best would generally require a lot more underlying analysis than the activity itself is worthy of. So please don't ask me to do my best.

Then there's the word "do". We humans are fixated on the concept of "doing." I tried a little experiment where, for a few minutes, I asked myself "what are you doing?" Then two minutes later I asked myself  "Who are you becoming?"  The doing shifts in its meaning when I view it from the perspective of becoming rather than achieving. The word do implies measurability.

I've done five batches of laundry.

I did the dishes.

I did my homework.

I did twenty pushups and lifted 100 lbs on the bench press.

Doing. It's the easy way out. Or at least the most measurable so we can allow ourself some sense of achievement. I acknowledge that our lives require a remarkable number of doings just to function in society. So I'm not dissing doing. I'm just saying that what we do is not the end-all.

It's the big immeasurable stuff that really defines us.

Tomorrow morning, when I wake up, I think I am going to ask myself who I want to become instead of what I want to accomplish. I'm curious to see what rolls forth.

Anyway, just so you know, the phrase DO YOUR BEST irritates me.

So does "BELIEVE IN YOURSELF." That stirs up all sorts of junk in my brain.

Not everything is possible, and that's not a bad thing. 

Also, "yourself" may need some serious adjusting.

I'd rather believe in the God who has confidence in me.

Be cautious of fibs in happy fonts.

8. COMFORTING BABIES

The purpose of holding a crying baby is not to stop her from crying. The purpose of holding a crying baby is to be present with your child while she is suffering. It is to tell that little person that she is not alone, and it is a reaffirmation of the commitment that you have made to her that you will not be driven away by her expressing how she feels. 

Lynn Beisner

The old woman that is me believes this. 

The young mother that was me? Not so much. 

I was a comfort-driven girl just barely out of her teens physically and probably just entering her teens emotionally. The fact is I wanted the baby to be quiet. I didn’t wish ill upon them. I understood they were new to their bodies and hurled into a mortal state that is probably really uncomfortable and restrictive for their spirit. I always believed we are spiritual beings having a mortal experience. Still do.

But as romantic as it is to think my motivation for trying to comfort my babies was always only in their best interest, the truth is I was usually really tired or overwhelmed and I really just wanted them to cooperate with my plans. 

I am so sorry, Babies Mine.

I wonder, if someone had mentioned this concept to me when I was a teenager,whether I might have incorporated this higher level thinking into my parenting.

Some people have this level of selflessness instinctively, I’m sure. 

My favorite daughter-in-law, Ashley, has it naturally. I watched her as a young mother gracefully and graciously reassuring her kids without having to control the situation. She had, and still has, a profound ability to nurture for the sake of others.

For instance, one day, when she and Johnny were living with us temporarily while they were moving from one house to another and doing some remodeling in the new house, she accidentally locked little 18 month old Sophie in the car, strapped in her car seat with the car running. They had been going somewhere and Ash ran back in the house to get something. The car door closed behind her and locked. Poor Sophie was distraught in the back seat, reaching through the air for her mom on the other side of the glass window. Little Soph was crying, Ash was crying, and I frantically ran back into our bedroom closet to see if there was a spare key in the place where Dave-the-Protector keeps spare keys for all our cars. The spare was gone. I called Dave at work and he told me Johnny had used the spare key at some point and must not have returned it. 

Mind you, I have known Johnny all his human life. I know his strengths and weaknesses as he knows mine. He is probably one of the most humbly confident people I know. And he is a bonafide creative with a tendency to move onto another project before the first one is cleaned up. He inherited this from his mom. I was bugged that he hadn’t returned the key. I might note here that this was before I understood ADHD and its grip on every member of our family but Dave-the-Protector.

Anyway, I went back out to the car where the two generations of girls were crying and Ash was doing everything she could to comfort Sophie through the glass. I said to Ash, “I think Johnny has the key with him at work. Give him a call.”

John worked at Stein Ericksen Lodge in Park City then, over an hour away. 

“No, can’t we just call the police or fire department instead?”, she asked.

I wanted to call Johnny and give him a little guilt trip so maybe he’d learn to return stuff he borrows. How sad is that? 

“Ash, just call John.”

She went into the house to find a hanger.

“Ash, why won’t you call Johnny?” I finally asked.

“Because I don’t want him to feel bad.”

Sophie is a full grown adult now. Obviously we got into the car and she survived the trauma. I can’t even remember how it happened. But what Ash taught me by just being Ash has stuck with me.

I have recalled this experience many times over the two decades that have passed. I was humbled and profoundly touched by Ashleys capacity to feel for the ones she loves. My first question to myself was why do I not have that same level of love driving my decisions? It’s not at all that I don’t love, I know that. But what part of me wants that much control that I feel a need to teach someone a lesson? Can’t life itself do that for me? 

So here I am now, not even with a crying grandbaby left to comfort. Well, that’s not true. They just cry differently now. But the concept remains, and I whisper to myself that, first, the privilege of being with someone who is suffering is holy; and second, I do not necessarily need to take the pain away if it’s not supposed to be removed.  I just need to be willing to comfort the sufferer through it.

I find value in saying the actual words, even in silence:

“This is not about me. 

It’s about you.” 

7. CHANGE - ITS ETYMOLOGY AND THE CONCEPT OF LENT ITSELF

Here’s the beauty of the season of Lent for me and the reason I’m not getting a lot of cleaning and organizing done around my house. It involves the use of modern technology, one of the most amazing blurses of my current life.

Jesse Jackson died last week and I thought I’d honor his influence today with a quote that included the word “change”. I’ll often take certain words to the internet and ask about the etymology of the word itself. There are a number of sites I often use that will show me how the word evolved through the ages; the Latin, Celtic or Greek words from which it is derived, and its various meanings through the ages. I won’t distract myself by explaining the etymology of change here, you are welcome to do that yourself. It should only take a minute.

During Lent my minutes turn into hours because one question leads to another and before you know it, I am onto a whole different subject, more often than not leading to moral ponderings that have few conclusions but are nonetheless worthy of contemplation.

Right now, I am trying to type as I ponder the push and pull of the word “change” against the word “steadfast”, a word for which I also checked the etymology. My religious undertows lead me to desire being defined as “steadfast”, but on further examination I conclude for the moment that being defined as one who is willing to “change” is on a higher moral level. This new information to my mind and heart create conflict, which is becoming more and more familiar to me. It makes me look inward, and upward. I pause and seek spiritual guidance in my ponderings, imploring the Powers That Be that I will not be swayed by logic in the wrong direction. Seriously, I consider the Holy Spirit or my Guardian Angel or whatever powers from the ancient realm of me to be my most valuable allies as I navigate mortality. Without them I am left with my limited understanding and past experience, and I don’t trust either of those.

With the guidance of those influences I conclude for the moment that I am most generously entrusted in this particular realm-of-being with the capacity to choose, which means change is absolutely essential. If I understand that I am an evolving being, then the first factor to allow that to happen is understanding and embracing the idea of change.

But I also understand the value of steadfastness, or not shifting with the breeze, or even with the storm. Certain aspects of my life should matter more than others. Certain things that sink down to the bottom of myself hold me to the ground, keep me focused as I evolve, make me trust myself and others. I respect these things and, in many ways, hold them sacred. I want to be steadfast, to not shift, to be dependable and trustworthy to myself and others. It’s hard for me to respect wishy washy people.

So now I’m stuck between defining myself as steadfast and being willing to change.

And then I realize I can be both.

And I am.

Steadfast in concepts. Shiftable in practice. That’s where I stand at the moment. My brain capacity has been reached. I need to go do something mindless. So I leave it at the momentary conclusion that I can be firm in moral conviction and changeable in how I manifest it.

No doubt this will all swirl in my brain, sift down into my heart, spark up to my brain then back to my heart countless times as I clean off the kitchen counter and move through this day.

Hooray for Lent!

Maybe the etymology of the word change defines change itself.

6. I THINK AND THINK FOR MONTHS...

 I've been asked if, among the hundreds of songs I've written, I have a favorite. There has not yet been a correct answer to that question. It's sort of like asking if I have a favorite meal, or a favorite color or artist: it's a mood thing. 

Regarding songs I've written, there are portions of various pieces I admire. Usually, I resist having complete ownership of what I've written, mostly because if it feels really good I figure I am an instrument and am just channeling it from some other source. And if its bad I try to tell myself the same thing.

In the layout of my creative year, January and February have traditionally been my recital writing period. This is the time of year my friend, Mark Robinette, will send a list of songs that need to be written for the Clytie Adams School of Dance. We've done this for a couple decades now. Mark will assemble a list of pieces, many of which are already composed, and half of which will be played by live orchestra for the dancers. This particular school, mostly comprised of ballet dancers, is unique among schools in that their dancers perform to live music.It is quite costly for the leaders to continue with this decision, but they feel strongly about giving their students the full dance experience, with fully produced recitals at the Browning Center at Weber State University. We play live in a small ensemble, followed by a live 80 piece symphonic orchestra for four full performances and two full dress rehearsals before thousands in audiences. It's one of my favorite gigs.

In early January Mark and Kelly DeHaan and I will take the list of dances that need new music and divvy them out among us. I usually write 6 to 8 new songs each year. I'll get the basic info that includes the type of dance (ballet or jazz or modern), the age of the dancers, time signature and BPM (how many beats per minute) and the length of the piece. Some dances become fully developed songs, which are usually about 3 minutes long. Some are snippets, a minute and a half, and others are somewhere in between. This year the songs are based on a myth, which is also a classical ballet that involves water and sea nymphs and sunflowers. For the last two months there has been a layer of music floating under everything I do. It goes this way every time I am working on a song. Frankly, it can drive me bonkers! I can't get the dang tunes out of my head. They swirl there like undertows that no-one sees from the surface. Sometimes I'll just stop what I'm doing and go get my guitar just to give it voice so it might leave me alone. I wonder sometimes if part of me is afraid I'll lose the tune so it keeps repeating, repeating, repeating in my head. Anyway, it's a thing for songwriters. At least for this one. We have a love/hate relationship with our work.

Some things take an awful lot of ruminating before they are complete. If my thoughts always had voice I would probably be embarrassed how much I replay the tunes I'm writing in my head. Like this quote from Einstein, I will repeat a line 99 times, and its not till the 100th time that I realize something needs to change. 

For instance, when I was writing the song Get Back On That Pony I had originally written this lyric:

Seven years old on a gray Palomino

I sat up tall with my face to the wind

On around the 99th time I repeated that song in my head I had this thought; "Maybe you should look up the meaning of Palomino."

Turns out a Palomino is a yellow horse.

Since gray is one syllable and yellow is two, which matters in lyric writing, I changed that gray horse into a gold Palomino.

When Chris LeDoux called me to say he'd like to record the song, he said it was particularly meaningful to him because as a boy he had a yellow pony he used to ride through the hills of Wyoming.

Thank goodness I allowed myself to churn that piece in my head as I was creating/channeling it. I would have lost all credibility if I had trusted my initial instincts. 

Not only am I reminded, in this quote from Einstein, that not every idea is worth completion, I am also given permission to ponder, ponder, ponder before I settle on any finite conclusions. In that regard, if life were a song, it would probably never be finished.

5. CREATIVE PEOPLE

 

We have a little family text chain that includes Dave and me and just our 4 kids. It reminds me that if I were a stone thrown into the water this little group would be in the first ripple, right by the circle of my siblings. 

For all the negatives that have come with instant access to modern technology, I celebrate the wonder of being able to communicate with my people at the touch of a fingertip. To be able to reach all of them at once is remarkable. 

The four children who sprang from our union are all remarkably creative. Its equally beautiful and painful. They grew up being reminded to see with the eyes of poets. I thought I was doing them a favor, but I see now I was also feeding their genetically predisposed tendency to feel deeply, to overthink, and to question wholeheartedly. They are truly blursed (blessed and cursed) by their creativity. It would have been easier to be less observant.

In general, I am grateful that, despite the discomfort, they get to be creatives. What they see and what they generate are spiritual stimulants. The absolutes of their creation are hard copy representations of where their spirits lie. We are all works in progress. Look at their creations and you will have a pretty good idea of who they are.

The other day Kate sent me a text with a photo of a child's drawing of a manatee. It was at an estate sale near her home in New York. Just a little colored picture in a small nondescript frame. What made the interchange beautiful to me was not the drawing itself. What was lovely is that Kate noticed it in the first place. What struck her was the idea that someone cared enough about whoever drew that manatee that they found a frame and gave it space in their world. I wonder, in that estate sale, if anyone else saw such a beautiful thing? 

The eye of the poet is simply awareness. It's Anna and Dave both coming to me yesterday evening, wanting me to get up and look out the window as the setting sun spread her tangerine wash across the landscape over the Great Salt Lake. It's Annie snapping a photo of eleven-year-old Beth's letter slipped under her bedroom door, bemoaning the companionship of mosquitos in her room, each of whom she named and cursed. Only poets name their mosquitos. It's Kate noting that the snowfall on the rail of her front deck created the outline of little British guards. It's Johnny making a large backdrop for one of my concerts where the flying angel has messy hair because life is messy but its still beautiful. It's Sarah noticing the loveliness in the pause of a conversation. The artist in her knows the value of empty space. 

So, my children, continue to weary yourselves in creativity. You not only color the world for yourselves, you enrich it for the rest of us.

My Sarah

My Annie

My Kate

My John

Kates little snow soldiers.

4. UNEARTHING

“ Finding yourself” is not really how it works. You aren’t a $10 bill in last winter‘s coat pocket. You are also not lost. Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people’s opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are. Finding yourself is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you. Emily McDowell.

Our mother and all seven of her children were born in Southeastern Idaho. When I was five years old we moved to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Many of my fondest memories were of our journeys back home to Blackfoot, where my mother was born and her family remained. Those trips in our big blue Pontiac rocket were full of multiple stops along I80 as we traversed America. At the time, the interstate was being built and they would blast hillsides away to create flat surfaces for roads. My mom and brother George were both certified rock hounds. Whenever mom saw that there had been blasting, she pulled the car over and we sweltered in the car while she and George went digging through the dirt. There, among the rubble, they uncovered geological treasures from eons ago. We three little girls in the back of the station wagon had to share our space with wooden boxes that were filled with rocks. 

Then, once we arrived in Blackfoot, part of the adventure was walking out into the desert surrounding Aunt Ruth’s white clapboard house. There we collected arrowheads buried in the sand, a glint of their flintknapped edges shimmering in the sunlight, exposed by wind shifting sand around cactus and sage.  

My mom has made her way back up to Heaven, but my brother George is still earthbound, and he is still certified. Every one of our children and grandchildren has been blessed by his gracious digging adventures. He’s given each of them little rock collections that identify each kind of gem this earth has given. They all have trilobites that they dug out themselves. Last Thanksgiving, he lugged what appeared to be a ton of rocks in the back of his truck and laid them out on Ann Marie and Michael’s driveway. Little chisels and hammers and brushes were laid beside them. Everyone got to discover their own ancient fossils hidden in those stones. Fish who lived many thousands of years ago appeared in the unearthing. 

I think it’s pretty fitting that the name George begins with the letters Geo. If you know Latin or Greek you'd know geo means earth or ground. There’s geography, geology, geometry, geothermals, geophysics, orb shaped geodes... and there’s George. 

When I was an adolescent Mom was left to handle our world on her own, thousands of miles from home and family with the sting of marital betrayal. My father abandoned the lot of us. We watched our mom work through the process of unearthing herself. An independent soul from birth, it took some humbling for her to re-find the core of her soul. I ache for her, looking in on it from my grown-up perspective now. I still get a pang in that spot between my bellybutton and my heart when I recall the sound of her muted sobs through her bedroom door late at night. Stepping back and looking in, I realize when she lost herself, she found her Lord and when she found her Lord, she found herself. What an interesting cycle.

Someone once explained to me that the position of prayer is actually a natural conduit for energy flow. We receive energy through the top of our heads and release it from the soles of our feet. Maybe that's why, when people enter holy places they remove their shoes and their hats. Perhaps that's why Jews wear yamulkes on their heads, to keep bad energy from entering. I don't know.  

We work so hard at "becoming" we forget it is just as important to "un-become". 

I especially like this quote by Emily McDowell, mostly because I need to be reminded that while we are on the earth part of our job here is to do some serious unearthing. The winds of life may blow some of the sand away, exposing us to the heat of the sun. But to truly release ourselves, there has got to be some measure of personal digging, scraping, brushing and blowing away.  

My brother George Hansen, unearthing.

Geo training his 4 kids how to hound.

Thanksgiving digging with the Joe.
All the grands dig Uncle George.

3. PRAYER OF A STONE CATCHER

Not throwing stones is the first step in treating others with compassion. 

The second step is trying to catch stones thrown by others.  

Elder Dale G Renlund

 

Lord, make me a stone catcher.

Lift my eyes to the places I might not see in my daily walk. Help me notice where gravel is churned up behind double wide wheels, where American Flags flap next to black banners, engines revving in arrogance. Give me side roads to steer to safety those pocked by the churning.

Strengthen my fingers to grasp rocks and bricks hurled into sacred places. Hold me accountable to drop those weapons to the ground when it is not necessary to throw them back. But give me courage to throw when I need to.

Stretch my arms to reach the doorsteps of frightened immigrants, regardless of national status. Give me tenacity to hold them up when they become tired. Find companions like Aaron and Hur who held the arms of Moses so he could raise his staff. Make me that companion to others as well. Let us take turns in the lifting.

Plant my feet firmly on solid ground. Let the waters of distrust flow around me. Toughen my skin to resist the comfort of complacency.

And when I rest, give me peaceful rest, to restore and rejuvenate for the catching tomorrow. Let me rest in Jesus, whose power remains my hope and salvation.

Then let me rise in the light of my Lord. Make my hands his, and his mine, so that in the catching of stones my palms are also marked in holiness.

"Receive"
by David Edward Linn

"Forbid"
by David Edward Linn

2. PAIN

You must allow the pain to visit. You must allow it to teach you. You must not allow it to overstay.

Pain is a strange bedfellow. Anyone who has gained a body would be familiar with it, though  if we’re not careful we will easily confuse discomfort with pain.

I’ve long been intrigued by the concept of pain. I figure the Lord could have made us so that our brains would not register pain. Alas, our Divine Makers must have decided pain was an important aspect of mortality, because there sure is plenty of it going around. Yet we earthly parents do all sorts of contorting and sacrificing to make it so our children avoid it as much as possible. At least the earthly parents with some level of moral standards. If anyone ever decided to give parenting lessons to humans with as much passion and time dedication as we give to, say… teaching math, we might have found out early-on that pain is a gift. Then, knowing that, we would have refined our ability to nurture each other through it, and perhaps more importantly, how to nurture ourselves through it. It’s difficult to learn from others’ mistakes, or others’ suffering, unless you are my Annie, whose tender heart and immense empathy make life especially difficult because she tends to own everyone’s  suffering as if it were her own. Empaths are the sweetest most tender folks, with the largest iceberg hearts. I wish I had known when she was younger how to nurture a heart that allows too much pain to enter.  I still don’t know how to do that, but awareness is the first step.

Being conscious of pain as a visitor and not a resident is essential. Even when there is likely no end to certain pains in this realm, thinking of it as a visitor and not an owner feels healthy. Since Guillain Barre struck me 20 years ago, I am left with pain in my legs and feet that is most likely never going to go away while I’m housed in this particular body. Sometimes it rears its head and pokes up through everything else vying for attention in my mind. And sometimes it’s a side note. That’s where the concept of discomfort versus pain comes in. Sometimes I can say to myself, “Man, my legs are having a really bad day. The nerves under my skin feel like the Pop Rocks we used to put on our tongues as kids. And my muscles throb.” Then I have to lie prone on my bed for a while.

 But other times, though they are the same legs with the same stripped nerves, I am able to focus on other things and not be bothered at all. More often than not I live somewhere in between. That’s the realm of discomfort, which is not going to take me down! I have been able to train my brain to generally pay little mind to discomfort, but it’s usually only possible when I have something else going on. When all I have to think about is my pain, that’s when I find myself drowning in agony. There is great value in distraction.

Then again, too much distraction risks missing the profound lessons pain can teach. I remember, during the most painful part of my nerve destruction, lying on my bed, tears rolling into my ears, my hair wet with sweat as the cells in my body vibrated. They felt like they were on fire and freezing all at the same time, while little electric white worms slithered in my flesh. My mother sat on the side of my bed, her hands gently holding my feet in her palms. Not rubbing them, or massaging the muscled.  Touching them at all was so painful, yet the hands of my mother nesting my sorrowful feet in her warmth calmed my frenetic spirit. Her energy poured into me. Her faith and peace calmed my anxious spirit. I felt her whispering to my soul: “This is your pain. I wish you didn’t have to carry it, but since you own it, I will hold you while you hold it.”

When she acknowledged that my suffering was legitimate, she sealed my heart to hers. Allowing me to release my tears, without wishing them away, was cleansing for me. That gentle nod to ownership of my own pain  indicated she respected my right to deal with it as I saw fit and suggested her trust in me to handle it with my own powers and those of my angels. Thank you, Mom, for not sheltering me from myself too much. How else was I going to learn to handle life without you?

Once pain has done what it needs to do for us, it’s time to release it from its grip. Like guilt, it serves its purpose, then it’s time to move on. This is, of course, referring to the kind of pain that grips the heart and mind. Some physical pains we cannot control and must learn to live with like a Siamese twin.

But in matters of the heart, let my prayer be that the Lord who made me trusts me to carry my pain, knowing full well the true weight of it.  He is intimately familiar with it , having owned it once himself in the shadows of a Holy Garden. I suppose if it has to go somewhere, He has offered to hold it for me, the way he has offered to hold it for you.