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Off the Wall: A walk through history

So, I’ve been away for longer than I expected, but my husband and I took a walk through history without technology!  We outlawed iPads, and laptops. Phones were only used in case the kids had to reach us. This was a vacation in itself. Not saying I don’t enjoy writing to you all, but it felt quiet. I had to laugh to myself when I wrote this, because the first thing that came to my head was, Hermoine Granger telling Harry Potter, “Even in the wizarding world,  hearing voices isn’t a good sign.” 

It does seem that technology always keeps us connected or at least it is suppose to. My daughters are always annoyed when I leave my cell phone at home. I tell them I liked it better when phones were attached to the wall, so you weren’t expected to always answer. But while I fuss and grip,  it is great that we can now communicate so easily. It just comes at the cost of solitude. I don’t want to sound like a hermit but I do think that we need to guard that treasured silence.  As Maya Angelou puts it, “Solitude can be a must-be-desired condition. In silence, we listen to ourselves, and in the quietude we may even hear the voice of God.”

I enjoyed being with my husband and myself as we went from the Chesapeake Bay area to the Outer Banks. We saw Yorktown, Jamestown, and any town in between. We walked where pirates strolled, and where men first flew. Returning to the present I can say it was great walking through the past together, without any Facebook likes. But I hope to get some ‘likes’,  when I share the trip photos!

I’d suggest a vacation from technology with an understanding that technology is a huge part of our lives.  Enjoy some solitude but be thankful for the many ways we can connect to those we love.  Just don’t let the many voices of  technology take control. I have to remind myself of this a lot. Technology can be all consuming and addictive.

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Off the Wall: Gandalf Wisdom

Gandalf
Gandalf

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

No matter what time or place we find ourselves in there are always struggles. These obstacles often seem impossible, but as Gandalf says we only have one choice and that is to “decide.” So simply put as we live our lives we decide how we move forward or backwards or just stay the same. I once listened to a woman cry as she told me she had dug herself into a hole. She said, “There is nothing I can do.”

But is there really a hole so deep you can’t climb out? I do believe in most cases, no, there is usually a way. Because it all comes down to three important Gandalf lessons:

  • We make our own choices
  • We may need someone’s help to recover
  • The only aspect of life we truly control is the choices we make.

Of course some of the choices we must make are very difficult. They often involve facing the mistakes we have made, and finding the ability to forgive ourselves and others. I believe we become stuck in our own darkness, because we are too afraid to face our own choices. To take responsibility for our own actions, we cannot blame everyone else for our choices. In order to dig ourselves out of a hole we have to face ourselves, sometimes we may not like what we see. But the only person you can change is yourself.

The other problem is pride we often don’t want to ask for help. To admit to ourselves that we need others can open up past wounds. I’m sure everyone has had a time that someone let them down. But part of being strong and digging out of a hole may involve taking a risk. You need your own fellowship of friends, coworkers, parents, children, and maybe even grumpy Gimli.

Another monster that holds us back is our belief we have control of life. Be aware the only thing we truly control is ourselves and our choices. While it is scary to admit we aren’t in control, it is also liberating.  There will come a time when we must cross to the White Shores , but as Gandalf say we are only responsible for what we do with the time we have.

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Off the Wall: Spidey Scenes

Spiderman
Spiderman

“With great power, comes great responsibility.”- Stan Lee (Uncle Ben)

I don’t mean to always tie my ideas to some totally geeky, but awesome character such as Spider-man or Yoda, but I tend to see connections often in pop culture to reality. Sometimes through fiction (books, comic books, movies…) we can learn hard lessons while having fun. Spider-man was like that for me. I loved him growing up. I was even jealous when my brother got Spider- man underoos (superhero kid’s underwear from the 80s) , and I could only have Wonder Woman!

It broke my heart when Spider-man failed Uncle Ben (I don’t mean Uncle Ben’s rice)  in all his incarnations over the years. I just held onto Uncle Ben’s quote, “With great power, comes great responsibility.”  I know I don’t have super powers, but I defined great powers, as my own strengths. To me it meant if you can do something to help you have the responsibility to do so. In later years I was over stressed and exhausted from taking this idea too far. My husband told me you don’t always have to help, sometimes you can say, ” no.”  I turned to him and quoted Uncle Ben. He said, “Honey, that’s not what that means.” Now this is still debatable. But he did have a point, you can’t always help, if you overload yourself,  you just end up being  no help to anyone.

So I’ve made a small change to the quote, “With great power, comes great responsibility, to always prioritize what you can do to  help to others.”   

Okay it’s not short and sweet, but I do think now I am a better support to others, because I am not spread to thin. I still cannot climb walls,  and I doubt I’ll be designing any web fluid anytime soon. But there is something to be said about using our abilities to help others, while being aware of our limits.

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Off the Wall: With a Friend

Image

“Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.”

-Helen Keller

My best friend is my husband of 22 years. We get a lot of congratulations for that, but honestly it isn’t that long of a time. It is long enough for me to say the journey has been all the better because he was there.

Now this isn’t going to be some gooey, lo-vie, do-vie post, but rather a post on life’s journey. Our journey has been one colored with unexpected turns and dead ends, just like most people’s lives. I can say we never planned to be where we are when we first began, so young. Of course in your early 20’s you often think you have it all figured out. We had to figure it out together.

Now this figuring things out, meant sometimes we wanted to toss each other out the window. (figuratively of course) But thank goodness we held on. I do believe it is better to have a friend in those dark confusing moments, rather then to have one only in the good times. You grow closer, and you find deeper bonds.

I have friends who talk about how they aren’t in love with their husbands anymore, but I wonder if love just changes. We expect love to be one way, when it can be far more than we imagined. But it does take effort, or suddenly that closeness can be replaced with walls.

You have to stop each day and not take the other person for granted, this can be the simplest things such as telling them you love them before bed, bringing them coffee in the morning, or a little note that makes them laugh. But it is funny how even the simplest things can slip our minds. I’m the wife that forgets anniversaries, but my husband can tell you the shirt I wore the first day he met me.

Love can blossom into a bond that can only make you stronger. Isn’t it nicer to always have someone there, to help you up when you fall.

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Off the Wall: Commitment to Dreams

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”
-C. S. Lewis

My father is a dreamer. I believe he just started out that way always dreaming. My grandmother was very protective of him and kept him sheltered, but she couldn’t tame his need to question the norm and dream big. Growing up with a dad like mine I caught the dreaming bug early. But it took along time for me to grasp what it meant to truly be committed to a dream. You see that is a big part of making dreams come true, you have to be committed.

When I was in my mid twenties my husband and I were having some trouble, and I found I was extremely unhappy most of the time. I asked my father what is the most important thing in the world? I wanted him to say happiness or adventure, instead he said commitment. You see he already understood that without commitment there can be no passion, without passion, dreams fade. Needless to say he was telling me that happiness comes with commitment. It took me a long time to grasp this, for a while I thought well that’s a cranky answer. But sometimes we have to find our passion to our commitments.

Earlier today I was talking with a man about this very word. He was saying that we are committed to so many things in life, ball teams, our favorite music band, our cars, and the list went on. I thought well yes this is true to a point, but I don’t like my ball teams much when they loose, and my favorite bands keep changing, as for cars if they don’t work I don’t like them. But this is because commitment is far more then just liking something. It’s like jumping out of a plane, you are committed to this action and have faith that your parachute brings you down safely.  But you have to make the effort in order to fly, or fall gracefully in this analogy.

So I personally believe that dreams can be the fire that pushes us forward. But without commitment the lack of passion will let them just be flitting nice thoughts. To make a dream come true you have to really put yourself into it. And there is never a time you are to old to dream, or continue dreams, or to even find something new. Sometimes the longer it takes us to reach a goal the sweeter it tastes in the end.

Now if I can just remind myself of this each day.

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Off the Wall: A Crack in Everything

“There is a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in. ” -Leonard Cohen

I was a preacher’s kid. Preacher’s kids are the worst, I’ve often been told. Both my little brother and I agree with this, but we know the reasons why. In a way you are a small town super star. You begin life on display, tossed into a role of perfection. It gets mighty confusing right away because your father represents God, to you and a whole congregation of hungry souls.

My brother and I use to crawl under the pews after everyone had left; it was a game to see who could get to the front first. We’d scoot like inch worms, scuffing up our Sunday best in the process. You’d have to visit a Southern Baptist Church to know, but in the front of the church is a huge bath tub of sorts, usually hid behind some curtains. This is where people get cleansed of their sins. This use to be done in the river, but weather and necessity made it useful to have an indoor river.

Now my brother had just turned 3 years old and was about to visit his first baptism, we were both sitting on either side of my mom. If you moved she’d pinch the fire out of you, so we were very well behaved. But something happened to my brother when the baptismal curtains were opened. There was our father dressed in a white robe, a dove painted above his head. A little girl not much older than I was stood in front of him awaiting her baptism. My brother was in total awe, he wiggled away from my mom’s pinching fingers and went under the pews, but this time with people there. They scoffed and hollered, but this didn’t stop him , he just wiggled and wormed till he was in the front of the sanctuary. Then he pointed to my dad, and shouted, “My daddy is God!”

While this is funny it is how many children feel about their parents. Parents can do no wrong, it is just as that child gets older they begin to see imperfections in their parents. Parents just like preachers are human, they aren’t always going to be perfect, in fact they will make mistakes. But we as children can learn from their mistakes and hopefully be better parents and people. And parents should be willing to admit when they aren’t perfect, allow their child to see making a mistake isn’t always failure. In fact we learn most from making mistakes.  So instead of being disappointed that your parents aren’t God, maybe be glad they are human and you can learn from them. They may have even had similar problems growing up.

This isn’t to say strive to be imperfect, but rather that we be strive to be good to each other. It also doesn’t mean we make excuses for our actions, but it does mean that we take responsibility for our actions and do better. There is a balance that can be found through forgiveness and true repentance, both can bring about positive changes in ourselves and others.

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Off the Wall: Jamaican food and Good Advice

“… really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

When I lived in Florida, I met this old man named Herman. His name isn’t overly important, although, I’ve always liked the name. But what made Herman stand out most was his advice.

He always spoke with a wise Jamaican accent in even tones and would gently jester his hands to better elaborate.  Over the six years I knew him he gave me lots of advice. He’d speak on theological questions, political issues, and even give small lectures on the virtues of good Jamaican food.

But of all the advice he gave me one specific statement stays with me.

I was in a bad mood, grumbling about a co-worker. Herman stopped me and raised his left hand, spreading out his fingers, and pointing his thumb back towards himself.

He said still pointing his thumb back towards himself,  “Whenever you wish to find fault with another, stop and check your thumb, could it be that you too have much to learn? Never think that your way is the only way something should be done, nor that you know enough to judge the righteousness of others. To think you are always in the right narrows your mind and pinches your soul. “

At first this made me a little angry. I thought how dare he! But as I rolled this over in my mind I started to see this was the best advice he’d ever given me. Besides his advice to not to salt Ackee.

It is important to always questions ourselves, and to realize we are not infallible. Only through an understanding of our own imperfections, and annoying habits, can we begin to work together for a better world.

Questioning  allows us to grow. The only person you can ultimately change is yourself.