Beautiful School Supplies

I love new school supplies - I always have. When I take the plastic wrap off of a new package of loose-leaf paper, I just stare at the clean white sheets, mesmerized - I think it's lovely! And a newly sharpened pencil is glorious. Maybe it's because I'm a poet, or because I'm an idealist - I love things that are clean, fresh and new...

I used to love the beginning of school and the fall - although I grew up here in Florida and the fall here never quite looked like the fall on T.V...But in my mind, it did! New clothes, new friends, clean school-supplies, and a crisp autumn breeze (okay, it was really August and 98 degrees on a hot school bus)...It was beautiful!

Now, as a parent, the process of getting ready for school is...a little more hectic - Wal-mart is a nightmare, the "lists" from the teachers often include obscure items that probably only exist in the southern tip of Madagascar, and my childhood ability to only feel the weather as it exists in my fantasies is somehow fading...maybe it's dying of heat exhaustion!

It's funny how we can remember things a certain way, even if they weren't quite that way in reality. Our perception is so wrapped up in our emotions and experiences, we can fool ourselves into believing it's a crisp fall day even in the sweltering heat of summer.

Christmas is like that for me. Even when it's sunny and 80-something outside, in my heart it's like a Thomas Kinkaide "Wintertime" painting, with smoke-filled chimneys and horse-drawn carriages...I guess because I need it to be that way. We all need a certain amount of idealism in our lives, some of us more than others - it's like hope. To imagine that things are better than reality - to see things how they could be, rather than how they really are.

I'm going to try to remember how I did that when I was a child on the hot school bus, and try to look at things around me with that same sense of hopefulness - and tonight as I "play" with my kid's school supplies, maybe I'll drink some hot chocolate and put on a sweater...

There's beauty all around us - even in unexpected things...like school supplies!

Peace.

In Dreams

I've always had crazy, vivid dreams. They are so life-like that some days it takes me a long time to shake whatever emotions are generated as I sleep. I remember having a particularly bad dream in which Byron upset me (that NEVER happens in real life), and even though he had, in reality, done nothing to me, I was really mad at him and it took me about an hour before I wanted to speak to him - all because of a dream!

Dreams are funny like that. A lot of times they let me know what is really on my mind. I'll think I'm past a certain event, feeling or hurt - and then I'll have a dream that reminds me. Then I'll walk around thinking, "Why do I feel like this today - why do I have this knot in my stomach - oh yeah, I had this crazy dream..."

I guess, unless I've had spicy food late at night, it's just another way to process my emotions - to work things out without having to focus on it while I'm awake. It's my heart's way of saying, "maybe you need to work on this - forgive again, love more, be less offended..." When it comes to a hurt that can lead to bitterness, I've found that what I refuse to deal with I become.

So, I guess I've got some work to do - it's a constant process. What's the old saying, "Don't be bitter - Be better."? I've always hated cliches, but usually there's a lot of truth in them.

I'm starting a new work-out regimen today - so, while I work on my body, I can also renew my mind (I think there's a verse about that somewhere). And I can focus on real dreams - dreams of changing the world one heart at a time.

LOVE IS THE MOVEMENT - and the ultimate dream. Peace.

A Message From Home

I recently watched a movie which reminded me of the one thing that people have in common: the need to belong, to be loved above anything or anyone else - to feel "home". In this beautiful yet brutal civil war movie, no amount of physical hardship can stand in the way of a soldier's journey home to the only place where he truly feels loved. So, he trudges across bitter terrain and endures the utter lack of food, shelter, and safety - all to return to where he feels he belongs. He doesn't even know if his pre-war sweetheart has waited for him. He only has one letter which begs him to return soon, "...if you are fighting, stop your fighting and return to me. If you are marching, stop marching and return to me. Return to me." So he does. It takes him months, perhaps longer. Yet, nothing deters him because he has to keep moving in the direction of HOPE.

We all do that, don't we? - move in the direction of hope. The only other option is to give up and die. It is a part of the human condition to experience the desperate need for love, to belong, to be home. It gives us breath - without it we die.

There are people all around us who don't know where the hope lies. They would give anything to feel that they truly belong. They would traverse any distance if they could only receive the message that there is someone, anyone who would be waiting for them - a place where they would be received and accepted. Don't we, as Christ-followers, know that such a place exists? We've received the message. God has said to us all, "I love you - desperately, passionately, above anything else. Stop marching. Stop fighting. Return to me. Return to me and be home."

Maybe we need to be reminded of the love-letter in the pocket of our tattered uniform. Maybe we need to read it again to remember what lies in store for us. Maybe we need to get up and get back on the road home. Or maybe we just need to give someone else the message, so they can begin to travel in the direction of hope.