Category: Faith and Purpose

These posts have reference to my core beliefs and the actions taken because of them.

Being in Poverty: Post 2

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J had cautiously “moved in”. I don’t think he trusted that we were willing to let him have the room because it was just weird. His culture, his background was so different from ours. Why would we do that? That is exactly what he asked me one night when we invited him to share our meal. “How do  you love people so much?”

I hate being caught off guard by questions like that. I kind of know why I do what I do, but I’m never sure if that’s the most helpful answer. It’s not just because I can offer help, but because something stirs my heart and mind to do it. I know I’ve prayed to feel the right kind of love for people I encounter (because, frankly, I don’t have it, yet) so when I’m given an opportunity to act, I take it as an answer to that prayer. I’m being taught. I think what J wanted to hear was that I had a personal interest in him, not that I was in God’s classroom.

He’s been desperately short of cash ever since he came and there have been several instances where he has asked for $10, $15, etc… for food or to put gas in the car. He’s always waiting for the check from work to show up and for some reason it gets lost and has to be reissued. It’s never timely. When it does come, we don’t really know how much it is or where it goes. Because he’s been injured on the job and is on “light duty” with frequent time off for doctor and therapy appointments, it’s probably not much.

We three, me and my cousin and his wife, were in the car ready to back out of the garage. I was taking them to the airport for their flight north and had plans to drive on to North Carolina, alone, to visit my daughter. Goodbyes were said, and to my surprise J asked me to come back in the house for a moment. My cousin said “He’s going to ask you for money”. Very possible, I thought. But when I went in, J simply gave me a hug and said “I love you.” That was it. It was a very good send off and I’ve thought about it a lot since.

The tables have been turned and I’m questioning “How can he love people like me so much?” Class is in session. More to come…

Being in Poverty, Post 1

Shirleyjdietz2 Comments

20171004_072115.jpgI was nearly asleep in my dark bedroom when my cell phone lit up the ceiling with an incoming text.  “Hello, I need a ride to working in the morning very low on gas if u don’t mind”. It was from D, who had been sleeping on a roll out bed in our lanai for the last month.

“What time?” I texted back.

“530 we can leave”

“OK”, I responded.  I get up early anyway, so it’s not that much trouble. I wouldn’t have to make myself stay in bed, staring at the clock, until 6 like I usually do.

“People Ready, then wirk. Thanks a million. Meant to tell you earlier”.

 

Morning came and we were both up and ready. People Ready is an employment agency a short way down the road from our house. On the way there this conversation unfolded.

D speaking, “We might have to take four or five people to work with us. I usually drive everyone on the work ticket.”

Me, “Whoa, I didn’t sign up for that. This car only has room for three more and I don’t know any of these folks. How did they get to work yesterday when you weren’t here?”

“Someone else who had a car got the job. It’s alright, if you can’t do it, they will have to make up a new ticket. Maybe the man who drove yesterday can do it again.”

I think for a while because I hate to put him in a spot that will cause him trouble. He gets into so many awkward situations all by himself. He doesn’t need help with that.

“Well, this is pretty early. Do you go right to work when you get the ticket?”

“No, we kind of hang out at the store. We buy food for lunch and sometimes for breakfast when we’re hungry. We go to work around 7.”

It wasn’t that I was afraid of this scenario, but I can say it sounded like one I would avoid, given the chance. It certainly wasn’t in my morning plan…

 

He went into the People Ready office and came back out to tell me that if he couldn’t drive, they would take him off the ticket – he would lose the job. His solution was that I could take him to get enough gas for the trip to work and he would pay me back after the day’s pay came in. This does not sound like a big deal – to give someone $15 worth of gas money – and it isn’t if you don’t do it often. Our gas cans at home that we had filled in anticipation of Hurricane Irma, were empty. Most of the 17 gallons had gone to people who were out of gas and D had been one of them. But it still sounded better to me than hanging out at Mike’s Mini Mart. So that’s what we did. I bought him some gas and he took it from there.

These new experiences are a daily occurrence since God brought three homeless men into our lives here at the oneacrewoods. Every day I learn something about being financially poor. More to come.

 

 

 

 

The Hard Work of Resting

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August 5, 2017

20170805_093237-1I am technically resting, sitting in a comfortable chair, wondering what it really means to rest. It is Saturday, which always reminds me that there is a seventh day of the week, at least on the calendar we use. And on the seventh day of creation God rested. He looked at all his work and was satisfied, and then he rested, or stopped working. He didn’t stop because it was the seventh day. He stopped because he was done with a project. Resting is fun when you are done with a project, but what if you don’t feel done?

Of course, I am not God. I need to rest for other reasons like being tired and needing to refresh and recharge. I’m enough “in God’s image” to wish that I could look at my work and pronounce it good, finished to a satisfactory point, so I could rest. But I’m more like my human composition – I have to be commanded (kindly) to not work myself to death.

To rest must also have a deeper meaning than to do something that I consider fun. I pepper my time every day with fun. I knit, I do solitaire challenges, I sit and read, I ride my bike, I watch TV. I have a lot of fun, restful activity. In all of it my mind is engaged in something other than work. But none of that requires me to engage with God or my own mortality. What does that is aging. The longer I survive, the easier it becomes to think about God and what his plans might be.

I become more interested in looking back, trying to see a pattern, a progression. I become more interested in the clues in my environment that inform me of how God works. I become more impressed that he actually has a written word of instruction – one that has surpassed the effects that any of its scribes could have imagined.

This week we had a storm. It wasn’t a particularly bad one, but it cleaned a lot of dead wood out of the trees. I suppose that is God’s purpose in a storm, whether it be in the woods or in my life. Today, as I rest, I’m going to think about how it is that things become new, with dead stuff removed, and appearances changed.

 

Preparation

Shirleyjdietz2 Comments

 

In about 12 hours I’ll be going to Cambodia again. It is always a surreal experience for me, as I am such an unlikely candidate for such far away travel. I’m old enough to be a grandmother and never had expectations of going farther away than the edges of my own country. I don’t necessarily have a yearning for travel and can’t imagine why it has happened to me (for the fifth time now!) except to say that an unseen hand must have picked me up and dropped me on the plane.

 

These days preceding the flight have been filled with hectic activity, not leaving much time to think about the trip, but when I have thought about it…

  • How different will it be for me, doing it alone this time?
  • I don’t have suitcases full of toys, crafts, and medical supplies this time. What am I supposed to do with all that room? Take clothes?
  • What will I do with those 26 hours of travel time if there are no good movies? if it’s hard to get up and walk around? if I can’t sleep?
  • I hope I don’t break the hot pink headphones I borrowed from Gracie.
  • At last I’ll get to be that person at the airport looking for someone holding a card with my name on it.
  • I wonder what the taxi fare will be – have no clue. I should have handled more of my own money matters on trips before.
  • I wonder if I will remember the children’s names, or even recognize them after two years. They’ve grown so much. I wonder if they will remember me…
  • A real hotel this time, not a guest house with known hosts. The Double Leaf Boutique, at the exorbitant price of $40 per night. Times have changed!
  • I wonder if my aging computer will make it through the two weeks. And my phone’s camera…
  • But I’m not going to take as many pictures (haha – I say this every time). I’m just going to put new dates on the old ones.
  • I’m not going to buy anything at the markets. No, not a thing. I don’t need anything.
  • I’ve seen their chickens. How am I ever going to stay on my paleo diet?
  • Two weeks without my favorite pillow, should be interesting. I’m tired already. And beds in southeast Asia are mostly hard in my experience.
  • I shouldn’t have cut my own hair – this is how they are going to remember me forever. There will be photos…
  • How has the country changed? I wonder if the roads have gotten any better.
  • How many hours of TV will the husband log while I’m away?

It’s the last few hours and I’m making myself finish packing. I’m hoping that once I get there the long trip will be forgotten and I will regain my enthusiasm, but for now, I have to admit I’m lacking in that category. I’m asking God to show me, definitively, why I am doing this. And I know he will.

For Mother’s Day

Shirleyjdietz5 Comments

20170512_162317-1Hi Mom,

It’s Mother’s Day weekend and I can’t be with you – seems we’re hardly ever together this time of year. I wish that was not the case. I’ve been thinking ever so hard about what I could do or say to show you how much I love you, care about you, respect you and enjoy you. Nothing I think of quite fits the bill. We should talk sometime about what things make your heart glad so that I won’t be wondering.

I guess we all like to know that we’ve accomplished worthwhile things, helped others, added to the well-being of society… all that sort of thing. Do you wonder what you have done? I ask because I think we all have those alone moments when we are uncertain we’ve mattered in any way (I have them). Even if we think we have done our job, we’re not sure anyone else would second our opinion, ha ha. So I’ve thought of a few things you’ve done for me and will try to express them in a thankful way.

One of the most important things centers around the idea of contentment. There are so many people who are not content and are difficult to be around. They can’t even voice a statement of fact without it sounding like a complaint. You, on the other hand, are able to express even things that trouble you without complaining. I can’t imagine you whining about anything. You’ve shown me it’s possible to be this way and that it is a good choice. I’ve seen that everything doesn’t have to be perfect for me to be content. And because you are content in so many situations, it is a pleasure to be with you. I want to emulate that so that people will want to be with me as well.

From you, I’ve learned that pleasure can be pursued in many small ways – anyone can do it! (Should do it!) The pleasure of coffee in a special cup, a favorite meal (even though it be fast food), a preferred morning ritual, a favorite view of the neighborhood, a pleasurable activity (even though it be thought of as work) – are all the kind of things that should be included to make life happy.

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You’ve shown me that grieving and joy are not mutually exclusive. You’ve accepted loss as a part of life and don’t let it spoil the present or take hope away from the future. That’s huge.

You’ve been a champion of humor, of adventure, of seeing new places and doing things differently. I guess I would call that bravery. Sometimes it is brave to laugh when you could cry. It is brave to go, to join, to do, when you could sit home and do nothing. It is brave to choose “different” when we suddenly find we can no longer do “the same”.

There is much I’ve learned from your gracious way of stepping back from things too. It’s not always about saying “yes”. Sometimes it’s necessary and right to say “no”. I say you do it graciously, because you do not make others feel sorry for you, or make them feel guilty for their own choices. I guess that ties back in with being content and showing it to others.

I am more and more aware that there is no avoiding the process of aging (at least no desirable way) and am so thankful that, in you, I have an example that I want to emulate. You are the leader, you are showing the way, and you are helping me to not be afraid. Thank you.

Other miscellaneous things you’ve taught me:

  • Never stop drinking coffee.
  • Never stop digging in the dirt, gardening in some fashion.
  • It’s just money.
  • Being clean can make things almost like new, use Oxiclean.
  • Never pass up a colorful piece of cloth.
  • Always be reading something.
  • Let people know you like them.
  • Never assume you have it all figured out, or that you even should.

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#AtoZChallenge: U

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Up. I give up.

I’m sorry. U is my least favorite letter. There is no favorite thing that starts with U, not for me. I thought of stretching my theme but it would seem disingenuous (a word I like, by the way) to write on a subject that isn’t a thing or that isn’t really FAVORITE.

Instead I am giving one of my favorite quotes – one that I think is encouraging to all of us who are not famous or greatly influential. The letter “u” is used 12 times. See if you can find them all.

Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

From “Middlemarch” by George Eliot

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#AtoZChallenge: My Favorite Things S

Shirleyjdietz6 Comments

Scripture

I love scripture. I am in awe of it. It is the lens through which I view the world. It is a gift.

Growing up, I was blessed with regular stories from the Bible, read to me by my mom, from what I have to say now was a good, engaging perspective. I don’t remember the publisher, but the facts were there in each story without a lot of extra interpretation. As soon as I could read, I wanted to read it myself. We went through the book many times, both the Old Testament and the New. I had the story down pretty solidly, but never knew what it meant. Not completely.

Through the years since, the stories have become more important, have taken on new meaning. They are not stories, they are one story.

The Old Testament tells me there is someone behind all that I see – a Creator. It tells me that a plan is in place to help me become something that I am not yet. From the record of people and their dreams and ambitions, I learn that I’m not going to get where I’m meant to be by my own efforts. People have tried and even at their best, it has not worked out too well. Just watch the news…

In the middle, kind of between the two “testaments”, is Jesus. He ties the stories of the Old to the stories of the New. He is all about new things because he is God. God is about making all things new again. He has been since the beginning because that was the plan even as far back as Adam and Eve. Jesus makes that possible. Without him, there will be no “new” anything.

In the New Testament I see the possibilities of how the “newness” might look. The people writing those stories were thinking a whole different way. They were still people with problems, weaknesses, bad stuff happening to them and around them, but now they understood what their true value was. They were not defined by their varying circumstances. They felt free in some very important ways. They were full of hope right to the end of their days because they knew the end was just the beginning.

Scripture has the ability to surprise. It can respond to my question of the day in a totally new and unexpected way. Something I’ve read dozens of times can suddenly contain wisdom I didn’t see before. It’s true that there are many wise writings that have this quality. I think it’s because all wisdom comes from one true source. You can find bits and pieces of it sprinkled in lots of places, but never quite complete. When I go to read scripture, I have an eerie feeling of expectancy, like I am approaching something alive and never know what it might do.

Through God’s message in scripture, I value the life he is putting me in/through. I value the lives of people around me. No one is insignificant. Through scripture I feel compassion for people, for nature, for the struggle we are all in. Scripture tells me who the real enemy is – the one who is behind everything that is not right. It tells me the enemy has already lost what he fights for, and that is the root of violence and anger in him. He tries very hard to transfer that to us.

So for now, the story continues. We are part of the story. There is hope and it ends well. Read it.

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#AtoZChallenge: My Favorite Things L

Shirleyjdietz9 Comments

Lighthouses

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Can you imagine finding this in a thrift shop?

I don’t remember when I first began to like lighthouses but I’m going to blame St. Vincent DePaul and the oil painting I picked up for almost nothing in his thrift shop. It exemplifies the drama of stormy seas and skies, and the comfort and safety afforded by the warning of the watchful lighthouse. That’s what they’re for and symbolically I take them to stand for protection and warning in other situations as well.

Lots of people are lighthouse fans and after finding this painting I began to notice lighthouse paraphernalia everywhere I went. I haven’t gone crazy with this collection but I have gotten a few gifts that are special. They include my lighthouse in crystal from St. Augustine, lighthouse bookends, notepads, mini prints and calendars.

There is a lighthouse in Seattle near my daughter’s home that I know better than the others because I have been in it and spent time reading its history. I was able to go up to the actual light room and view Puget Sound and West Seattle. On a visit to Pikes Place Market the next day I was going through the watercolor paintings of a local artist and found this one of Alki Point and had to have it.

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Watercolor rendition of Alki Point lighthouse. I have been there.

There are a lot of stories written about lighthouses and I think it’s because they are unusual places built around dangerous waters and were often inhabited by strange people. Most lighthouses today are no longer tended by people but are automated, but the stories live on. One of the better ones I’ve read lately is “Lighthousekeeping” by Jeanette Winterson. The characters in this book are everything I would want as far as intrigue and mystery and the writing is often quotable in its beauty.

Many things in the modern world have influenced our way of navigating dangerous waters, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. But I think we still need lighthouses.

Lighthousekeeping

 

Have you been in a lighthouse? Have you read a good lighthouse book?

#AtoZChallenge: My Favorite Things E

Shirleyjdietz22 Comments
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North Carolina, here comes the sun…

Early Morning

Early morning is really a collection of my favorite things.

As night wears on I begin to ache physically from inactivity and wake frequently. I am always relieved and eager to get out of bed when I smell the aroma of coffee at 6:30. I program the coffee maker the night before because it makes me feel like someone has anticipated my need and has been in the kitchen before me. I am easily fooled.

Although I hear traffic in the distance, I know no one is coming to the door, or calling at this hour. I used to have to prepare for the day and travel to work. But I don’t do that now and the change is refreshing. On the average day, I have at least two hours before there is anyone in my world that I must deal with. There is a lot of peace in this.

I read things carefully chosen to remain in my thinking during the day. Sometimes I have the luxury of thinking about a passage long enough to memorize. I have rediscovered memorization and it is a joy, a challenging joy.

I write. I give it all up, in my journal. Once it is out, I know myself better.

I sometimes make a list. I love lists and they actually help me get things done.

I watch light appear magically, making the night go away. And then I see it is the sun. On days like today it stays oddly dark and there is thunder, but I know the sun is out there because it always has been.

It’s early morning and I am alive for one more day. There is purpose in that and I am eager to find out what it will be (almost all the time…).

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sunrise over inter-coastal waterway.
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Wisconsin sunrise
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Florida sunrise and clouds Inter-coastal waterway
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Florida double sunrise, pond reflections

*All photos private property, contact me for permission.

#AtoZChallenge: My Favorite Things D

Shirleyjdietz11 Comments

D for Diamonds

 

“Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” Leo Rubin

“Diamonds are best plain set.” Rolle

“The diamond has been always esteemed the rarest stone, and the most precious of all: among the ancients it was called the stone of reconciliation.” Lewis Vertoman

“It’s hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.” Dolly Parton

“Diamonds are forever.” Ian Fleming

“Diamonds are trumps in the game of hearts.” Robert Elliott Gonzales

“I never hated a man enough to give him diamonds back.” ZsaZsa Gabor

“No pressure, no diamonds.” Thomas Carlyle

“A girl never cares who casts the first stone at her – as long as it’s a diamond.” Evan Esar

“The diamond is the hardest stone – to get.” Evan Esar

“A diamond on a dunghill is a precious diamond still.” American Proverb

“…the hardest known substance yet has the simplest chemical composition, consisting of crystallized carbon, the chemical element that is fundamental to all life.” Marijan Dundek

“Diamonds cut diamonds.” Tamil

“A diamond with a flaw is worth more than a pebble without imperfections.” Chinese Proverb

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I have two diamonds. I can’t really say that either of them are my best friends as they have always been rather impersonal. I do count them among my favorite things. They both happen to be gifts from my husband.

The first one was in an engagement ring, and I guess it was what “pushed me over the edge” into a marriage commitment. It wasn’t particularly large but it was very high quality – no visible imperfections, with dazzling white sparkle. It spoke to me. It said that he who bought it was willing to risk his future by promising to spend it with me.

Over the years, whenever I would take it to the jeweler, I would hear how the prongs had worn down and I was lucky the stone hadn’t fallen out. The setting was rebuilt a couple of times. Later, working as a nurse forced me to put it aside, as the prongs would catch on things and could scratch my patients. As my hands aged I found that the ring no longer fit over my arthritic knuckles. A few years ago, I got lonely for it and made the decision to have it redone in a setting that would not wear down and would not catch on things. The quote about a diamond being best plain set resonates with me. I love its plainness and I wear it all the time.

I also love the quote about diamonds being stones of reconciliation. My diamond reminds me that I have committed to the work of continual reconciliation to the person I married. This is the second most important thing in life to me, and it’s not easy, which is why diamonds have to be hard, I guess.

The second diamond is set in the center of a cross. Crosses were instruments of death and they were cruel, awful symbols. I am often uncomfortable seeing them as jewelry. But the diamond in the center reminds me, again, of a commitment. It is about the love of my creator for me, the only thing that could make a cross beautiful. It symbolizes a complicated, mysterious way of living and looking at the world. It has become the first most important thing to me.

All diamond quotes taken from http://www.notable-quotes.com