Tag Archives: Spiritual Direction

The House That Jack Built

14 Sunday Mar 2010

Posted by in Home Restoration, Life at Home, Soul Care, Writing

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What would I do if I won the lottery tomorrow?

It was a question I was asked several weeks ago by my spiritual director.  I had been talking about feeling stuck.  Maybe I was whining, because God knows, I have been struggling a little of late.  All the activities that once brought me great joy no longer do.  Whether its writing, spiritual direction training, even gardening – all has lost its luster.

That question has proved life-giving.  So maybe it’s not so bad to be stalled, since I’ve taken the last two weeks to take stock of where I am and where I want to be, five years down the road.  I’ve asked myself questions like, would I travel around the world?  Would my husband and I retire to some little lake house a little further south?  Would I continue to garden and to write?  Can I see myself sitting as spiritual director for fellow seekers?  Oddly enough, I can respond ‘yes’ to all of these questions.

But strangely, the thing I would most like to do in the world, if money were no object, is to buy old unloved houses and restore them.  And would you believe I said this to Curt, with no thought whatsoever, on the very night he first posed his ‘litmus’ test question.  And the answer is really no different now, after two weeks of pondering.

So imagine my surprise, when a week ago, my sister told me that she wanted to try to keep rather than sell my parent’s former home.  The house that my father Jack built twenty-five years ago is going to get rebuilt from top to bottom; my sister plans to  replace the roof, windows, kitchen appliances and redecorate surfaces, like walls, flooring, ceilings.

This property that my sister inherited has been in my mother’s family since the late forties — my sister and I ran across the warranty deed when we were clearing out the house last week.  I believe my grandparents bought the house from one of my great uncles — though, originally, I understand the house belonged to the parents of two great-aunts.

The original home purchased by my grandparents was demolished over ten years ago, though the front porch of that original home still stands.  My mother began a garden around that old porch and a new grape arbor I had built nearby.  And my sister, being the gardener that she is, will likely refurbish and add to the small garden our mother left behind.

My sister will be a wonderful caretaker of the property.  Christi knows exactly what color she wants to paint the exterior — and she has so many ideas for the inside.  And yesterday, while Christi and I were painting the front sitting room a lovely shade that can only be described as the color of homemade vanilla ice cream, Christi asked me to help her.

All I can say it that even though the house is my sister’s and not mine, I feel as if I’ve just won the lottery.

Pimento Cheese & Other Good Stuff

09 Tuesday Feb 2010

Posted by in Good Reads, In the Kitchen, Life at Home

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What a difference a day can make.

Waking up to blue skies is good.  But this other good stuff that tucked me into bed last night sure didn’t hurt.

1. Shedding a few good tears: Last night, as I was presenting a paper in class, my eyes began to water and before I knew it, a few tears had escaped.  For years, I avoided crying in public because I thought crying signaled weakness.  I’ve obviously gotten over this thinking, eight years removed from the business world.  But it has helped me to learn, from my spiritual direction reading, that crying not only remove toxins from our bodies but that it helps lead us to heart’s truth whenever we follow the tears.  I’m still working on the leading, but at least I’ve a good signpost to direct the search.

2. Reading a good book: After class, I picked up a book that has languished on my nightstand for months.  One page into it, I thought…,  “Ahhh.”    Two pages into it, I thought,… “Oh, why have I denied myself this pleasure for so long?”  And my third  and next thoughts joined those in the story.  The irony of the novel’s title, The Help, is not lost on me, even as I became lost in the story.  I went to bed grateful for the writing gift of Kathryn Stockett — and for having the good sense of finally putting pleasure before work.

3.  A Good Lap Dog: I slipped into bed before reaching for the comfort of that good book.  Yet, before I could crack open its covers,  my forty-six pound poodle boy was covering me from neck to foot.  I adore a good lap dog, which was the reason we brought a little Scottish Terrier into our lives last summer; but Max has proved to be more of a lap dog than Cosmo, in spite of his being too big for my lap.  But, who cares if his front legs cover my chest and his head rests on my tummy and his trunk and legs cover my trunk and legs.  Maybe last night I needed more than a good lap dog  because Max fit my need perfectly.

Soul care comes in all shapes and sizes.  Inevitably, I find mine buried right under my nose — or sliding down beside it.   Sometimes we can find it buried between two slices of bread, like this other good stuffing.

Pimento Cheese

Spread on bread, crackers, corn chips or celery sticks.

1 lb of grated Cheddar cheese (I sometimes use half Cheddar and half Monterey or Pepper Jack)
1 4 oz jar diced pimentos (do not drain)
1 Tbsp sugar
Dash of salt, white pepper and garlic powder
2 dashes of Tabasco
Mayonnaise to moisten (3/4 to 1 cup — I use Duke’s Mayonnaise)

Combine and mix all ingredients.  Keeps in the fridge for several days.

Wholly Listening

04 Thursday Feb 2010

Posted by in Life at Home, Soul Care, Writing

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Regret closes in.

What door did I just close?  What would have happened had I not been so quick on the tongue-trigger?  What might have been said had I waited in silence?

Of course, conversations happen fast.  The words of another don’t quite sink in before the moment is gone.  It’s only later that the loss is felt, only later that regret fills in the hole of what might have been.  And as much as we’d like to retrace our words back to the time of impending revelation, the opening we glimpsed too late  is gone.

It’s funny — in an ironic, sad sort of way —  that it was just last night when I was talking to my husband about when, in my writing, I most sense the presence of the Holy.  Inevitably, it comes through telling stories of  times when life catches us by surprise, when we forget ourselves enough that we simply react, without fully processing what it is we should do.  Or what it is we should say.

For a moment, we are immersed by whole truth.   Unbridled hurt or anger flares up and life shakes lose a tear.  We feel naked and exposed.  Or sometimes we’re just so darn giddy that if we don’t embarrass ourselves by our victory jigs (after we’ve come to our good senses), then we have surely embarrassed friends or family or complete strangers with our demonstrations of foolish and unabridged joy.

Sacred moments catch us by surprise, and often, I realize only later that I may have closed a door on something important.  It happens more often than I would like and perhaps, more often than I know.  Last night it happened with my brother’s unexpected call.

Jon never calls on Wednesday and never so close to bedtime.  Looking back on it, I guess he was in the midst of  a whole-truth moment, where he simply had to tell me something, in spite of the fact that he was calling at the wrong hour or on the wrong evening.

I can’t recall Jon’s exact words but he called to thank me for bringing a holy listener into his life.  Jon wanted to tell me about  their first meeting and how much he had enjoyed being with Jim.  On some level, I sensed the weight of  unprocessed longing in the words expressed and the words that may have come next.  But I’ll never know since I jumped into the silence with words that should have waited on the weightier words of my brother.

Silence is indeed golden.  It helps us be better listeners.  It gives us time to absorb.  It gives the one speaking time to clarify and expand.  If truth is resting on the tip of a tongue, silences invites the truth to slip out in the open.

With silence, our listening can become whole.  And in the  listening, when the speaker loses all track of  time and forgets about the listener and for a moment, even forget about himself, the listening become something else.  Holy.