Category: Uncategorized

“There is a kind of beauty in imperfection,” wrote Conrad Hall, in a counter-culture quote.

Media mostly indicates otherwise. Years ago I saw an article headlined in a beauty magazine conveying that being slender was no longer enough, that looking good “in the buff” was the new ideal.  The teeth whitening craze suggests that straight teeth aren’t sufficient.  A nice smile is not enough.  Shiny white is the new benchmark. 

Why do we fall for this malarkey? I am as guilty as anyone of succumbing to this.  My right eye is set back farther in my head than my left one.  My right ear is lower on my skull than left ear.  My bottom teeth are crooked as the result of refusing to continue to wear my retainer after I had completed wearing braces.  I have a scar in my left eyebrow from an accident when I participated in that “verboten” activity of running in church when I was 10.  I have lost track of how many scars I have from multiple surgeries. I am capable of giving enormous focus to my weight, my hair, my loss of height due to osteoporosis.  Not all these things bother me.  None of them keep me up at night.  But I am aware of them. 

What gives me pause is the realization that this kind of focus totally skews one’s priorities.  If I wanted to pay attention to physical imperfections, the one that should concern me most is my heart murmur. In itself it is not a terrible thing.  People live with much worse. But over the years it impacted  my self-image,  creating feelings of incompetence, inadequacy, a sense of being defective. I didn’t know for a long time that there was a cause for my tiring easily, for other kids being able to remain active long after I had to quit.   Once a young woman came in for therapy and as soon as she walked in, I thought “This woman has a heart murmur.”  Sure enough, as I gathered some personal history from her, she reported she had a heart murmur.  How did I know that? Because I recognized something that she conveyed in her presence that I have experienced within myself. 

Even so, I am aware that my time and energies are better spent on cultivating those inner qualities I hope to continue to develop all my life, characteristics that have nothing to do with my body:  kindness, generosity, a loving and forgiving spirit, courage, persistence, integrity. 

Eugene Kennedy shared this powerful sentiment that puts this in perspective: “There would be no need for love if perfection were possible.  Love arises from imperfection, from our being different and always in need of the forgiveness, encouragement…”

Welcome to the human race, folks!

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  Early in my pursuit of ministry, I was given the book The Spirituality of Imperfection.  The author, Ernest Kurtz, had worked with alcoholics, folks who suffer from a range of feelings that lend themselves to feeling inadequate, defeated, imperfect. “Once we accept the common denominator of our own imperfection,” he wrote, “once we begin to put into practice the belief that imperfection is the reality we have most in common with all other people, then the defenses that deceive us begin to fall away, and we can begin to see ourselves and others as we all really are.”

I just completed a sermon for Sunday in which I made a comparison between how we measure children’s growth to ensure they are developing normally, are healthy and on track to be their best, with how we measure our own growth as disciples. This is my 194^th blog and, in much the same way, I am beginning to evaluate, to measure, the degree to which I have accomplished what I set out to do.

  I started this during the pandemic, with the goal to discipline myself to write regularly but also in hopes of offering something uplifting or at least of some interest. Discipline is not my forte.  I resist being tied to a routine.  Yet, with few exceptions, I have posted a blog weekly since May 2020.  Now, as I am approaching my 200^th post and my fourth anniversary, I seek to measure whether I have been faithful to the discipline, whether it has been of value to anyone, whether it is worth continuing. 

This is a reflection of where my life is now as I approach retirement from my present ministry in the fall and, in broader terms, as I am aging.  Was I faithful to the ministry, what value has it been, in what ways will I find other means to serve?  Have I been faithful to myself in my life, that is, pursued those things I felt most important, lived my values? What have I left undone that I might yet do? How do I use the time and energy I have left?

My self-assessments require a certain honesty about my limitations, my imperfections, and a willingness also to affirm myself for what I recognize have been accomplishments.  There are benefits to this, of course, well described in an April 2004 article in Psychology Today by Nando Pelusi, PhD:

“Self-appraisal is a necessary activity for navigating a course
through life. A conscious assessment of our goals, our behavior, our
relationships, our performance in all domains ultimately enables
self-improvement. It allows us to expand our options in life.

It does more. It’s another way of leading the examined life.
You deepen the experience of the life you have.

Coming clean with your errors and learning to forgive yourself for
them can become a lifelong habit. Through it, your relationship with
yourself gets better and better.”

She welcomes us to “self-appraisal” and notes that the things most amenable to change are:

• How you spend your time and with whom,

• The quality of the time you spend with others

• Other choices you can make about your self, such as how you
eat and how you drink

• Your performance in general and your performance towards
your goals.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  My advice (to myself as well as any others who might take the challenge of “measurement” and self appraisal) is to give oneself a good bit of grace in the process. 😊

Watching ads for various chocolates where a woman eats one piece of chocolate as though she is in a state of ecstasy,  I have thought “Oh, sure. One piece of chocolate is going to satisfy me.” Then at Christmas I discovered a container of Sanders’ Small Batch Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels.  I am finished with any other chocolate! Really, one piece is quite satisfactory.

This experience got me thinking about how I might find other areas of my life to be satisfied with less.  Chocolate is the least of my problems.  I recall being at a retreat where a woman had recently embraced Buddhism.  She had gotten rid of all of her clothes and now owned only 2 buddhist robes which she alternated wearing.  I was both envious and horrified.  I could not imagine giving up my clothes and having only two “boring” Buddhist “frocks.”

When Jenna was in college, I spent very little on clothes.  I raided her closet for clothes she had left to fill out my working wardrobe.  I remember thinking “Someday I will have a closet composed of  clothes I like.”  I have taken that to an extreme.  I have more clothes than any person needs.  I justify this by buying thrift clothes or items on sale. I give away a lot of clothes, things I don’t like as much, as more justification.   I know better.  This is a mere excuse to indulge myself.

If I’m honest, there is no telling how many other things would fall into the category of my excess….dishes, knick knacks, books, fabric.  (Did I mention jewelry?) Yet, I have found a chocolate that only takes one to satisfy my craving.  What else might I discover if I set my intention and energy towards it?

Tracking Happiness site from January 2023 offers the example of allowing ourselves to be seduced by latest model of cellphones:  “When we upgrade our smartphone to the latest model, with twice as much RAM and quadruple the number of selfie cameras, then we are unfortunately very quick to adapt to that new level of luxury.

“Therefore, this level of materialism doesn’t result in sustainable happiness.

“In contrast, spending that same amount of money on experiences and spiritual values allows us to relive these moments after they have passed. Going on an amazing road trip or buying a subscription to the local zoo has more upside potential for our happiness because we can relive these experiences after they have passed.”

“Identify the essential. Eliminate the rest,”  Leo Babauta wrote.  May we ponder  the wisdom of that and consider what actions we might be willing to take.  

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  In 2005, Leo Babauta was in a bad place: he was overweight, in debt, a smoker, and a procrastinator. He felt stuck and he didn’t know how to change his habits.

Then he discovered some invaluable advice to help him overcome his rut and change his habits for the long-term.He quit smoking and started running. He ran a marathon. He began waking up earlier and eating healthier. And then he started to share his learnings and experiences on his blog, Zen Habits. By the end of 2007, he had 26,000 readers, sold a book deal, got out of debt, and quit his day job.

On Zen Habits, and in his books, Leo shares tactical advice for changing and simplifying your life, being more mindful, and productive.

This week, after a lunch meeting at Whistlestop Café, I had some time before I had some duties at church.  As I took the time to leisurely stroll downtown Columbus, I thought about how I would have once described this activity as “killing time” or “wasting time,” phrases I intend never to use again.  I treasured that bit of time, with no expectation except to enjoy it.

As I age, I appreciate time in a way I never did before.  This is both asset and liability as I currently experience it.  I am more likely to allow myself to simply sit reading or thinking about nothing in particular or watching the photos scroll through my Skylight.  Yet I can veer to a sense of “time urgency” in which I make myself anxious about how much I want to accomplish and how my allotted years are much nearer the end than the beginning. 

In a Psychology Today article* I came across, the author notes that this sense of urgency about time is a uniquely modern concern.  Until the installing of medieval clocktowers, people never really knew what time it was. There was a lot of variation in how each community designated time, which eventually created problems when railways came into being and a predictable schedule became important. Thus, the British began the use of Greenwich Mean time in 1847, referred to as “railway time.” Later, the United States adopted a similar plan. With the advent of industrialization, factories needed folks to get to work on time and to work productively during the hours of their shift.  Over time, one constraint has piled on another, setting the stage for “time urgency.”

Perhaps the challenge for me, maybe for others, too, is to focus on the gift of time I am allowed.  By that approach, I am not driven; but I value each moment, treasuring it in such a way that whether working to achieve a goal, or simply enjoying the pleasure of a quiet moment, I am immersed in the awareness of the present. 

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. But today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.”—quote has been attributed to multiple people. 

*Refer to: Psychology Today article February 17,2021, “Time Urgency and the Pace of Life.”

“Make a list of the things you value most.  Then embody them.”  Those two sentences leapt out at me when I read them.  What seems to be missing there is the “how.”  How do you align the values and the living from those priorities.  At our request, our insurance company will send an annual graphic showing the percentage of what we spent money on when we used our credit card.  Usually the percentages are about what I expect.  Yet there is a lingering discomfort.  How representative are those numbers of the things I most value? That is of course but one means of measurement.   In my heart of hearts, on what do I most want to spend my time, money, energy?  And if certain measurements don’t reflect my values, what am I letting get in the way of accomplishing that embodiment?

For example:  At one time there was a plan put forth in Tennessee to provide health insurance for an additional 280,000 uncovered Tennessee residents.  I value my health insurance. I want all people to have adequate healthcare.   I believe a country needs healthy citizens who can contribute to the nation’s work force; healthy parents who can care for their children; children who are healthy enough to make the best use of educational opportunities.  So I wrote letters to the editor in support of the plan.  I marched.  I visited my representative in Nashville.  And in the end, I was very discouraged, and I allowed that disappointment to disrupt my continued efforts.  I know that I am capable of persistence, something I’ve neglected, to which I can choose to devote more time and energy on behalf of those things I value.

This brings me to an article I discovered by James Clear.  He describes making an annual Integrity Report on himself.  This would seem to be a worthy goal.  I accept the challenge!

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  a note of caution, as one considers one’s values and how to best live them out:   “Life is a series of seasons, and what works in one season may not work in the next. What season are you in right now? What habits does that season require?” — James Clear

Recently the Billings Gazette featured the story of a young woman who had been enjoying athletic endeavors in high school volleyball and basketball.  During a basketball game, she experienced a knee twisting awkwardly, bones sliding past each other and her ACL snapping.  In the difficult time that followed, a quote from Virginia head men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett, helped her move through it: “If you learn to use it right, the adversity, it will buy you a ticket to a place you couldn’t have gone any other way.”

Since the night of her accident, she has undergone five knee surgeries.  But she persisted in her recovery and is in her third season as a Montana State track and field athlete after two years with the Montana track and women’s basketball programs.  She has just won the pentathalon at the Big Sky Indoor Track and Field Championships, earning a gold medal for herself.

An article in May 2020 edition of Forbes magazine titled “How Adversity Makes You Stronger,” reports five ways in which past struggles help us become more resilient.  We can become more empathic.  Difficulties can trigger post-traumatic growth.  You heard that right.  A term that came into use in 2013, post-traumatic growth describes the psychological change that some people experience following a crisis or traumatic event. 

We can develop self-efficacy, the confidence in ourselves to overcome obstacles and challenges. We are more prone to see the good in difficult situations.  The magazine article described that “Finding the upside to an adversity changes the way people cope – they look for social support, report more hope for the future and have a healthier physical response to stress.” Additionally, difficulties can help us reframe stress as a challenge instead of a threat. 

I recall a dream I had some years ago.  I was driving as night fell, in a rainstorm in an old van we owned at the time.  The motor gave out and I coasted to the side of the road.  I clearly remember the scene and the question in my mind of “What do I do now?”  Immediately I thought “Well, I will just figure it out.”  When we discovered we were defrauded, I felt in my core we would get through it.  When Terry broke his back in April of 2017, while he was still in the hospital, I ordered plane tickets for Austria in July, where we were due to vacation with our daughter and son-in-law and grandson.  I did, of course, buy travel insurance.  But at the same time, I was sure we would go, and we did. (Terry did require a bit of hydrocodone from time to time!)

I really don’t know just how that bedrock faith evolved, that I will get through whatever difficulty.  I just know that such faith has allowed me to persist when it might have been easier to give in to despair.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  One of my favorite quotes is: “Things tend to turn out best for people who make the best of how things turn out.”

Exuberance

“When the world around me is going crazy and I’m losing faith in humanity, I just have to take one look at my dog to know good still exists.”— dogsareloveon4legs.com

This week I saw a meme on Face Book and burst out laughing.  Just imagine this:  A Golden Doodle is on his hind legs, paws propped up in front of the television screen, as a horse race is about to begin.  You see his body tense in anticipation.  His stubby little tail begins to wag, faster and faster as he awaits the beginning of the race.  Even on Face Book, you begin to feel your own excitement growing, as you watch his.  And then the gun fires to begin the race, and this exuberant dog begins to bounce up and down as though on a trampoline.  I chuckle to myself even now as I think of it.

The state of the world being what it currently is, it had been a while since I had laughed that hard.  I considered what it might be like to have such a dog-like attitude in life.  For one period in our marriage, Terry and I had Clifford and Jody, Great Pyrenees siblings.  Clifford was a 172 pound gentle giant.  Jody, his smaller sister, consistently found ways to “best” him.  If we walked in the woods, she would hide herself as best she could behind trees and jump out when Clifford lumbered by, startling him every single time.  In our van, Clifford would start out lying on the back seat.  Before long, Jody would leave her spot on the floorboard, inserting herself into whatever space she could obtain on the seat.  Eventually, Clifford would give in to her and retire to the floorboard.

Once when we were travelling with them to New Mexico, we encountered a heavy snow.  They had never experienced snow before.  They ran, leaped, chased each other joyfully.  One could almost imagine them shouting “Life is good!” Certainly their spirited energy lent itself to my feeling a thrill as I watched them, I myself enjoying a sense that “Life is good!”

In her article “The Sixteen Habits of Exuberant Human Beings,” Kate Bratsker included the reminder that laughter is the best medicine. “In the case of The Blues,” she writes, “ this may hold some truth.  A good, old-fashioned chuckle releases happy brain chemicals that, other than providing the exuberant buzz we seek, make humans better equipped to tolerate both pain and stress.”

Not to minimize the grief of the world, or the difficulty we encounter as we seek to maintain our equilibrium in the midst of it, indeed, humor can be a balm, healing our spirits when we have reached a tipping point, when we are more inclined towards despair than to delight.  (Please refer to the opening quote. 😊)

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  You may recall Norman Cousins, of Anatomy of an Illness fame.  Cousins, who claimed as a child he set out “to discover exuberance,” did research on the biochemistry of emotions,  believing them to be the key to human beings’ success in fighting illness. In 1964, when he was diagnosed with a crippling connective tissue disease and ankylosing spondylitis, and was told he had a 1 in 500 chance of recovery, he developed a regimen of Vitamin C and laughter. He watched re-runs of Candid Camera and other comedic fare, eventually recovering.  An amazing and accomplished man for many reasons, it would seem he achieved his childhood goal of “discovering exuberance.”

It has snowed for two days in a row.  Yesterday as I sat in my meditation spot watching the snow I thought, “How can I meditate when there is this lovely snow to watch?” Then I thought,” Well, that is a silly question!  Meditate on the snow, of course!”  And so I did.

I have great memories of snow as a kid.  We lived on a cul de sac.  Kids on each side of the street built snow forts and hurled snowballs across the street at each other. The father of my friend Kathleen Riley would hitch a big sled to his pickup truck and we kids would pile on.  To our endless delight, Mr. Riley would drive us around the neighborhood.  My mother would gather snow and make “snow cream.” Ahhh!  What a treat that was.  Occasionally we had snow days, like unbidden gifts of time to play.  Even in college, I recall a particular night when we got word that school was called off the next day due to snow.  That night was like a huge party in the dorm.   One of the young women in the dorm offered to pierce my ears, which I had been considering and to which I agreed. She brought out a huge needle, cleaned my earlobes with alcohol and rubbed them with ice to numb them, then proceeded to pierce them.  That just seemed to add to the celebratory atmosphere.

Life shifts.  Would I put my grandchildren on a huge sled and allow them to be driven around behind a pickup truck?  Would I make snow cream, knowing that the snow may carry pollution?  Would I allow an untrained person to pierce my ears? (My mother’s reaction at the time? “You could have gotten an infection!”)  Snow has sometimes presented an obstacle to getting to work. Sometimes snowfall has disrupted other plans.  There was a hundred-year storm in 1993 when we got 21 inches of snow in our hometown in Tennessee.  Terry’s and my expected trip to South Carolina, which would culminate in a workshop for our continuing education credits, was altered.  We couldn’t even get out of our driveway.  However, this weather event allowed for a really good family time.  We cooked on the wood stove and played games with Jenna and our foster children.  I worked with the girls on learning to sew.  Terry and I tramped through the snow, two miles roundtrip, to get more milk. In adulthood, you learn to adapt, to go with the flow, to make the best of your circumstances, or you suffer for failing to do that.

I discovered there is controversy over the claim that the Eskimos have more than a hundred words for snow.  However, they do have a variety: “aput,” snow on the ground; “qana,” falling snow; “piqsirpoq,” drifting snow; “qimuqsuq,” a snow drift, as some examples.  Montana should have a vocabulary for snow too.  Sometimes the snow falls in the tiniest flakes I have ever seen, nearly invisible but present.  Less often, bigger flakes drift and swirl.  Sometimes the snow is “drier,” making snowballs more difficult to pack.  This week the snow has been moister, allowing for easier snowball creation. Always, though, I am aware that the snow is granting us some needed moisture, a blessing. 

As I age, I am aware I appreciate the quiet sense that snow provides, the slowing down of life, a blessing of a different sort, for which I am grateful.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  Terry and I drove to Billings this week in very light snow., the temperature a little above freezing.  We marveled at the fact the sun was shining and the clouds in the sky had no resemblance to what I understand snow-laden clouds to be. On farmersalmanac.com, I learned this fun fact: “Snow forms in the clouds where temperatures are freezing. However it can theoretically fall when the ground surface temperatures are in the mid-40s, sometimes even higher.”

 And I share this quote I love (although I read that two scientists in a Wisconsin snow found two snowflakes alike.  Boo. Hiss.)

“They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true, how could the world go on? How could we ever get up off our knees? How could we ever recover from the wonder of it?” – Jeanette Winterson 

This week is always a memorable one every year.  What would have been my father’s107th birthday, the 16^th anniversary of my mother’s death, and as I write this, the 16^th anniversary of her funeral, all occurred in this first week of February.  It was only as I began to think about writing this that I recognized I had been sleeping in my mother’s nightgown this week.  I have other things of my mother’s, some jewelry, a few scarves. Even more precious, I have a ring she had made for me from her wedding rings and, most dear of all, a scrapbook of some of her poetry and other collected writings of meaning to her.  But to sleep in her nightgown seems to make her feel close.  I am sentimental that way.

My father’s robe is another story.  My father lived with us for the last five months of his life.  When he died, I went into a deep depression.  I would sometimes sit in the apartment attached to our house where he had stayed, often wearing his robe.  It still hangs in my closet though I rarely wear it now.  As I prepare to observe Lent, I am gathering 40 items to give away.  It is a lovely robe in excellent condition.  I vascillate.  Someone could get a lot of wear out of that robe.  It has been 15 years since he died.  I could think of it as a way to honor his memory if I gave it to charity.  And yet I hesitate.

I recall someone I worked with whose young daughter had died of cancer after a long battle.  I worked a long time with that grieving mother, who so longed to “join” her daughter that she was nearly starving herself to death.  When we finally reached the point, four years after her daughter’s death, that she felt ready to dispense with her daughter’s things, we arranged for a little memorial ceremony for her belongings.  I discovered that in four years, she had never even opened the door to her daughter’s room.  We blessed the clothes, the books, the crayons, all the childhood paraphernalia and designated places for everything to be donated that could be.  In time, the grieving mother found her way back to life and health.

Perhaps I’ve answered my own question.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  I have no memory of having selected this poem, or how it came to be in the funeral bulletin for my father.  I only noticed it some years later going through some memorabilia.  Though it isn’t how I imagine afterlife works, I expect it is exactly as my father understood it.  It isn’t great poetry either, but I found it comforting when I discovered it.

“To Those I Love”

“When I am gone, release me, let me go.

I have so many things to see and do.

You mustn’t tie yourself to me with tears.

Be happy that we had so many years.

I gave you my love. You can only guess

How much you gave to me in happiness.

I thank you for the love you each have shown,

But now it’s time I traveled on alone.

So grieve awhile for me if grieve you must

Then let your grief be comforted by trust.

It’s only for awhile that we must part

So bless the memories within your heart.

I won’t be far away, for life goes on.

So if you need me, call and I will come.

Though you can’t see or touch me, I’ll be near.

And if you listen with your heart, you’ll hear

All of my love around you soft and clear.

And then, when you must come this way alone,

I’ll greet you with a smile and say ‘Welcome Home.’”