History

A narrated tour, meanderings along the river, pamphlets, and my restaurant placemat educated me Sunday in Savannah, GA.  The oldest city in Georgia was established in 1733.  James Oglethorpe (a leading London social reformer) envisioned a colony between English South Carolina and Spanish Florida as a place to resettle Britain’s poor - especially those in debtors’ prison whom he saw as tragically mistreated.  Oglethorpe’s initial Colony Charter prohibited four things:  slavery, lawyers, Catholics, and hard liquor.  The king, keen on keeping Catholic Spain away from South Carolina, thought a new colony in betwixt would be an excellent buffer.  As history of the city deposited bits into my knowledge bank curiosity grew.       

History is defined as a noun at dictionary.com.
1.  The branch of knowledge dealing with past events.
2.  A continuous systematic narrative of past events as relating to a particular people, country, period, person, etc.
3.  The aggregate of past events.
4.  The record of past events and times, especially in connection with the human race.
5.  A past notable for its important, unusual, or interesting events.

Regrettably, I didn’t pay enough attention to history as a subject in school.  Now I find it fascinating.  I feel fervently curious about people of passed times because their stories, like ours, are the threads that weave together the tapestry of the tale.  Just as presently, there was hope and heartbreak, pride and passion, greed and good in government leaders, wealthy people increasing wealth off the backs of the impoverished and wealthy people building schools and opportunities for improvement, murder and marriage, individuals working for personal good and individuals spending their lives working for the good of many, birth and death, despair and celebration.

Pirates and paupers, natives and newcomers, slaves and spinsters, artists and artisans, indentured servants and intrepid explorers are present in the history of Savannah.  As I descended steep cobblestone paths leading from the high bluffs of Bay Street down to River Street I realized the rocks beneath me traveled across the Atlantic Ocean as ballast stones in ships craving goods from American colonies.  Stones out, cotton in - what to do with the rocks?  Pave the streets and shore up the wharf.

As my ankles worked not to turn on the uneven surface, I thought of bare feet plodding though that port against their will.  Throughout the day, I thought of the numerous people who had knelt to pray in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist on Lafayette Square, of folks who heard the first draft of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Dream Speech at the First African Baptist Church on Franklin Square, of the people whose homes were burned in fires that wiped out half the city in 1796 and 1820, of young boy-soldiers from all sides of different wars who marched and camped in Forsythe Park, of people like me who wander along city streets planned long ago and remaining in use today.

History teaches me to see people in the past and the present.

 

 

Gut

December was a gluttonous month.  Late nights, large portions of food, egg nog, and cookies were indulgences I embraced.  As January progresses, I return to more healthy sleep and food habits and my physical body rejoices!  No one made me over-consume for the holidays.  I celebrated whole-heartedly and rather enjoyed it.  I own responsibility, but if I had been more rooted in the moderation guidance of my gut, I think I would have felt much better come New Year’s Day.       

 

Gut is defined as a noun, a verb, and an adjective at dictionary.com.
As a noun gut means:
     1. the bowels or entrails
     2. courage and fortitude; nerve; determination; stamina
     3. the inner working parts of a machine or device
     4. the belly; stomach; abdomen
As an adjective, gut means:
     1. basic or essential
     2. based on instincts or emotions

 

Much fascinating current research is being conducted and published on the importance of the internal, intestinal milieu in our overall health.  Amazing, awesome stuff!  I suspect we knew somehow innately, even before science supported the feeling, that our gut is important.  Being out of balance physically often manifests itself there.  When we are stressed we frequently know it in our digestive system.  When we are dishonest, in love, or afraid we have physical feelings in our stomach.  Even the dictionary shows gut as physical and non-physical.

 

When one’s gut is malfunctioning who can think about anything else?  Inner workings will supersede all other thoughts and actions until resolved.  Maybe that’s why fasting, in various forms, is part of many religious and spiritual practices.  Restrict food and you will be drawn into your gut to listen and feel in a difficult to ignore way.  If we clear away that which binds, blinds, and blocks we make room for new choices and clearer sight.

 

Culturally, I think we are not trained to listen to our gut, in a physical nor an intuitive way.  Do we think about how food makes our gut feel?  Making life decisions by looking inward, asking ourselves how various options make us feel, what our instincts reveal seems not to be encouraged.  Perhaps we have lost touch with our bellies!

 

Let me be first to say it can be hard to love one’s belly bombarded with images of what a belly should look like on the outside – both male and female – young, six pack abs, flat abdomen, smooth and hairless.  If you have any of those attributes, fabulous!  But the soft, mid-forties, slightly poochy perching place for a bellybutton on my body is not from a magazine.  Can I love it anyway?  Yes.  Maybe.  I’m trying.  I do know the instincts residing there are essential to my happiness.  Fluffy or flat, the inner workings gut is a place to find and feel intuitively and that may indeed lead to love of the outside. 

 

We know Truth, but we forget or loose the way in lack of practice retracing the path.  The gut is where our fire lives. 

 

 

 

 

 

Mindful

Do you know how many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I have made?  Me neither, but I suspect it’s a mighty magnanimous figure considering my personal lifetime consumption and the number prepared for kids the last decade.  The quantity climbs as I crafted two more just moments ago.  As I layered creamed peanuts onto bread today I noticed a developed ritual in my approach.  With a method of minimal strokes I hope to make evenly distributed peanut butter without tearing the bread.  A blob in the middle with scarcity at the edges is, in my determination, an inferior eating experience.  It dawned on me that even something as simple and routine as making this food can be a mindful experience.

 

Mindful is defined at dictionary.com as attentive, aware, or careful.

 

I enjoy reading texts of philosophy, health, spirituality and psychology.  The mind, body and spirit fascinate me!  So many words and wisdom arranged differently and from diverse authors come to a similar message:  when we act with intention, keeping our attention in the present, we are more content. 

 

I realize peanut butter to bread is hardly the stuff of spiritual quest, but it brought my mind to a specific place as I mulled my routineness.  I tend to look for a grand or more important action as one into which I sink my soul like music, meditation, fasting.  Indeed, all those are wonderful!  I do believe practice of specific actions like yoga and meditation hones our skills and makes us aware of our mindful abilities so that they can carry over into every day.  But, those of us who have not chosen an ordained or monastic life spend MOST of our time on regular tasks, daily routines, ordinary stuff.  We have the call to bring mindful to our often mundane:  the commute to work, answering of emails, eating lunch, carrying out the trash, attending meetings, shopping for groceries.

 

Today as I made a sandwich I tried to really see what I was doing.  I loved kids as I cut off crust.  With smooth knife strokes I thanked George Washington Carver for the boon he provided to Southern farmers with peanuts as a crop and peanut butter as a product.  Settled at the computer I searched the history of peanut butter and appreciated the Incas in South America who first grew peanuts and smashed them into tasty paste.  I learned that Carver did not patent peanut butter because he believed all food products were gifts from God.  (I suspected peanut butter was holy.)  (http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blpeanutbutter.htm)  

   

Seeing clearly is a result of being mindful.  In my admittedly conventional life I remind myself – as I wash dishes AGAIN, or pay monthly bills AGAIN, as I feel my tasks are a lesser undertaking compared to more lofty work.  Seeing clearly nourishes seeds planted in our inner sanctuary, a holy place, true and unchanging regardless of the ordained or ordinary task at hand.      

 

I want to be mindful, careful of my thoughts and actions.

Gift

Oh, blessed first Monday of 2014!  This day I DETERMINED to return to my blog after months of not making time.  Monday, despite its negative reputation, is often my favorite day.  It is the day I write (although the school year thwarted my plans in the last months of 2013 as I adjusted to three different school drop off times).  Monday sets my week in motion extending an open palm invitation.  Monday morning’s ambition-filled quiet often feels a gift to me.

Dictionary.com defines gift.
1. something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward 
someone, honor an occasion, or make a gesture of assistance; present
2.  the act of giving
3. something bestowed or acquired without any particular effort by the recipient or 
without its being earned
4.  a special ability or capacity; natural endowment; talent

I do not have the entire day on my laurels.  As I sit to write at 8:30am I have already prepared and served breakfast, packed lunches, ferried kids to school and started a load of laundry. I do not suggest a life without work, but one in which an hour of space to sit and be still resides.  There have been times when I felt guilty for stopping my household hurry to sit and write on Monday morning.  Knowing how much exists to be done I sometimes notice an internal voice that tries to tell me I am greedy to take time.  As is often the case with an unkind voice from inside, this is a tape of ideas rooted in undervaluing oneself.  I suspect we all must be wary of that mean voice in our heads.

 

Accepting quiet space to read, nap, write, enjoy music, or meditate is nothing to beat ourselves up about.  We are created to lovingly receive the blessings that arrive into our lives and appreciate them.  Certainly we are not to hoard nor allow ourselves to take so much that our lives become out of balance, but neither should we feel guilty to receive and enjoy something bestowed upon us.  Today, I will also have a hot shower and three meals.  Instead of feeling guilty for not living in poverty or lacking in opportunities, I suggest we feel grateful for abundance.  Deeply, expressively grateful. Not superior but super appreciative in our words and deeds, hearts open and lifted in endless thankfulness.       

 

Having just celebrated holidays of giving and receiving, newly acquired things likely exist in our lives.  The way in which we embrace physical gift exchange is a learning opportunity.  Accepting a gift sometimes feels uneasy especially if you received a present and didn’t have one to offer in return.  Is it possible to simply, graciously feel thankful without guilt?  If we are the giver in the scenario can our gift be voluntarily given without expected recompense?  Can we give to and accept from ourselves and others without judgment? 

 

Accepting today gratefully as a gift is the way I want to start 2014.