This past week and a half have seen some dramatic news and quite a bit of work and excitement on the part of this chronic person. I even had some Deep Thoughts. (Does anyone remember the Deep Thoughts skit on Saturday Night Live? I am probably aging myself again.)
Let’s see here: Big news would be that my husband was offered a new gig with a new company, which is incredibly relieving to both of us. For the last 14 months he has been on call 24/7 with no break and no extra compensation for completely cleaning up the mess of an entire department that had been previously ignored and mismananged. He finally had to say he was done. He has worked with the same group/company for seven years and loves the people. Unfortunately, they were purchased by a fortune 500 company a little over a year ago and the job he was doing was basically no longer needed because the bigwigs didn’t see the importance in continuing process improvements. He took his current job to just be a good guy with the idea he could work his way back out of it. Getting out of that job or even getting a pay raise is no longer an option due to big company plans and politics. It is time to move on. It has been an arduous process.
My daughter, who received a Master’s degree in her academic field of History last spring, has been searching for a job in something that would keep her connected to the University world but not force her to run out and get a Phd that would then force her into a publish or perish position. She did it! She will be working for the Graduate School at her former University in the role of a grant specialist who works with mainly faculty grant applications but some graduate student applications as well. I am so proud of her!
My son, too, has found a new job where he will be a team lead, and he is just one year out of technical school. I am a proud mama!
I could go on… my neice is doing great at law school and my son in law is successful and my to-be daughter in law got promoted. These kids are amazing.
What about me? Well, I have a harder time with singing my own praises:) I am taking the summer off, like I have mentioned, and plan to work on that, on me. I am bound and determined to finish my book and see it published this summer. I am almost there. It is an arduous process for which I have had a lot of help. I want to care for my house and get it ready for my son’s wedding in October. The wedding will be very small and very low maitenance but still… I am having a wedding at my HOUSE!
I need to follow through on a few promises I have made to myself. I have not been able to find a choir that is rehearsing at the moment and Covid is ever with us so I am going to go ahead with voice lessons. I have some leads on that. I think it is time to spend the money and just go for it. It means a great deal to me; heart and soul.
But mainly, I want to maintain a healthy relationship between myself and myself. If that sounds weird, well, you should know me by now! In order to do this I have to be in open communication with my understanding of the Creator. How do I do that when I am really the kind of person that lives in her head most of the time? Well, my spiritual mentor had some great ideas for that. The one I have been using is the one I identified with and have clung onto the most readily. It is the idea of visualizing getting direct and literal comfort from God in the form of a touch or a hug. In other words, bringing God into the picture in a very personal way.
Many of us, whether we were raised in or out of a religious family, have a preconceived notion of God. For Christians, the way to work this out is often the familiarity of Jesus, who is believed to be both man and God, which is much more apprehendable than some big, celestial being floating around in the clouds and sitting on a throne. I don’t know about you guys but white dude with flowy beard and white robes sitting in judgement of all souls is something I find intimidating, and not the least bit warm and fuzzy.
Many years ago, I decided (after study) that my personal image of God was neither male or female, nor human nor anthing apprehendable in particular. God is the ineffable. God is a force that is within us all and without us all. Basically we have to apply human logic and imagination to something that is way beyond what we can understand. So I decided the most loving thing I could think of, the thing that brought the most comfort to me, was the love of my parents. (I say this with a giant disclaimer! I know that for many this image of parental love does NOT work.) So for me, God is the divine parent who wants what is best for me but realizes that I am going to make mistakes and that I am going to fall and get bruised by life.
So where am I going with this? Why is this blog post so damned long? Because I am explaining how I got to my image of God that I can go to for encouragement and love and understanding and not think of it as a no no. When I visualize a love that I can go to for absolutely no judgement and no words said, just a place where I can go to the sit at the feet of someone, lay my head down and know I will be understood and my head will be patted and I will be loved completely, that would be my father. I can merge my heavenly father and my father, Harold Kelfer, who has been in heaven since I was 28. That bond has never weakened. I still feel it.
So, I have been going there, in my heart and in my mind, to rest and to restore. And you know what? It’s working. We are so loved. We just have to let ourselves be known and let down whatever barriers we have up. Let love do it’s work in you and soon healing can begin. I am starting to see this. Try it yourself.