A birthday gift

April 12, 2013

Today, during a monsoon-like downpour, I had a meeting in a local Firehouse Academy. Yes, sometimes my job takes me to very interesting (and different!) places.

In this gathering, I was surrounded my federal employees and law enforcement. I was a bit intimidated to not have my happy cohort of NGO ‘do-gooder’s with me, and the fact that it the material seemed too removed from my work.

And with no connection to this point, I nearly went home in tears.

***

Three hours into our meeting, a police chief stood up to tell us about his area’s safety measures. He spoke of the town he covers and how he tries to make it family-oriented. It also spoke of the need for coordination in safety efforts, which lead him to an example of an experience where chaos ruled the day. September 11th.

I sat in awe as this man spoke of his efforts in protecting his charge, which is barely 5 miles from Manhattan. He also revealed an abated tragedy  from that day that most of the public has I never heard about. In sharing these moments, it was clear that the lack of man-power for the heightened policing that needed to happen on that Tuesday morning was serious.

Then, it clicked.

This man helped in my dad’s safety that day.

As he continued to speak, he mentioned a satellite facility for my dad’s employer. A place where my dad spent five days once he left lower Manhattan, on September 12th after sleeping  under his desk. He was just 3 blocks away from Ground Zero, feeling the blasts on the 13th floor.

It was nearly a week before I saw my father – and this man had helped keep him safe.

Today, was no ordinary day. I continued to listen, trying not to tear up as I heard how committed this leader is to his community and their safety.

***

Today, twelve years later,  I met one of the thousand of heroes from that day. Better yet, I got to look into his eyes, shake his hand, and from the bottom of my heart express my gratitude. For his actions a decade ago have played a role in today, my dad’s birthday.

 

What a most amazing gift.

 

Cheers to you Dad, on your birthday. And thank you Chief M.

Three years

Sing. Dance. Love. Create. For in these moments are the heavenly you. 

Won’t you share them with the world?

 

***

Three years in, and I’m still amazed at how having this space allows me to grow. Thank you, readers, for listening. And words, thank you for coming.

Question, authentically.

“Live, authentically, the questions.”

My spiritual director recently implored this of me. Wow. Tall order.

Moving from that child-like, dependent and all trusting to faith to this vastly opaque world, is rough. A place without clear right and wrong, truth and fiction, love and destruction. This muddled world is riddled with thousands of shades of grey.

So, what is my authenticity you ask?

To live this journey. To be real, honest, and raw if need be. That’s all I’ve got for today.

And while I do truly believe we are infinitely ’works in progress‘, I wish the uncomfortable state would pass quicker. Because, I’m human. And hey, that’s authentic too.

***

“As long as you wrestle, honestly, with these questions, this is all that can be asked of us”. That wise S.D. of mine

Are you questioning? Are you patient in your unresolved pieces?

5 Friends?

On my lunch break the other day, I read this article .

Can you quickly say a name for each type of friend? If yes, be grateful. You are blessed.

Maybe even write then a note of thanks. Because whether you’ve got cinco, seis, o siete, even one good friend is worth more than we know!

Risk- what do-gooders need

Risk. Shudder. This is not an ideal that comforts me. Quite the opposite. Heck, I never played the board game and  grimace at the thought of adding more of this to any portfolio.Where I am not fully risk averse, I do prefer very strongly calculated risk. Honestly, trying to push myself past the point of comfort is a huge reason that I do improv.

But now, I see that even in my safety-net of “happy cohort of NGO ‘do-gooder’s” we need risk. Why?

Because being safe fails to bring about large, systemic change.

Take this recent article in the Huffington Post. After this caught my eye, I sat back. Re-read it. Then forwarded it to friends. Why? Because all I kept thinking was “wow”. This rocks me. I like safe. I like control. I like doing good, and not harming others. And yet, will these restrictions curb the change I, we, seek?

Furthermore:

Do we support risk in non-profits?

Do we seek only measurable outcomes?

Do funders encourage risk?

All wise questions as we stumble through the world.

What’s cooking?

My kitchen has missed me. Sure, her floors were immaculate, spared of any glaze drips or sauce splatters. The counters were dusty (gasp, I know) instead of speckled with ground pepper. Her cupboards, full with plenty of ingredients to spare.

Chalk it up to a busy schedule, boredom with winter’s produce, or  bowing to my perfectionist ways.  I can’t remember the last time I followed a brand new recipe.

Thankfully, spring has blown in! My creativity has been sparked bursting out my curiosity of culinary delights.

Here are two recent favorites:

Curtis Stone’s Lemon Garlic Spaghetti and Kale

Savory Bread Pudding

Boy oh boy are these suckers yummy!

All I want…

“Let me live, love and say it well in good sentences.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

There are few things in life that I fear that I could not learn to live without. Sylvia’s quote illuminates much of that desire- let me live a good full life, and find ways to express that gratitude.

A few journeys ago, I discovered my first quote from this author. It was inscribed in my journal. I loved it so that I ripped it right out of my own holy book. To this day, it lives on the computer screen at my office.

“I would be forced shivering into a new, unfamiliar world, where I had to forge new friends and a home for myself, and although such experiences are painful and awkward at first, I know that they are the best things to make one grow–always biting off just a bit more than you chewed before and finding to your amazement that you can, when it comes right down to it.” -Sylvia Plath

Adventures, new or old, bring challenges.  They are often those ones that scare us so, or intimidate just enough that we find any reason to put them off. You can’t audition for that role, because it might upset your work/life balance. You can’t make that big move because it means a new job. You can’t change that lifestyle choice because it’s just too hard.

There is so much that I feel that I need: so many people, so many experiences, so many gifts. This life is abundantly rich. And although I might want it all, I certainly don’t need it.

Time to jump out of the comfortable, past all we think we need, to discover what truly is for us.

Are you in?

Choice to Rejoice

On Easter Sunday, I went to mass alone. Now as much as of late I dislike this practice, life happened. I got a friends email too late, plans changed and my family was sick.

It didn’t matter that the church was packed and I nabbed an aisle seat. It didn’t matter that the priest and community were very welcoming. Heck, it didn’t even matter that I saw an improv friend outside and got a kiss on the cheek with a “Happy Easter & sorry to have missed your show” wish. I felt alone.

I sat in mass, trying to connect, trying to just feel that reason I come, rather than just rationally know it.

This lead me to thinking about some of my recent frustrations: anger about my Mom’s condition, sadness about losing my Mom, impatience with myself for always wanting the know the next step in my journey, confusion and frustration about the seemingly static cornerstones of my youth being challenged by reality, maturity, and experience. Similar to a few years ago, when I felt that my personal Lent was continuing into the Easter season, I sighed.

 

And so even though nothing was solved and that my personal time in the desert might continue for a few more days, I made a choice.

Today was a moment to rejoice. To celebrate, to embrace, to be grateful.

For even though I’d like to control most everything in my life, sometimes its better, much better, to sit back and rejoice that I don’t.

***

Are there moments where you allow yourself to given into joy, even if you don’t feel like it?

What is love?

Given today’s historical significance, I started to wonder about how many times and ways our world has tried to define such a large ideal: love.

Below are just a few definitions and quotes, and by no means are comprehensive.

***

Thoughts from the Buddhist tradition:

The definition of love in Buddhism is: wanting others to be happy.

• “This love is unconditional and it requires a lot of courage and acceptance (including self-acceptance).
• The “near enemy” of love, or a quality which appears similar, but is more an opposite is: conditional love (selfish love).
• The opposite is wanting others to be unhappy: anger, hatred.
• A result which one needs to avoid is: attachment.” - from the Four Immeasurables.

Catholic thoughts:

The theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.” Paul tells us that love is the greatest of the theological virtues: “So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13).

Judiac beliefs:

Ahava is the Hebrew word for both interpersonal love and love between God and God’s creations. To refer to loving-kindness, the word chesed is used, which describes love regarding humans. 

In the Torah, we find “Love your neighbor like yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) as well as to love God ”with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5).

Philosophy of love:

5 great perspectives!  ’Compassion and love are not mere luxuries.

“As the source both of inner and external peace, they are fundamental to the continued survival of our species.” -His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”- Lao Tzu

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” – Sophocles

***

For me, what is love?-  It’s by far one of the most commanding reasons for living.At the end of the day, I do not think we can sum up this potential that love has, nor a find singular definition. Love is as theoretical as it is experiential.

Burnt Edges.

On one of our last snow nights (right, Spring? You are still making an entrance this week?), I whipped up some banana bread. It had been a year or more since making this yumminess, but one that I was planning on. Heck, I had been trying to ripen bananas for the cause for more than a week!

But whoops, a few phone calls with friends, a shower, a dish-washing escapade later, I realized I may have overdone it. I smelled burnt bread.

Before I knew it, I was impatiently shaking the bread out of the pan, wanting a slice immediately. It came out easily, and I grabbed a knife. To cut? Nope. To shave.

Done with one edge, I laughed as I realized what I was doing: I was making this bread ‘perfect’. It didn’t matter that I was probably going to be the only one to eat it or that this was never meant to be a show-boaty loaf of bread; it was not the way I wanted it. So I changed it.

Which of course lead me to thinking, “where are the ‘burnt edges in my life”? Don’t we all have them? Broken promises, hurts, ended relationships, disappointments, loss.

Cleaning up the blackened crumbs that had flown everywhere during the aesthetic adjustment, I thought about this idea. That bread, the burnt bread, was simply delicious. Sure, I bet it would have been tasty with or without the crisped pieces, but as for a metaphor for life, there might be something more.

Could our own ‘burnt edges’ be good? Maybe they protect and draw boundaries.  Maybe they hold the heat and passion in. Maybe they allow the core to be soft and warm.

Therefore, could I be more tolerant with the burnt edges, the imperfections, the things not to the fullness of my liking in life?

…yes, and…

Maybe banana bread is just bread, and life is just life…. but maybe the burnt edges are where the true story lies.