V for Voices

Our “V” entry begins with the Latin “venire” meaning “to come” which is the root of Advent, the wonderful season preceding Christmas.  Christians await the arrival of our Savior. Families await the arrival of far-away loved ones.  Malls await the arrival of shoppers and profits.  All of us await the arrival of Santa Claus. It’s a time of waiting. Almost. But not yet.  We’re excited and full of anticipation.  We know something good is ahead.

When my dad died, we found a note in his wallet.  “The best is yet to come.”  There seems to be something inherent in the human condition that yearns for something more.  We know that this life is good, we are blessed with food and shelter and relationship. The world is truly a beautiful, wonderful, mystical moment in this absurd cosmos.

And yet we sense…something more is possible.

People die in senseless ways.  We spend our precious time scrambling after meaningless things.  We hurt each other, intentionally and accidentally.  We make the same mistakes over and over.  We try.  We fail.  We try again.  And we wait. 

The prophet Joel tells us that mountains will drip new wine and hills will flow with milk.  The prophet Isaiah speaks of rivers in the desert and lions and lambs and cows and bears all living together in harmony.  Revelation tells us of a time when tears and pain and death are no more. 

When?  When is that coming?  How long must we wait?

That I cannot answer. But every once in awhile, we get a glimpse of what that could be. It may last a moment or an hour, but it’s enough to keep us believing.  We see what could be.

On Sunday afternoon, Charlie and I attended a concert.  The International Festival Chorus of Singapore presented a beautiful ceremony of carols and Christmas songs.  The concert coincided with World Choral Day.  Did you know there is such a day?  Neither did I.  But I really like that such a thing exists in the world – it’s described as an “event to extol the values of solidarity, peace and understanding.” We could certainly use more of all.  This is their proclamation.

Sing, choirs of the world!

May your voices take springs

there where fire burns.

May your songs put roses

there where battlefields lay.

Open furrow and sow love

to harvest fruits of hope.

Sing to liberty where despot rule,

Sing to equality where poverty nests,

Sing to love where hate prevails.

May your singing direct the world

so that peace takes over wars,

so that all will cherish the earth,

so that all race or color discrimination is banished,

so that we will be together as sisters and brothers

so that this planet rejoices with your voices.

For a moment, I glimpsed the new earth.  Joyful voices, joined in harmony, banishing the darkness, letting the light of love reign.

Then, just a few hours after this concert, reality came hurtling back at tsunami strength.  Our beautiful island paradise experienced an unusual outburst of violence. The fires burned.  The pain imploded.  The hate took center stage. It was truly a sad day.

The vision of living together as brothers and sisters receded. 

And yet…we wait. 

For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; it will certainly come, it will not delay. Habakkuk 2:3

U for Universal

Universal.  That’s our U word. I was thinking about this yesterday while spending time with a young friend.  After several hours of fun, we were walking from the bus stop and her little steps were stumbling.  I mentioned the “t” word – “are you tired?”  She immediately perked up and assured me she was not, even as her eyes drooped with the next step.  “Would you like for me to carry you?”  “Yes.”

A universal truth – ask a kid if she’s tired and she’ll most likely protest.  None of us wants to get tired.  We might miss something.  Can’t blame her…I often protest, too, especially late at night when there’s just one more thing catching my attention.  Which reminds me of another universal – when it’s impossible to find sleep at 2 a.m. with the help of GPS, at 6 a.m. when the alarm goes off, sleep is camping out at the back of both eyeballs, pouring a concrete foundation to boot and has to be eradicated with major explosives – preferably weapons of mass caffeine. 

And then the other universal – you never need a bathroom when there’s a clean facility nearby.  But get ten minutes away from running water with the next rest stop two hours ahead and your bowels will open faster and more furiously than Wal-Mart on Black Friday.

I noticed my universals are rather basic (and bio-oriented) so decided to see what other more enlightened souls had to say.

I want to disagree with Dr. King, but I’ve experienced it – heck, I am that at times. 

In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.  George Orwell

Ouch.  Not many Paul Reveres around these days.

A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.  William Arthur Ward

Music is the universal language of mankind.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

So which is it?   Someone clarify, please.

There is no faculty of the human soul so persistent and universal as that of hatred.  Henry Ward Beecher

Unless maybe it’s hope?

Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.  Immanuel Kant

Wow – this is a real challenge.  All that potential fairness and equity gets in the way of my wants.

There’s this great Andy Griffith episode when Barney volunteers to fill a vacancy in the choir, assuring the director of his singing abilities.  Of course, it doesn’t take along until they realize Barney’s claims are exaggerated.  And the comedy ensues as the choir tries to replace him without hurting his feelings.  Inspecting Barney’s throat, Andy tries to convince Barney that something looks wrong in there, his throat is too red and swollen and needs to be rested.  Barney protests that he feels fine, and then hustles off to the doctor, returning with a smile.

Barney:  That’s a uvula.  Everybody’s got one. You’ve got a uvula.  They’ve got a uvula.  I’ve got a uvula. All God’s children got a uvula.

Andy replies with a sigh and a “Hallelujah.”

Maybe, at the end of the day, the uvula is the greatest universal truth there is.  We’ve all got one.  We’re all human.  Hallelujah.

T for Transition

Transition.  Webster’s defines it as a movement, passage or change from one position, state or stage to   There’s such energy, excitement, anxiety and possibility in transition. It’s a beautiful thing.

another.

I remember my first big transition.  After 18 years at home in the same town, same school, same church, same friends, I set off for college.  Granted it was only 90 minutes down the road, but it might as well have been the far side of the moon.  I was lost. Homesickness almost overwhelmed me, but my tenacity saved the day.  I had signed up for this, I would complete it.  At least the first semester.  That’s what I wrote home to my grandparents the second week of freshman year – that I would stay until Christmas, but then it was back home for me. 

Of course, by Christmas break, I was settled, connected and happy as a lark.  They couldn’t have drug me away from college life.

Fast forward about a dozen years.  Charlie and I are about to make our first corporate relocation from Kentucky to Wisconsin.  Doesn’t seem that drastic, hey?  Again, it could have been the far side of the moon.  I was in a tizzy.  Tossed and turned at night asking what we had done.  How could we fix it.  Finally, after a long talk with Charlie, I picked up the phone, called my old boss in Louisville and asked for my job back. 

I was flying through Louisville in a few weeks so he suggested we meet then.  We talked and agreed to my return. And, immediately, upon getting back to Wisconsin, I thought – what am I doing?  I’ve moved on.  I can’t go back now. 

So we didn’t.  My boss was a pretty smart guy.  I’m guessing he knew that all along, but he had placated me, let me know I had a home if I needed it.  I respect him for that to this day.

When the next move came, no big deal.  By this time, I knew to expect the initial shock.  And I knew that it would pass.  I knew that going back wasn’t a good idea.  Once we made the decision, we moved forward.  This lesson was pretty easy to remember. 

Until it wasn’t.  Our first international move almost led to complete brain freeze.  At more than one point, we were tempted to throw in the towel, call it a day and go home to the USA.  We persisted.  And it was great.  Our second international move was smoother.  We reclaimed our star pupil status.

And then we stopped moving.  After 24 years of marriage and more than a dozen moves, we landed in Singapore in 2006 and have been firmly rooted here since.  At this point, that’s about eight out of our almost 32 married years – a full 25% of our lives in one place. But that doesn’t mean life hasn’t had its transitions.  I’ve moved from my 40s to 50s.  I’ve moved from being the mother of two amazing young women to being a mother-in-law of two outstanding young men and Oma to two beautiful little people.  In 2008, Charlie’s mom died. In 2010, we said goodbye to my dad.  There have been promotions and new jobs and graduations and celebrations, illnesses, heartaches, challenges and triumphs.  A few weeks ago, Mom sat at the closing table and turned over the keys to the family home.  In a few more weeks, for the first time in 40 years, a new family will celebrate their first Thanksgiving dinner in the old red brick house in a kitchen that overflows with good memories and great times. 

I used to think the geographical relocations were tough transitions.  I’ve learned that isn’t always the case.  But I’ve also learned that life is transition.  And we must carry on. Tenacity, today and thanks – more great T words.

Through all life’s transitions, let us give thanks and rejoice for today is the day the Lord has made.

S for Satisfaction

I am on day five of a Specific Food Plan as defined in The Inside Tract: Your Good Gut Guide to Great Digestive Health (authors Gerard E. Mullin and Kathie Madonna Swift). After several weeks of discomfort, and many more months before that of just not feeling right, I decided to take matters into my own hands and search out solutions.  This book came into my line of sight so I ordered it from Amazon and read with care and delight.  The digestive system is truly amazing.

Dr. Mullin warned that many physicians will recommend more meds for digestive problems such as heartburn, GERD, IBS, – and this is exactly what happened to me.  When the doctor had nothing else to offer but another prescription, I politely declined, quickly exited the office, went straight to the market and embarked on the Specific Foods Plan suggested in the book.  The timing was excellent as Charlie was to be away on a business trip and would not have to suffer through the dietary limitations with me.

Exercising such specificity in what I consume has led me to the S word “satisfaction.” I’m on Day 5 and having great success.  I really thought I’d be starving, but to my great satisfaction, I am satiated.  Satisfaction comes from the Latin satis meaning enough and facere meaning to make or do.  Do enough, make enough.  Such a nice place to be.  And food is a great place to start to understand and appreciate satisfaction. 

That hasn’t been the case with my eating in the past – I would ignore my stomach’s signals about its satisfaction and keep stuffing.  And then suffer later.  I’ve learned a few key things that have really helped me rethink how I use my spoon and fork – and how to listen more carefully to my gut.

Here are some of my favorite bits from the book:

There are more nerve cells in your bowel than in your spine.

Your gut has as many neurotransmitters as your brain (it’s called your second brain)

Chewing is essential to good digestion.

The stomach is about 12 inches long and 6 inches across at its widest point – it can hold about 1 quart of food, but more if pushed. 

Eat until you are about 80% full – this gives the tummy room to work on that food. 

The average adult gut contains approximately 5 pounds of bacteria.

Food preferences are shaped by repeated experiences with food over time – so if something is really good for you, start working it in slowly.  You’ll acquire a taste for it.  Unfortunately, many of us have preferences that have been shaped by over-salted and over-sugared processed foods so there’s some re-training to be done.

Implementing this diet plan has brought me great satisfaction.  My gut feels better, my joints don’t ache, my tummy isn’t bloated, my sleep has improved, and I feel satisfied. It has taken a bit of adjustment and creativity, but the rewards so far are well worth the effort.  Most importantly, it has made me mindful of satisfaction – of realizing when I’ve had enough and stopping there.  It started with food, but it’s manifested into other areas.  And it’s quite refreshing.  In a world that says – don’t ever stop – it’s good to learn that sometimes it is right to stop.  Stop eating when you’re full.  Stop talking when you’ve lost your thread.  Stop worrying about everything.  Stop trying to control everything and everyone.  Stop being busy all the time and just rest.  Stop obsessing.  Stop craving more and more.

Satisfaction – knowing when enough is enough. 

R for Ready

This past Friday, Charlie and I attended the New York Times Thomas L Friedman The Next New World Asia Forum.  Friedman’s opening comments were titled “What world are you living in?” and, in a humorous, insightful and optimistic manner, he painted a picture of where we came from to get to where we are today and what tomorrow holds – always making it clear that the future is ours to create.  But we must be prepared as things have, and are, changing. Hence this week’s word – R for Ready.  Are you ready?

One of the foundational changes is in authority structures.  We’ve moved from vertical to horizontal.  In the old world of hierarchy, bosses bossed and workers worked and if everyone just followed the plan, all was right with the world.  Frederick Taylor, the father of scientific management, believed that “one best way” could be found for any job and that workers should have detailed training in their discrete task and then repeat that over and over for mastery. 

But who has discrete tasks in their job?  Every job is a combination of strategy-implementation, customer service, sales, marketing, finance, compliance, corporate security and technology – and the requirements change from customer to customer, day to day.  The world and its workers do not fit into neat little boxes – it’s a big messy complex rapidly changing world in which we live.  To succeed, we must be able to learn and unlearn and relearn – Friedman calls this ability the new literacy.  We can look to the past as prologue, but not as a pattern for the future. 

Another change he pointed out was that we are moving from high wage middle skill jobs to high wage high skill work – and our greatest shortage is brain power. Thanks to the Internet, knowledge is abundant.  Skill – defined as the practical application of knowledge – is not as plentiful. It’s not what we know, it’s what we can do with what we know.   

A third change in the new world is that companies only hire if they have to do so.  Although GDP and job growth used to move together, this is no longer the case. Rather than find a job, we may have to invent a job – and, if we have a job already, it’s important to think about how we add value to the organization.  Our contributions should not be based on a static job description, but by a desire to be relentlessly entrepreneurial in how we identify opportunity and help to drive corporate objectives.

So how do we prepare for what’s next?  A healthy dose of persistence, curiosity and imagination will be helpful.  Add to this a desire to take risks, to experiment, to fail and try again. Get comfortable with ambiguity – in case we had forgotten, the first decade of the 21^st century has made us painfully aware of the uncertainty and unpredictability of life. Keep learning and unlearning and relearning. Always be in beta. 

That may sound like a lot.  So be sure to take regularly scheduled R&R.  Once restored, you’ll be ready to rule your realm.

Q for Quotidian

Today we arrive at the 17^th letter of the alphabet, a relational fellow as he’s rarely seen without his best friend, u, beside him. Queued like that, they make quite a quaint couple, no question about it.

Without further quibbling, let us quickly turn to our Q word.  Quotidian.  Say it out loud.  It’s a lot of fun.

Webster’s defines it as an adjective meaning daily, usual or customary, ordinary, common place.  And as a noun meaning something recurring daily, a quotidian fever or ague.  The root of the word is the Latin for occurring daily. 

In Europe, it’s likely to be seen as an adjective in a bakery’s name – such as Le Pain Quotidien (spelled with an “e” not “a”).  Listen here.

http://www.lepainquotidien.us/#/en_US/about_us/our_name

Fun, hey?  But for some reason, in the American English dictionaries, a common definition of quotidian is tied to malaria – e.g., a quotidian fever. Which is sad because I think the word has much more to offer. 

These are some of the quotidian events of my life that, although customary and usual for me, are not to be taken for granted. 

Waking up with my husband beside me

Waking up in a climate-controlled bedroom

Electricity – lights at a flip of a switch

Running water and all that entails – an indoor flush toilet, a hot shower

The first whiff of the coffee brewing

The first sip of coffee in the morning

The second cup of coffee in the morning

Skype calls to loved ones

Checking email and Facebook to catch up with loved ones

Clean clothes – a whole closetful with lots of shoes, too

Cupboard and fridge full of food

Ease of doing laundry

Good tennis shoes and a good walk

My Bible

My iPod and all the music on it

Reading

Quotidian events are the substance of life.  Today, I’m giving thanks for “le pain quotidien” that nourishes me, body mind and soul.

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the ordinary. - Ralph Waldo Emerson 

P for Peace

P words have been flipping and flopping around in my head like fish out of water, struggling to find their natural element, to slip smoothly through my fingers and onto this paper.  But I’ve been holding them tightly…until this moment when peace has won the page.

I started out with “peace” awhile back, but kept wandering down other paths – pizza, play, poo-poo, and puzzles being a few “Ps” that made me smile. I kept planning to put pen to paper, promising to prioritize this particular project, but the purpose for the prose remained perplexing and it was possible to procrastinate day after day. 

Then I hit the fork in the road that brought my P into perspective. In the midst of all the unrest in the US, I had been self-righteously observing the goings-on at a safe distance, making it easy for me to judge all of those in power and shake my head.  Why can’t they just get along?  Why can’t they focus on the work and quit playing politics?

The details of my fork are not relevant.  Suffice it to say that it was my own political battle and I was in the right.  I knew I was right.  I had the facts and data.  I felt the pull of power, to put my persecutors in their proper place, to pull out all the stops and pound them over the head with the obvious.  My attack was prepared, my speech played over and over in my head. 

Come on, you’ve been at that fork, haven’t you?  One way led to victory for me and my ego.  In the opposite direction was letting go of all that and pursuing peace.  But, let me say it again, I WAS RIGHT.  The decision was obvious.

I couldn’t sleep that night.  I tossed and turned, I rationalized and justified, I argued my case in a manner worthy of Perry Mason.  Not so obvious after all.

At the end of the day, I knew I had to choose peace over being right.  It was not an easy thing to do.  It required self-denial and discipline and letting go of being right, the latter being an especially difficult thing for me to do.  The moment I made that decision, the hard work began.  But the peace was worth the price. 

Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. Psalm 34:12-14

My pursuit continues.

O for Obligation

Obligation has been on my mind recently.  The word is defined as: “binding promise, contract, sense of duty.”  Okay, the binding promise I get – as in a marriage vow, or agreeing to care for a friend’s house plant while she’s away.  And contract – rental contract, employment contract, pretty straight forward.  The one that trips me up is “sense of duty.”  Who or what defines what is my duty?  And how do I sense it?  

A friend and I had similar experiences a couple of weeks ago.  In a group, no one was quick to volunteer, eyes turned toward us and before we knew it – wham bang add another obligation to our to-do list.

You see, I was raised in the Midwest in a family where “not possible” was blasphemy.  My mother knew every word of Edgar Guest’s “It Couldn’t Be Done” and we grew up believing that if “we started to sing as we tackled the thing that couldn’t be done, we would do it.”  So you could say it’s in my DNA to take up what others deem undoable.  And, often it works, and the thing is done and it feels good.  But at what cost?  Was it necessary?  Was it worth my time and effort?  If no one else valued it enough to make it a priority, why did I?   

Obligation stems from the Latin obligatio – that ligatio part is also the root word of ligature – tying or binding up.  So when we take on an obligation, we are binding ourselves to some purpose or outcome. Think of a small backpack that you carry daily – each obligation is a stone that you add to that backpack.  We all need our backpacks – but we also need to pack carefully.  Life without obligations, without any bonding to others and with no shared outcomes, would be just as oppressive to our humanity.  But an overloaded pack can be downright onerous.

Once I coached a senior leader who was overwhelmed with his obligations.  So we made a list and looked at all the commitments he had, many of which no longer added any value to his life and were no longer connected to his goals or priorities.  While it might be a real ego booster to be asked to sit on committees and boards or head special projects, these can become heavy stones in our packs.  Over time, we become so used to the backbreaking weight that we forget it’s our pack and so we trudge on, often feeling powerless, resentful or constantly overwhelmed.  The good news is that we have the power to stop, take a look at the load we are carrying, and do some unbinding where necessary. 

We walk on feeling lighter.  And who knows?  The next traveler along the road might be looking for just that stone we’ve left behind.

N for Narrator

As N is the 14^th letter of the alphabet, this entry marks the beginning of the second half of the A to Z series.  I was stuck on this one for awhile…I kept waiting for N to make itself seen somewhere.  As I walked around or read or talked or listened, I kept up the search – asking myself over and over – where is N?  What if N is never found and the series stalls right here at midpoint?  Doubts raced.  Writing stopped.  Creativity languished.

And then it hit me.  Narrator.  After all, who was that doomsday speaker in my head, stifling my energy, but me?  I am the narrator of my life.  A narrator is one who tells, who relates, who creates a story from what happens for the purpose of knowing and being known.  Each day, in every encounter, in every experience, we are telling the story of our lives.

Helping, guiding and directing us is our narrator – who has two sides.  The inner narrator helps us to interpret and understand what we are experiencing.  As they say, stuff happens. These are the events that make up our life story.  Our inner narrator is always talking to us about those events, choosing which are significant, which matter, which are ignored.  This voice is shaped by our history, our experiences, our beliefs and our values.

Say there’s a new job posting at the office.  It’s your dream job – the work is a perfect fit for your skills, the pay is better, the office bigger, the title sure to impress.  You apply, you talk to the hiring manager, but ultimately you don’t get the job.  This is the event.  How you understand this event depends on your inner narrator – what does she have to say about it?  Maybe - “Typical.  You always mess things up.  Your career is dead in the water.” Or maybe – “Stupid manager. That is the worst interview I’ve ever had.  That department doesn’t deserve me.” Or – “I put myself out there and tried.  I’ll try again.  Life’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

Which narrator makes for a richer, fuller story?  Which narrator inspires and nurtures?  Which narrator do you want to represent you?  Because that’s exactly what the inner narrator does – what’s going on inside shapes how you show up to the rest of the world. This inner narrator is the writer and editor for the outer narrator – the voice who speaks to others, chooses which stories to share and how to tell them, and allows us to be known by others and to engage in authentic relationship with them. 

Nurture your inner narrator then.  Share the beautiful story that is you.  Because every life is a story, some a tragedy, some a comedy, all with purpose and meaning waiting to be discovered and shared.  Choose to live your story with courage, with your whole heart.  The world is waiting.

M for Mundane

I’m happy to be arriving at M at last, as one of my favorite M words gets a really bad rap.  M is for mundane.  Often used in a derogatory fashion, it’s actually quite a beautiful word, although it takes a bit of reframing to appreciate its full value.

Mundane comes from the Latin mundus meaning “world.”   Webster’s defines it as common, ordinary, banal, unimaginative.  

But really what is common or ordinary about our world?  Our life on planet earth?  Isn’t it amazing that every day the sun rises and we get to start anew?  Twenty-four hour cycles of trying and doing and failing and loving and sharing and reflecting and resting.  The entire range of human life and emotion there in every moment, every breath. 

Perhaps one reason we run from mundane is another M word – mortality.  From our day of birth, there’s only one direction possible for our lives – towards the terminus.  Chasing bigger, better, brighter may help us to forget that fact, but at the expense of the present moment. Stop right now.  Wherever you are, whatever you are doing.  What do you hear?  Listen deeper.  What do you see?  Feel?  Know to be true?  The sacred is in the secular.  Eternity is in this very moment.

Let us not then confine the sacred to a place and time, or the joyful moments of life to those outside of our mundane existence.  But let us see all of life as mundane beauty.  After all, this world is the only world we have at the moment.  While some may aspire to transcend it, most of us are right here, two feet planted on terra firma.  Louis said it best - what a wonderful world. 

Or put another way: “While man cannot live in a continual Sabbath, he should not resign himself to a flat two-dimensional life from which he escapes on rare occasions.  The place of the sacred is not a house of God, no church, synagogue, or seminary, not one day in seven, and the span of the sacred is much shorter than twenty-four hours.  The Sabbath is every day several times a day.” (Walter Kaufmann)

Nothing common, ordinary, banal or unimaginative about that.    

L for Look

Look.  It’s one of those words that sounds like what it is commanding.  Pointing at the sky, the clipped syllable could almost be emanating from the projecting finger.  Look.

I’ve been thinking about looking lately as I’ve been struggling to get a good pair of eye glasses.  The last pair was shipped back to the US when, after two weeks of continual headaches and less than adequate vision, I gave up on the really chic frames and asked for a refund.  Which put me back at the beginning.  No glasses except the pair I had made in December 2010.  Vision is great in them, but they were beginning to show some serious signs of wear. 

Off I went in search of a Singapore eye doctor and my good friend, L, (seriously, L is her first initial, so very appropriate for today’s posting) put me onto Dr. Izaac at Paragon. Off I went for my reconnoiter.  I learned this years ago during one of my early moves.  Always visit the office before you make a commitment.  It was more than up to par, so I introduced myself and made an appointment for the following Monday. 

The doctor called me in, I explained my dilemma and the difficulty I’ve had as I get older and my glasses get more complex, and he assured me he could make a pair of spectacles that would work for me. Forty-five minutes later after a battery of tests and options – which is better, 1 or 2, 3 or 4, you know the routine – I went out to select the frames.  The doctor’s mother was visiting from LA (another L) and, with her input and the help of the optician, I found a pair that fit my face and my taste, if not my budget.  Then out came the doctor again – he approved and spent a few more minutes marking the frames.

Five days later, back I go, apprehensive, skeptical, and still a bit in shock over the cost.  Twice as much as I’d paid in the U.S. The doctor comes out to greet me, takes me back to the examining room, puts the new glasses on me, and I can see!  Yes, I can see immediately.  No blurring, no straining.  With the last pair, I had not been able to see when I first tried them on.  The optician assured me they would settle…I tried to convince myself it was true, that my brain would eventually adjust.  It never did.

I was delighted.  How had he done it?  Well, he explained, he had owned the entire process – the exam, the prescription, the frames, the fitting, the delivery.  This wasn’t the case in the U.S.  The process is fragmented – the doctor who examined me there never knows whether his prescription was made correctly or whether it worked for me in the end.  The involvement with the patient and the product from beginning to end over 30 years, Dr. Isaac explained, was a great source of learning about how to do what he does.  Imagine that – it’s about the relationship, not efficiency, not cost, not speed, not pushing product.  Improving vision by talking to the patient, understanding what works and what doesn’t and then being committed to the end product?  What a great idea!

The Industrial Revolution separated our hearts from our hands as work became fragmented, impersonal and mechanized.  How can we recapture the humanness?  Perhaps we cannot change the underlying structures, we probably don’t want to in many cases because the modern world affords us a lot of conveniences, but we can own the part of the work that is ours.  We can take pride in what we do.  We can treat one another as human beings, not customers, clients, fans, followers, headcount, or any other dehumanizing and relationship-choking terms we may put on the people we work with and serve every day. Easier said than done, I know.  But we can start by putting names to faces – the clerk in the grocery store, the teller at the bank, the janitor in the office, the weird guy who never looks up as we pass every day in the corridor on the way to the coffee room. We can start with a greeting and smile for every human being that we encounter today. We can start by looking.  There. Right there. Look.

K for Kitchen

"And, indeed, is there not something holy about a great kitchen?...The scoured gleam of row upon row of metal vessels dangling from hooks or reposing on their shelves till needed with the air of so many chalices waiting for the celebration of the sacrament of food. And the range like an altar, yes, before which my mother bowed in perpetual homage, a fringe of sweat upon her upper lip and the fire glowing in her cheeks.”   Angela Carter

K is for my favorite room in the house.  The kitchen.  The word comes from the Latin “coquere” meaning “to cook” which in noun form becomes “coquina” and then finally, in modern English, to our beloved “kitchen.”

My earliest memories feature this bastion of nourishment, both physical and spiritual.  In the summer time, we’d be called into dinner, sometimes coming reluctantly because the kick ball game was just too much fun, other times, dashing in because our bellies were ready.  Fried chicken and spaghetti were common fare.  Or hamburgers and hotdogs.  Mac and cheese.  Mashed potatoes.  It seemed Mom was always getting ready to cook, cooking, serving or cleaning.  Oh, add canning to that – pickles and tomatoes mostly.  There was no shortage of activity in that kitchen.

Right down the sidewalk was my grandparents’ house – and another kitchen!  If there was nothing readily available for snacking at home, I could head there and look pitiful.  Mary Louise would conjure up something for me. She made the best cinnamon toast – it was the powdered sugar that made it so irresistible. 

At Thanksgiving, we would go to my aunt’s and uncle’s house – four or five of my mom’s siblings, their spouses and kids – a whole house full and then some.  It was a big old farmhouse and the kitchen was roomy enough for all those women.  And that’s where they spent most of the weekend, cooking, drinking coffee, talking, shooing the kids and the men out of their domain.

In my first home, my dad’s constant complaint was the size of the kitchen – too small.  Mom and Dad changed all that when we moved to the house on State Road 9.  The kitchen was gigantic.  It was about that same time that Mom went to work outside the home and Dad took over in the kitchen.  His experience in feeding people was in big quantities – my grandparents owned the Hope Café where he worked as a young man before going off to the Army where he was assigned to the kitchen because of this background.  His specialty dishes were made in a gigantic pot that could feed whoever showed up.  Chili.  Sauerkraut and dumplings.  Vegetable soup.  No one went home hungry from our house. 

When buying a house over the years, the kitchen was always the first consideration for Charlie and me.  The bigger the better.  Than we moved to Geneva and everything got proportionately smaller.  We learned when it comes to kitchens, size doesn’t matter.  We made lots of great memories in that efficient little Swiss kitchen.  Finding the right kitchen was a bit more difficult here in Singapore.  A lot of kitchens are very small and many have no air con.  But we’ve been blessed by a nice kitchen and, just like in the US, it’s the gathering spot whenever we entertain.

How we select our food, prepare our food, consume our food – these are sacred activities easily forgotten in our busy world.  But whenever I’m feeling homesick or low energy or just a little blue, I find an old recipe, or a new one, and start cooking.  And whenever I’m feeling especially happy and blessed, I find an old recipe, or a new one, and start cooking.  Well, full disclosure, I am the sous chef in our family.  Charlie is the chef. I typically plan the menu, do the marketing, and assist – his culinary skills far exceed mine.  But together or with friends, we have our times of fellowship and gratitude in the kitchen as we feed our bodies and souls. 

  

J for Junction

July.  The first month of the second half of the year, the last month of summer for many of us in the Northern Hemisphere before school starts back in August, the heart of winter in the Southern Hemisphere.  July brings us to our J word – junction.

A junction is a place where two things come together, like the first and second half of a year. It’s the end of one thing and the beginning of another, a transition region. It might be external – a physical move from one city or country to another, a job change, marriage, divorce, graduation, parenthood to name a few of the biggies. 

But a junction can also be internal.  You know something is changing, you feel it inside, you have to let go to move forward, but the letting go is difficult and the way forward uncertain. 

Junctions are good – they force us to slow down and take notice of where we’re going. We have to be deliberate, exiting the A train, buying a ticket for the B train, moving into action.  Junctions can also be daunting.  Here are a few ideas for making the most of your next junction.

Prepare as much as possible. With big changes, you know the tracks are ending, get ready.

Look around.  Enjoy the scenery at the junction.  Check out how things work.  Talk to other travelers who’ve been down the track you’re thinking about taking.

Give yourself a break.  Take time to rest and relax. 

Pack wisely.  Once you’ve decided what is next, get what you need to make the adventure a success.

Don’t panic. There’s another junction down the line. You get to choose the route again to get to where it is you want to be.  It’s your journey.