Category: Grandmothers

One of the eternal truths of counseling, especially the sorts that involve couples, is that communication requires both sending and receiving messages.

I was pondering this the other day when Luther, one of our Newfie rescue dogs, was sending loud messages, as is his habit. When he first came to us, about two and half years ago, Luther wasn’t much for communication. In fact, his only response to virtually anything was an attempt to disappear into the floor.

I’m delighted that he is finding his voice. I’m less delighted that his particular voice is very loud and sharp. It reminds me of a radio station Bill used to like. It felt to me like nearly every other song they played was in some key that reminded me of nails on a chalkboard. And Luther doesn’t seem to be equipped with a wait button.

Thus, he barks, usually when he wants in or out the door. Receiving the message loud and clear, I respond, “I hear you!” and begin the process of liberating myself from wherever I’m sitting or whatever I’m doing to see what he needs.

I’ll freely admit that Luther’s messages probably feel somewhat more urgent to me than they might if he weren’t blind. I’m always concerned that he’s stuck someplace, or lost, which still happens sometimes.

Usually, though, he’s just impatient to get to wherever he wants to be next.

Recently, I’ve been receiving some similar messages from a muscle gone rogue in my right calf. Messages that remind me a bit of a conversation with the dogs.

Sit! Now! Owww!!! Stay! Down! 

A week or so ago, I got some help from my friend and mentor, Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy, known to many of you as the magical author and artist, SARK. She sent out an email, sharing about her recovery process from broken ankle. “Unlikely” as this seems, Susan was apparently trying to rush the healing!

Then she recalled some words of wisdom from a physical therapist who said something along the lines of the ligaments and tendons that were injured in the fracture are still healing and when you push them too fast they send “shut down” messages to your brain.

That sounds familiar! In fact, it sounds so familiar that I actually decided to pay attention and took Saturday off. Well, mostly.

It turns out that it is possible to knit prayer shawls while sitting with feet up and a good cup of tea. So, that’s pretty much what I did.

A set of size 11 circular needles and self-striping yarn. Around and around and around. Rainbows of hope.

Hope for me and my healing. Hope for my family. Hope for the ones who will eventually receive these particular shawls. Hope for the world.

That last one takes a bit of repetition for me. But, if you’re going to take a day off, it’s not a bad way to spend some time. And if, by chance, you don’t knit, prayer dots or blowing on dandelion fluffs or some time spent gazing at the spectacular moon will all work, too.

I suspect most of us could use all the hope we can get!

And, if you do knit, check with faith communities in your area to see who might need prayer shawls. These are headed for Shallowford Presbyterian Church, here in Atlanta.

ps… Here’s a sneak peak from my new painting, Blossom and Aria, complete with dandelions filled with hope! You can find more of my work at Sue’s Shop! 

Okay… I get that this will sound a bit random to many of you, but I never saw the movie, The Karate Kid, which was released in 1984, until 20 years later.

There are reasons for this, beyond the fact that I’m not a huge fan of the film genre known as “kick butt” movies.

I spent the 80’s as a seriously broke single mom. And, for most of those years, I was a seriously broke full-time student single mom. Four college degrees in 10 years cuts down on the movies a whole lot! (Though Dave and I did make it to E.T. !!!)

In fact, I didn’t see The Karate Kid  until my hypnosis guru sent a whole bunch of us for homework. That was when I was beginning to put together the puzzle pieces of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learning.

To be specific, “Wax on. Wax off.” It’s all three of those processing paths in one!

Oddly, Mr. Miyagi seems to have taken up residence in my head again this week. Then, as I closed my book one night, and reached to turn off the light, I figured it out.

It’s the buttons!!!

Many, many buttons, as you may have noticed. It goes like this:

Choose a button of the right size for the space. Make a blob of glue. Put button on blob. All the while, focusing on the message of the Muse-in-progress.

Admittedly, “Wax on. Wax off.” is tidier. It really kind of works the same way, though. The visual choice of the button and the place to put it on the canvas. The auditory/digital repetition of the message. The tactile movement of placing the button. And, the internalizing of the process which is, in and of itself, creating change.

It will be a while longer before she’s ready for viewing. A few more buttons. Some dandelions to paint. (Really!) Lots of honoring and tending which, in the land of Intentional Creativity ®, basically means cleaning up rough edges, bringing some things forward and some back, and, especially if I’m the artist, about seven more coats of lipstick.

I’ll get the hang of mouths one of these days!

She’ll also need some more prayer dots. This time for the victims of the shooting in west Texas over the weekend.

For this moment, though, the internet is back on and Bill has dinner in the oven. Exhausted beasties, just home from Camp, are napped out, each in their personal favorite traffic pattern. Leaping over them hurts a bit less. And my girls had a good first week in school. All of which means more dots. These, for gratitude.

Today, I did not paint.

I sat in my magic chair, like the experienced orthopedic patient I am, with my feet up, catching up on emails, knitting, and checking things off the list for an upcoming workshop.

I did have an idea for how to make the fine white line sketching required for a giraffe whose spirit appeared in one of my Works-In-Progress go more smoothly. And I went so far as to check it out on my practice canvas, which I can do in my lap. I’m way ahead for real painting.

All the while, I was waiting for tomorrow morning’s appointment with my old friend, the ortho doc. I need to know what’s going on! Fortunately, I can pray while I knit even, when paint prayers are a challenge.

Then, at 8:30 this evening, I got on the line with about 5,ooo other volunteers to listen to an update on the Bernie Sanders campaign.

If you’ve been hanging around for a while, you already know I have a preference. Before I tell you a bit about what I noticed on the call, please hear me say that I know you probably have a preference, too, and it may not be the same as mine.

That’s okay. Important things need considered conversation and this is a place where that can happen. It’s also a pretty good model for our kids and grandkids!

There were many things running through my head as I listened in on the call.

One of them was an old social “rule” that probably came from Dear Abby or Miss Manners. Or, perhaps, the Junior League. There were two versions, as I recall.

Either, The three things not to be discussed in polite company are money, sex, and religion. 

Or, The three things not to be discussed in polite company are money, sex, and politics. 

I’ll leave it to you to recall which version you learned!

And then I remembered a Sunday morning, twenty-some years ago, when I broke all of those “rules” in a single sermon! It was breast cancer awareness month, stewardship season, and the politics of open ordination in many denominations were heating up.

Not sure it was my most popular sermon ever, but it was what the text brought to my heart.

Tonight was kind of like that.

Senator Sanders joined the call toward the end and he mentioned some recent political writers who have gone on record as saying that the huge Sanders grass-roots organization “was talking to no one.”

Bernie’s rather pointed question was, “Who do they mean when they say no one?”

Suddenly, I was sitting, not in my magic chair, but in a Hebrew exegesis class in seminary. Walter Brueggemann, in his voice that reminds me a lot of Bernie’s voice, was teaching us to consider approaching a scriptural text wondering, “Whose voice is missing?”

I think if I could ask him, Senator Sanders would say that the vast majority of the voices of the 99% in this country, and of the next generations, are missing in the politics of the current administration.

And he’s trying to do something about that. I helped in 2016. I’m helping again now.

Whose voices in our world seem missing to you? For that matter, whose images seem missing to you?  Are those questions that resonate with your heart? And what will you do with those questions, wherever you live?

I’m not going to ask you to vote for my guy. I’m just going to ask you, if you’re eligible to vote in the USA, to ponder the questions that resonate with your heart. Go online and check your registration status, just to be sure. Check out Stacey Abrams and the Fair Fight campaign to protect voter rights. And, when your turn comes, VOTE with all your heart and hope.

The Iowa Caucus is February 3, 2020. The time to get involved is now!

And, if the whole process feels as complex and incomprehensible to you as it sometimes does to me, watch some of The West Wing. It’s the best Civics lesson I know!