Blog Archives - trish hermanson

The Tragedy of Running from My Shadow

1/30/2020

I laughed my way through Bill Murray’s movie “Groundhog Day” as I watched it again in preparation for this year’s event on February 2. Murray plays Phil, a self-centered TV meteorologist, who dreads covering the same Groundhog Day ceremony every year where a woodchuck supposedly forecasts the weather. If the rodent sees his shadow, he scoots back into his hole, and we have six more weeks of winter.
     But just as the groundhog won’t face his shadow, Phil won’t face the shadows of his personality. He’s incapable of caring about anyone’s needs or feelings beyond himself, and he is destined to relive Groundhog Day, with all its monotony, every day for years. Only when he learns to care about others does the clock advance into a new day, and he’s free.
     I wonder how much of Phil is in me. Am I sometimes unwilling to face the shadow side of my personality? Do I destine myself to failure because of a pattern of self-centeredness? Or negativity? Or unforgiveness?
     Such habits defeat me until I face them, get out of myself, and embrace life’s sunshine, instead of running from it.
  Maybe we all have a bit of Phil in us. We see the shadow sides of our lives and run for cover. Wouldn’t it be better to acknowledge the darkness and turn toward the Light?

What Great Adventure Awaits You?

1/23/2020

Trust me, Duane and I are not that adventurous. This is a trick photo taken at an exhibit on extreme sports. But although I’m not a big risk-taker, this expo got me thinking about a radical claim from author Harold Myra about our unpredictable, sometimes scary lives. “The truth is, we’re all plopped down in circumstances that can threaten, dishearten, or even overwhelm us. Only as we see life as an adventure from God do we experience life’s tang and purpose.”
     Life as an adventure from God? How can a cautious person like me buy into this? It helps when I recognize that my story is part of a bigger story. That the little deeds I do, though simple, can contribute toward God’s goal of mending this broken world. Even taking tiny risks like smiling at a stranger or giving a casserole to a neighbor matter because they are actions in the direction of how the world was meant to be - and how God wants it to be.
     Another author, Luci Shaw, challenges me: “Has your heart ever been blown open by the sudden exhilarating thought, ‘This could be my Year of Living the Adventure?’ And if not, why not?”
     Singer Steven Curtis Chapman captures this call to us.

My 96-Year-Old Personal Trainer S-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s Me

1/16/2020

Meet Morrie, my “personal trainer,” who just turned ninety-six and stretches me in all sorts of ways.
     I got to know Morrie when I saw him stretch his leg over a handrail at the gym and realized he’s more flexible than I am. When I complimented him, he showed me his routine and laughed. “Keep at it, and in a few decades you’ll be like me.”
     That was encouraging because I sometimes feel that I’ve already lived beyond my expiration date. But at the rec center I watch Morrie move from machine to machine, waving a hello to all the folks as he smiles and hums Tommy Dorsey tunes. His sunny attitude challenges me that whether I have a short game or a long game left to play in life, it's best to embrace every day with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.
     Because every day is a gift.

Just Following Directions

1/9/2020

Duane and I didn’t want to be accused of not following directions at the elementary school our granddaughter attends, so when we saw this banner announcing what to do, we complied.
     Signs all around make me chuckle. Like this placard: “In case of fire, please leave the building before posting it on social media.” Really?
     Printing errors make me laugh, too. Like this graduation bulletin: instead of saying “Music Provided By…,” it said, “Mucus Provided By….” Is it a ceremony for snotty noses?
     A music store offers these bumper stickers:
     “B (sharp) Never B (flat) Always B(natural)”
     “I’m a Musician. What’s Your Excuse?”
     “Drummers are Good Roll Models”
     "Get off My Bach"
     “Lord of the Strings”
      “Drummers Use Their Heads”
     Finally, this cut me up: the business name on a truck for a tree pruning company - “Limbotomy.”
     I hope your interactions with the world provide a touch of humor. We all need it.

Playing in the Worst of Times

1/2/2020

I choked up when I heard this cellist playing a piece written by a prisoner in a Nazi stalag. Instead of succumbing to despair when he was tossed into this camp, French soldier Olivier Messiaen turned to what he knew: composing music. With the stub of a pencil and a bit of paper from a sympathetic guard, he wrote what became one of the Twentieth Century’s masterpieces, “Quartet for the End of Time” - after all, he feared his time was up.
     Then three other imprisoned musicians joined Messiaen with a ramshackle violin, cello, clarinet, and piano to premier his score outdoors in freezing rain before four hundred inmates and guards. “Never was I listened to with such rapt attention…,” he recalled. Shortly after, the musicians gained release when the same guard forged papers with a stamp made from a potato.
     How could Messiaen lift himself above the hopelessness of a Nazi camp? I began to understand when I heard Colorado Symphony cellist Judith Galecki perform one section of Messiaen’s composition. Her hushed bow strings played “Praise to the Eternity of Jesus.” It is Messiaen’s declaration that we can rise above anything trying to lock us up because God is timeless and transcends everything.
     My circumstances never sink as low as Messiaen’s, yet when they are tough, I don’t always live above them. Could I rise above my problems if I developed a perspective of the bigness of God?
     I think so.