Blog Archives - trish hermanson

Why I'm Watching My Step

12/29/2017

If I walk ten thousand steps each day, I’ll be healthier, right? But this won’t be the magic bullet. It also matters where and how I tread.
I learned this from novelist Lorna Landvik. In Patty Jane’s House of Curl, one of her characters warns that life can be like a ballroom dance or it can be like walking through a barnyard. Either way, you have to watch your step.
     That’s true for me. Sometimes life is as graceful as a ballroom dance. So smooth I get caught up in myself and trip and land on someone’s toes. “Ouch,” for both of us.
     Other times, barnyards happen, and I’m dodging life’s manure. Then I need to be mindful that I don’t slip and fall face first into the stuff.
     So as I move into the new year, I want to not only increase my number of strides, but also to watch my step. That the best way to enjoy the dancing while dodging the dung.
  And when I take missteps, I'll tell others - and myself - that I’m sorry.
     Because I'll still make mistooks . . . I mean mistakes.

How This Scene Saved Me

12/22/2017

What a year it’s been. Violence, uncivil discourse, hurricanes, fires. And a black cloud of nuclear war.
Tension about all this threatened to explode in me until I recalled a skyline that took my breath away one day as I drove back into metro Denver. Our urban area encompasses three million souls, yet the city looked as small as LEGO pieces hugging the horizon. I realized this was a microcosm of the whole world, miniature under a canopy of billowing white clouds.
This calmed me. We still have all our problems, I know. But someday, as the old carol promises, “the wrong shall fail, the right prevail with peace on earth, good will to men.”
That’s a perspective to hold onto.

Is God a Scrooge?

12/15/2017

Honestly, sometimes I’ve pictured God as a prune-faced miser. But a speaker I heard pointed out how crazy that is. After all, the first thing the Almighty told people after creating them was to have sex - that’s what it takes to “be fruitful and multiply.” The Master Designer could have shaped us into single-cell organisms that simply divide to reproduce. Instead, he fashioned a sizzling modus operandi.
     The next thing the Deity told people was to take charge. In other words, don’t be slackers. Go for great things. Turn grain into objects as diverse as bread and beer. Alloy tin and copper into bronze. Blow through a stick and you have a woodwind. He invites us to be creative, just as he is.
     Then he told people to feast. He prepared a setting as gorgeous as the pages in Fine Gardening and declared, “bon appetite.”
     And the Divine blessed people. That’s like saying, “I’m smiling as you set out on this grand adventure of life.”
     Wow. This blows a hole into any “stern Man Upstairs” ideas that creep into my thinking. I don’t think this means I rush into a dark-chocolate-truffle orgy. But it reveals facets of God I easily forget. That he’s sensual - he created the senses, after all. He’s indulgent - providing crazy-good things like fresh basil, purring kittens, spectacular sunrises, hugging arms, and barbecue. And he wants me to flourish in this lavish world he created.
  Radical!

Are You a 'Derful'?

12/8/2017

My niece Julie was assigned to be a Derful in a handbell choir. She was in charge of two bells she rang consecutively in the song “Wonderful Christmas Time.” Another musician rang a bell on the syllable “won,” then Julie came in with “derful.”
Being a Derful can be thankless, yet it’s a role we all play at times. Derfuls are those who are part of something bigger than themselves. The invisible ones who cast others into the limelight. The pit crews. The stage hands. The altos supporting the sopranos.
     But consider what the world would be without Derfuls: symphonies ending in a whimper instead of the crash of cymbals; plain pasta without pesto.
     The world needs us Derfuls. If we don’t ring our bells at the right time, “won” hangs there, a syllable yearning for completion. But when we ring our bells, “won” becomes “wonderful.”
  So to all the Derfuls of the world, ring your bells!

Am I an Evergreen?

12/1/2017

Bernice is an evergreen, freshness wafting from her boughs even though she’s ninety-five.
     If my mother-in-law isn’t rolling out Norwegian lefsa bread with an alcoholic man to give him something productive to do, she’s encouraging a woman whose husband was brutally murdered to let go of bitterness “or it’ll destroy you.”
  I’ve known Bernice for decades, and during that time her guest bedroom has been open to college students searching for a home-away-from-home, and her kitchen to hitchhikers her son picked up who needed a meal. In her nineties, she attended a rock concert for the induction of nephews into a hall of fame because she “wouldn’t miss it.”

WELCOMING

     Why does she always make room for others? Perhaps because she grew up the eighth child in a Great Depression family, the one who slept at the bottom of the bed; there was no other place. I wonder if she identifies with the world’s Savior whose first bed was an animal feed box because there was no room for him in the inn.
  When that baby born in a stable grew up, he promised he’d prepare a place in a heavenly mansion for people like Bernice. Plenty of room there. Plenty of space for those she’s always inviting to join in the upcoming celestial bash. A celebration for those who never feel totally welcome in this world, yet roll out the red carpet for others.
  Bernice’s steps are unsteady now. She bends over a cane. Her hearing limits her. Yet she still grins and greets others. I can’t think of an excuse to not do the same. So who can I welcome today?