Category: Wholeness - trish hermanson

What's Eating You?

9/7/2018

This beetle and his cousins camped out on a lush vine covering our arbor and devoured it like some Biblical plague. Little things have been chewing on me lately, too. Irritations that bug me. Interruptions that chomp holes in my foliage. I finally slowed down enough to run a diagnostic on what’s eating me: I haven’t been nourishing myself with enough pure and simple quiet time.
     I remember a song by John Fischer that claims we’re made to live a still life. A life “quiet enough to notice what is important,” Fischer says. Don’t we all long for that?
     Is anything gnawing on you, too? Then let’s search for some green pastures to rest in, some still waters to drink from, even if they're only in our imaginations in the corner of our living rooms.
     My thanks to Fischer, who posted “Still Life” here . The lyrics follow:

Still life…
We were always meant to live a still life,
But somehow we got trapped into the fast life--
The cast life--
Where everyone plays a part.

You lose yourself in the fast life,
In the fast pace of the rat race,
Where no one knows who you are
And nobody cares.
If there really is a God,
And He has something to say,
We would never hear it
’Cause the noise is in the way.

Still life…
We were always meant to live a still life
Where everyone can see our real life.
Be still and know who is God.

Our arbor in better times and now chewed up.

Need a Great Escape?

8/24/2018

When I spotted this hibiscus escaping between glass panels of a greenhouse, I wondered whether its plant brain cried out, “Enough of this protected environment. Give me the ecstasy of an authentic life!”
     And I asked if I’m allowing the sun and the rain and the wind of real life to hit me, or whether I’m sheltering myself in some greenhouse. Whether my blossoms will unfold in a controlled habitat only, or I’ll allow them to be showcased in the world?    Is it time to break out of my comfort zone? To join that group I’ve avoided? Launch that project? Volunteer in that organization? Make a great escape into vital living?
     What’s the point of blooming in the privacy of a greenhouse anyway?

How Lies Bite Us

8/3/2018

Ouch! Lies bite. I’m not talking about the ones we tell. I’m talking about the ones we believe.
     Recently I felt stiffness in a family relationship. Why was she giving me the cold shoulder? Meanwhile, she believed her own lies and thought I didn’t want to be around her. Then, like ticks burrowing deep into our souls, we believed more lies: “She doesn’t value me.” “She doesn’t love me.” “Things will never get better.”
     Finally the volcano burst. Anger. Tears. Gut-wrenching pain.    We could have walked away and called it quits, but Love pulled us back.
     We talked. We cried.
     And Truth cut through the confusion with laser precision, exposing the lies for what they were. Then with a skilled scalpel, Truth dug the festering falsehoods out of our souls.
     Between sniffles, we said our “sorries.” We experienced what the first-century Jewish teacher Mark describes as the phenomenal result of having our thinking turned around: “times of refreshment.”
     Relief!
     Now I’m hoping we’ll be closer than ever in spite of this - or maybe because of it. If only we’d talked sooner and exposed the lies to the Light.
     Do any lies fester in you about someone? Or any lies you’re believing about yourself? My advice: dig them out before they burrow deeper.
***
   Photo courtesy of the California Department of Pubic Health with text added.

Fighting the Fear of First Impressions

6/22/2018

Sometimes these days I’m a jumble of jitters because I’m meeting lots of new people and first impressions leave lasting impressions, right? I don’t want to blow it.
     So here’s a new person. I suck in a deep breath, tentatively offer my hand, and ask the woman her name. Now will I remember it?
     A week later I see her again and don’t. “I’m still Trish.” I say awkwardly, “and you’re still….?”
     She reintroduces herself. We make small talk. But nothing meaningful happens.
     I remind myself of a motto I’ve drilled into my core: “In this situation, I have nothing to hide, nothing to seek, nothing to prove.” When I remember that, I forget the posturing and pretenses.
     We make more small talk, but still nothing happens. Then I think about the wisdom of John Maxwell: “People never care how much you know until they know how much you care.” So I ask her a question.
     Now something marvelous occurs - we find a connection.    And as Rick Blaine speculated at the end of the movie “Casablanca,” I wonder whether this might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
  I hope so.

Does Community Matter?

5/17/2018

We’ve never experienced the need for community more than these crushing days when our six-year-old granddaughter Lydia died. As one of the pallbearers observed, the coffin was light, but the burden was heavy.
     I thought about a man I knew who found that his best place for community was at a bar. Before heading for home after work, Frank often stopped at The Tap, lifted a longneck, and share some laughs. Everyone knew his name. Everyone accepted him.
     Then Frank died.
     Most of his family lived out of town, so they pulled together a memorial service at the local church. The minister read ritual out of a little black book. Nothing personal.
     Afterward, the family sat alone in Frank’s home, longing for remembrances from his friends. “Let’s go to The Tap,” one said. So they drove to the tavern, pulled open the door, and peered into the darkness. “Anybody here know Frank?”
     Heads flew up and arms pointed their bottles skyward. “Everybody knows Frank.”
     The siblings took stools and got to know their father better through the eyes of his friends.
     Like Frank, we all want a place where we’re accepted, where everyone knows our name. If we don’t find it in one setting, we’ll grab it in another.
     So here’s the challenge to me from Frank’s story: Do I help create the kind of community I need for both the bright times and the dark times? If I don’t, I miss out.
     And do I welcome others into the communities where I live, work, play, and worship? If I don’t, they miss out.
     A lot of it is up to me.

Croutons...
Chew on these seasoned bits of life for a little hope and humor along your highway.

JOIN ME ~ I’ll send brief, occasional posts to lighten your backpack. We're on this journey together.

Categories

Archives

July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017

Available on Amazon