Category: Wholeness - trish hermanson

What's the Worst Pain You Can Endure?

3/14/2019

A friend asked me what I’m learning these weeks as I hobble around with a broken foot because of a silly fall. Here’s one thing - the answer to a question that may surprise you: What is the worst pain you can endure?
Your own pain.
Some well meaning folks have reminded me that my malady “could be worse,” and I know they’re correct. But this is MY trial that I have to deal with RIGHT NOW.
Many of you have it much harder than I do. Some have chronic pain. Some have debilitating trauma. But no one’s affliction should be compared to another’s, nor should it be dismissed.
So to all of you out there who have physical or emotional suffering, I acknowledge that your stress is big and real and not fun at all. It’s what’s hobbling your life - even if it “could be worse.”
For those of us who are cut down physically or emotionally, we don’t want this to be the sum of our identity. We may be like a broken down pickup now, but we’re working hard to get our parts fixed so we can hit the road again.
We want to keep on truckin’ down life’s highway.

Dumb Luck or Incredible Skill?

2/14/2019

Was it incredible skill or simply dumb luck that someone tossed these sneakers onto a power line in my neighborhood? Dumb luck, I think. Contrary to that, my accomplishments come the hard way - repetitive practice.
     That’s what a young musician, violin case in hand, learned when he got lost while visiting New York City. He asked an old man, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” The man waggled his index finger at him. “Practice. Practice.”
     How much practice? Author Malcolm Gladwell says it takes ten thousand hours to become accomplished in something. Take, for example, the artist Pablo Picasso. Legend has it that he was sketching in a park when a woman recognized him and insisted he draw her portrait. After studying her a moment, he drew her likeness with a single pencil stroke. She was thrilled with it and asked his price. “Five thousand dollars,” Picasso said.
     “But it took you only a second to draw this.”
     “Madame,” the artist replied, “it took my entire life.”
     All this could be discouraging, because few of us can carve out ten thousand hours to develop an expertise. Yet I’m amazed by my friends who develop impressive abilities simply by pursuing their interests.They’ve become experts in grilling, gardening, quilting, crafting, woodworking, hosting, leading meetings, socializing, and extending kindness to others. Their examples encourage me that it’s never too late to develop a skill - if I’m willing to practice, practice.
  Because mastery doesn’t happen with dumb luck.

Am I a Glorious Beggar?

10/12/2018

Why did this blue heron trade his royal standing in the bird kingdom for panhandling? Locals on the Gulf Coast island where he lives warned me about Harry, as they call him. And the moment I drew open the curtains in the second-floor room I rented, I was a sucker to his charms. From the branches of a tree, he swooped over onto my balcony and cocked his head as if to ask, “Breakfast?”
     I dutifully headed to the dock while Harry strolled alongside me at a comfortable distance. I grabbed a net, scooped a bait fish out of a submerged cage, and flopped it onto the deck. Harry speared it with his beak, tossed it in the air, and swallowed it whole. Then he stepped into a nearby birdbath and cleaned his beak in three-inch-deep water.
     Cute, yes, but what happened to the creature Harry’s designed to be? With his six-foot wing span, he could soar above rippling waters, spot a fish below, and dive headfirst to spear it. But even though the ocean is just wing-flaps away, Harry gave up his majesty for the convenience of begging from a dock and cleaning up in a birdbath.
  Which makes me wonder whether I sometimes trade an ocean of adventure for the comfort of a couch. Have I become a glorious beggar? Am I willing to let my destiny take wing?

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?

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.

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