Tonight Marie picks up the keys to our new apartment. Tomorrow we rent the truck, haul the sofa and the beds and the numerous boxes and bags, and move in to our new place. It will be a wonderful day but a challenging one, because for me there are no more intimidating words than "some assembly required." I used to pay ten extra bucks to get the kid's bikes assembled, begging and wheedling for the floor model whenever possible. The old man could dissassemble a diesel engine, and a couple of my brothers once earned their living framing houses, but I was born without the tool-using gene. Austin's bed is one of those Swedish things with 25 different bolts and tabs and connections: my man-job nightmare. But it will be worth it to sleep in our own home and our own beds.
On Monday I'll call the utilities and fill out the mail-forwarding forms. It's amazing after months of talking and praying and agonizing back and forth that it's finally here.
What will be different this time? Well, for one thing, after all the hard work and contemplation, we have a much deeper sense of the worth and importance of home, of how blessed we are to belong to someone and have a family to call our own. These are grim times we live in, with lots of daunting portents, and it's an incredible comfort to have someone to hold when the world outside is bitter and chilling. The very smallest things will seem like a rich reward. Cooking dinner. Saying good night. Sharing a bar of dark chocolate. Multiplying our resources and dividing the problems. Sharing the hope.
On the pages of blog central I have said many times I have never loved or wanted anyone or anything the way I do Marie, and tonight it's amazing to me we came all the way through our darkest days and worst fears and found a way to make love win. I have no illusions that the life ahead of us will be trouble or drama-free, but I'm certain it will be richer and more purposeful. We were put on this earth to care for and comfort one another, to make the lives around us more hopeful, to love and believe and give. These are the surest ways to please and praise the God who made us, and I am full of praise tonight. I'll let you know how it goes.
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This is the Way the Transformation Begins
"Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say "Why not?"
George Bernard Shaw, Robert F. Kennedy
This is the way the transformation begins.
It begins in me.
It begins now.
It begins with small incremental changes and shifts in attitude
it begins with positive action
failing forward
and suddenly I start looking at the world and my place in it in a new way. I speak differently and dress differently and project a different energy, and the world opens up like a glorious pink azalea bush, eight feet tall and blooming like mad.
photo by Kajo123 from the website flickr.com
Good morning!
An engineer builds a bridge and every bolt and weld has to be exactly right; every measure has to be perfect, or the bridge collapses or fails to take its place. Fantastically detailed blueprints have to be laid out. Impact statements have to be filed, sediment has to be studied, years of effort, months of planning, and a man-made marvel rises in the sky. Park somewhere and take a good look at a bridge, and think of all the skill and knowledge and hard honest work it took to create it. Consider how a few thousand years ago we were living in caves.
It is not so with a dream. Some people are remarkable dreamers and dreams spring whole from them, or they can leap up from bed and pages of creative genius flow out of their pen, intricate and perfect. Most of us though are baby dreamers, new at it and tentative to the trust the power of what we wish for.
Start the dream! Whether you want to go to nursing school or college or learn to play the guitar, take a first step, now, even in the wrong direction. Don't wait for the blueprint to come to you, the environmental impact statement, the permits and the 200-page budget and legislative dream approval. Rough it out, sketch it on a napkin, tell a friend, and take action. Your dream begins the moment you step out in first moment of believing, and the result can touch a thousand souls. Listen to Jim Valvano: never give up, never surrender. Believe in the audacity of action and your fantastic potential for change and new opportunity.
It is not so with a dream. Some people are remarkable dreamers and dreams spring whole from them, or they can leap up from bed and pages of creative genius flow out of their pen, intricate and perfect. Most of us though are baby dreamers, new at it and tentative to the trust the power of what we wish for.
Start the dream! Whether you want to go to nursing school or college or learn to play the guitar, take a first step, now, even in the wrong direction. Don't wait for the blueprint to come to you, the environmental impact statement, the permits and the 200-page budget and legislative dream approval. Rough it out, sketch it on a napkin, tell a friend, and take action. Your dream begins the moment you step out in first moment of believing, and the result can touch a thousand souls. Listen to Jim Valvano: never give up, never surrender. Believe in the audacity of action and your fantastic potential for change and new opportunity.
The Hawthorne Bridge at sunrise, Portland Oregon. Photo by Joe Collver, from flickr.com
Genuine happiness and success start with an attitude of abundance
Make it a daily practice to begin your day with five minutes of thankfulness. You can even do it in your car on the way to work. Do it in your own way, whether it's thoughtful reflection or a prayer or singing out loud, but focus on your rich, amazing, abundant life.
Feeling grumpy or resentful or worried instead of thankful? Change direction! Consider the incredible gifts you have--mind, body, spirit, senses, your family, your friends, your clothes, your car, and the breakfast you enjoyed this morning. By the standards of 99% of the world, Americans are incredibly, amazingly rich. You truly have no idea how richly blessed you are until you start thinking about it. Even the heart that beats within you and the lungs that breathe your air are an intricate and amazing miracle.
Some of my favorite movies are ones that feature a once-defeated character waking up to an absolutely new day: "It's A Wonderful Life," the various versions of Dicken's "Christmas Carol" and "Groundhog Day." How exhilarating it is for George Bailey to wake up and realize his life isn't over, it's just beginning, and that today truly is a brand new day.
"It's a Wonderful Life"
George returns home to everything he ever wanted.
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