Posts filed under 'The Heart of Tea'
I think this was a title of a book on my family’s bookshelf in the 1970s.
The calendar overflowed in April, May, and June. I met deadline after deadline, hauled child after child, and organized event after event. I’ll even admit to guzzling and not sipping my tea more often than not.
In my heart of hearts, I don’t buy the belief that we’re all so busy. I think we’ve been given the same amount of time by our Creator. And I believe many of us, especially in affluent America, own more choice about how we spend our time than we often give ourselves credit for. But like the dizzying choices we’re given just picking out our toothpaste, weighing all the options available intertwined with our value systems and fears often mean life can easily start to feel beyond our control.
In my early 20s, years went by before I started to examine all that was pulling me along. Back then I remember sincerely wishing I would get really sick so I could just stop and rest. Now I can only last weeks before I have to stop and as I call it, “find my center”. I must live and make choices out of who I believe I am and called to be, not who I wish I was.
Traditionally, fall and spring are my busy seasons, and summer and winter allow for a slower pace-if I allow for it. A recent check of my calendar for July revealed six multiple overnight trips between the three children, five day field trips, three different parties, two multiple days with workmen in home projects, and one homeschooling conference out-of-town. Are you kidding me?! And I run around less than many mothers and families I know.
I must. make. time. A Human Development major in college, I really enjoy personality tests to understand myself and others better. One reveals that I am a contemplative. Another reveals that I deal with things according to how I feel about them; how they fit into my personal value system. But I’m so externally focused that it’s especially important for me to spend time alone. Otherwise I easily forget what that personal value system needs to be. And the Internet’s opened an unlimited arena of influence and community. Talk about an opportunity for unlimited distraction!
When you relax, do you feel guilty? How much time alone do you need? For those of you whose children are grown, please share your perspectives with those of us in the thick of family managing.
June 26th, 2008
Last night I listened to a powerful speaker, Steve Chalke, and learned about Stop the Traffik; an organization committed to the abolishment of human trafficking, the second most lucrative crime worldwide.
Chalke reminded me that when people asked William Wilberforce what they could do to help move Parliament’s hand to abolish the slave trade in England, he told them to stop taking sugar in their tea. In other words, government listens when consumers affect the economic balances of our societies and in the early 1800s, the slaves worked on the sugar plantations. But if no one bought the sugar…they wouldn’t need the slaves.
Forty-three percent of the world’s chocolate comes from cocoa beans harvested in Cote D’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast) of Africa. An estimated 12,000 children have been trafficked to harvest these cocoa beans. No candy bar is worth eating if I know one child has been separated from Mom and forced to work.
Thanks to the Internet and our access to information, we can make knowledgeable consumer decisions relatively easily. Websites and companies like Equal Exchange allow us to learn how to purchase our daily pleasures that are not grown in the United States–mainly coffee, tea, and chocolate. Some tea companies deal exclusively with fair trade teas such as Rishi and Fair Trade Teas. But many tea companies offer some fair trade teas in their selections, and it’s always worth asking.
It’s been said ignorance is bliss and I say, it’s true. Life is easier when I don’t know that the small decisions I’m making affect the lives of others in dramatic ways. But my bliss cannot be my goal. I sang, “Jesus loves the little children…All the children of the world” to my daughter tonight with new understanding. Her innocence and safety has been protected through deep sacrifices on my part. Does that mean my anthropology professors in college were right and I do this because I’m programmed to protect my genes? What a sad testimony to the human spirit that would be! No, I may not be able to take every child under my roof, but if by asking a few questions, spending some extra pennies, and sharing what I know I can help protect another child’s innocence and safety, I will.
I hope you will, too.
June 9th, 2008
“The human soul needs actual beauty more than bread.” –D.H. Lawrence
Do you believe it? Will you make time for it? Does it surround you or slip into your peripheral vision while you plow through the to-do list? Can you take just a minute and appreciate it?
Google searches on beauty bring up countless options for improving the physical beauty of the female and all the products and ways to accomplish it. But the gift of beauty that heals and revives the soul is not found in the make-up aisle or in the fashion magazines. It’s rarely something one needs to pay for.
Beauty. Simplicity. Classically. What do these three words bring to YOUR mind?
February 22nd, 2008
There’s nothing like a sprightly 6-year old girl who skips through life to remind us of the joy in this day.
I woke this morning to find cards slipped under my door. Actually, it was her bright eyes peering into my sleepy ones that first got me moving. Yes, she had awoken in the middle of the night to accomplish her mission, and waited until 7:01am to tell me about it.
After I oohed and aahed over her card while she danced with delight, I opened the fridge to find a large, red, construction paper heart nestled between the orange juice and milk. She proceeded to hide this heart and its twin throughout the house all day long. They showed up set in the window corner, nestled in my unmade bed, and balanced between drawer pulls. Patiently she waited for them to be discovered, rejoicing each time. An eternity passed until 11:30 when she’d been invited to a friend’s to decorate cookies. We had only one craft-related meltdown as she pushed to participate in the magic All. Day. Long.
“I only got one Valentine so far!” she announced with much chagrin about two hours after awakening. Luckily, it was the one from me, so I was off the hook.
Hers is the one on the right-the pink one, of course. Valentine’s Day is the ONLY holiday that makes me feel crafty. Last night I hung these card-stock 3-D hearts from our dining room light fixture filled with treats and the Little People Valentines. This paper craft was at Martha Stewart, and I made them! Thank you, ArtsyMama for pointing them out. There is NO way I can ever compete with you, but it greatly helped me enter into my daughter’s enthusiasm (which is now melting into a pile, because even on Valentine’s Day, the room has to be cleaned before media…poor thing.).
I have an associate who will not celebrate Valentine’s AT ALL (along with Santa, Halloween, and St. Patrick’s Day) because of religious conviction. And it absolutely breaks my heart. Little sentiments of patient, kind, and hopeful love have busted out everywhere I’ve looked today. I imagine the God she’s trying to honor by NOT celebrating absolutely grinning from ear to ear as we celebrate a day of love. Yes, retail does its best to get a big chunk of the pie, but thankfully, it’s not the end of the story. Shannon, who’s visiting Uganda, gets it. And so does Stephanie and her husband. Little acts of love that hopes, from a “God Bless You” from one mother to another to planting lettuce seeds in the snow absolutely warm instead of break my heart.
If you celebrated today in a simple way, or observed a simple act of love, won’t you tell us about it?
Happy Patient, Kind, and Hopeful Day~
February 14th, 2008
Does your to-do list keep you up at night? Do you fall into the comparison trap on a regular basis? Do you fight habits only known to you and feel discouraged at your lack of progress? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you and I hold something in common.
I think it’s easy to fall into the trap that our successes and failures are all dependent on us. In fact, in my opinion it’s the dark secret no one talks about in the self-help books and mindset of the age that tells us we can be anything we want to be. Do anything we want to do. That our destiny lies in our own hands and with enough education, determination, and American dreamism, we can build our lives to look like we want them to look.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am incredibly grateful to live in America. I loved going to college. And my days are marked by getting up and tackling the same hurdles day after day in order to build something of value. But how do we deal with the failures? By berating ourselves? Turning into a neurotic and driven individuals ostracizing the people around us? Just work harder?
I worked really hard in 2007. I started this blog, welcomed my youngest child into full-time homeschooling, and worked on remodeling projects around my home. I nurtured family and friendships, kept up our strict diet because of food allergies (as if feeding a family of five day-in and day-out wasn’t enough), and hosted numerous events. I read for knowledge, walked for fitness, and visited dentists, doctors, and numerous sports events. Shall I go on?
And I’m guessing like many of you, the grayness of January wants to taunt our failures. Yes, I still weigh more than I did when I got married. My boys still love video games despite my best efforts to steer them different directions. I ate spoonfuls of whipped cream today, despite the dairy allergy. And I’m sure someone, somewhere is mad that they haven’t received that call back or thank you card. It’s enough to make one watch American Idol and laugh at others’ failures instead!
However, after recovering from the immediate sense of exhaustion I struggled with during the beginning of this month, three words are beginning to break through the fog.
“Grace and peace”
“Grace and peace”
“Grace and peace”
I am a first-born raised by a first-born. I expect I will always focus on productivity and achievement naturally. Oh how I need help to remember that:
- I was created by a Creator who has not abandoned me. The same brilliance that made my circulatory system and soul guides my life today.
- I was made for relationships that are symbiotic, interdependent, and mutual. I am not meant to live without needing others.
- I need love that says, “There is nothing you can do to make me love you more and there is nothing you can do to make me love you less.” That, my friends, is my new definition of grace.
So today, whatever circumstance you face, take time to brew yourself a cup of tea. Sit and look out your window. Yes, the gray is there…the answer is not to ignore it. But breathe deep and remember, despite the gray…
“Grace and peace”
“Grace and peace”
“Grace and peace” to you and yours, dear friends.
January 23rd, 2008
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