Renewing The Right Spirit

My Mother's Death

2008-11-05T11:39:00.000-08:00

As my mother aged and became more infirmed from her rheumatoid arthritis, I certainly knew that she could not live forever. When she died on February 2, 2007, I was, however, quite surprised by the negative effects her death had on my life’s dreams and my sense of purpose. As my favorite songwriter, Jackson Browne, once wrote, “When you (my mother) went away…I dropped my life and couldn’t find the pieces.”
For most of my life, I have been a goal-oriented person, but when my mother died, I seemed to lose my focus on long-term goals. The road before me looked unfamiliar and unclear, and, as a person loses his/her way when not following a map, I felt that I was driving down the highway with no clear direction. My goals faded in the distance as I just tried to merely survive from one day to another.
My mother and I shared a positive attitude concerning life, but her death left me with an unfamiliar feeling of hopelessness. Even though the last words my mother said to me were, “I’ll be better tomorrow,” I lost all purpose and belief that things would and could get better. I lived in a world of darkness and struggled to find the light. I sensed that this would pass, but this lack of optimism that I experienced felt alien and scary; I couldn’t seem to muster up the faith to believe that my life would turn out alright now that my mother was gone.
Because my mother was my biggest fan, I also experienced a lack of love and support after she died. Always my greatest cheerleader, I felt there was no one who wanted to hear my dreams or celebrate my achievements like she did. In my mother’s world, her ‘Jan’ made her so proud. She constantly praised me for my ability to inspire students, my writing talent, and my positive and friendly personality. Being a respected critic and an uplifting supporter was a role that my mother provided unconditionally, a role that no one else in my life so thoroughly provides.
As I write this, I feel that my mother’s death left me with a sense of loneliness and isolation. Her death resulted in a lack of hope, a life without my trusted supporter, and a road without clear destinations; however, I inherited my mother’s spirit, courage, and faith, and I believe that with each day, I gain back my sense of self and purpose. Even though the pieces of my life will never quite fit the same again, I am gluing them back together and becoming whole once more.

Wearing red, white, and blue

2008-11-05T08:12:00.000-08:00

Today is November 5th, 2008, and I have on my red, white, and blue. I even tried to find my flag pin because today I feel hopeful about my nation. Today, for the first time in quite a while, I feel optimistic and patriotic. I have hope.
Obama is not a savior; he is just a man. Singlehandedly, he will not be able to do all of the things he proposes, at least I hope not. A vote for Obama wasn’t a vote for everything he believes, stands for, and wants to do for this country and this world. In fact, there are some areas where Obama and I disagree, and I am still glad that our government is one with checks and balances.
What I do believe that may end with this election is the judging of others according to one moral compass. I believe that we have seen enough of the Pharasies preaching on the street corners, quite mean-spiritedly I might add. I have tried to observe through my own personal spiritual lens, and when I have done that, I have not seen the actions of my Christ nor the behaviors of his followers, the Christians.
I have seen innocent people die in a war that was a lie. I have seen forgiveness for inappropriate and immoral behaviors in the market place in the name of greed. I have seen people preaching on the street corners instead of praying in the closets to a personal God. And none of it has matched the words of Christ that I read in my Bible of forgiveness, inclusion, acceptance, tolerance, and love. It does not match my Christ who rebelled against judging, revenge, despising, hating, and exclusion.
So, no, Obama is not going to make everything okay, but in my heart of hearts, I believe this could be a start. May we turn to the New Testament this time and read anew the words of Christ in a changing world. It’s time to renew a right spirit.

Wearing Love

2008-11-04T13:19:00.000-08:00

Wearing Love
Read Romans 13: 1-14
“But put on the Lord Jesus Christ…”
-Romans 13:14(NRSV)

The home movie flickers in the darkness; the familiar ‘click, click’ of the machine projects images of times long past and loved ones long gone. A girl of six, curls shining in the lights of Christmas, strokes the silky-soft fur of a cape, gracefully draped over the young shoulders of a woman who shares the same curls and same brown eyes of the child. The child snuggles her face into the deep richness of the coat and throws her arms around her mother in a show of pure love and joy only children seem to possess. Both smile at the camera.

The movie ends, and I squint in the brightness of the light. The same cape hangs on the door frame. I take it carefully off the rack, slip it over my own shoulders, and breathe in the familiar smell of my mother. In the mirror I see her smiling back at me. I wear her love.

Saint Paul reminds us that we are to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Daily I put on Christ the same way that I put on this coat. I wear the warmth of His protection. I feel blanketed in His grace. I am blessed by this gift of Jesus Christ from a loving Father and a dear mother.

Piney Grove Freewill Baptish Church

2008-10-31T07:43:00.000-07:00

The dew is still fresh on the roses carefully placed on the altar by Aunt Pearl as the sun comes up very early on a Sunday morning. The church sparkles from the furniture polish rubbed on the wood floors and the pews the day before. It’s the third Sunday of the month, when Preacher Ferrell once again preaches at Piney Grove Freewill Baptist.
Barnes and Stancils, Hydes and Cockrells stand to sing the opening hymn that Aunt Alma has chosen to play on the upright piano, and as all sing of a garden where they can pray, my grandmother, ‘Aunt’ Amy, collects a twenty-five cent per family donation for the preacher’s pay, recording it all carefully with a stub of a pencil in a dog-eared notebook. Preacher Ferrell is a grower of tobacco during the week and a harvester of souls on Sunday; the meager amount of money and an abundant Sunday dinner his pay for delivering the Sunday preaching. My Great Grandfather Stancil leads the group in an opening prayer and Sunday school cards of Bible characters are used as fans as the congregation settles down for the usual hell fire and brimstone sermon.
Little Betty Van can hardly sit still for such a long time. Smelling the fried chicken and the biscuits has her tummy rumbling; the sound of creek and the buzzing of the yellow jackets down where the huge black Bullis grapes and thick-skinned Scuppernong grapes are ripening in the hot sun distracts her. Sister is sitting in her prim way, never squirmy like Betty, puffed up all proud like ole man Price’s red rooster because she made the banana pudding. Their mother, Amy, looks over at each briefly, inspecting hair and nails. They each have on their best Sunday dress.
Betty Van gets to pick the last song and she chooses, to no one’s surprise, Amazing Grace, singing loudly about a ‘wretch like-a me’. She and Rene leave the church to gather down by the creek bed until the table is spread. ‘Don’t get your Sunday dresses dirty, girls” their mother warns.
Lorene desperately wants the chicken breast, but she quietly watches as the adults at the big table pass the platter, the familiar platter of yellow jonquils with a pink border, lined with brown paper to catch the grease. No matter how many times she counts it out or how hard she prays, she knows the back, neck and wings will most likely be the choices when the huge plate finally gets to the kid’s table. Preacher Ferrell always gets the biggest pieces; Lorene guesses its because he is the best blesser of the food. She can’t help it, she knows it is a sin, but Lord knows he doesn’t need it, his big belly hanging over his black pants.
After the feast of potato salad, fresh cut cucumbers in vinegar and sugar, mashed potatoes, biscuits with molasses, and tea so sweet it hurts your teeth, Lorene removes the sweating dinner plate off of her big yellow bowl of banana pudding with a flourish. Everyone digs in. Lorene’s father catches her eye with a slight grin. “What do you call this, Lorene?” “It’s banana pudding and I made it myself”, Lorene says. “Well, there’s just one thing I want to know—where’s the bananas?” Lorene is horrified. She has forgotten the bananas.
Everyone agrees that banana-less pudding is still some of the best they’ve ever put in their mouth as the women cover up the leftovers. The men wander over to the tobacco barn for a smoke, and the kids begin to collect rocks to arm their fort.
I’ve heard this story so many times in my life that I feel as if I was at that church on those Sundays long ago myself. But I couldn’t have been because the old Piney Grove Freewill Baptist Church is now gone, weeds choke the grape vines and the Honeysuckle beside the creek where my mother played. People were poorer in the 1930’s and ‘40’s but pure hearts, strong hands, and proud families worshiped God in a joyful if humble spirit there in Piney Grove Freewill Church.
And I still prefer my banana pudding without bananas!

My Mother's Voice

2008-10-31T07:24:00.000-07:00

Tears are so close to the surface at all times that I fear that they will run out of my eyes without any control on my part. As I slowly rise from my sleep, I hesitantly check my heart. Conjuring up the image of my mother, head bandaged and eyes closed in an eternal rest, I wait for the expected stab of pain. Quite horrendously, I want to feel that remembered pain. That hurt has become as familiar as my morning coffee. But with that pain, I suffer through another morning of a world without my mother. And once again, for possibly the 1000th time, I ask God how I will live without her, and I ask myself, "when did the pain become my mother"? As time heals the pain, will I also forget her voice? My greatest fear, which was the inevitable death of my infirmed mother, has been replaced with a new greatest fear; will I forget the important things? I would rather have the pain each morning and at unexpected times during my day than to forget her voice.
I am fearful of that, so fearful that once not long ago, I grabbed my cell phone without thinking, hit the number labeled 'mama' which I have not mustered up the courage to finally erase, and listened eagerly. For one brief and unthinking moment, I imagined that she would answer that lonely phone ringing in that deserted house in Rocky Mount. Then in a split-second, when reality set in, I imagined that at least her voice with its gracious message on her answering machine would restore that need to hear her voice. With anger that lived next to the pain and surfaced now like a force that almost knocked down, I heard my own voice and remembered that my mother had asked me to record the voice message for her phone since some had told her that her message was too personal. How could I be so foolish as to walk right into that blazing fire of pain and anger that needed to be extinguished so that I could go on with my life with hearing my own voice on that machine?
What did her original message say? At this moment, as I sit trying to untangle my feelings into straight lines of words and write them into some kind of understanding, there is a burning need to record her words. "I want to talk to you but not right now". So like my mother. She did want to talk to you but couldn't right now and was trying to be as kind as she could in saying it. I repeat these words aloud, trying to say them with the same sincere but southern coated inflection as she had once said them.
In all sincerity, one of my mother's favorite phrases, I cannot escape from the realization that once again I did not savor those moments when I was able to hear her voice. What was I thinking? I knew she was very sick, trying to live alone in constant arthritic pain and equally constantly falling and failing. Did I naively believe that she would always be there, to answer the phone with "Hi Pudding" and sit in that blue chair until I found time in my busyness of life to visit her and seek her company?
I don't learn. I don't stop and hear the sweetness of those voices around me, my family, and my friends. I blindly plow through the day, feigning busy because I am so smugly sure that those student voices, those TV voices, those automated voices, the ones I am attending to are the most important. And I know better. I've lived this anger at my careless and the pain of that since my mother died before.
Today who will I listen to with my undivided attention? Whose voice do I need to memorize? Whose stories do I need to record before the moment is swept away in the whirlwind of my life?

Lord, give me the patience I repeatedly seem to lack to listen without planning my next sentence or seeking an escape route. Lord, give me the wisdom to listen with understanding and love and abandonment of other voices whispering for my attention in my other ear. Lord, give me the ability to listen with discernment, to truly hear the voice and know the pain, the anger, the joy, the fear behind each word. And Lord, give me memory, to recall that voice, as unique and individual as a fingerprint, even after the mouth is forever silenced in death.

An Accidental Leader

2008-09-30T13:03:00.001-07:00

My mother, a natural leader, attended Girl’s State, held the position of Secretary of her high school, marched with the band as lead majorette, and served as Treasurer of the National Honor Society. Even though her family stretched to make ends meet, her parents provided her one year of business classes at an all-girl college. Good with numbers and ready with a smile, she would have been an asset to any business, but my mother chose to be a mother. This wasn’t a sacrifice for her; it was her dream to be a mother.
At the too-young age of 36, my mother developed rheumatoid arthritis. Doctors as far away as Atlanta and at prestigious hospitals like Duke Medical Center told her she had the worst case they had ever seen, and that she would be in a wheel chair in just a few years. It is a testament to my mother’s courage and strong will that she still walked at her death at 75.
Rheumatoid arthritis robbed my mother of her health but also her confidence. She still worked tirelessly as a mother and wife, our house was spotless and she always had hot meals on the table, and she also continued to do her church and civic activities. But her personality changed and her belief in herself diminished with each year she lived with this debilitating disease.
During the passing years, my father was asked to do more for my mother, helping her dress, getting out of the bathtub, and lifting the frying pan, as well as fashioning some ingenious gadgets to help her continue to live as independently as possible. On the 95th birth day of my mother’s father, in 1998, my father literally dropped dead from a heart attack. The question in everyone’s mind was how my mother would ever live without him, not only because of her grief and future loneliness, but of course for his assistance in the home. My sister and I both lived hours away with our own work and families.
Just as my mother fought to live with her affliction, she also fought to live in her home. Little by little she discovered ways to take care of herself as one by one other parts of her body fell victim to arthritis. Grief, however, made the arthritis worse, and I am certain that my mother cried herself to sleep many, many nights after my father died.
My mother did not give up on going to church on Sunday. Buttoning her blouse and putting on shoes, not to mention trying to comb her hair when she couldn’t raise her hands over her shoulders, proved a test every Sunday morning. Often times, she went without a zipper totally pulled up or with a hair pick in her hand and would get her sister to help finish her grooming right before church began.
The assistant pastor of the church met Mama at the door one Sunday and asked her if she would join a Grief Share group. I am not certain what my mother thought about this. I never knew her to join support groups, having had a bad experience with a group for arthritis sufferers, but I also knew that she trusted this man, this pastor, and she probably also knew she needed some help. The loneliness and sorrow was affecting her pain level. And hadn’t she prayed for God to help her? Maybe this was His answer.
Totally on faith, slightly unsure and not absolutely willing, my mother showed up at the first meeting. Afterwards, when we talked on the phone, she shared that many in the group were certainly suffering even more than she as some had attempted suicide or had to be on daily medication. She also shared that she really didn’t think she needed to be in this group and wasn’t sure if it would help her or not.
But God had other plans. By the second meeting, my mother had become the accidental leader of the group. With her special gift of encouragement and her willingness to listen, many in the group had naturally turned to her for strength and guidance. Many looked at my mother’s life, a life of severe and constant pain and potential lack of mobility and possible dependency, as a model; they saw that if she could make it, so could they. For the next year, my mother quite reluctantly but quite effectively led this group.
At my mother’s funeral, one of these Grief Share members tearfully told me about what my mother had meant to her during a time when she couldn’t see a way to live even another day. Now a beautiful, smiling young woman in a healthy marriage, she said that she knew that my mother’s gift of the spirit was her way of encouraging others even in the midst of her own grief and pain.
God calls us to assume leadership roles when we least expect it or feel ready. In the change and uncertainty of my mother’s life without my father, she was the person God chose to lead others living in grief and despair to hope and a better life.
I thank God that He gave my mother this opportunity. In caring for others, she re-discovered her own gift of leadership and regained the confidence to live alone and independently for eight years after my father’s death, still walking physically and spiritually with God, the Father. She put her trust in Him and was obedient to His call, and He, in turn, gave her what she needed, a purpose and a place of service to Him and others.

Known By Our Fruits

2008-09-30T13:02:00.001-07:00

Reverend Bill Sweetser, Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, says this: “I wonder if Christians have lost our moral authority because we have lost our distinctiveness”. He goes on to say that Christians really don’t act differently than non-Christians in areas of divorce, premarital sex, spousal abuse, and bigotry.
Here’s the deal. Christians are speaking out against gay marriage while clearly divorcing as much as others in society; Jesus and Paul condemned both. We are voicing our outrage at abortion while not supporting the very thing that would help end it, sex education, good parenting, and birth control information; ‘just say no’ isn’t working with Christians either. We preach loving our neighbor but only if that neighbor looks and acts like us; we sure don’t want to live near a black person. We say we ‘turn the other cheek’ but wage war, killing many innocent women and children.
Let us act like Christians, remembering and living the words of Christ. Our trees are known by our fruits. I close with Rev Sweetser’s words: “If we sound and act like everyone else in our culture, how will people know we are Christians and why would they want to follow Jesus?”

Positive and Productive

2008-09-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

Romans 14: 13-23
I am a teacher at a local community college. In my all of my classes, I have one consistent rule that everything we do or say while in class is positive and productive. When debating current issues in my Critical Thinking class or when creating the life we desire through goals and making wise choices in my College Student Success class, this rule always provides my learning communities the means to one united goal, to learn.
Saint Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans that if something we do causes our brother or sister to fall, we should refrain. Negativity and victim language hinder learning. Unproductive behavior like coming to class unprepared hinders discussion. Positive and productive behavior encourages tolerance and understanding. It focuses on building each other instead of helping each other to stumble and fail. It sets the tone for learning and caring for each other.
Prayer: Lord let us be positive and productive for you today. In so doing, help us to lift each other up in love and understanding so that we may learn and grow in you.

I am a Liberal; I am a Democrat.

2008-09-11T15:01:00.001-07:00

In an effort to be clear, I looked up the definitions of ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ in the American Heritage Dictionary. A conservative is one who favors traditional views and values and tends to oppose change. Part of me is conservative; I strive to preserve the wonderful traditions of my heritage and the freedoms we have living in a Democracy. I also believe in conserving and protecting God’s creation, our earthly home.
The same dictionary defines a liberal as someone who favors proposals for reform, is open to new ideas for progress, and is tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others. More than ever, I see a need to change what isn’t working in my country, things like health care, the economy, unemployment, and huge deficits. While I have some conservative behaviors and beliefs, ultimately, I am a liberal.
It has been inferred, if not stated outright, that as a liberal I am not patriotic or Christian. Neither is true. The words of Christ guide my thinking, my actions, and my prayers daily, and because I love my country, I feel obligated to respond to change for the better of all.
John McCain now says, after supporting 90% of what Bush proposed for the last eight years, that, “We need to change the way government does almost everything.” He and his party are saying that Washington needs to be fixed, and I agree. What I find confusing is this: For the past eight years, four of which were under a Republican President and a Republican majority in the Senate and House, it’s been their watch. Change what? Change what they have been doing for the past eight years?
Now they say the government’s corrupt. I agree again. If you’ve been following the news for the last years, you’ve seen corruption again and again. So what the Republicans are saying is that we need change, we need to be liberal and broad minded, and we need to clear out the corruption that occurred under their watch. Frankly, I’m seriously confused by this. If they’ve been in power, why do they propose change and what will they do about their own corruption?
One thing that is not confusing to me: change will not occur and the corruption will not end if we vote in another president just like the one we have had for the past eight years.

The Pull-A Short Story

2008-08-27T13:13:00.000-07:00

The orb shone its growing fullness on the waters, and she sensed the time had come for her long trek home. Swimming day and night, her flippers cut through the waters, pulling her to a destination eternally mapped in her mind. She could not ignore the quickening in her body as she tirelessly swam.

She had made this journey year after year, when the waters were warm and the air sultry and hot. The barnacles on her back, the freeloaders, were her only companions. Her gigantic mouth swallowed prey that crossed her path, and she paused only when nearing exhaustion.

The moon flirted with the waves on the horizon as the weary traveler reached her destination. As graceful as she was in the water, the land offered her no pity. The packed glistening sand shifted beneath her heavy bulk as she slowly labored to the dunes.

Ruth witnessed the massive leatherback rising from the waves like some creature from a bad horror film. She stood silently by, watching the turtle as she dug with her flippers, leveled her underside with the sandy earth and deposited her eggs. In eyes as ancient as the days, Ruth recognized the fear, and she understood the heaviness of the turtle’s burden, the sacrifice of the journey.

When she had discovered the miracle growing in her womb, Ruth had headed for the solace of her natal waters, the only home she had ever known. Her body was only a weakened shell now, the disease eating the life from her. Her baby would inherit this legacy, and as she stood watching the turtle, she made her decision.

She walked day and night for hours on the shore as the gentle summer waters grew chilly and the mild breezes became harsh winter gales. She traded her flowing cotton dresses for bulky sweaters. She spoke in stories and sang lullabies, barely audible above the roar of the wind, to the life growing inside of her. She nurtured it, but she did not name it. Like the mother turtle, she would never know this child.

The sea pulled Ruth from her recurring dream of swirling aqua waters and turtles with brilliant enameled shells. She arose from her bed, leaving behind her few personal items, and labored down to the beach, walking with bare feet that made deep impressions in the wet sand. She was unaware of the hot tears on her cheeks, the rush of water that ran down her legs into the foamy tide. The clouds shifted and lowered, as if holding out a hand to help pull the glowing moon from the depths of the ocean. Rays of light pierced through the clouds as the earth seemed to stand in wait. As if transfixed, lost in the awesomeness and the powerful pull of the moon and the lure of sea, she offered up her sacrifice.

With a sense of urgency and relief, Ruth waded into the frigid water and disappeared beneath the waves.

The Money Door

2008-08-24T15:13:00.001-07:00

Thursday, December 21, 2006
The Money Door
One night I decided to finally go through the Money Door and what you are reading right now is in response to that action. The Money Door opened me up to possibilities I never knew existed. Only when I took that step over that threshold did I dare to dream of a life of financial serenity.
I was at a workshop with one of my mentors, Dr. Skip Downing, author of On Course, a book I use to teach College Student Success at our local community college. We were eating our salads, and I was expounding on the brilliance of his book, his creation. I asked him what prompted him to write this wonderful tool, and he told me a brief story that opened up a new dimension to me. What it boiled down to was that he had always believed that he could either make a difference and do some good in this world (like teaching) or he could have money (like CEO’s). He did not really believe that one could have both. I was sitting there, a broke teacher of over 26 years, and something profoundly resonated in me. That was the way I felt. I had decided that my life was meant to be lived in a sacrificial, almost suffering type way to avoid appearing greedy or uncaring and ultimately, wealthy. In short, I believed that the ‘m’ word was not for me; my purpose on this earth was a much higher purpose. Now someone who I admired and I knew was probably able to pay his bills with ease was echoing the words I had said to myself for years, the script that even my parents had possibly instilled in me.
That evening, Skip Downing invited us to an evening session that involved relaxation and exploration of our inner selves and our inner desires. When we were in a relaxed state, he had us stand before a building in our mind’s eye. My building looked like a log cabin, a quite familiar one actually, that I recognized as living in the wishful part of my mind, that place where I kept those desires that I believed could never be a possibility in my life. As Skip instructed us to go into the building, he suggested there were many doors in front of us. He began to list the words over the doors: Emotions, Family, Work, Spirituality, and so on until he uttered that dreaded word, Money. I looked at that door with a huge sign over it that said “Money” and debated with myself about entering that door. I felt that it was more noble and worthy to enter a door that seemed to have more important things I needed to work on, like spirituality. I mean, even though I am a very spiritual person, one can’t be spiritual enough and that would be the place I might feel was serious enough to explore. But as I paused and pondered, I bravely decided to enter the Money Door. I felt greedy. I felt selfish. I felt shallow. I was genuinely afraid that I couldn’t be the person God wanted me to be if I sought money through that closed door.
Skip directed us to look carefully at this room we had just entered and, just as I expected, the Money Room was a horrible mess. It was clearly a neglected room, one which had not been entered in a very long time, if ever. I love light, and it was depressingly dark. I love space, and it was tiny, I imagine like my bank account. I love beauty and in its cramped darkness was only ugliness. Nowhere I looked did I see anything pleasant and calming. I thought to myself, “So this was the room I reserved for money”.
A guide came to me. I was shocked to see that it was Jesus. Now, why, I wondered, would Jesus, who was so non-materialistic and so obviously not fond of the rich, dare to come to me in the Money Room. But there He was and He didn’t seem angry at all or even uncomfortable to be there with me.
I asked Him the question Skip prompted: What would a person believe who lived in this room? What wisdom can you give me about this room? Jesus’ reply was clear. “It is not a bad thing to desire money.”
What? Jesus didn’t think I was so sinful by desiring the money to pay for the things I needed in my life?
After a short break, Skip directed us once again through a relaxed state to enter the building and the Money Room. Let me tell you this; I went right in this time. If Jesus could, I could. On Skip’s suggestion, I redecorated that room. I put in sky lights and huge windows facing a southern sun. After pushing the walls out several feet on each end of the room, I added a stone fireplace with a blazing fire, a plush deep Oriental rug of wines and golds and blues atop gleaming wood floors. I installed a bookshelf full of books, upholstered cushions on comfortable furniture, a spring bouquet of flowers in an antique vase of my Great Aunt Violas, and even a purring cat sleeping by the fire. The room shone. The room felt warm. The room was inviting, and when I had it ready, I invited Jesus back in to see the new Money Room.
I asked him again for His infinite wisdom as I showed him around my Money Room. This time He responded: “Whatever you can visualize, you can have.”
I looked around, just noticing the transformation I had made in what was once a cold, cramped, shabby room. Now the room was, well, rich. And I had visualized the entire redecorating and created of it myself.
When the group came back together, we whispered our guide’s wisdom and affirmations to each other. As hands were placed tenderly but firmly on my waiting shoulders and my name was whispered in my waiting ear, I breathed in the wisdom of all of the guides from all of the different rooms that had been entered. I felt healed and renewed and loved and changed by the whispers of encouragement, wisdom, and guidance. I whispered my wisdom to them, “Whatever you can visualize, you can have.”
After the affirmations, we were invited to share with the group our experience. No way was I going to admit to going into the Money Room when others were tearfully or joyfully sharing what was discovered and acquired behind the Spirituality Room or the Health Room or the Family Room. Yep, others had entered where people truly concerned about those things that are most important in life knew to go.
Then I felt something urging me to share my experience and to my shock I was speaking in a slow, precise way admitting to my colleagues and new friends that I had gone through the Money Door. I felt like by sharing it I could somehow make it okay; I even embellished it a little, trying to explain why I felt I needed more money in my life due to elderly parents and kids in college. I almost whispered as I revealed that my guide was Jesus and how I knew He had much more important things to do with His time than go in the Money Door with selfish me. But as I talked, I saw many nodding and smiling at me. Had they also gone through the Money Door? Did they understand the need I had to confront the issue of money in my life? They didn’t seem repelled or appalled.
And there is a rest of the story. From my visualization of what a healthy, happy Money Room could look like, I discovered what most of the participants knew. Money is important in our lives. It is necessary in our lives. It is stressful if we don’t have it, and we can have life more abundantly if we don’t have to worry about. Stories were shared of similar feelings and the miracle of acquiring the money needed at just the right time. A devotion book I turned to later in the evening on the exact date revealed that God wants us, even me, to have financial serenity, not fear and lack, limit and inadequacy.
I walked out of that place that night with a changed attitude about money. Like Alice going through the hole, I had seen some strange things but learned an important lesson about money and visualization.
As I write this I am looking at my cut and paste visualization of what I want in my life. While the things I desire are not extravagant or costly, they are spacious and beautiful. They are things that money can buy, and they help to create the life I want to live. In this visualization I see myself writing the book I have always desired to write, offering assistance and training to millions of women who want to visualize and have the life their heart desires. I see a smiling family, my two daughters, Heather and Meghan, and my husband, Dan. I see a simple but elegant log home on acres of land, sunlight gleaming on the oak flooring. I even see that purring cat. And I know that whatever I can visualize, I can have.
Bravely and joyfully walk with me through the Life Door and begin your amazing journey. Renew a right spirit in yourself that was placed in you at the moment of your birth. Rekindle the joy and satisfaction of a life lived with purpose and intent and abundance. As a result, your life will become aligned with the universe which stands ready to give you the desires of your heart.

Write About It

2008-08-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

Believing In Yourself
Try this Journal Entry. If you can improve all the critical areas of your life and find a harmony and balance in your life, you will feel good about yourself and become a believer in your abilities to create and achieve the desires of your heart.

1. We all have different areas of our being that we develop and explore as we live. These areas consists of our mental well being, our physical health, our emotional maturity, our spiritual belief and growth, and our relationships with others and our social support. List these areas in your journal. Under each of these five headings, list the good news about these areas. Don't limit yourself. List all that you can think of. Check out my examples if you get stumped.

My Example: Under these areas of my life, I currently possess or practice these good attitudes, characteristics or behaviors.

My Physical Health
I walk at least three times a week.
I take vitamins every day.

My Emotional Maturity
I control my anger when driving.
I think before I respond.

My Relationships and Social Support
I have several close friends that I can count on.
I schedule something enjoyable every week.

This is the good news. Pat yourself on the back, if you can reach that far back, and congratulate yourself on these areas in your life that you have confidence in.

2. Are there attitudes, characteristics, or behaviors under these five areas of our life that you could improve? Do you possess or practice some things that do not create what you desire? Check our my list of places I could improve.

My Spiritual Belief and Growth

I don’t listen to uplifting music or read uplifting books that promote my spiritual growth.
I don’t have a time when I meditate or reflect on spiritual truths.

My Mental Well being
I don’t spend time alone in order to have a sense of peace in my life.
I’m not always optimistic about my future.

What do you desire? More spirituality? Better mental health? What would help you achieve this?
When you are in balance with your basic nature and needs such as a healthy body and mind, positive basic beliefs about life and yourself, or a strong network of family and friends that consists of positive, supportive relationships, you can create the life you were meant to live. If you do not have strong mental health or inner spirituality, you may not live up to your potential or have the strength to reach that dream life you desire.

3. What can you do? Review the good news. You have a pretty good bank account of positives in these areas of your life. But re-read the places where you could use some improvement. What could you do specifically to grow in these areas? Write about one item you listed that you would like to improve in each of the five areas and come up with ways that you could strengthen these areas to achieve the perfect balance in your life that you were meant to have.

Would you share what you have learned from this journal with me? And would you commit to changes and growing in all areas of your life? Let me know. I want to share in the new you that you are creating and the effect this has on all areas of your life, your job, your money, or your marriage.

The Wisdom of the Secret

2008-08-24T15:09:00.001-07:00

Thursday, September 20, 2007
The Wisdom of the dvd/book The Secret
I watched the dvd The Secret again and wrote down some of the powerful wisdom from that movie:

The first question is “What do you really want?”
You are the magnet.
You are one infinite power. --Bob Power

The Law of Attraction responds to your thoughts and images in your mind.
You attract what you think about most. Your thoughts become things. You attract what you get. You have the control. --Dr. Joe Vitale

The Law of Attraction always works, every time with every person, over and over again.
Align your thinking with what you want. --Esther Hicks

Feel good! Feel prosperous even if it’s not there yet. The universe will correspond with that song.

What you think
And what you feel
And what you manifest
Is always a match
No exceptions --Esther Hicks

You are the creator of your own reality.

Everyone who accomplished anything did not know how they were going to do it. You don’t need to know. Just align yourself with joy and passion and appreciate what you have been given.
Fear is not in alignment . The way you feel is everything. It must manifest. Turn your fantasy into fact. Generate feeling to have it now. You will see the action you need to take. When the impulse is there, don’t delay. ACT!
Money:
If nothing, no way, a way is made. Your life will keep unfolding. There are no rules in the universe. You can have what you desire.

Right now is only your current reality. Most people offer the majority of their thoughts in response to what they are observing. If you are observing what you do not want, you get more of that.

Daily turn what you desire over to the universe and watch for magic and miracles.
Your wish is my command.
Seek inner joy and inner vision first. All will appear.
Understand yourself first. Enjoy yourself. Do you treat yourself the way you want others to treat you? Fill yourself up to fullness to overflow and give to others. Fall in love with yourself! --Marie Diamond

Orient yourself to the best of the people that surround you. Think of the things you like most in the people in your life.

No one can think for you. It is only you. Every bit of it is you.
Health:
Dis ease means that your body is not at ease. Stress creates disease when we are not loving and not grateful
Happier thoughts create better, healthier bodies.
Your body can heal itself. In curable means curable from within.
If you focus on disease, you get disease. Focus on health.
The World:
Be pro, not anti.
Some of us see things that we do not want and push against the unwanted. In this way, we are attracting what we do not want. Don’t shout ‘no’ at something. Be still and focus on what you want.
The Universe has plenty. There is more than enough got all. There is no limit or lack.
Energy:
Everything in the universe is energy. All is energy. Energy can never be created or destroyed. It moves into form, through form, and out of form. Energy always was and always has been. It always exist. Some people can energy God. Our bodies distract us. God, energy, gives us the potential to create our own world. We are the source of energy, that energy given to us by God.
So, begin where you are. Say to yourself, “Everything goes right for me.” Do what brings you joy. Follow your bliss. --Joseph Campbell.

A Chance Encounter?

2008-08-24T15:07:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Chance Encounters?
Okay, normally I would say that I don’t believe in ‘chance encounters’. I have often been quoted as saying: “Nothing is accidental or coincidental; it’s all purposeful”. But, when I look back, some of the events in my life, while they did serve purpose, do seem to be ‘chance’ meetings. A chance in a lifetime.
Reacting to one of my early ‘70’s obsessions, I joined an e-group of Jackson Browne fans. Reading through the emails that ranged from silly to downright profound, a lister’s comment concerning her home in the mountains of N.C. got my attention. Who in this small Appalachian community was a Jackson fan like me?
Ironically, this member lived right near me in the same county. When I pulled up behind her red car at the Tokyo restaurant where we planned to meet face to face, I wondered how I could have missed her as a Jackson fan as her car was covered in Jackson bumper stickers and her license tag spelled out a familiar Jackson song. Needless to say, we became fast friends.
Josie, (names in this story are changed to protect the unhealthy and not the innocent), had been a Jackson fan for as many years as I had, and she had dreamed of meeting her favorite singer/songwriter. She tearfully expressed her sorrow that she probably wouldn’t ever meet Jackson because she had found a suspicious lump the size of a plum and her prognosis wasn’t good.
Weeks later, hearing that Jackson was coming to the east coast, we bought tickets and planned our Thelma and Louise road trip to Atlanta where we would ultimately meet other Jackson fan-actics from our email list. And where I planned for Josie to meet Jackson.
Every day for the next month, as I drove to work, I looked out over the blues and pinks of the mountains shimmering in the new day sun and mentally drew Jackson to me, inviting him to meet Josie as the Atlanta show. I did this religiously, chanting a mantra, “Jackson, I am calling you to meet Josie after the show.” I believed it; I envisioned it; I affirmed it. Every conversation I had with Josie ended with these prophetic words, “You’re gonna meet Jackson!”
The acoustic show was even more wonderful than predicted due to an upgrade on tickets from two “strangers” who also loved Jackson and who even supplied us with wine and food. After the show, Josie and I stood in the moist summer air with a small group of fellow Jackson admirers outside of the gate of the venue. Faithfully, we waited. I assured everyone that I had called Jackson forth, and he would be coming out to meet and greet one and all. Time passed. We waited.
A Jackson roadie came out and politely but firmly informed us that Jackson had to travel all night to do a show in, no not Chicago or Detroit, I really don’t know, I think it was Florida. You know, he does so many shows in a row and these towns all look the same. In other words, Jackson had a long overnight bus ride ahead of him, and he wasn’t showing.
My spirit was not daunted. I believed. And Josie and I stayed awhile longer. In fact, no one left.
Forty-five minutes later, the bus cranked up and headed to the gate. “Don’t worry; he’ll stop”, I said. But just for good measure, I yelled Jackson’s name. My cause was noble. The planets were perfectly aligned tonight for my cancer-stricken friend to meet Jackson tonight.
The bus wasn’t stopping. This just couldn’t be. I fought back tears. The damp air felt suddenly chilly.
Then, the bus stopped; Jackson stepped off, and the first words he said, and I am telling the truth here, were: “I didn’t know you were waiting for me out here”. He was looking right at Josie and me.
Josie got her picture made with Jackson’s arm around her, both smiling as my camera froze the moment. The photograph is one of her most valued of possessions and the one that she looked at to remind herself of miracles. Her miracles? Meeting Jackson and being completely cured of cancer.
A chance encounter? I’m not sure about that. But what were the chances of two hot girls meeting Jackson on a summer night only a week before chemo was to begin for Josie? Pretty slim, I’d say. But then again, the universe responds when we ask for a gift for someone else with all our heart and mind. There are no accidents or coincident; it’s all purposeful.

32-Day commitment

2008-08-24T15:06:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, July 16, 2008
A 32 day commitment
I teach a college student orientation class at a local community college in the lovely Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. One class during the semester is dedicated to writing a goal that we will commit to doing every day for 32 days. I have committed to write each day in my blogs for at least 15 minutes so here goes for Day 1.

Stay tuned for more each and every day until this writing becomes a habit!

Great Teacher Retreats

2008-08-24T15:04:00.001-07:00

Great Retreats by Jan
In 1999, I won the Excellent Teacher Award at Mayland Community College where I teach Critical Thinking, English, Reading, and College Student Success. Part of my ‘reward’ for winning was an offer to attend the North Carolina Great Teacher Retreat. I remember thinking at the time that I didn’t want to go to another conference where I would hear ‘experts’ tell me how to teach. I had been to many of these. I rarely came away with anything of value and I knew the presenters were making quite a bit of money as the ‘experts’ or ‘consultants’. They were merely taking advantage of the educational swing of the pendulum in a new direction, the new hot idea or method coming down the educational pike.
Nonetheless, I went to this retreat at the Kanuga Conference Center in Hendersonville and forever my idea of what a retreat and learning experience should be was changed. Not only did I learn so many tips and tools for improving my own teaching in my discipline, I also was given time to network and learn from my colleagues nationally. I came away rested and revived. I came away believing in my God-given talent for teaching. I came away a better person and teacher.
The next spring when the NC Great Teacher Retreat was offered to any teaching faculty at Mayland, I begged to go and once again found myself in the presence of others who wanted to be great teachers. That year I was chosen to be a facilitator for the Great Teacher Retreats and, as it is often said, ‘the rest is history’.
For almost nine years now I have been involved with the Great Teacher movement. I have facilitated Great Teacher Retreats as well as Great College Retreats, attended Great Leaders Symposiums, and last year was honored to attend the National Great Teacher Retreat in Hawaii. In March, after four years of proposals to the administration of Mayland Community College, Dr. Suzanne Owens found the funds to send 30+ participants to the first annual Great Learning College Retreat for Mayland Community College. I had the pleasure of co-coordinating and co-directing this retreat which proved to be a huge success and one that will be repeatedly yearly.
Please contact me for more information about the Great Teacher movement. I am passionately and enthusiastically sure you will find this to be the best professional development opportunity out there! I will help your college, your school system, your county, your state, your administration offer the best workshop of them all!
Check out the web pages below for more information.
greatretreatsbyjan.com

You Can Do It!

2008-08-24T15:03:00.001-07:00

Thursday, July 31, 2008
I really believe you can...
There's a lot of talk about this, but I am convinced that you really can achieve your dreams by visualizing them. I have a book. It's a leather-bound binder, probably of the 1940's era. I found it in a thrift shop, not even written in, so I made it my visualization book. In it are pictures of what I desire outside and inside my new house on the hill in Green Mountain, as well as journal writings, poems, stories, to do list. I look at it often. I believe I can have these desires of my heart. Now, after using this book for my wildest dreams, I am building my house! We have a road, we have electricity and water, and we have the house plans. It will happen. I dreamed it that way! What do you desire? If you can visualize it, you can achieve it!
Posted by Jan Graham at 6:39 AM 0 comments
Thursday, July 17, 2008

Do you REALLY believe that?

2008-08-24T14:59:00.000-07:00

Do you really believe?
Do you really believe that God, our Father, who made us in His image will send us, His children to Hell?
Do you really believe that one sin is worse than another?
(If you quote Saint Paul concerning homosexuality, I will in turn quote him concerning divorce and adultery?
Do you really believe that all who have not heard about Christ are going to hell?
What about those before Christ came only 2000 years ago?
Have you seen how all faiths share the same similar stories and same basic beliefs, like a virgin birth and a son of God.
Do you really believe that war is of God, of Christ?
Do you really believe that we are here just to yearn for and wait for heaven?
Do you really believe that heaven’s streets are paved with gold?
Do you really believe that loves us, Americans, white people, rich people, Christians, best?
Do you really believe that the greatest commandment is love?
Do you practice this with gay people, black and Latino people?
Do you really believe that we should not seek revenge and forgive?
What about the war with Iraq?
Do you really believe that God causes pain and suffering?
Do you really believe the over-using and abusing this earth is okay with God?
Do you really believe it is your place to change someone’s religion or belief system?
Do you really believe it is your job to determine who is saved?
Do you really believe that we are known by our fruits and our actions?
Are you producing good fruits?
Do you offer a smile even when sad?
At your darkest time, do you do something for others?
Are you raising children that are tolerant, loving, and giving of themselves to others?
Do you really believe that God put you here for a purpose?
Do you really believe God desires you to be happy all of the time?
Is there any value in grief and suffering?
Do you really believe you should only commune with Christians?
Did Christ?
Do you believe others see Christ in you?
Would you want to be a Christian is you encountered yourself?
Do you really believe in public Christian prayer?
Or do you believe in private prayer?
Do you really believe that God punishes us, the poor, Katrina victims, those with AIDS?
Do you believe God knows our hearts?
What do you believe, my friend, what do you really believe?

Letter to the Editor of a Dry County

2008-08-24T14:58:00.000-07:00

Everyone who owns a handgun is a murderer. Everyone who goes to church on Sunday is a Christian. Everyone who smokes a cigarette will eventually be a hard core drug addict.
If the above statements just don’t seem logical to you, you are correct. But they are no more illogical than the statement ‘Everyone who takes a drink is an alcoholic’ or ‘Everyone who takes a drink will get drunk’. There is a huge difference, both physical and psychological, between a person who has a glass of wine on their deck after a long day at work or a cold beer with a pizza at a restaurant. Many of these people who enjoy a drink do not drink because they must, as an alcoholic does, or because they want to be drunk. They either enjoy the taste or they like the relaxation that a drink brings. It is a fallacy to believe that everyone who takes a drink will be an alcoholic.
Likewise, many people who drink alcohol drink responsibly. They know their limits and do not desire to be drunk and out of control of their emotions and facilities. They do not drink and drive, preferring to drink in the home or with a designated driver. It is a fallacy to believe that everyone who drinks will get drunk or be a killer on the highway. Likewise, all who have a drink are not unemployed or homeless.
Lastly, anyone who desires to drink can get something to drink, even in a dry county. I would guess that those who go to surrounding counties or the local package store at the golf course to get their alcohol are the same ones throwing their cans and bottles out on the road to my house, those who are keeping their drinking a secret and are obviously drinking and driving. It is a fallacy to believe that living in a dry county keeps people from drinking. It is also a fallacy that just because alcohol could be purchased in a grocery store or at an eating establishment people will overnight become drinkers. Someone who does not believe in drinking will not be forced to drink just because it is available. I would hope that he/she has more conviction and will power than that.
I really don’t care if we remain a dry county or not; it will not make a big difference in my life, one way or another. What I do care about is the lack of logic concerning this argument. Let’s get the facts straight and quit believing the propaganda that we hear concerning the sale of alcohol in Mitchell County. Let’s also quit judging others concerning their personal decision to buy alcohol and have a social drink if they desire.
Jan Graham

Things Done and Left Undone

2008-07-31T06:35:00.000-07:00

A dear friend once told me that it wasn’t the wrong or evil things he did that he needed to repent, but those things he left undone and knew he should do that begged forgiveness. Aha! Yes, that struck a chord with me. There was the rub: the undone.
I grew up Baptist. Maybe that explains how I missed that part about the undone. The Ten Commandments was a constant subject of sermons and I remember, even as a young child, thinking that generally I lived up to those commandments. Maybe the bearing false witness gave me a bit of trouble but otherwise, I wasn’t killing anyone or stealing. I honored my father and my mother. I didn’t covet what others had, but I could have just turned a blind eye to that one. I do remember liking my friend’s shiny new car real well while I was still driving a beat up Maverick that my sister had wrecked; the gnarled, rusted fender frowned at me every time it was parked beside my friend’s Karma Gia…but that’s another story.
So what are the things I have left undone that cause me to pray this particular part of the confession with more emphasis? What do I have to repent of? Here’s a partial confession of a very long list.
I don’t visit the sick and infirmed. I could. I could make it a priority. I could find time in my busy life to do this. I know full well what it would mean to that shut-in if I showed up, even for a brief hug and smile. I could send a card. I could call on the phone. But I don’t do it!
I could write that check. I keep meaning to. I know that there are those suffering in the Midwest , in Indonesia. I get constant reminders in my daily mailbox of those who need food, shelter, clothing, and medicine. I say to myself: I need to send them some money. And then I don’t. I forget. I pretend it won’t make a difference. Lord knows I am wrong.
I could offer a smile and a kind word to another in passing. I am certain that for some, this may be the only moment of attention they may receive that day, and I am equally sure that it would make a huge difference in their lives. But I am busy, pre-occupied, ignorant of their need for a short conversation from even a stranger like me. I rush blindly by without even a thought.
I could work against the injustice I see right here in my county as well as the world. I give a lot of lip-service to this! “Undocumented workers are treated as the new slaves.” “The litter around here is horrible. Why do ‘they’ have to throw out their beer cans and mar the beauty of my morning walk?” “Something needs to be done about those who don’t have access to good health care”. What do I do? I keep thinking these things, complaining and whining about this to friends, co-workers, Dan, and doing nothing. I could write some letters. I could reach out to those who are ‘strangers in a strange land’, and I could pick up the trash and put up a sign. These things, my friends, I confess, are left undone.
Once when I worked as the Director of English as a Second Language at Mayland Community College, I gave a brief talk to the Trinity Episcopal Women’s Group about what I did and the people I served in my program, mainly Mexican farm workers. When the luncheon and presentation was over, one parishioner made a point to speak to me afterwards. She said that from now on she was going to speak to these men when she saw them in Ingles. In her small way, she was doing something that could otherwise have been left undone or left for someone else to do. I can just imagine what those workers, shopping for a camp full of hungry men after a long day in the Christmas tree fields, must have thought of this white haired woman with the sparkling blue eyes acknowledging their existence and contribution in her smile and a brief hello. She was living out the commandments of Jesus Christ whether they understood her attention and her language or not.
Life is full of what we ‘should’ do, ‘could’ do or ‘would’ do. I need to do, not try to do. I do not need to leave it all undone.
So, today, right now, I get it Lord. And, dear Readers, I have to finish this up now. I have a letter to write, a phone call to make and a check to send! And, Lord, forgive me when I leave things undone.

Egocentric thinking is alive and well in the US!

2008-07-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

It's like I tell my Critical Thinking students, "Just because something is different, doesn't mean it is wrong". That is a difficult statement for many to swallow because we are a country that believes that what we do, what we believe, what actions we take are 'right' and the rest of the world is just plain wrong, not to mention going to hell in a handbasket for the unsaved.

Egocentric thinking is a result of one's own understanding of right and wrong and one's own experience and culture. It places big black blinders on us so that whatever others do, say, feel, or believe cannot even be honestly considered much less tolerated.

And with that said, let's take a look, without the blinders, at America's supposed 'freedom of religion'. It's a fallacy, yall! Freedom of religion to egocentric thinkers is Christianity and nothing else. There is no room for any other religion, but you are free to be Christian.

Now don't get yourself all upset here. I am a Christian. But I don't believe that I can judge another's religionious preferences and beliefs, much less put him/her down for them. That isn't my job, thank God. Yeah, thank God, it's His job! And he is perfectly capable of doing it himself. What happened to, "And the greatest of these is love"?

An Autobiography of a Liberal

2008-07-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

To an equal degree of delight and dismay, my cousin Larry set off for Carolina, into the School of Journalism, on a full scholarship. Delight, you can probably understand, as his mother and father would never have had the funds for four years at Carolina. Delight, of course, because of Larry’s recognizable talent in writing and his high IQ. Delight for a son who graduated at the top of his class and his subsequent acceptance into a prestigious university.
So who could possibly be dismayed? Let me put it this way, for my conservative aunt and uncle, Carolina was the banana peel that slipped one right into hell. Both knew that once their son entered those hallowed grounds, he would never be the right-wing, Christian boy they had raised. Even years later, as Larry, obvious to all of us but his own dear parents, announced that he was gay, Carolina was the culprit. Carolina had turned the Baptist, small town boy into a snarling ball of liberal thinking and had even converted him into a homosexual. As I write this, I am amazed that my aunt and uncle never saw the evident gayness of Larry that we cousins all saw. Carolina may be a great school, capable of teaching vast amounts of knowledge, but it didn’t have to work too hard to pull Larry out of the closet. I’m sure being away from home took the locks off that one. As a side note, dear Reader, in my aunt’s eyes even now, Carolina is so evil that she lets out a ‘ugh’ whenever the name gets mentioned.
My story’s not so different. In later years, my mother never missed a chance to remind me, as I canceled out her conservative vote, that she sent me off to East Carolina outfitted in a yellow scooter skirt and Christian morals, only to have those liberal professors change me. Truthfully, I was wearing same yellow scooter skirt, a silly thing, on the first day I met Whitey in the line for picture id’s, but I quickly shed it as a snake sheds its skin after my mother and dad pulled away, trailer lights signaling their turn back to my sheltered home. I also shed the bra and bravely donned jeans and surfer t-shirt, and I turned my back on my Christian home. My mother’s words, you might wonder: I sent Jan off as a good Baptist girl, and she came back a liberal. You must understand by now that neither of us, Larry or me, had any part in this. Those two big universities, priding themselves in producing higher thinking and promoting an ivory tower of learning, changed us as surely as leaves on an oak must change when the cool autumn winds and early frost arrive. We were mere helpless children in the process.
I’m being facetious. What I hid from my mother during my high school years was my inner desire to be liberal. There was a rebel lurking in me that peeked out and tried to emerge in the eleventh grade, but I missed it for all of the wrong reasons. Mr. Hendricks, a young ‘hippy-type’ guy taught my American History class (I cannot imagine how he snuck into that high school without Jesse Helms getting wind of it and I am certain he is teaching at Berkley now) and Brooks, the upperclassman whose long, wavy locks and scuffed boots made my heart beat to heart attack proportions, sat beside me. Up until this time, I had spent very few minutes in any class actually interested in the academic side of what was going on. I spent my long hours in school daydreaming of having breast and my first kiss and hoping that the teacher wouldn’t call on me regarding the assignment I had failed to read the night before. I fretted about my lack of cool clothes and that stigma that followed me around of being a ‘good Christian girl’. I wasn’t happy with the good girl image but felt powerless to change it. Everyone knew me; and, worse yet, everyone knew my parents. My Reputation, with a capital ‘R’, regularly preached in my home, could not be marred.
Brooks had a glamorous reputation, one of left-wing ideas and drug abuse. In this class, he spoke out, using words like ‘socialism’, ‘equality’, ‘discrimination’, and the worst of all, ‘anti-establishment’. I felt like Billy Graham at a Marxist rally.
And Mr. Hendricks introduced and led discussions on topics better left for those left-winged universities. If my mother had known, she would have jerked me right out of the Communist’s classroom. Mr. Hendricks, through debate, began to offer another side to those topics that my mother and father discussed after the evening news. Those discussions that I had believed boring and only for the old folks, were now beginning to interest me, but not really for the right reasons. They interested me because they interested Brooks.
One day, Mr. Hendricks, clearly paving the way to being tarred and feathered in this small Southern town of Baptist steeples rising above the store on Church Street, gave us a survey to determine our political party. Of course, I was a Republican. I had helped my mother campaign for Jim Gardner, handing out red, white, and blue buttons and bumper stickers. My mother, the Registrar for the Board of Elections, proudly served her country during the Republican administrations and then was promptly fired from her position when the evil Democrats came into office. I was a Republican by default. And I kinda figured I would always be, that my mother’s default button would re-set itself each night when I said my prayers before sleep.
I desperately wanted to be a Democrat. My motives were purely superficial, having nothing to do with issues like the war in Vietnam or desegregation that was supposedly lowering our white standards of learning. I wanted to be a Democrat because I instinctively knew that Brooks was a Democrat. If I could be one too, Brooks would like me. I could see us shockingly walking side by side down the hall, my hand in the back pocket of his jeans and his lovely hand in the back pocket of my jeans, and as we moved, his hand slightly caressing my butt. We would be informally voted the coolest couple on campus, the rebels, the informed, the not-religious. My delicious, covert, and devious ‘dream come true’!
I cheated off of Brooks’ paper during that survey. Mr. Hendricks wasn’t giving us any attention, probably reading some of his left-wing propaganda, so if Brooks marked it, so did I. Oftentimes, I didn’t even read the statement, just marked like he did. When I did read a statement for myself, I was appalled at how I was answering. No one could really believe this stuff. But if Brooks did, I did.
The next day, Mr. Hendricks looked me over from scooter skirt to neatly combed blond curls when he handed out the survey results. I was so proud when he announced that Brooks and Jan were the most liberal members of the class. Brooks looked over at me with that heart-stopping, crooked grin of his, green eyes flashing in contrast to his brown locks and slowly nodded his head up and down a couple of times, indicating ‘alright’. My shining moment; I was a liberal.
I really wasn’t. It was obvious to everyone. And it didn’t get me anywhere with Brooks who ended up going out with Margo who was so not a good match for him. She hadn’t scored in the Liberal range on the survey, but she did have a cool pair of jeans that dragged the floor when she walked and frayed perfectly over her boots.
To continue this story, let’s consider the historical time when I rode 38 miles down the road from my home to a new me. The War in Vietnam, televised to us all, promised to continue to eat massive amounts of money and regurgitate massive amounts of bodies. The boys I knew had a draft lottery number; Brooks’ was 13 and he told anyone who listened he would live in Canada before he’d fight in a war. You must admit, the guy had appeal. Desegregation was still relatively new and the civil rights movement still in its infancy. The John Birch Society and Jesse Helms were preaching morality and fear, the Russians were coming, the Russians were coming. Enter Jan, feeling the first breeze through her thin t-shirt with no bra to encumber her boobs or her thoughts.
The presidential election of 1972 offered two candidates: Richard Nixon and George McGovern. Since the world I lived in was a myriad of new experiences like rock bands and dancing at the Attic and getting sickly drunk on Boone’s Farm, I voted uninformed and I voted by recommendation of my mother. I voted for Nixon. I remember her phone call the next day congratulating me on voting for the right candidate and I also remember hanging up with a slight queasiness in my stomach that wasn’t only the results of a commode hugging night before. Had I done something here that I wasn’t going to be proud of by voting for this man?
Parties and pantie raids, pot and PJ, sneaking out of the dorm at night and skipping classes became my life. My business courses that my mother suggested I register for consisted of reading the Wall Street Journal and economics. The only advantage to them, when I did go, was the large dating pool of men, for I was one of only a handful of women in the business department in the early ‘70’s. After failing most of these classes, but having a grand time, I was given the ultimatum, one more semester of failing grades and you will have to come home, so I began to attend class and read and do the work because that school was my ticket to freedom and going home was clearly my death sentence.
I discovered something. I liked learning. And I wasn’t half bad at it. I liked talking about subjects that mattered. I found myself actually thinking about what was said in my classes and trying to discern for myself just who I was really was and what I really believed. And I began to change, much to my mother’s chagrin, and I honestly liked who I was becoming.
And Nixon had let me down in deeply personal way. I voted for this guy? Watergate, the crookedness, the self-righteousness, the bigotry, the trickiness of it all caused me shame. No more would I mark a ballot without doing my own thinking and my own research. And that was when the good Christian girl reared her beautiful head and roared, changed forever. I haven’t voted Republican since.
So this is a story of a little girl with blond hair and a yellow scooter skirt and a tow-headed boy who knew he wasn’t like the other little boys and how they learned to be themselves even against the prayers and dreams of their parents. The universities they attended didn’t drag them away from the churches and rhetoric of their families. The universities helped to open the eyes and the minds and their consciences in order to produce the person just hovering in the wings waiting to go on stage.
Brooks, it seems, was also playing out a role in high school as he never actualized into the person who could have been, being side-tracked by the drugs and the lack of ambition. Larry ultimately had to move across the US to Oregon to live the life he was born to live and to die with AIDS. And me, I now work at one of these institutions myself. And I am pleased when, in my Critical Thinking class, one student begins to emerge from his/her cocoon as a thinker, one who seeks knowledge and then uses it to make informed decisions about the issues of today that do matter. I’m not converting. Many leave me with very conservative views, but all leave me better able to analyze and evaluate and make decisions based on more than a mother’s recommendation. Of this, I am well-pleased.

What's more personal than your politics?

2008-07-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

It seems I constantly hear people say, "I'm just not into politics". They say this like they say, "I don't like chocolate" or "I don't watch reality TV". When they casually say that they are not into politics, I wonder: How can anyone not be into politics? Is it really even a choice to be into politics? I seriously doubt it.

If I say that I am not into politics, it means I am not into choosing how my tax money is spent. If I say that I am not into politics, it means I don't care if soldiers and civilians are dying in a distant war that is costing us trillions of dollars. If I say that I am not into politics, it means that I don't care that children are homeless and that the elderly have to decide between their daily medicine and their daily bread! If I am not into politics, it means I'm not bothered by poor public education, unsafe housing and low wages, and people who can't afford to go to a doctor when they are sick. If I am not into politics, it means that I turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to protecting my island home. If I am not into politics, it clearly reflects that I have no respect for my rights and my freedoms that I so enjoy.

I am into politics. There really isn't anything that doesn't involve my politics. What I buy, what I say, how I worship, money, guns, roads, animal rights, and space exploration...you name it, it involves my politics.

In a concert one time, Jackson Browne said, "What's more personal than your politics?" When he said this, I found myself saying, "Yeah, what is more personal?" My faith, my beliefs, my culture, my morals, my experiences, my biases and my citizenship all shape my politics. It's all personal. And it's definitely not a choice.

Losing my Religion and my Country

2008-07-22T06:25:00.000-07:00

A car as big as the Love Shack car the B52’s sang about in the ‘80s, suddenly pulls out in front of me on my morning commute, and I physically cringe at the sight of the little metal fish, glinting in the sun, and the red and white ‘we still pray’ sticker plastered on its bumper. Likewise, this past July, I again didn’t feel so inclined to proudly display the old red, white and blue on my deck, and when did I begin to feel a certain degree of disgrace when I hear that familiar anthem of bombs bursting in the air? What has happened to me? The Christian right is stealing my religion, and, like Michael Moore, I ask, “Dude, where’s my country”?
Since Jesus has been so clearly dragged into the middle of this political battle, I find myself asking the contemporary proverbial question, ‘what would Jesus do?’ And since Jesus and I are fellow rebels and life-long friends, I feel I know him intimately enough to define what he would not do. Jesus wouldn’t wage war on a country and kill women and children and soldiers and civilians so he could drive his Hummer, or draw a line in the sand like a kindergarten child after 9/11 and wage war on a whole country, or two, for the sins of a small sect of terrorists. I don’t see Jesus buying into the ‘you bombed us; we’re gonna bomb you right back’ behavior of a two year old.
My Jesus wouldn’t stand for CEO’s to make billions while we still have children living on the streets unable to get medical attention, not to mention adequate nutrition. My Jesus wouldn’t condemn a man who grew up in poverty to death because he couldn’t buy himself a lawyer that could free him. My Jesus wouldn’t trash this beautiful earth for the lowest bid on the next strip mall or gated community. And I can’t see Jesus building a wall along our borders to keep out people who clamor for a day’s work. Although Jesus loves me, this I do know, I don’t believe he loves me best.
My mother used to ask me, as we canceled each other’s vote out in elections, ‘but what about morals?’ Yes, what about them? Is it moral for a country to turn its back on the suffering in Darfur because Darfur doesn’t have anything we are financially interested in or any resource we can drain? Is it moral for us to ‘hate’ a person for his/her race or sexual preference and deny them the rights that we say we believe in, primarily the pursuit of happiness? Is it moral for Americans to force one religion in public buildings and schools? By the way, I still privately, unceasingly pray.
I’m labeled as unpatriotic because I am not a nationalist; I am a globalist. It’s not just about me. It’s about humanity. So, dude, where is my country? Where’s that country with the noble ideas, so clearly and cleverly crafted in the constitution, about freedoms? And even though I am a globalist, I still love my country. I love my country as I would my child; if my country doesn’t do what I believe is moral or ethical, I feel that I have to point that out and try to change that behavior.
And when did it become a country I have to excuse for its unholy actions and try to defend even with my own offspring? I didn’t teach my children to ‘hit back’ in their developing years. I talked to them about compromise and negotiation. I encouraged tolerance and acceptance and inclusion. Many times they came home from school hurt and a little discouraged with my approach. Even with the so-called Christian children, the saved ones, they were being unfairly judged and found lacking and were oftentimes the brunt of verbal and physical abuse. They wondered about my advice; they questioned my guidance. All o f the other kids were fighting back. But I always gave them same sermon about love.
Although raised in the church, my children have now forsaken organized religion, if not God altogether. The principals preached on a daily basis at home and a weekly basis in church, have not held up in our country today. In their twenties, they look at me with a small degree of sadness and a healthy portion of disbelief that I am still trying to follow Christ, for they don’t see Christ in the Christians they meet on the city streets or in the daily news. Unfortunately, they have given up on Christ because of our human display of Christianity. They are just two of the casualties of faith of this moral America.
I have not given up on Christ. I am a Christian because Jesus gives me a blueprint for living on this earth that makes sense to me both logically and spiritually. Jesus teaches me to love others, unconditionally and altruistically, to care for others as I love and care for myself and to do to others as I would have them do to me. Jesus commands that I forgive and turn the other cheek.
So even though I don’t see these commandments being lived out in a country where my beliefs are questioned and my privacy is tapped, I will not give up on my Christ. I will not give up on the people of America either. I will continue to believe that we are a better people than this, and that we will ultimately do the right thing. With my faith in God, it is all I can believe.

Something in Common

2008-07-19T19:29:00.000-07:00

For years now, I have found myself wondering what my husband and I really had in common. I am outgoing. I get my energy from parties and dancing and people. Dan is introverted. He is content to be home. He is content to be alone. He likes the simple things in life.

Dan runs; I walk. Dan watches TV; I read. Dan likes quiet; I like music playing. Dan can eat the same thing every day; I like variety. Dan is a vegetarian and while I don't eat much meat, I like a hamburger every once in awhile. Dan likes Neil Young; I like Jackson Browne. Oh, where do our paths cross?

We both love our land in Green Mountain. We like walking on it, sitting on it, dreaming on it. In the next year, our dream house will be built there and we like planning that perfect house! We like walking down by the river and soaking our feet in the cool river water after a hot walk or run. We like collecting the smooth 'baked potatoe' and flat rocks in the river for flower beds and driveways. We like identifying the plants and trees and birds, and we spend hours trying to catch a glimpse of a deer or the bald eagle Dan once saw soaring along the river's edge.

Thank God that in our retirement years we have found our spot and our paths have crossed. And thank God for Dan. I think I'll grow old with him on Green Mountain!~

Dear Elder Griever,

2008-07-18T05:06:00.000-07:00

I am a young griever. My experience with grief has been of the 'expected' kind, people in my family who lived to relatively ripe old ages and then passed on. I have not truly experienced that grief that must be heart-stopping, although my father did die of a massive heart attack on a beautiful fall morning that just happened to be my grandfather's 95th birthday! But even then, my father was over 70 and had had a bypass several years before. Death, then, is quite 'normal' and predictable.

But even as a young griever, a griever that has experienced only this kind of grief, I feel such overwhelming sadness these days. Although it has been over a year since my mother died, I still wake up each morning with a cloud of loss that I can't seem to push aside; the sun doesn't burn it off as it does the fog on the mountains. It hurts. And ironically, I welcome the hurt!

I fear, dear elder griever, that if it doesn't hurt that I will have lost even more of her. I fear that if I don't feel that shock, that stab of pain like a sword in the gut, it will mean that I am forgetting her smell, her energy, the sound of her voice. And that is the most fearful of all, that the memories will fade as the pain does.

So each morning, I ask the pain to revisit me. I imagine my mother the last time I saw her alive, head wrapped in blood-soaked gauze, a temporary wrapping to try to stop the blood from seeping from her body. I imagine that machine, doing the breathing for her, the constant beep of her heart. I imagine the jolt of sadness as I inspected her face, that face that was the first I ever saw and that was imprinted on my infant psyche as the constant in my life. I smell her as I remember my leaning in to wipe a small smear of blood from her slack face and kiss her baby-soft cheek. I imagine those twisted feet and swollen, disfigured hands under the thin sheet as I walked around her bed, examining her as if examining a just-born baby for adequate fingers and toes. I imagine the doctor's face as he delivers the news I already know, that she will not live. When I imagine all of this, I can feel that sharp pain, twisting up from my heart, and I know that my mother still lives. At least, she still lives in me.

With time, the pain will lessen. But with time, so will the memories. Maybe that is why a week ago I called my mother's house. For one crazy minute, I thought she might answer and all of this was an episode from a movie, not my own reality. Then after I realized how unlikely that was, I felt a sudden joy at the thought that hers might still be the voice on the answer machine. I even spoke the message aloud there on the mountainside cast in a setting sun hue of pinks and light..."I want to talk to you but not right now". And then, that sinking feeling, sinking to the depths of grief, sinking right down the bottom amidst the silt and mud of the river's floor as I heard my own voice on the answering machine and remembered that she had me change it because some said her message was too personal. And it was. It was as personal as she was. She did want to talk but probably couldn't get the phone very quickly that particular morning when the pain in her joints wouldn't allow any quick movements.

So, I hung up the phone. I sat there sobbing. Where was she now, if not in the blue chair in her den? Was she up there in that cloudy horizon of light and pastels? Was the beside me? Was she a redbird, soaring now with a freedom her body didn't allow on earth, that flash of brilliant red I see so often now?

Dear Elder Griever, will I always welcome the pain because I fear the ultimate trade-off that time offers, that the smell, the feel, the sound, the lovely essence of my mother will dissolve as well?

What can I do to preserve her in my heart and never lose her again as I did that not so distant day in a sterile hospital room as her heart just quit beating and she left for an eternity?

Redbirds

2008-07-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

My mother read the book Redbird Morning by Fannie Flagg a couple of weeks before she died. She loved that book as much I did when I recommended it to her. Now, over a year after her timely but tragic death, redbirds dart across my path, sing from the trees right outside my window, flit in front of my car as I leave for work. They show up when I least expect them and the unexpected pleasure of their cheerful chirp and brilliant flash of red reassures me that my mother is close and ever-present in my life.

We called my Grandmother Dear. No one in the family remembers why or who first called her this love name but Dear she was my whole life. Dear died working in her flower bed down at the shore of the Pamlico River, a very early death and totally unexpected. On the way to the graveyard, riding in the shiny black limo, inching behind the hearst, the family stared in awe at a lone doe, standing like a statue, by the road, not a road, mind you, where wild life often appeared. With that one symbol, my family was reassured that Dear is close and ever-present in our lives.

Symbols of peace from a heavenly Father? Some strange sign from the departed one to show us her love? A reincarnation?

I don't think my Grandmother is now a deer or that my mother is a redbird. But I do believe that those who die can somehow reach over into our physical world and give us a last promise of eternal love and life. My Grandmother did it through a lone deer and my mother does it through a darting flash of red wings from a wild bird, reassuring me that they are with me now and forever more.

Clutter

2008-07-17T06:15:00.000-07:00

I found a quote in my mother's journal this morning as I was literally wading through a sea of papers, files, notebooks, and tax stuff. It read: A house is for relaxing; a refuge in which to surround oneself with objects of greatest affection. Mine isn't that!

But I'm working on it! I am seriously trying to eliminate some of the clutter I have all over my, not one but two, houses! But as I do that, I also realize that my mother truly believed these words and lived them. Surrounding myself with objects that I feel affection for is a comfort for my soul as I am sure it was for her, especially in the last few years of her life.

So the question: what to leave in the house, what to do without? Perhaps the determining question is: What objects give me the greatest affection?

What are those objects? Those are the objects that fill my senses with memories. I smell that quilt that my mother had on her bed and I remember the essence of her. I get great pleasure out of using her desk that she got for Christmas many years ago when she just a child. Dear feelings are evoked from wearing that ring she and Dad bought in Italy in a happier time and place. I even carefully follow her hand-written recipes so that what I eat tastes like what she prepared for me when I was in my youth.

These objects are not clutter. They are valued rememberances and they are of greatest affection, my affection for the lasting legacy of my mother and father. I am thankful for that clutter.

Now, God help me to get rid of the rest!

I Don't Know What Happens When People Die

2008-07-16T19:53:00.000-07:00

That quote from Jackson is how I am feeling today. I just don't know where people go when they die. Yes, I am a believer. I believe that we pass from this physical existence to a spiritual one. I believe we live eternally that way. I believe in God. But today I don't know where my mother is...

I saw a brilliant Cardinal today! Brilliant. Eating out of the flower pot on the deck, and these redbirds have become a symbol of my mother. Whenever I see a pair, I believe I am seeing the spirit of my father and my mother, eternally soaring, eternally singing, eternally together in eternal life.

That my mother is soaring is such a wonderful image! That my mother is now with her beloved husband, my father, is a comforting thought. That they are mates forever, joining in a common song, is such a blessing to me.

A wise friend once told me that my mother, in her death, was closer to me now than when alive, just right beside me. Sometimes I fancy I catch a glimpse of her. I hold my hand in an arthritic pose like she and she is inside me. I talk like her. I look like her. I am even stiff when I walk in the morning like her. She isn't only close; I am becoming her. She lives inside of me!

The memory of her came rushing back this afternoon when I pulled some of her clothes from the trunk of my car that my daughter had brought back to try on and possible keep and wear. That smell in those clothes brought the essence of her back in a tidal wave of memory. Ah, blessed memory. Ah, blessed forgetfulness. Ah, my blessed mother.

Can John Edwards win?

2007-11-20T13:33:00.001-08:00

As a long time fan of songwriter/performer Jackson Browne, I celebrated that he came out today in support of John Edwards for president in 2008. I’m from North Carolina, and I really hope to have the opportunity to vote for John Edwards. In short, I like him. But, does he have a chance?
My first thought is that I believe a white man just might have a better chance of winning after our conservative administration than a black man or a white woman. I don’t believe that America is ready to change gears so completely as to elect either Obama or Hilary. Both would be a ‘first’ for the office of the President, and I suspect that even those Americans who call themselves ‘liberal’ will struggled to vote for either of them.
What does John Edwards bring to the table in regards to the prominent issues of today? In order to compare and contrast the top Democratics in the polls, Obama, Clinton, and Edwards, I looked at a couple of Jackson’s key issues: Energy and Oil, Environment, and Health Care.
In regards to Energy and Oil, all three candidates oppose drilling in national security grounds and voted to cut the use of fossil fuels and expand use of renewable energy. While Clinton is agnostic about nuclear power, and Obama believes it is ‘ok’ if safeguarded, Edwards opposes developing more nuclear power in the US. Ironically, Edwards voted for the Bush Administration Energy Policy in 2003 and Clinton did not.
When the discussion turns to Environment, Jackson may be a little dismayed to find that while Hillary is rated 89% by the LCV (League of Conservation Voters) which clearly indicates her pro-environment votes, Edwards was rated 37% by the LCV which clearly shows a mixed record on environmental issues. Unfortunately, there was no ranking at the time of this writing for Obama, but he does favor protecting the Great Lakes and our National Parks and Forests.
Clinton says she wants to be the ‘healthcare president’ and by all indications she seems to have the most experience and the more specific plans for health care reform. She pledges universal health care coverage by the end of her second term, and she and Edwards were rated 100% by the APHA (American Public Health Association) on a pro-public health care system. Obama believes that health care is a right for all and not a privilege for the few, but does not necessarily say that health care needs to be mandated universally. He tends to believe that health care just needs to be affordable.
So with even greater issues, like the War in Iraq, where does this leave us? If John Edwards does not focus on the issues where he can distinguish himself from the top-runners, he will not win the Democratic nomination. Just as Clinton is the health care ‘queen’, Edwards needs to play up his concern for the middle/working class individual and the wealthy 1% paying their fair share instead of tax cuts.
Is the United States ready for another religious white boy from the south? More importantly, is the country ready for a woman or a black man in the office? Twelve months from now we’ll know. I hope Jackson Browne and I have the opportunity to vote for John Edwards.

The Knife

2007-09-21T11:30:00.001-07:00

On hindsight, I believe that I have always been able to visualize. I know you have, too. The difference is that now I know how to visualize and recognize when my visualizations became reality in my life. The story below may be one of the most amazing of all of my visualizations of seeing what I need, asking for it, and then receiving it.

Four or five years ago, my sister, Lynn, and I traveled to Costa Rica to vacation and visit with my daughter who studied Spanish there. One afternoon, Lynn, and I embarked on a long beach hike. We found ourselves walking along pristine beaches of white sand and crashing surf, sharply peaked rocks poked out from the surf like whale tales, wide and ripply, somehow alive in movement. As we walked, we talked about our belief that what we need, God provides.

Lynn made the comment that if God decided to give her something, she would like a pair of flip flops; she had only brought sandals on the trip and these proved difficult for sandy beach hikes. I replied, “I need a knife”.

Lynn looked shocked.

“Why in the world do you want a knife?” I explained that lovely produce sold on street corners and in the local markets in Costa Rica, and, that, without a knife, I couldn’t peel and cut the beautiful tempting pineapples or mangos.

As we walked, we came to a portion of the beach that was literally covered with lacy sand dollars, many intact. Both of us meandered down the beach, zigzagging along, delicately picking up sand dollars. Neither of us knew how we would ever get them back to the US in our back pack, but the urge to try was over powering.

I carried a back pack and had laced the straps of my flip flops onto my pack. While bending down to retrieve a tiny sand dollar, a wave washed in and the strap securing my flip flops must have come unlatched. My flip flops washed up a little ways down the beach where my sister picked up sand dollars. They rested at her feet.

In seconds, she waved her arms excitedly and said, “Look what I found.” I believed that she was only telling me that she had found my flip flops, and I responded, “Great!”

She put them on her feet and said, “They fit; can I keep them?”

By now I was more than a little confused. Didn’t she recognize those flip flops as the ones I had been wearing this whole trip? I told her she could wear them now, but I would need them this evening when we went out to dinner. She looked puzzled and a little defensive.

“But I found them,” she said.

I then showed her that my flip flops must have fallen off of my back pack.
I admit I laughed. And laughed some more. But her belief was so strong that God would provide that she had even believed that two flip flops could wash up on the beach together, a pair, for her to wear while in CR. The redness on her face couldn’t only be blamed on the hot sun.

We walked five or six minutes down the beach, and I noticed something shining in the setting sun’s rays. It lay there, alone, stranded. It didn’t look like a shell, was too straight to be driftwood, didn’t seem to be a sea creature like any I had ever seen; what could it be?

As I approached, I was truly astonished to see that it was a knife, about 12 inches long from sharp tip to handle. The blade was smooth and sharp, probably sharpened from the tension and rub of the sand as it made its unlikely journey to this deserted tropical beach. The black leather handle showed wear, but the knife was sturdy.

God, the universe, had responded to my visualization of a knife and responded in a matter of only minutes. At the most unlikely place I could imagine to find a knife, there it lay, and I joyfully picked it up and carried it with me for the rest of the trip, slicing into melons and guava and avocado and limes to my heart’s content.

Believing that I would never get the knife past airport security, I sadly left the knife, this most special of gifts, safely wrapped in a faded green bandana, with my daughter. When my daughter arrived back home from CR the next month, imagine my joy and utter surprise that she had successfully brought the knife home.

I keep the knife in my house, a constant reminder that whatever I ask for, whatever I seek, whatever I need and see myself needing, God will provide, even the most unlikely of things at the most unlikely of places.

This is a true story.

A Story of a Creator

2007-09-04T09:31:00.000-07:00

"Sometimes when I read, I hear a little voice say, “Put that book up!” Then I respond, “You ruled my past, but you will not rule my future.”
With a sigh, I read the last words of Deb's Autobiography of Reading. Not for the first time, I wondered how some who sit in my Improving College Reading classes at Mayland Community College find their way through the loneliness and abuse to my classroom. And not for the first time, I felt overwhelmed by the challenges they must have faced, and the courage they must possess to reveal this heartbreak and to move on beyond it.
When Deb Holcomb decided to attend Mayland to become a nurse, she had no idea how she would pay for her tuition and her books. By signing up for two evening classes for fall semester, she literally stepped out on faith. But maybe surviving on faith had long been Deb's 'mode of operation'. Lacking the basics in her formative years like food, warmth, and adequate clothing, much less support and love, Deb’s spirit was not broken; she desired to make more of herself than anyone believed she could.
One evening after class, Deb asked for help to check her email. In her mid-40's, Deb was overwhelmed with the new technology. As we sat side by side accessing her account, she shared with me that she probably wouldn’t be able to come back to Mayland for spring semester. She had not gotten as much financial aid as she had hoped. I could see the disappointment in her eyes and hear it in her quivering voice, but she did not speak with self-pity. I knew of her strong desire to be a nurse while working daily as a CNA for ten years. I knew she was destined to be a fine nurse.
As Deb and I talked, I recalled other snippets of her powerful autobiography of reading.
"...he (my father) had no name for my two sisters and me. He referred to all of us as “Thing.” We never knew why."
If those words could so profoundly stir me to tears, could others also read between Deb's lines and see the brave young woman with the burning desire to help others? Growing up in a home where anything academic was brutally discouraged, Deb has gotten her GED and enrolled in college. As further evident in these words, she enjoyed learning and had always dreamed of going to college.
"Eager to learn, I learned to read fast. But I did little reading at home because I was not allowed to read. I crawled under my bedclothes with a flashlight at night to do my homework. After school I had to stay outside until dark and did not have access to the books that were inside. My father made my sisters and me stay outside year round, regardless of the weather, until dark. He felt that reading was a worthless waste of time. Since he saw no value to be gained by reading, he punished me severely if he caught me with any kind of reading material. I believe the reason he did not want me to have an education is that he dropped out of school in the sixth grade and was afraid I would become smarter than he was."
I suggested that we search the web for the author of the textbook we use in the class. Together we found Mr. Langan’s website and began reading stories of survival like Deb's, of people who had overcome huge obstacles to be a success. Suggesting to Deb that it never hurts to ask for what you desire in life, we found a link to Mr. Langan’s email and hurriedly, before we could lose our nerve, sent an email describing Deb’s financial situation; we asked Mr. Langan to read her story and possibly help fund her college career. I hit the send button. Faith was our driving force, and we had nothing to lose.
The next day, Deb called; Mr. Langan wanted to read Deb's story. Four days passed while Deb re-wrote and edited her story of fear and abuse. A retired English teacher, Louise Murphy, offered to edit, her GED instructor, Judy McAuliffe, offered unceasing encouragement, and I typed; Deb’s story zipped to Mr. Langan through cyber space on a wing and a prayer.
Nervously, we awaited his reply. He responded that he could see that Deb was a survivor and he wanted my phone number. After several days of phone tag, Mr. Langan reached me in my office. As I looked out on a cold, gray day, the news I received from Mr. Langan was as welcome as springtime. He concluded our lengthy conversation with the simple statement that he believed Deb to be a dedicated person with a strong desire to be a nurse, and that he would be happy to fully sponsor her education at Mayland until she became a nurse.
I am surprised that you didn’t hear her shout when she received the news. Deb’s desire to become a nurse is no longer an unreachable dream, due to the generosity of a man she had never even met and a shared vision of two people, who asked, believed and received.
Sometimes good things happen to good people. A benevolent stranger, a small team of nurturing teachers in the rural mountains of North Carolina, and a woman of unceasing strength and courage created a miracle. Deb's own words say it best.
"My father was the devil disguised as a man. For that reason, I was never able to refer to him with an affectionate or respectful name such as “Daddy.” Instead, he was “He” or “Him.” I think about him in past test because he is no longer a part of my life, and I am no longer his slave."

Jan Graham is an instructor of English, Reading, Critical Thinking, and College Success classes at Mayland Community College (828 765-7351 ext 264), and also a coach for assisting others to successfully visualize the life they desire (email at renewarightspirit@yahoo.com or 828 765-2174 or 828 467-0778).

Renew a Right Spirit Cabin Retreat for Women

2007-07-26T06:45:00.002-07:00

Renew a Right Spirit retreat for women

Learn the secret and the law of attraction!
Create the world you desire!
Recognize that thoughts become things!
Learn to be grateful for what you have and to ask for what you need!
Learn to live without limit or lack, in abundance!
Realize your desires and design your dream book!
Use affirmations to stay on track with your life’s purpose and goals!

Something Fine Cabin
Grahamwood
385 Upper Pig Pen Road
Green Mountain, NC

Date: Saturday, September 29, 2007
10 A.M. – 3 P.M.
Cost: $60 for the day
(this includes lunch and book)

Reserve your spot by calling (828) 765-2174 or (828) 467-0778 or email renewarightspirit@yahoo.com
Limit: 7 women
Coach: Jan c. graham

Directions: Off of 19E in Burnsville, turn onto 197N. Go approximately 5.5 miles and take a right onto Upper Pig Pen Road. Go approximately .5 mile; the cabin is on the left. You will cross one small bridge en route to the cabin on Upper Pig Pen. If you get to another small bridge and see a big yellow farm house on the left, you have just missed the cabin. My cell number is 467-1187. Attire is casual comfortable but bring a sweater; it’s a cabin and it’s fall!

Renew a Right Spirit Retreat for Women

2007-07-26T06:42:00.000-07:00

Renew a Right Spirit retreat for women

Learn the secret and the law of attraction!
Create the world you desire!
Recognize that thoughts become things!
Learn to be grateful for what you have and to ask for what you need!
Learn to live without limit or lack, in abundance!
Realize your desires and design your dream book!
Use affirmations to stay on track with your life’s purpose and goals!

Something Fine Cabin
Grahamwood
385 Upper Pig Pen Road
Green Mountain, NC

Date: Saturday, September 29, 2007
10 A.M. – 3 P.M.
Cost: $100 for the day
(this includes lunch and book)

Reserve your spot by calling (828) 765-2174 or (828) 467-0778 or email renewarightspirit@yahoo.com
Limit: 7 women
Coach: Jan c. graham

Directions: Off of 19E in Burnsville, turn onto 197N. Go approximately 5.5 miles and take a right onto Upper Pig Pen Road. Go approximately .5 mile; the cabin is on the left. You will cross one small bridge en route to the cabin on Upper Pig Pen. If you get to another small bridge and see a big yellow farm house on the left, you have just missed the cabin. My cell number is 467-1187. Attire is casual comfortable but bring a sweater; it’s a cabin and it’s fall!

Tap-dancing Again

2007-06-18T15:52:00.000-07:00

Tap-Dancing Again

On February 2, 2007, my mother, Betty Van Barnes Cavanaugh, died. Although this sounds like the end of a story, it’s where this one begins. Through my mother’s loving guidance and firm insistence, I am her legacy. Her spirit lives in me, and without her guiding light, I would not be the person I am content and proud to be today.

The arduous task of sorting, dividing, deciding, and choosing began a couple of weeks after my mother’s sudden death. Through laughter, “Did I ever really wear these shorts?”, disbelief, “She saved these?”, and sudden, unexpected outbursts of tears, “I miss her so much”, my sister and I worked.

An exclamation of “I can’t believe how blonde your hair was”, prompted me to abandon my tedious task of going through my mother’s files and files of receipts, bills, check stubs, and ‘figurings.’ I could hardly see my sister sitting in the middle of piles of linens and towels in the hallway. In her cleaning out of the linen closet, Lynn had discovered a small cedar box. A closer inspection revealed report cards, loopy cursive on lined paper, yellowed greetings cards, an autograph book and some grainy black and white photos of my sister and me as children. As I stepped my way over the circle of bedding, Lynn waved one of the pictures over her head, and I caught a glimpse of a tow-headed girl adorned in a fluffy dress and shiny black patent leather shoes.

A flood of memories accompanied a slower study of the picture. As I sat on the floor with my sister amidst soap-smelling sheets and pillow cases, I remembered the minute this picture was taken, and I also recalled all those hours I had tap-danced on my front porch stoop in those very shoes, even when they were so small they pinched my toes. I had loved those shoes, and I had loved the way my blonde curls tangled as my feet whipped around in fast motion; I thought I was tap-dancing just like Shirley Temple, and I was fantastic!

Later on that afternoon, as I struggled to lug a bulging black trash bag to the street, the picture and the flashback of me as that confident young dancer caused me to begin reflecting. When had that tap-dancer changed into that shy, self-conscious girl? For a long time in my life, after I had abandoned tap-dancing and the worn shoes had finally been thrown away, I had lived with self-doubt, low esteem, and equally low expectations of myself.

Psychologists suggest that the first five years of a person’s life determine his/her outlook, temperament, and basic personality, that the years from infancy until school age form basically who we are and how we will go about living this life of ours. As I look back on my life, I am not so sure that I agree with this. My first five years of life were blissfully tap-dancing happy; I believe that for me, my basic feeling about life emerged in the fourth grade, and these feelings guided my behaviors, attitudes, and feelings until my mother sent me off to college to find myself. Let me explain.

Ah, the fourth grade. That’s the year, 1963, when the taunting and teasing began. That was the year when I wanted to change my name, and with good reason, for that was the year that my fellow classmates rhymed my name with Dan’s name. You know the rhyme. It’s as well known as the “Happy Birthday” song, and I dare say that at one time or another all of us have fallen victim to its sing-song rhythm. ‘Jan and Dan, sitting in a tree, K-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Jan with a baby carriage.’ I wonder if the person who first came up with this has ever considered collecting royalties on this lyric. McCartney’s ‘Yesterday’ has not been sung more often.

I can remember announcing to my family over the meatloaf that night after the teasing had begun that I wanted to be called ‘Janet’ and not ‘Jan’. Even though my mother displayed a slightly hurt look over this decision, she valiantly tried to call me ‘Janet’ with little success. My father and sister didn’t even try.

But I do digress. You see, Dan was that boy. You know the one; the one with the 'cooties'. He was dirty; we could all see the dirt caked in the creases of his neck. And he smelled bad. For some reason the fourth grade also seems to be the grade that our noses become more sensitive. Let’s test that theory. Do you remember how the lunch room smelled? I bet you do. A mixture of some cheap pine cleaner, vomit, slightly outdated milk, and some overcooked vegetable of the day such as cabbage. See? These are things imprinted on the brain from our acute attunement to odors of the pee-yew kind.

Again, I am off-track. Dan also did the unthinkable, unpardonable. He picked his nose and messed with his ears. It was believed by all of us in Mrs. Pearl’s (name changed) fourth grade that if you could look up 'cootie' in the school children’s dictionary, you would see a picture of Dan in the margin. ‘Cooties’ was a word every child used in the fourth grade and completely understood.

How could my mother have saddled me with the hideous and dreadful name of ‘Jan’, a name that so easily rolled off the mouths of my friends on the play ground at recess, in the lunch room, even in the small bathroom stalls? To make matters worse, Dan would offer me an optimistically sad smile when the taunting began as if I would be interested in k-i-s-s-i-n-g him. It pretty much ruined my life. And I doubt Dan had such a great year either.

When Valentine’s Day was near, my mother purchased my usual box of valentines, the cheapest ones to be bought. She insisted that if I sent one kid in the room a valentine, I had to send every kid one, so I sat at the kitchen table, overhead light illuminating the printed memographed sheet of all of the names in Ms. Pearl’s fourth grade class.

“Do I have to send Dan one?” The look on my mother’s face confirmed her answer. “Dan wears the same shirt everyday and has a cow-lick,” I added, thinking that surely this explanation was enough to free me from my mother’s requirement.

“Dan has feelings just like everyone else. I’m sure he would love to get a valentine from you.”

My mother just didn’t understand. She obviously had never been in my shoes before, literally. Dan had helped to end my tap-dancing days. I no longer felt like tap-dancing, and, now, I had to send him a card on the ‘day of love.’

As I labored over the choice, the writing, the licking and labeling, I couldn’t help but notice that Dan’s name had not been checked off of my careful list. His name was the top one, last name Alfred, and I had skipped him to do all of the others on the list before finally resolving myself to writing his valentine. Didn’t my mother know what this would do to my already ruined reputation if I sent Dan a valentine?

With only two more valentine’s left and two names unchecked on the list, I pondered the choices. Which would be less personal, even show distaste, instead of the intended love? Kenneth, the other name on the list, was a fat boy who sweated after recess and bubbled in his milk cartoon until milk flew out of his nose. But Kenneth didn’t bother me. For one thing, his name didn’t rhyme with mine, and, for another, Kenneth was the class clown and that gave him a status that was, at once, respected and accepted by all no matter how large his sweat spots were. I chose the black and white cow with the bell around his neck, inscription reading ‘You ring my bell, Valentine.’ And that left the last valentine for Dan.

In case you’re wondering, I don’t think this was a conscious decision. I really don’t. I think it was just how it turned out. But the last valentine, on which I printed ‘Dan’ on the envelope and in rather small print wrote ‘Jan’ inside, featured a little gray skunk holding a flower behind his back. The inscription has long since been erased from my memory, probably something like “I’m sweet on you, Valentine”, but the implications have not. Dan was the skunk of the class; skunks certainly seemed as unromantic as you could get, right?

I hurriedly snuck the valentine in his homemade ‘mailbox’—smudged, ragged hearts of white and red with ‘Dan’ scrawled across the middle heart—before the other children had come into class the next morning, Valentine’s Day.

Memory fails me; I’m not sure if anyone ever knew or acknowledged that I had sent Dan a valentine. I certainly didn’t spread it around. But I knew, and Dan knew, and it set the tone for the rest of the fourth grade’s despair.

Unfortunately, the teasing and valentine exchange wasn't the only humiliation I suffered in the fourth grade. All of the glorious confidence of youth left me that year. In Kindergarten, I had played my way through, running up to cute boys like Al or Charles during recess and daringly planting kisses on their sweaty cheeks. In the first grade, I had performed on stage in a talent revue as none other than Caroline Kennedy, flipping my curls in a white satin dress with a red velvet jacket singing the words of the song of the day, “My daddy is president; what does your daddy do?” In the second grade, I had won a city-wide art contest and had proudly brought home a baby white rabbit with red eyes. All my report cards showed lovely rows of 'S's', and I was never paddled or sent to the principal or made to stay in and wash the desks during recess time. I had the world on a string and, every afternoon, I practiced being a tap-dancing star on those red brick steps.

In the fourth grade, my teacher wrote on the board, “Our President has been assassinated,” and I forever learned the meaning of the word ‘assassinated’ and the heartache of a country mourning it’s leader, President John F. Kennedy. In the fourth grade, geography and maps were literally foreign to me. Simple math became dreaded algebra. Current events, book reports, and that four letter word, t-e-s-t, became my reality. Yep, in the fourth grade, the work suddenly became harder, and school became boring and with a last name that began with the letter 'C', I had to spend the year in the assigned desk behind Dan A. who tugged on my pony tail and blew hot breath on my neck whenever he walked by my desk to his own.

In addition to these horrors, rumblings were heard all year of the 'test', the California Achievement Test. I dreaded it like nothing else. I knew it was all going to catch up with me; the truth would finally be out. I wasn't smart. I wasn't going to make it out of the fourth grade. The shame of Dan couldn't top the shame of failing a grade in school and being shunned by my friends as they headed into the fifth grade only to leave me back with Dan, I was certain, in the fourth for another time around.

Weeks of English and art quickly flew by, and the day of the test arrived. I thought about feigning sickness. I felt sick; I felt like I was going to throw up that bowl of grits my mother had forced on me claiming that I could do better on that dreaded test if I wasn't hungry. Could I do better if my stomach churned those grits around while I tried to read long paragraphs of long sentences and long words that I had no idea meant? I faced school like a resigned prisoner destined for the noose.

During the test, I furtively glanced around. All of the other students were busily writing on their test. All looked just fine, sure that they were doing well on this test. Even Dan was carefully filling in small dark circles with his #2 pencil. Some finished and with a loud flourish turned their test booklets over on their desk with a proud sigh. I looked down. I had about four more long paragraphs to read and many questions to answer before the big red stop sign that signaled that I was finished showed up on the test booklet page.

Oh, I tried to finish that test. With sweating hands and heart pounding, I read faster. I forgot what I had read and started over. I panicked and began to fill in circles without even reading the paragraphs. I jumped guiltily as my teacher shouted “stop” in the eery quiet of the room; as suspected I had not reached that anticipated stop sign. And with that one word echoing in the room, booklets had to be turned in and my fate was sealed.

May flowers sprang up around the flag pole, and we all squirmed in our seats anxious to be out running in the warm spring sun. The big clean-up was complete; my desk shone from Lysol spray, and my best work was stacked on top in a blue folder labeled, not surprisingly, ‘My Best Work’, and my first and last name written in my best penmanship. The colorful bulletin boards livened up the dull green cinder brick walls, and Mrs. Pearl, blue-gray curls neatly combed, had worn her church suit with the dogwood pin secured smartly on the lapel. Parent-Teacher Conference Day had arrived.

I sat on a rusty red swing on the playground as my mother, navy blue heels stirring up the dust and purse swinging wildly from her arm marched into the school to have a conference with my teacher. I noticed how perfectly her blue skirt and white blouse was pressed and how her newly Prell-shampoo washed hair shone in the afternoon sun. I felt sorry for her. How sad for her to find out that her first-born was an imbecile.

Hours and hours seemed to pass before she returned, waving goodbye to my teacher and another women I recognized as Lisa’s mother. I was stiff when I tried to get out of the swing, and I realized that I hadn't moved since she left to go into the building. I had sat in frozen fear and worry, and now I anxiously searched her face for tears or those red splotches she gets when she gets angry or upset with my father. She looked fine; smiling, she took my hand, and we headed home.

In the car, I tried to get a sense of what my teacher must have said at the conference. I didn't want to come right out and ask about my intelligence level, so I tried a few questions:

"Well, how did it go?"
"Fine. Your desk is so neat and clean."
"Do you like Mrs. Pearl?"
"Oh yes. She seems like a very good teacher. She reminds me of my fourth grade teacher."

Silence. I knew why. My mother was clearly hiding the fact that I had bombed that test.

"Did you look at my school work?"
"Yes, I saw your painting of Ponce de Leon and the New World. Those Indians almost looked real. Your cursive handwriting is certainly improving.”

She was a crafty one, clearly avoiding even looking me in the eye. Yes, she was driving, but she could look at me and admit once and for all that I wasn't going to ever be a very good student, and the sooner we all faced it the better.

I could stand it no more. I mustered up the nerve to ask, "Did Mrs. Pearl say how I did on that test?"
"I’m sure you did just fine."

Right. ‘Fine’. I did have enough sense to know that if I had done well on that test, my mother would be celebrating, planning a great dinner, making an announcement over dessert about the budding genius of the family. I could see my little sister's envious stare and my father's proud smile. 'Fine' was not bragging material.

So I must have failed the California Achievement Test, and with this and all the Dan business, too, I gave up on school. I could see it was a good decision because Mrs. Pearl and my mother quit encouraging me in school as well. It seemed that my mother didn't ask me so often about grades. She didn't seem to expect much and didn't complain if I got a ‘C’ instead of an ‘A’. Even though she never vocalized anything, I inferred that Mrs. Pearl had ‘kinda given up’ on me, too, because, after all, I was doing the best that could be expected for someone with the miserably low intelligence level I had. ‘C's’ and even ‘D's’ were just fine for someone like me. This pattern of thinking continued throughout middle school, and, in high school, manifested itself in some pretty low grades. My mother took it all in unusual, I thought, stride.

As I withdrew and did less in school, my mother did more. Always a 'stay at home' housewife, she catered to my needs and expected very little from me. When I finally graduated from high school, despite ‘D’s’ and even a couple of ‘F’s’, she laid down the law.

"You will go to college one year; if you don't like it after one year, you can come home. But you will go for one year because I do everything for you except breathe, and you need to get away from me and see what it's like out there in the real world."
“College? Me? I’m not going to college,” I stated, all the while thinking that college was for smart kids, and my mother should know that I wasn’t college material.
“Yes, you, Jan. You need to think for yourself and be away from me.”

And with those last words, I lost the battle and off to college I went. I barely had good enough grades to get into a college and had just scraped by on the SAT, another test I hadn't performed well on, but it was enough to be accepted. The school was only 38 miles from my hometown. I bravely packed my red, white, and blue trunk and actually rushed my mother and father out of my new dorm room. I wanted to get this year over with.

My mother was a genius. What I lacked in intelligence, I soon made up for in ‘fun’; I loved college--the parties, the guys, the friends, but not the classes. My first semester, I almost flunked out. Then I realized something. If I flunked out, I would have to go home, and I didn't want to. At home, people knew I wasn’t smart, and here at college, no one had actually discovered this yet.

I decided to actually give this college thing a try. I learned to study, read my textbooks, researched and wrote paper after paper and to my amazement, as I worked more, I began to succeed. By the time I graduated, I had a 3.2 GPA. I wasn’t as dumb as I thought.

Now, I think back on the fourth grade and all those wasted years. For many years, the images and memories involving Dan caused me to avoid all boys named Dan. As I matured, I realized that Dan could no more help his situation than I could mine. And I also realized how lonely it must have been for Dan, for his poor home-life had to have produced what we saw in the classroom. And yes, I even wonder where he is today. With that kind of beginning, how could it have turned out okay for Dan? And that test I had obviously failed. I could only surmise that I had gotten a little smarter through the years and was, therefore, able to get a college degree and become a teacher.

Ironically, it took me years before I could finally ask my mother what I did make on the CAT. “What test? I don’t remember a test, and if I did know your score, it must not have been low because I always believed you were smart. Has that test been the reason that you didn’t try all those years?”

My mother’s look was incredulous. If her look was, imagine my feeling. I found it unbelievable that I had believed something that wasn’t even true and that my mother had no recollection of at all, and I had let this belief cause me to give up on life before I even got started.

I now teach Reading and English classes at a small community college in the Appalachian mountain region of North Carolina. I relay this story to my students to illustrate how cruel we can be to those who don’t quite measure up, how even the best of us can result to cruel behavior towards another when our own ‘head tends to be on the chopping block’. I could not be kind to Dan, even though my mother told me I needed to be, because it would incriminate me beyond children’s rhymes. I would be right down there with him, ostracized and teased for a name that rhymed with the cootie of the classroom.

I also point out that we can believe the wrong things about ourselves and live our lives with doubt and low self-worth because we ‘think’ we aren’t as smart as others. One class day, as I neared the end of my story, one of my students raised her hand and shyly asked, “But didn’t you marry a guy named Dan, Ms. Graham?” And ironically, I did. I married a person who shares the same name of Dan A.

“Now, Dan and Jan, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g” just doesn’t seem so bad,” I laughingly admitted.

There are other ironies. In my mind, my mother believed I wasn’t smart and so I wasn’t. When she forced me to leave home, ironically, it was her belief that I could succeed in college that encouraged me to realize my potential.

I thank God that she lived to see me as a teacher and a writer. She was the one that helped me to find my true voice, not the one that I am tempted to imitate, for she is the one who spoke the first word to me, who gave me my language. Her motherese whispers to me in the solitude of writing this, saying to me that I have something to say and a way of saying it that people want to read. She stays my hand or provides the missing word or speaks the dialogue so that I can connect with my own roots and write in my true voice. Her legacy lives in my happiness and my success, and I owe everything I am today to her guidance and unconditional love. Likewise, she is the reason a shy, insecure teen has become a confident and inspiring teacher who daily, for twenty-six years now, has tried to help her students believe that they are capable and can succeed in higher education. It is true, after all, that the first years of my life truly did form who and what I am today.

To this day I don’t like standardized test, don’t judge anyone according to some IQ standard, and am reminded every day through the multitude of students who sit in my classes that we all possess talents, gifts, intelligences that are unique to our own being. As humans we all desire acceptance and love, and we all need to believe in our self-worth to become who we were designed to be.

My heart feels as heavy as the garbage bag I drop beside the others lined up by the curb. I walk slowly back to the all too familiar brick house where my mother lived for over fifty years but is now void of my mother’s vibrant life. I kick pine cones off of the walkway and stoop to pick a bright jonquil from a small patch by the stoop, taking my time, dreading having to return to my sad task of sorting through my mother’s life as I save or discard her things.

As I step up on the worn brick porch, I hear the tapping of tiny patent leather shoes, and there, in the reflection of the storm door, is a young girl filled with dreams and optimism, tap-dancing, shiny curls and shoes sparkling as her feet fly and she whirls around and around. And for a moment, I believe I catch a glimpse of my young mother peering out from behind the starched curtains at the living room window, smiling and prayfully urging me onward in this journey of a lifetime, forever encouraging me to discover new talents, new gifts, new purpose and my own new dance. I look again in the reflection and see a fifty-three year old woman; I stick the jonquil behind my ear and do a shuffle step in my New Balance’s. Life didn’t end with my mother’s death. She is forever watching me and caring for me. Again, life is ripe with opportunity and promise, and it sure feels good to be tap-dancing again.

My Mother, the Encourager

2007-06-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

Abou Ben Adhem
By Leigh Hunt

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:—
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said
"What writest thou?"—The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still, and said "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men."
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

Dear Friends and Family,
As I write this, it seems unbelievable that my mother’s courageous earthly life has come to an end. As my family and I moved through the days that followed her death, we did our best to carry out her final wishes. We carefully chose pink clothing and pink roses, we planned the funeral words and songs, we handpicked the gleaming maple casket, but after it was all said and done we realized we had forgotten to include the poem above. I share it with you now.

I grew up hearing my mother recite this poem so many times that I myself can recite it, but I don’t think I really considered the meaning of the words in regards to the way my mother embraced life. My mother truly loved the Lord, but she also loved her fellow man. Evidenced through her thoughtfulness and her compassion, my mother gave of herself because she knew all too well what it was like to suffer, to get up everyday and have to fight for independence, and to smile though the pain. She bravely did what she could do: she visited the sick, befriended those who needed friends, called or sent notes to those who celebrated or suffered. She lived a good life; she was happy and she was blessed. She loved her husband, her children, her grandchildren, her family and friends. She loved her fellow man.
I remember a past conversation I had with my mother. We spoke of the tough decisions she was forced to make, and the realities she was forced to live with. She talked about the courage that she saw in other Christians and
lamented that she didn’t have this courage and wasn’t able to do more for God. She wondered what her ‘gift’ was.

Courage is evident in a Christian who feels led to witness and offer aid in the ‘wilderness’. Courage is present in those who risk their lives for others. A person who defies sin and chooses the harder, less popular path in this world and who stands firm in his/her faith is indeed a person of courage.

Perhaps, it comes as no surprise that the word ‘encourage’ has the word ‘courage’ in it. How true it is that for us to encourage someone in the face of peril or grief or suffering, we have to have courage. We must possess the inner courage to enable the ones who feel weak and are in despair to keep going. We must give our courage to others, thus leaving us vulnerable. We must possess the courage to face the pain again or the grief anew and to give of ourselves for the sake of another.

My mother remained positive while living with an affliction for 40 years. She offered the world a smile even though each step was met with arresting pain. She faced yet another surgery with a belief that she would get better. She learned to live alone after never spending a night alone in her life and cared for her house, yard, car, and herself. She lived with courage.

So with courage, my mother encouraged others. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians, we all have spiritual gifts, and my mother’s was the gift of encouragement. What better way to live our life than to use our special God-given gift to truly do what God intended for us to do with that gift. Look in a drawer or tucked away in your Bible and there you may find a cherished note with special words of encouragement from my mother.

I believe that my mother’s well-lived life was a tribute to God and is a lasting legacy for us, her family. I also believe that in the Book of Life, beside the name Betty Van Barnes Cavanaugh, the angel writes that my mother loved her fellow man, and that she encouraged others through her own inner courage and faith. I know that God’s answer to my mother’s use of her gift as an encourager is, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. In you I am well-pleased.” I know I am.

May God bless you as you use the gifts He has freely given.

Jan Graham

Love Letter to My Father

2007-06-18T15:49:00.000-07:00

June 17th, 2007
Dear Daddy,
I imagine it on the marshy floor, drifting still among the fish and shell particles. It is now rusty and no longer usable after all these years that salt water and harsh sands have eaten away at it. I know it was new when you passed it to your granddaughter. I know you felt like crying or screaming when it fell, ‘kurplunk,’ in the water. This letter is to thank you for not doing that very thing.
Daddy, my mind easily goes back to that pristine June day on the sound off of Carolina Beach in your fishing boat. I can see your plaid shirt and bright red Shriner’s hat. I can almost taste that salty air as you killed the motor and threw out the little anchor. As the boat tried to drift with the gentle tides, the anchor held, and I remember turning my head to the sky to feel the delicious early morning sun on my face.
You, unselfish you, baited the hook with that smelly shrimp and handed it to my Heather, honored first granddaughter. She eagerly grasped it in hands that seemed so tiny even then and said, “I’m gonna catch a big one!” The look on your face as you turned from washing your hands off in the water was one of pure adoration. I adored her, too. Who couldn’t? Heather, only five years old, was perched on the boat’s wooden bench. She was almost hidden in a bright orange life vest many sizes too big. I had pulled her hair in a tight pony tail, but blonde curls were falling lose and tossing in the light wind. Heather kept pushing them from her face, and, as she did, her huge greenish-brown eyes sparkled with excitement.
The big fish Heather called forth, the one hiding in the cool, grassy banks, bit that shrimp, and the reel raced as Heather, in shock, almost went over the boat’s bow from the force. You grabbed the reel and hooked that fish. Then you handed it back to Heather, new reel shining and line taunt, to pull in. And that’s when it happened. She dropped it overboard, literally dropping hook, line, sinker, fish, and your brand new reel!
Even though I know you were upset, you didn’t fuss nor reprimand Heather. You knew it was an accident. You could read her sad little face as I could. And Daddy, please know, at that moment, I realized something about you that I knew but had never really identified. You loved us patiently. You loved us unconditionally. You loved us more than any material item you possessed. You loved us more than your beloved fishing.
So, thank you for being the wonderful father and grandfather that you were to my children and to me. Your selflessness is just one of the reasons I hold you so closely in my heart and miss you so much. You gave me love, and you gave it willingly. Anyone can sire a child, but only a few can truly be a father. After all, it was just a fishing rod and reel; the gift you gave Heather that day was worth much more. May your gleaming rod and reel catch eternal fish in heaven today, this Father’s Day, 2007.

Lovingly,
Your Jan

The Secret DVD

2007-01-17T12:21:00.001-08:00

The Secret

2007-01-16T05:30:00.000-08:00

If you have read my story of The Money Door, you know that I believe in the wisdom of the new book The Secret. Check out this powerful message at

Moon Over Mexico

2006-12-21T12:20:00.001-08:00

Embracing the Divine

The rhythmic sound of the drums lead us down the beach. Sunburned tourist to this ancient water’s edge, responding to a call. Kachi shorts and tank tops, braided hair, thin willowy skirt of bright colors. We were your usual unusual participants in the dance of the night.

Two drummers with flowing dark hair and unmarked dark skin sat cross-legged in the sand. Their beats responded to the pound of the waves and the cool evening breezes. Faster, urgent, almost as if speeding the coming of darkness. Dancers swirled around in bird-live dives and swoops in a disjointed ballet.

Peaked rocks poked out from the surf like whale tales, wide and ripply, somehow alive in movement. This was the spot the drummers had chosen to beg the moon out of the water and welcome the black night.

We nervously stood on the outskirts of the small assembly of people, feeling our whiteness and our misunderstanding, perhaps as crashers at a party. As a chill blew down the beach and the clouds faded from white to gray, we pulled our beach towels up around our shoulders. Unconsciously, we moved away from one another.

I found my spot and dug my toes in the still-warm soft sand. And fixed my eyes on the horizon. I had the sense of awaiting a birth, a miracle, a spectacle. I totally gave myself up to the moment.

The clouds shifted and lowered, as if holding out a hand to help pull the glowing ball of moon from the depths of the ocean. Light pierced through parts of the clouds and all of the earth seemed to be standing in wait.

One of the members of our little tribe moved closer to the foamy white. Her silhouette of braids and a colorful towel wrapped around her like a shawl spoke of the maidens who had graced this hallowed spot thousands of years before.

The drums slowed and the dancers stopped their circling and faced the scene.

As if on cue, the drums stopped and silently, as in an ancient dream, as we all stood stone still, the provocative moon finally showed a corner of her completeness. The dark clouds blocked pieces of her as she heaved up. She flirted with the waves on the horizon, hid behind the purtruding rocks, and grew until she filled the horizon with her pure dazzling whiteness.

I was totally transfixed, lost in the awesomeness and power of the pull of that moon. I was as much a part of the water, the moon, the sand, the clouds as if I was just a new born, just opening my eyes to the wonder of the world. I was the ancient Aztec maiden.

When the moon had completely pulled free of the rocks, the surf, the claw like clouds, it sailed in the night. And the drums picked up their rhythmic beat and celebrated her return.

This was no dream. This was not a dream-like state. I was as aware, all senses heightened, as I have ever been before, as alive. And as the small crowd began to ease out of their stillness and we moved together, I realized that I was crying.

After Kerry Lost to Bush

2006-12-21T12:16:00.001-08:00

Kerry mother talks to her daughterPosted by jjacksonfan on Nov-03-04 at 02:44 PM
Well, the election is over and my daughter, Meghan, age 19 has just called in tears. My daughters are the ones who care, who listen to debates and read about issues, who voted because it was the right thing to do and they believed in their vote. Now Meghan and probably the 22 year old, Heather, want to know how to go on when they voted from their heart and from their values and beliefs and their well-informed vote resulted in nothing. And you know what? I hardly knew what to tell them because today I feel the same.
I do remember those years in college when I felt that I could make a difference. I felt that being informed and voting and speaking out/sitting in/protesting could bring change. I felt it so strongly and believed it so completely that when all of my efforts didn't pay off, I felt totally defeated and somehow, betrayed.
I guess I am an eternal optimist. I believe that good people who care can change the world. But I know that now at 50, I have come to understand that what we believe is 'good' does not always win, that no matter how much we care, we can't change the situation. And yet today I hurt just like my children and share their sorrow.
So, this is what I told Meghan. I told them that we have to get up everyday once again believing in the fact that good will prevail. We have to continue to speak for those who cannot speak. We have to continue to stand for those who can't stand and to work for the common good for all. My girls and I believe that health care shouldn't just be for the wealthy, that quality public education should be available and accessible to all, that war is not morally right, that the earth needs to be protected, that we are not entitled to 80% of the world's resources while others go without, that every one deserves rights in our country no matter what their sexual preference and/or religious affiliation and that loving your neighbor is a global commission. And these things we still hold dear and wave as a banner into the face of those who don't believe these things. And we are not going away. We are not defeated. We will gather our hopes and dreams and courage and keep on marching.
Sorry, but I don't want to see the hope of my children to die. And I don't want them to believe, like so many others in our country seem to believe or have accepted, that they cannot make a difference. I want them to never give up on injustice, inequality, unfairness, even if it seems that the fight is sometimes for naught. I want to keep their beautiful sense of compassion for all alive.
What would you say? What are you doing to keep yourself walking on the path of the righteous? What will you do tomorrow?
Today was the first time in my life when I really did not think I wanted to teach again. Oh, I have days when I don't want to teach, I feel disheartened or discouraged but this morning I just wanted to say 'screw it'. It doesn't matter. These youth don't care. They didn't even vote. After looking at the issues and rallying them to vote, they didn't bother! And I felt defeated. I even verbalized this to a co-worker who is a Bush supporter. He said that he understood how I could feel like I do today about the election but that there was one thing I said that he could not let go. He said that everyday he saw me in the classroom or heard me in my office making a difference in people's lives. He said that everyday he sees me caring and supporting my students and helping them to learn and grow. And he told me that he respected that because he believes that so many teachers don't care and don't make a difference. And he told me he could not/would not let me give up on teaching. And he was right. I can keep on doing what I feel God has led me to do, to teach students and help them reach their goals and help them dream and hope and strive for something better for themselves. I can raise children who have compassion and empathy and care enough to act upon their beliefs. I can get up another day to fight the fight for virtue.
So, I comfort these dear children of mine and remind them that this too shall pass. And this hurt they now feel will only empower them and urge them forward with courage and integrity to be a 'citizen of the free world' who will ultimately make a difference, even if it's only as your mother does it, just one student at a time in one remote corner of the mountains of NC in one state in a big united states and in one tiny place in this big island home we all ultimately must share and protect.
Okay, I feel better now...and hopefully both of my girls do too.
Keep a fire for the human race!Jan

Christmas newsletter

2006-12-21T11:54:00.000-08:00

December 15, 2006

Hello Friends,

Countless blessings came our way this year! As I decide what to share, I definitely see that the good has out-shadowed the bad in the collective lives of Dan and me and our families.

Dan has two years until retirement and is counting down the days. High school counseling has been a joy, I believe, when he could help the students, but unfortunately, nowadays, the counselors have to do many jobs that aren’t as pleasant or productive or don’t really fit into the job description, like room assignments, registration of classes, and even monitoring on-line classes. Also, students now seem to have such extreme problems and daily tragedies and emergencies that take a toll on those who help. I hope that retirement will allow him what he desires: time to read, grow a garden, and forget time and deadlines. We just bought 21 acres behind our cabin on Upper Pig Pen so he has land to wander on for those days in the close future.

As for me, I have begun a new dream, one of writing textbooks and self-help books. With some lofty goals in mind, I feel it is time after 26+ years of teaching to follow my heart’s desire. I envision books, on-line programs, and retreats specifically designed for women who need to ‘renew a right spirit’ in their lives and find their purpose. I will continue to teach for I love it, but at my age, it’s time to follow my own voice and heart. It does seem that when one makes a commitment and begins to seek, she can find opportunities that she never dreamed possible. I find myself feeling this way daily.

Our Heather, now 24, is living in the mission district of San Francisco and truly enjoying this unique part of the country. She continues to work with non-profits—an after-school program and a food bank. She is excitedly considering her doctorate in Latin American Studies and, after years of saying she didn’t want to teach (like her mother), has recognized that teaching is in her blood and she is excellent at it. Although her dreams change daily, I believe they involve teaching on a college campus and maybe doing something with her fluency in Spanish. Heather has a bright, handsome boyfriend, Scott, whom we like very much. He is working in a law firm and may seek law school in the future. Both Scott and Heather are keenly interested in politics and the issues of today and helping those who are not as privileged as we all are. I stand in awe of youth who still believe in activism for change and pay attention to what is going on in the world. I daily see apathetic students who lack knowledge about the critical issues facing our country and our world. Heather and Scott spent four months in the Dominican Republic last spring, doing some volunteer work but mainly enjoying the culture and beauty of the country. I joined them for two weeks in May and had one o f the best experiences of all of my travels. DR wins the award for the most beautiful deserted beaches.

As a senior, Meghan, now 21, will be the last of us to receive a degree from Appalachian State University. She is pursuing a degree in Psychology and a minor in Criminal Justice (‘justice’ being the key word there). I believe you may be seeing a pattern here since she desires to get her Masters in counseling like her father. Meghan works hard towards her goals and is healthy and happy. She is a nanny for a six year old, Jamie, and when I see them together, I can well imagine Meghan as an excellent mother. She also has a great boyfriend, smart and handsome, Steven, who wants to be a Physical Therapist. I see them living on a farm somewhere and Meghan doing some sort of therapy using dogs and/or horses. Meghan has a huge dog, Marley, half Golden Retriever, half Chow, that we rescued from the Animal Shelter, and she is passionate about animals and their ability to heal.

For those of you who know my mother, she is still living in her home and is an amazing woman who continues to encourage others and have a positive attitude about life while suffering from acute rheumatoid arthritis. Evelyn, her part-time caregiver, is a God-send. Still living in Wilmington, my sister, Lynn, is teaching in the school where her 10 year old daughter, Summer, attends. Summer is a beautiful clogger. Peter is now working at Corning.

Dan’s mother is in her home after trying a variety of different living arrangements. Mike and Vickie are back in Memphis to be close to her. Their daughter, Jennifer, is graduating from the University of Tennessee this month and Matt is working in Florida. George and Bridgette are still in Atlanta.

We are land rich and pocketbook poor, I guess, but the cabin and land continue to be such a blessing to us. My family joined us at the cabin for a very special Thanksgiving this year. If Heather had been with us, it would have been perfect. We hiked under vivid blue skies and had a bonfire under a starry night with a full moon. The smells of turkey and wood smoke mingled with the laughter of games and conversation. The deer made their appearances and the deck was warm enough to read or rest on each day.

I could write more; so many ‘mores’ to say. But I will close with the wisdom I have discovered over and over again in my life. Live your dreams. Visualize what you want and put yourself in the place to receive it. Live each day in an attitude of gratitude and believe that God answers and fulfills all of our needs. Truly the universe stands ready to give us the desires of our hearts.

Have a very merry and blessed Christmas season.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-21T11:52:00.000-08:00

Ask and You Shall Receive

It’s the first of a new year, 2007, and the question I ask myself and thus, ask you is, “What do you really want?”
Quite a bit of focus in 2006 was on “The Law Of Attraction”. The premise is that what you desire and therefore, attract, you can have. It’s based on the law of physics and with the movie “The Secret” being viewed by millions, the power of this law of attraction has become a popular topic of discussion. So as we begin anew, “What do you really want?”
Be careful. The Law of Attraction is powerful. Be careful. Your thoughts can become things. The assurance is that what you believe you can have in your life, you can have in your life.
I have long believed in the power of positive thoughts. I have long believed and seen firsthand, in my own life, the power of visualizing what you want and need in your life and receiving it. But only recently have I begun to believe that God wants me to have the desires of my heart, all of them, not just those that seem reasonable or reachable.
It’s Biblical. “Ask and ye shall receive. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be open to you.” The universe and God stand ready to give you the desires of your heart.
So, what are the desires of your heart? If you search your heart, you will find that those desires may clearly match the desires that God would have for you. I suggest to you that when you search and seek, you find that all of us share common desires, that of living with purpose and accepting the abundance of that life of purpose.
The Law of Attraction, as explained by author Esther Hicks, is based on three steps. The first step is to ask. God says, “Ask and you shall receive“. So what do you want? A loving mate? Healthy children? Money to care for your elderly parents? Friends? Ask. I feel certain that those are also the things that our loving Father desires for us.
Secondly, wait for the ‘how’ these things can come to be. The universe, God, will open doors, provide opportunities that are not coincident or accidental, so that you can receive what you most desire. Most people who ask have no idea how they will get what they need. But God does. I believe He wants us to ask and then seek and be open to opportunities, open doors, to get what we long for.
Lastly, receive. Receive with passion. Receive with joy. And most importantly, receive with gratitude. Gratitude is what most pleases God. He lives for our praise, our thankfulness, our sincere appreciation for all He gives us. An attitude of gratitude is present with the asking, the waiting, and the receiving.
Expect the best. Just think about it. Would you give your children less than they desire or need? You give your children the best of you. God will grant you the best of Him and His life for you. You are His, He made you, and like an indulgent Father, I believe, He stands ready to give you the desires of your heart. For again, the desires are those things in life that fulfill our purpose, that very purpose that God intended for us to live out on this earth. We are not accidents or just here out of coincidence. We were put here for a reason.
God knows that we cannot do it alone. I believe He delights in giving us what we feel is not at all possible, those things that we ponder and secretly desire in the inner reaches of our hearts. He knows our hearts. He wants to hear us ask. He wants to open doors and reveal His power. He wants us to gladly receive and praise Him for His abundant gifts. All great gifts come for Heaven above.
So beginning today, thank God for those things that He has given you, those multiple blessings in your life, but also thank God for the gifts to come, those desires of your heart that He can provide. Use present tense. Thank Him as if it has already been given. And then rest in God. Wait upon the Lord. Allow the universe, through the powerful, all-reaching hands and all-knowing mind of our Heavenly Father, to provide the way to live the life we were destined to live at the incipient stages of our beings. Appreciating what God has given us attracts more of what God desires us to have. It’s the stuff that dreams are made of. It’s the miracle of a life lived in joyful appreciation for the abundance of a life well-lived.
In closing, Joseph Campbell said, “Follow your bliss.” God delights in our bliss. Ask today and begin life as God designed it to be. 2007 can truly be the year of awakening to the purpose and fulfillment of that purpose in your life.
Closing with the words of Jesus, “And I have come to give you life abundantly.”
Happy New Year 2007.