As the Year Turns

The Broerenkerk in Bolsward, NL.

No one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins,
and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins.  (Mark 2:22)

Sometimes I just want to tear everything down, sweep everything out, and start all over again!

In Dutch, when the New Year arrives, it’s called jaarwisseling:  turning of the year.  What I want to do this year is grab it by the collar and turn it completely upside down.

I’ve come to that tipping turning point when I’m sick and tired of many things from last year(s):   ASSumptions.  Expectations.  Jealousies.  Comparing.  Analyzing.  Judging.  Criticizing.  Calculating.  Keeping score.  Taking notes.  Guessing.  Being offended.  Taking things personally.  ASSumptions.

What did So-and-So mean when she said that?  Why didn’t she say “Thank You?”  I’m not a gourmet cook like she is…and that embarrasses me because…???  She Liked and Commented on So-and-So’s post but not mine.  What does that mean?  When did she get to be the judge of good photography?  How come they chose her and not me?  She is so poetic.  Why can’t I be like her?

And on and on it goes.  Those voices in the head.  The devils on the shoulder.  Whispering.  Always whispering.

Some of us have already talked about this.  Was it the same before the internet?  Before social media?  When did it all start?  At school?  Home?  In our religious up-bringing?

Always competing.  Always comparing.  Always thinking I’m less than.  Always wanting to be someone I’m not and never understanding why.

Me Me Me Me Me Me Me.  It’s always about ME.

I WANT SOME NEW WINE!  But you can’t pour it into old wineskins, says Holy Writ.  You’ve got to “turn the year” and start with something new. 

Love your neighbor as yourself.  Nothing new about that! 

Have you ever thought about why it takes us so dang long to love ourselves and be comfortable in our own skin?  Shouldn’t we have it down pat by now?  I think it’s a conspiracy to keep us from doing what’s important…like loving the world and trying to make a difference in it, wherever we are.

And so in these early days of a new, turned year, I am dead set on standing up to those little devils who get away with murder.  I love and accept myself just the way I am.  I love and accept you just the way you are.  (Which doesn’t mean I’m okay with either one of us getting away with murder, by the way.)

And when I bow with my Namaste to you, I do not compare or judge or chide…either one of us.  No one is asking "who’s better?”  But if you are the one, then Hallelujah.

IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE, Ginnie!  Which is why my intention for 2014 is:  To be concerned about my own achievements less and about the success of others more. 

Everyone wins!  Everyone scores!  Everyone is good enough!  Everyone is…better than good enough!

So, let’s all turn the year—this year—completely upside down, in whatever ways we need it, personally or collectively.  Let’s open some new bottles of wine and throw out the old wineskins. 

HELLO, 2014!  Are you ready for us?

Our Shoppe Gallery

While celebrating our weekends, and in the spirit of our global collaboration and community of support, we are featuring our personal art as 'Vision to Verb' notecards. 

Our hope is that they'll inspire you to join with us in our support of KIVA - empowering people around the world with start-up business loans.

 

 

 

Footloose and Fancy Free

At THIS time of the year????

Years and years and years ago, when I was a desk clerk in a psychiatric hospital at age 24, I discovered this is the time of the year when such institutions get their greatest influx of patients.  Just before Thanksgiving till sometime after Christmas.  The average stay on our open, ambulatory ward was 23 days.

Bill and I lived in a university town (from whence we both graduated) that first year of our marriage, and Mrs. Professor’s Wife, I soon discovered, was privy to this “influx” ritual every year.  She’d come in a total whack-job and, within hours, if not minutes, would prance around like she walked on streets of gold.

We all giggled, of course, because her rambunctious spirit lightened up the place.  I ‘spect some of the older staff were a bit envious of her, truth be told.  They watched the weight of the whole wide world slide off her shoulders during the holiday season.  How convenient!

But what I will never forget was how she’d abandon her shoes in the middle of the hallway at early morning’s whim.  I had a direct bee-line visual on them from my front desk.  She’d be nowhere in sight but it didn’t matter.  We all knew she was on an adventure somewhere, cheering up the other patients.

She gave a whole new meaning to footloose and fancy free!

And she taught me До свидания/do svidaniya (Russian for good-bye) as well as a word/phrase whose language I don’t know (Russian?  Hungarian?) and can only spell phonetically:  daw-pa-PAH-chin-yah.  With a twinkle in her eye, she said it meant “till we kiss again.”  She was old enough to be my grandma and it was I who wanted to take off my shoes.  It felt like holy ground.

These 44 years later, the light-hearted spirit of that lady remains as fresh and invigorating as though it were yesterday when she entered my life.  Her Hungarian heritage intrigued me because Bill’s distant line came from bakers there.  In fact, the traditional Christmas meal I still cook to this day is a Hungarian poor-man’s chicken paprikash (with homemade dumplings) my kids and grandson would die for right now, passed on to me by both Bill’s mom and aunt those many years ago.

Why she had to “commit” herself year after year, I’ll never know.  Was she expected to make more than chicken paprikash at home?  Did her professor husband hate seeing her shoes in the middle of the room?  Was he relieved when she was gone?  Did she have children who cared?

It doesn’t matter now, of course.  Nor do most of us have the luxury to get away from it all, for whatever reason, at this time of the year.  Maybe by now most of us don’t need to?  Maybe we’ve learned to cope and be and do and go.  All of it.  We’re the Wonder Women, of course.  Amazon Warrior Women taking charge of Life, no matter what.

Okay, then, maybe not.  But if all we do by now is kick off our shoes, at this certain age, and walk footloose and fancy free, I dare say we’ll make it through to the very end.  Right?

At this time of the year.  Yes!  

Our Shoppe Galery

While celebrating our weekends, and in the spirit of our global collaboration and community of support, we are featuring our personal art as 'Vision to Verb' notecards.

 

Our hope is that they'll inspire you to join with us in our support of KIVA - empowering people around the world with start-up business loans.