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As life continues to end, some sudden, some who have fought the battle to live, some old and then too young, it has brought me to ponder this game called life.

We all know that we are living a game, where we are unclear how it will end or when; but we know one day it will be over.

I am not sure what is more shocking, that it is over OR that we failed to live.

That we somehow didn't see the sand running through the hourglass.

Or, even more, that we took our hours, days and years for granted.

We lived like we had a billion tomorrows.

 

I am not afraid to die; but I am afraid to not appreciate each moment in time.

I want to fully use up my days.

To feel the overload of sense pleasures.

 

In the past, I hoarded hours of nothingness.  I sought to find spaces of time that didn't require me to move, or participate.  Empty moments being.  Not quite lazy, but I strove for times where I wouldn't have to engage in life.

I napped.

I may have read.

I soaked up the sun, motionlessly.

Now, I feel there are a million things I would love to do.

A day off has so many potentials, I have trouble deciding what to do.

How much of the day can I fill with fun things?

As another mass shooting is reported, you could stop your life to feel sad.

To mourn strangers.  I am not saying it didn't make me shake my head and wonder how a human being can be led to believe that shooting a whole bunch of people is his best use of his time.

However, I listened to Martha Beck while I was playing with fabric, and she said, that if it isn't your time to suffer and be in painful sorrow, perhaps then it is up to the rest of us to bring beauty and joy to the world. 

She then had us do an exercise…

Name three things you love to see.

My family

Nature

Art

Three things you love to smell. 

Sheets dried on the clothes line

The woods after the rain

Air on the water while kayaking.

Three things you love to taste.

Chocolate

Lemon Ginger Tea

Garden ripened tomatoes

Three things you love to touch

A baby's warm sleep cheeks

My husband's hand

Fabric

 

In moments when life seems overwrought with sorrow, if we can redirect our thinking to what we love, we are then not adding to the sorrow.

I have donated much time to doing the opposite of what I love, what excites me, fills me with wonder and joy.  

I am not sure why it took me so long to enjoy life.

It was as if, too much pleasure would be a sin.

Now, I feel the opposite.

It is wasteful to let time slip away unappreciated.

I could live to 90, but I also could be gone tomorrow.

I want to feel like I have used my senses – this body – to live life.

 

Each of us have sorrows behind us and ahead of us.  If today isn't a sad day, I hope you were able to soak up life by using your body!

Live like you are dying.

For we all are just a breath away.

I am wondering what ways we can come up with that will actually make a quantum change in the way we address sexual assault to children. How can we begin to look at this problem, without asking children to become the solution.

 

I get so triggered each time I hear of a new way to teach children about sexual assault and how they can either protect themselves or speak up to report the crime, as well as feel their agency over their bodies.

 

We never talk about who took agency with their bodies.  Or, those who failed to have boundaries etc.

 

It appears to me, that we are shining a light upon the child and what they can do, but turning a blind eye upon the adults.  It is like we truly do not what to know know know, who is sexually abusing children.

 

Like we know it is there, but we don’t want to stare.

 

Instead, we hope that we can teach the children to protect themselves as they live in environments that are hostile at best. And, in doing so abuse will lessen over time.

 

What ignites me is that this tactic of addressing the child, has gotten us nowhere.

 

There has to be a change in whom we address.

 

In my own life experience, sexual abuse was presented, a few months of drama ensued and eventually life returned to normal. Well, maybe there were a few moments of vigilance.  But, all in all, nothing has changed.

 

Lives were not flipped upside down. What is more incredulous is how they stayed the same.

 

As I witnessed this, I know that what we are asking of children is beyond insane.

 

Learning agency, for me, meant that I left relationships and organizations that didn’t protect children.  How will a child do this?

 

There are adults who have heard, “rumors” or actually know that someone is abusing and still continue to be in the same circle.  Where are the role models for children?

 

When does a child see that wrong behavior is not tolerated, when so many preach ‘forgiveness of sins’, so the wrong isn’t wrong for too long.

 

I know, that may will say to me, ‘that isn’t how forgiveness works’ protecting their faith and belief.  Failing to see that indeed it is how it works. 

 

Many sit on their hands, because they will let God judge, removing any responsibility of discernment towards family and friends.

 

And, the idea of family is family no matter what, also blinds them from seeing the crimes among them.  While the child is taught agency and that their privates are private.  We are placing the child on the front line of defense against pedophiles and those who are too faithful to see where the sins land.

 

I believe at one time, I was hopeful as I saw big organizations being exposed to their hand in child abuse, that progress would happen. Pen State, MSU, and the Catholic church to name but a few.  I had high hopes that we as a society would learn that our teaching children is not the answer.  And, that we had to treat the adults without leniency.  

 

Instead, they may have lost jobs, but many didn’t face criminal charges

 

The only thing, I can appreciate and accept, is that those who knowingly protect abusers, have to themselves be victims.  Victims who are not willing or able to see their own wounds.

 

So, in the end, will it be the children who ends this?

Will it help them to hear about sexual abuse in elementary school?

Can a parent opt their child out of these classes?

 

I am not certain what my childhood would have been like, had I known without a doubt what my father was up to and that my mother blessed his sins away.  

 

Would I have been able to feel my own agency in a family where a monster lived and my mother was okay with it.  Where children’s agency wasn’t respected. Would it have mattered if the school said I was owed that?

 

Can a school system change the legacy of a family?

 

How will we ever be able to get to the root of sexual abuse of children, when 95% of the time it happens within the family circle, IF we don’t address the family.

 

The prevalence of childhood sexual abuse, leads me to believe, we have to teach about family dysfunction and what that means.  How many families would want their children to know their home is not normal but dysfunctional?

 

Can they teach trying to maintain agency among a family that doesn’t regard person as valuable?

 

The quagmire that is sexual abuse within family and faith communities leaves me with little hope and no answers.

 

As long as we don’t value our children, give them power and agency along with adult support within their family circles, we will be doomed to the legacy that we were born into.

 

We don’t even teach that estrangement is possible and often necessary for your mental health and wellness.  

 

What parent would love that lesson to be taught to their child.

 

Me.

 

Imagine if this was more common than not and expressed as an acceptable lifestyle.

 

I am an awkward presence anytime family comes up.

Which is often.  Holidays, deaths, births and lost dogs.

 

Anytime, I have to say, ‘he’s my brother; but we don’t have a relationship…I feel less than a sister who does.

 

I don’t have answers to end abuse, but I do have my life as an example.  Will it be true, you can end abuse by leaving the circle where it resides?

 

Can that be a course taught to children?

I guess where I settle back down into is Self. What am I doing within my circle of influence to show my intolerance for sexual abuse against children?  What am I responsible for and what are my actions.

There is something in the laws of the Universe, where if enough of us change, it will make it more possible for others to do so and without as much effort.  I sleep better knowing the Universe flows in the direction of expanding.

 

 

On Sunday I am leading a workshop on doing Art Quilts.  

Art quilts start with an empty space.

You arrive without a pattern.

And, you let your imagination tell you what kind of fabric would be so perfect.

You begin on a journey where the ending is a surprise.

It is like present moment quilting.

In life we believe we have planned enough, so we know the ending.  There appears to be comfort in knowing, or even believing you know that which you can't know.

Creating Art quilts is the opposite of planning to know.

Your imagination feeds the next step and the next fabric selection.  It is to be open and present and listening for ideas that will seemingly appear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Easy choices, hard life.  Hard choices, easy life."  Jerzey Gregorek

 

We live our life in choices, and can stall the hardness; but not escape it.

There is some poetic justice to it all.

I love its fairness.

Nothing goes unnoticed.

 

There are moments where I am filled with overwhelming gratitude for the hard choices I was able to navigate. The moments where it would have been more popular, and seen as kinder, to choose easy.

I think, we think, that we can escape Hard. That if we continue to make the easy choice, eventually easy will be where we land.  Instead, the only way to the life of easy, IS to do  the hard choices.

And, it is only hard for awhile.

Hard to swerve onto a new path and be the change that is needed.

Answer differently.

Fix up new boundaries.

Set new rules.

Doing so, makes life fluid and present.

Choices will flood your space, when you decide to really think before you accept.

Actually, if you are like me, you rarely IF ever saw the choice.

In the past, my life was living as if it was on auto mode.

We all knew what I would do, think, or say.

I was passive in my life.

I am not even certain I was aware that I wasn't giving myself any choice in the matter.

It's as if I had a pre-coded system running my world.

 

What is so telling is that once I began making choices, asking questions, and challenging relationships, my life changed – I changed.

I did what was harder, than going along to get along, and in the end, I cleared out of my life the things that made it hard.

I can honestly say I have an easy life.  It hasn't been an easy journey, but in the end I landed in easy.

 

Maybe what makes life hard is carrying around the wrong choices.  Living the wrong choice.

 

I am so grateful that I was able to wrestle my life back from the pre-programmed state I was in.  And, sadly the program didn't give me a good life.  Nor, do I believe, did it give those around me a better life either.

The best lives are those who have the freedom to make choices.

Choices that may be hard at first.

Hard to declare what you want your life to contain.

What things you would like to do, and then those you are unwilling to do anymore.

I didn't make all the hard choices at once.  I began with the next choice that arrived.

I just did that one.

Until another choice arose and, I did what was hard.

I got so I looked forward to the next hard choice. For, I knew it would open up more space in my world.

I used to hate confrontation.

What I didn't know, was that it was a inner struggle.

Once I got clear on what I wanted –  all that I didn't want – arose for me to choose yet again.

Each hard choice that is conquered, adds a bit of badassery to you.

One of the comments my brother made to me, as he and I parted ways, was "How is that working for you Beth?"

I believe he sees my choices as abject failure.

And, perhaps in his eyes and what he wants they are.

We are no longer walking in sync with each other.

However, I can honestly say, My Choices are working unimaginably perfect for Me.

 

What I feel most at peace with is that I am showing a different pattern.

A pattern where choices are offered and the freedom to choose what suits you best.

There are no conditions to this pattern. It's a pattern of life choices.

Easy choice, Hard life.  Hard choice, easy life!