Open Hearts, Propped Open Hearts and Outrage Fatigue
A few random thoughts have been rattling around the aging brain...
Propped Open Hearts: (This has a religious bend to it. ) I'm a fan of Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper, as previously noted here. She ends each post with a prayer, and this was last Sunday's: Dear God, this world is filled with so many people and so much good, yet it’s easy to slip into the feeling that I’m all alone. Help me remember that I am not alone. Help me remember that there are people who care. Help me to be a beacon of light and understanding for others as well. Amen.
Something I've been having internal conversations about is my ability--or rather, self-perceived lack of ability--to formulate prayer. Reading this one by Ms Shriver, who is a journalist I had to remind myself, hammered that home again. My verbal prayers tend toward the formulaic and ritualistic, as in the Hail Mary, Our Father and I find great comfort in those. I've decided that prayers are best expressed in daily actions rather than words or I think I've decided that and then someone shares how they formulate these more specific prayers or more poetic prayers, like Maria's, and I feel as if my heart is only propped open to the word of God. This, then, descends to my questioning my worthiness of God's love, which is absolutely stupid but there it is. More to come, I suppose.
Open Hearts: So, my heart does get filled to overflowing with...well, hard to begin where it starts and impossible to articulate where it ends. Jackson is the thread I'm pulling out today. Most of you know that he has special needs, a duplication of the FoxG1 gene. Fewer than 300 people, mostly children, have been identified world wide; fewer than 30 have been identified with a duplication. His parents have never set the bar lower for him and this has served him extremely well. Jackson entered kindergarten this fall and I was worried about how he would adapt to the environment and how the environment would respond to him. This morning I dropped him off at the before school child care program he attends where he is just one of the kids. I watched him come into the cafeteria, drop his coat and back pack, head for an activity, interact with his friend, Will. Will, by the way, introduced himself to me, told me he was in Jackson's kindergarten classroom, and then asked, "Do you know Jackson likes helicopters?" (the understatement of 2018). He is loved. He is cared for. He is challenged. He is part of the school community. My heart explodes. Kudos to the staff at Susan Lindgren!
Outrage Fatigue: This morning, I heard that President Trump's approval rating among his fellow Republicans is 85%. One of the commentators wondered if the multiple times daily reports of Presidential activities that often, in my opinion, defy the common boundaries of Presidential activities, have simply become white noise. Have we developed outrage fatigue? Not all of us, obviously, if the President continues to find significant support in his own party. And this is one I continue to circle back on: I DON'T GET IT. If anyone who supports the President and reads this blog would share why your support has not waned, I would appreciate it.
Thank you and Merry Christmas.
Cooking:
Haven't tried this yet, but the plan is for this to be the Christmas Brunch cocktail
1 1/2 T minced fresh rosemary
1 c water
1 c sugar
4 ozs. grapefruit juice (fresh is always best)
1 1/2 ozs Peppermint vodka
Tonic
1. Make a simple syrup by boiling sugar, water and rosemary together. Strain rosemary out of the syrup.
2. Put ice into a glass. Add 1/2 oz. simple syrup, grapefruit juice, vodka. Top off with a splash of tonic.
3. Ho, Ho, Ho
Propped Open Hearts: (This has a religious bend to it. ) I'm a fan of Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper, as previously noted here. She ends each post with a prayer, and this was last Sunday's: Dear God, this world is filled with so many people and so much good, yet it’s easy to slip into the feeling that I’m all alone. Help me remember that I am not alone. Help me remember that there are people who care. Help me to be a beacon of light and understanding for others as well. Amen.
Something I've been having internal conversations about is my ability--or rather, self-perceived lack of ability--to formulate prayer. Reading this one by Ms Shriver, who is a journalist I had to remind myself, hammered that home again. My verbal prayers tend toward the formulaic and ritualistic, as in the Hail Mary, Our Father and I find great comfort in those. I've decided that prayers are best expressed in daily actions rather than words or I think I've decided that and then someone shares how they formulate these more specific prayers or more poetic prayers, like Maria's, and I feel as if my heart is only propped open to the word of God. This, then, descends to my questioning my worthiness of God's love, which is absolutely stupid but there it is. More to come, I suppose.
Open Hearts: So, my heart does get filled to overflowing with...well, hard to begin where it starts and impossible to articulate where it ends. Jackson is the thread I'm pulling out today. Most of you know that he has special needs, a duplication of the FoxG1 gene. Fewer than 300 people, mostly children, have been identified world wide; fewer than 30 have been identified with a duplication. His parents have never set the bar lower for him and this has served him extremely well. Jackson entered kindergarten this fall and I was worried about how he would adapt to the environment and how the environment would respond to him. This morning I dropped him off at the before school child care program he attends where he is just one of the kids. I watched him come into the cafeteria, drop his coat and back pack, head for an activity, interact with his friend, Will. Will, by the way, introduced himself to me, told me he was in Jackson's kindergarten classroom, and then asked, "Do you know Jackson likes helicopters?" (the understatement of 2018). He is loved. He is cared for. He is challenged. He is part of the school community. My heart explodes. Kudos to the staff at Susan Lindgren!
Outrage Fatigue: This morning, I heard that President Trump's approval rating among his fellow Republicans is 85%. One of the commentators wondered if the multiple times daily reports of Presidential activities that often, in my opinion, defy the common boundaries of Presidential activities, have simply become white noise. Have we developed outrage fatigue? Not all of us, obviously, if the President continues to find significant support in his own party. And this is one I continue to circle back on: I DON'T GET IT. If anyone who supports the President and reads this blog would share why your support has not waned, I would appreciate it.
Thank you and Merry Christmas.
Cooking:
Haven't tried this yet, but the plan is for this to be the Christmas Brunch cocktail
1 1/2 T minced fresh rosemary
1 c water
1 c sugar
4 ozs. grapefruit juice (fresh is always best)
1 1/2 ozs Peppermint vodka
Tonic
1. Make a simple syrup by boiling sugar, water and rosemary together. Strain rosemary out of the syrup.
2. Put ice into a glass. Add 1/2 oz. simple syrup, grapefruit juice, vodka. Top off with a splash of tonic.
3. Ho, Ho, Ho
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