AFFIRMATIONS DIVINE

Critics and manipulators are keen to spot vulnerabilities.  Don’t think for a second you are the first or last person they’re going to try to take down.  Why?  Because they want something, and mistakenly think they can get it from you.

Remember the saying, “Just because I’m paranoid, does not mean no one is out to get me?”  Well, in the reverse, “My non-paranoia regarding my imperfections,  does not give you the right to make me feel less than, shamed, or otherwise unworthy”.

A loving person won’t hit you below the belt, in fact, if they hit you at all it’s with love, encouragement, gentleness and hope.

Sometimes in my human experience, my faults, intersect with someone’s less than altruistic observation.  That’s life.   What is not cool, is when I buy into my own negatives and mix them with other toxic opinions.

You can not be human without having had to confront a few dark issues.  Neither can your critic, except sometimes your critic is in denial.  Unconscious denial usually leads to some type of projection.  All a maddening cycle.  This is why Jesus reminded us not to get the splinter out of someone else’s eye until we deal with the beam in our own.

People who won’t recognize their own darkness, use your splinters as a diversionary tactic.  This can be as entertaining for them as a sporting event, especially  if food, drink and an audience are present. All at the expense of their own essence because, what they sow, they ultimately reap.

Be careful about assuming their shame and anger and mixing it with your own.  Take a strong stand against this evil.  Look to the perfection of Jesus and his forgiveness.

This love came to me freely, so I can give it freely.  Not everyone will want it, but enough people will, to make my life rich.

This post I dedicate to my Sunday School teacher, Glen Copeland, who was killed yesterday, by his own son.  Glen’s life was rich in so many ways.  I don’t know why Mr. Copeland was murdered, but I have a feeling it’s because he could not give someone what they wanted.  This act will never destroy the essence of Glen Copeland.

Sometimes hate wins the battle, but in this case, I know the Love and Kindness in the life and deeds of Glen Copeland, will ultimately win the war.

Robyn Webber

We can not quiet the storm,

Yet we can go to the deepest part of our soul

and find peace.

The part of the soul where the eternal Jesus says,

“My peace I give unto you, be still.”

We can not control anyone, or make them behave the way we wish,

But we can do inner work, to control our responses

and reactions.

Little by little we can become like the mighty oak, whose deep roots

even the mighty wind can not disturb.

Jesus calls, “Come to me, fear not, I overcame the storm,

and so can you.”

We can not make anyone love us,

but we can grow to love anyone.

We can see through the physical body, to the inner core of all humanity,

The invisible soul, made in the image of Holy God.

By loving the unseen, we love the seen.

We can start with ourselves.

Jesus loves me, this I know.

This love always spills over, regardless of the circumstances.

We can not acquire this ability all at once.

We can begin with weakness and progress to strength,

minute by minute,

hour by hour,

day by day.

Jesus whispers,

“I am with you”,

“I will never leave you on your journey”.

“I share this walk of humanity with you, and rejoice with you,

as all your days, grow into beauty.

You can.

Robyn Webber

The strangest thing happened to me over the weekend.

I got criticized.

 To my face.

But that was not the strangest thing.

My unrehearsed reply shocked me.

To the criticizer I said, “I’m not too old to change, and  I’m sure I can do things better.”

The real kicker was that I didn’t kick up a fuss.

To me, the criticism was unfair, unwarranted, and unkind.

Later, someone involved with the conversation even defended me.  Wow.  That felt good.

Like the bison above, I walked away.

That simple act was a victory.

Defending myself comes rather easy for me, and I do know how to put people in their place.

What I don’t have a lot of practice with, is letting people say what they will and treating them kindly and then walking away.

This time my response came naturally, I refused to be baited, and afterwards it felt great.

Just that experience made me realize, emotional ground has been gained.

The maturity of my fifties, has it’s benefits, and I almost love that the whole thing happened, because I did not know this was something I could do.

An emotional victory was won.

Today, I celebrate the picture of the bison, doing his thing, walking his path, existing in beauty and totally ok about it.

In this respect, we do well to do likewise.

Robyn

Let’s face it, sometimes love just don’t  work out.  It just don’t.  (Reader alert:  in this little blog, I might abuse the English Language, because let’s face it, there’s a jolly rebel in me.)

Really people, the kicker is that sometimes love does work out, in fact love can work so well, it actually feels like you’re drugged with happiness.  That might be good, I mean after all, we really are comfortable with the human race, and we need people.     Obviously we especially need good people and we are the good ones, right?  So we should be propagating.  Naturally when you’re participating in propagation, you just know your love is working out, amazingly so.  I mean, we’ve seen it happen over and over in the movies.

Now them other people who can’t seem to make love work must have some childhood problems, or issues, or a brain tumor, especially if it’s not their fault.  Sucks for them, too.  What a shame. Ain’t you glad it ain’t us?

Now I’m going to let everybody in on a big secret. Eventually it’s either gonna be us or yuns.  Nobody hardly ever, ceptin those who pass in childhood, gets a pass.  The good news is, iffn this is ahappanun to you, you can survive it, and still be a big fat happy winner.  There I said it, and it’s true.

In therapy, us in the group all learnt to say,  Every day in every way I am getting better and better.  Frankly, I just loved that chant, however for some situations, I had to change it up:  Every day in every way, for millions of people, love just ain’t working out.  And when it don’t work out, it’s more painful than any bad drug, it’s excruciating.

So I thought to myself, since I’m almost an expert on this, maybe I should pass along some of my wise learnin from therapy,  and the school of hard knocks, for all the sufferin souls who need a little cheerin up, right now.

First:  Let go of what you can’t hold on to, and grab on tight to what you have.  Figure out just what makes you smile when you’re  busy doing only your stuff, with nobody else around, and do that very thing, a lot!

Second:  Let those tears run like a river, but only for awhile, and then get yerself a really good antidepressant.  Maybe if the tears dry up within a year or 6 months ya don’t need one, but that’s your business not mine.  All I can report is that those little pills gave me my life back.

Third:  The only love that will never fail you is the love God’s, but you gotta do your part and love yourself.  That means no hurtin yourself, or anybody else.  Curtail the bad words and bad thoughts, and focus on puttin some new branches in the old brainstem, filled with healthy leaves of new positive growth.  Meet new people, do new things, grow a new life.

Fourth:  Failure is just fertilizer.  You’ve all seen the bumper sticker, S__t happens, just remember when it’s happening to you, don’t forget the water and sunshine.   Without good fertilizer, we never really become the beautiful person that attracts another beautiful person.  Now I’m atalkin insides here, but the outsides sometime need a little attention too.  Course in your fifties, this is plain as day. Don’t resent your age though, it’s a huge blessing, cause it’s kinda nice not to have to be all caught up in appearances.  After all, it’s the insides that make life work.

Fer now, I’m about done.  I know y’all can all add to this, and I welcome yer thoughts.

Never, ever damn Hope.  Love hope, nourish hope, and think of hope as something to thank God for.  Keep it alive baby.  It works.  If you can not think of anything to be thankful for, just thank God for the way you wish it, and then thank God he’s a gonna make it even better than that.  God loves to blow your mind with personal miracles, all you have to do is keep on sayin Thanks God,

and mean it!

This was fun to write, and I just hope, it will help somebody, who thinks, love just don’t work out.  You’re right you know, but in the end, if you had it for just a time, nobody can take that away from you, and trust me, Love never fails, it will always be back, in one form or another.  That’s a promise. I’m living proof.

Robyn

Happy 58th Anniversary to my Mom and Dad!

Barbara and Bruce Foster!

This post is dedicated to what I know about my Mom and Dad, and their love for each other.

My stream of conscious thought does not travel through any specific order of importance, I just love doing my thinking and writing this way.

But back to the topic, how did they stay married 58 Years?

In order to try to answer this question, let me describe them to you.

First, comes Fun.

My Mom and Dad are just plain fun.  People love to be around them because they are not boring.

Now my mom loves fine dining.

When we were growing up, that might mean McDonalds, or Shoney’s, or The Texan.

Eventually it began to mean Western Siz, Bonanza, (pronounced Bow-non-zah by my dad, with the Bow getting all the emphasis), Ruby Tuesday, and finally Taco Bell.

My dad used to object to the eating out, but he has come to love it as well.

Let’s face it, mom and dad are some of the busiest 78 year-olds I know, and they just don’t have tons of time for preparing meals and all that, plus, some of the best fun is had with friends and family while fine dining.

Second, comes Faith.

Now don’t criticize, this is not in order of importance.

Mom and Dad love God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

They just do, always have and always will.

They pray for their family every day, and their friends, and also a lot of other people.  Anytime I need them to pray with me over the phone, about any matter, day or night, all I have to do is call, and we all pray together.

They taught me long ago about putting faith above reason.

Third, Mom and Dad are extremely competitive.

My mom loves to throw my dad big parties.  In fact, she loves to just party.  She loves to shock him every Christmas and birthday.  She once convinced him that he was going to the airport to pick up a Llama, and, he believed her.

Well I was flying into St. Louis for his birthday, and I was the Llama.

Guess you had to be there, but it was pretty funny.

For every faux Llama my mother has bestowed upon my father, my father has bestowed fine jewelry upon my mother.

She probably does not want this info out there, but she has some loot.  Now if you are inclined to robbery or break-ins, stay away from their house, because trust me, you would not survive a break-in.  My father is totally all about the 2nd amendment.

I guess the take-away from the competitive tendencies would be to never stop trying to figure out how to outdo your parter in spoiling them rotten.

Fourth, Mom and Dad love Adventure.

So far, that’s my biggest understatement.  If you visit my parents home, there are animals everywhere.  These trophies are a testament to my father’s love of hunting and nature.  Dad is just passionate about hunting.  He has the Elk, Deer, Antelope, Mountain Lion, and probably something else I’m leaving out, to prove it.  Dad knows how to be a solitary person, and he restores his soul and mind while being with nature.

Dad also loves photography but he has no time for snobbery, he’ll use whatever camera he has on hand for his masterpieces.  For dad the very best camera is always the camera on hand when he’s ready to  sh0ot.  Dad takes delight in his pictures, and shares his delight with others.  We’re all begging him to make us a calendar with his pictures.  His answer to that is, “I’m a busy Man”.

 That’s his true artistic nature coming through.

Mother also is a hunter gatherer, but her main kills occur at the 75% off racks down at the mall.

My mother has never shied away from any store, (except maybe Kmart).  She always walks in as if she’s part owner.  This never ceases to amaze me.  High price stores can feel intimidating.  Not for my momma.  She marches in those stores like a warrior, ready to make a conquest, and usually comes home with the spoils.  Naturally, those spoils are shared with her offspring.  God knew what he was doing when he gave her four daughters, and she has been totally generous with all her loot.

She’s probably the only person I know who knows all the workers at her Costco, and when she walks in these people light up, because she really does care about every one of them.

Mom’s also a sight to behold zipping around the airport donned in the latest scarfs, hats and travel luggage.  My mom is nobody’s fool.  She knows about the dangers in the world, and we all think she’s a secret member of the CIA, FBI, and probably an adviser for National Security.  She’s the picture of love, suspicion, discretion, and pure fun, all rolled into one amazing lady.

So how did these two make it to 58, when so many, I myself included will not?

Independence, sense of humor, love, a feisty spirit, good genetics, and much more certainly all play a part, but in my mind their loyalty really jumps out at me.

My mom and dad are fiercely loyal to each other.  Period, end of story.

They just do not speak unkind words to anyone outside of the family, regarding each other.  Not casually, jokingly, or ever disrespectfully.

Don’t get me wrong.  All 58 years have not been peaches and cream, easy breezy.  They’ve worked hard on their union.  But honor and respect, has played an indelible part.

As much as they respect each other, they respect themselves.  They know who they are, what they want, and they want that marriage.

They give each other the space they need to be who they are, and they remain steadfast, first and foremost, to God.

What they do for each other, they are doing for God, and God in turn, has returned this loyalty back to them and given them 58 years to enjoy his gift.

Well, for now, this sums up my surmising.

Love you Mom and Dad, with all my heart!

Robyn

One of the things I love most about life is having adult children and watching them think and then listening to how they articulate their thoughts.

On a side note, life in general scares me to death, something akin to visiting a haunted house.

You get the drift, it might be really scary but in the end, it’s a blast.

Alyssa, who’s pictured above, scared me to death in 2013.

About a year ago I faced losing her, and this experience changed me forever.

Thankfully Alyssa is still here, and contemplating for herself the mysteries of the “haunted house”.

When you entertain having children, you know the fright “should” be overwhelming, the experience could do just about everything short of kill you, but for some crazy reason, the obvious hides and you expect when it’s all said and done, everyone will have a good laugh, and all will be fine.

When everything isn’t fine, you work long and hard, to embrace an entirely new definition of fine.

After being tossed into the agitation cycle for 25 – 30 years, followed by countless rounds of rinse and spin, we come out ready to see almost everything with a fresh perspective.

Every new year is a type of a do over, but you’re still in the haunted house.

Who knows what door will open next with a new shock to process along the way.

In our heart of hearts though, we keep hoping it’s going to be great.

Here’s the rub.

It’s not always great, sometimes its’s awful.

 Life is not a haunted house, but in your real house you have all types of rooms.

Crazy rooms, frightening rooms, peaceful rooms, exhilarating rooms,  and sometimes, tragic rooms, are all part of our metaphoric house.

Searching for cause and effect, will only sometimes make sense of the decor we’re absorbing.

Scarier still are the changing rooms.

Have you ever been caught in the hallway of the eclectic?

The next best thing is probably sleepwalking.

You know you’re really there but you just can’t quite absorb  it.

If you’re like me, you can do life, what ever the house or the room or the plan, if you’re not alone.

At least that’s what I used to think, until I saw it all this differently.

I learned to be alone.

At first I refused to accept the gift of being alone.

Over and over, I refused the gift until I realized, part of my destiny was to embrace it.

This time I spent alone in discovery revealed the truth about who I was, and what I was meant to take, and where I was supposed to give.

That’s when the real magic began.

My own personal correspondence course, with Jesus my teacher.

Jesus knew I needed special attention.

The solitary confinement was initially uncomfortable even painful.

Little did I know creative

solitude creates a true vacuum for joy, and unique genius.

A foundational enigma.

Grief creates joy?

When I see my children ponder, about life, about their children, about my words, I feel as if I’m being painted into their own masterpiece.

A masterpiece that took many years to evolve.

And I really love it!

Just my thoughts for today!

This affirmation is dedicated to Carolyn, and Connie, two dear people who have both inspired me to attempt to put into words what is for me beyond words.

Pretending is not denial.

Denial is refusing to see the obvious.

Pretending is choosing to look at something else besides the obvious.

Pretending is not just for children.  There are times in life when adults should pretend on purpose.

Is something really bugging you?

Are you stumped with problems seemingly unsolvable?

Which lousy situation won’t budge?

Are you furious?

Family problems got you down?

Boy, oh boy, do I have some stories.

This year for me, has been a dilly.

Our issues might be different on some points, but this solution is deceptively simple.

Start pretending your issues are solved!

Just the other day, I tried this.

My mind took a quantum leap into the future, where everything was just fine.

Here’s a picture of the first thing that happened to me.

My mental position changed my physical position.

Suddenly, I was not totally down.

Almost instinctually, another move was made.

Resistance overcame me.

 What good does it do to pretend, I thought, and I went down again.

Don’t worry if you too, are a little hard-headed, it’s a common phenomena, among the herd.

This time, though, I landed on my knees.

The jolt helped.

God’s promise jogged my brain, and I remembered.  There is no need to pretend, I have a promise.

All things, past, present, and future, God is using and working out for my good.

I don’t need denial or pretending, just a little faith.

So I can carry on, and get my work done.

How’s that for getting unstuck?

Now  I’m up and about and writing this blog.

Frankly, I couldn’t wait to tell you about it.

Whatever works, right?  It would be cruel to keep this to myself.

And a little pretending never hurt anybody.

Robyn Webber

In Fireworks Part One, I mentioned that elusive link between beauty and ugly.

Whether King Solomon wondered about this link I do not know but I do know the King had some definite thoughts regarding beauty.

In Ecclesiastes 3:11 Solomon gives us these inspiring words, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end”.

Certainly God knows I need more work to reconcile the pronouncement that God made  everything beautiful in the midst of a world where people are capable of horrific ugly.

Perhaps a little perspective is in order.

The first time I heard Handel’s Messiah, not only did I think the music was ugly, I also thought it was rather boring.  My mind did not change until I learned to sing the Messiah.  After working weeks and weeks to learn the music and words,  the Messiah became the most beautiful music I’d ever heard.   When I sang the Messiah with a chorus of marvelous voices last year at Carnegie Hall, I felt for the first time how vastly beautiful heaven must be.

This past July 4 in the San Francisco Bay, I took several pictures of the fireworks.  Truth is, I’m still learning a lot about photography.  Consequently, the picture above is really strange, and yet stranger still, I kind of dig it.  Maybe that’s how God sees my progress.

In junior high school, our bible teacher explained that although we sin, God sees us in future tense, as perfect.   That’s all well and good, but the obvious part of the getting to the future means living right now.  Unfortunately my life is even less perfect than these pictures, but you know what?

These pictures are my creative expression, my experience of this time, and I actually think they’re beautiful.  Maybe not technically, just metaphorically, as they represent complicated parts of a whole.  Things are captured in these pictures, that I don’t even remember seeing.

It’s the same way with tragedy.

Frame by frame,

as the picture of our life is being developed,

beauty will be added to pain, and faith, and hope, and love,

and the end result, will be God’s own creative beauty, sparkling through us, in ways we never saw at the moment.

Even though my life is sometimes even more unsteady than the hands that hold my camera, I know in my soul, that my experience of the world, though I can not fathom it, is beautiful in it’s time.

 Understanding what’s been ordered, permitted, done by others, done by God, immediate, delayed, given, taken, is not a life requirement.  From time to time a glimpse of how all these aspects of life work together creating eternal beauty comes my way, and that’s enough for my soul to rest.

My tears, God’s triumph.  My hate, God’s forgiveness.  My fears, God’s peace.  There is a time for it all, and for that matter, we have all the time in this world, and the next world, and eternity understand it.

In a future time, I will no longer see things “out of focus”.  Perfect perspective awaits me when one day I will know as now I am known, as a beautiful creature, made by God, in this time.

Robyn

The year 2013 will not soon be forgotten, at least not by me.  Why?  Fireworks.  Lots of them.

 Strange thing about fireworks, people just can’t seem to get enough of them.  Every year on Independence Day, how do we celebrate?  Fireworks.

You probably remember why, but in case you can use a refresher, here’s a hint…..July 4, 1776, the day the Declaration of Independence was signed.

Now I don’t know about you, but when I reflect upon my own personal metaphor of fireworks, normally, there is no cause for celebration.

Frankly, why should I celebrate explosions which for the most part are ugly, with more explosions so beautiful, that crowds are drawn closer, to gaze upon these bursts of creative beauty.

Within this question, the answer is given.  Fireworks, emit bursts of rare creative beauty.

I must be kidding right?

Where is the beauty in a blast of hot wind, while standing at the gravesite, waiting for the casket to be lowered?

Where is the beauty staring at  a loved one lying in the hospital bed, barely holding on with the help of life support?

Could any beauty be found in the countless daily disasters both small and great that inevitably happen to every creature lucky enough to draw breath?

For that matter, what is beauty anyway?  Pretty confusing question, unless you know the right answer.  The proof of the confusion, is the infinitely wide spectrum of what people define as beautiful.

This is my answer regarding the question of beauty.  Beauty is something you don’t need to add to, and you don’t need to subtract from.

Beauty satisfies as it provides pleasure.

A true mystery indeed, involves the link that holds ugly and beautiful.

Where does the one end and the other begin, and how often do they switch places?