Working is Living

"I was laid off from my job yesterday."

I encourage each of you that are reading this to absorb the impact of this sentence. What does it mean to no longer be working? Think about that.

"I am unemployed."

Imagine how this statement feels when it rolls off of your tongue. Imagine that it is you and that you have to own this statement. You automatically feel that you are less than the people that you are speaking to. You must now be "among the unemployed." How many are there of us? Is the count up or down? Who will help us to re-gain employment?

In reality it is only us - the unemployed - that will reclaim our lives. Our livelihood. But, the fact is that most of us are fighting to keep our work. Can you imagine? Struggling to keep the means to feed our families and secure our futures.

I have been in the workforce for almost 35 years. I graduated from college in the late 70's and believed that there was a world of work in front of me, but I found that my work, my career, was controlled by people richer than me, and more "powerful" than me that considered me nothing more than a revenue source. Someone to pay for their salaries. It is a sad fact of working today - you are either a money-making machine, or you are tossed aside.

But, it is a fact that I was making money for my company, but not enough in their eyes. I was making money for myself and my family, but maybe too much in their opinion. I was the one to go so that my salary could be pushed into profits. For my managers it was a transaction. Moving cost into revenue. Not much more.

Isn't it amazing that corporate leaders can disregard the meaning of work from those that work for them? Aren't you astounded that executives can view you, who are a mother, a sister, wife, daughter, and professional as a line on a spreadsheet?

But, what I think that we all come to is that you and I are not that. We are our own flesh and blood. We have our own lives and our own value. We are not to be judged by those that take away our work.

Today I am speaking to you as much as I am speaking to myself. Deep within me I am strong. I know I offer tremendous value to the world and the people around me. I am not a line on a spreadsheet. I will remain here long after my name is archived in some corporate database. So will you.

I am living. I am working. No matter how hard you try to erase me, I am here.

My Christmas Angel

Today's my youngest son's 18th birthday. It's amazing for me to think that it was 18 years ago that he came home for the first time and took his place as the youngest of three boys.

That was a tough time for me, right from the start. I came down with an intestinal bug when he was in the hospital and couldn't come and visit him until it was just about time to bring him home. I was also in what was the beginning of problems within my marriage that I was hardly even aware of. It was just a general sadness, which over time grew into an issue that couldn't be fixed.

Peter was my pal as soon as I saw him. He was actually due on Christmas day, but he decided that he couldn't wait that long. Still, I called him my Christmas Angel. He was a gift from above for me, and he's been that way ever since.

When Christmas arrives in a couple of weeks, look around the room that morning. Sure, you'll see your gifts under the tree and hanging from the mantle in stockings, but your real gifts are in the smiles of your family and in the loving messages from your friends.

Happy Birthday, Peter. I couldn't have done it without you. -Dad.

My Dad

I'm sad tonight. The last 3 days have been awfully rough on my father and I think that it's finally catching up to me.

It started with a phone call from my mother a few nights ago while my wife and I were falling asleep. She told me that Dad hadn't been making sense all day and said that he'd been pointing to the ceiling at something that "flew". Words maybe, or random thoughts. It was enough for her to call an ambulance and ask another favor of her EMT neighbor to come over and see what's up.

I called my Mom back and things weren't good with my father. He couldn't focus and wasn't able to answer the most basic questions. On the phone I heard, "Bill, look at me. Look at me." Then the seizure started. The phone went silent as my mother and her neighbor lowered him to the floor where he stayed until the shaking stopped.

My Dad has been suffering with dementia for four years now, and it has finally gotten to the point that the destruction of his brain is beginning to knock on vital areas, causing him to blur and twitch.

I went to the hospital after work to be with him. He wasn't the man I knew. He was helpless. The man that I have worshiped all my life was having trouble understanding where he was and what had happened. "You've had a seizure, Dad." "What's a seizure?" he'd say each time I told him.

I held his hand as he slipped in and out of sleep. The lorazapam that the doctor gave him to calm him down was still hanging on in his system and he was having trouble shaking it, so he was asleep more than he was awake. I prayed as I looked at him, and the more I looked at him, the more the memories flooded my mind.

I remembered when he used to take me to his office in Boston for the day. I'd get dressed up in my nice shirt and khakis. Dad would be in his business suit. We'd walk down the  street and he would say hi to all of his friends. I'd be trotting beside him trying to keep up. I'd get so frustrated because I felt that I could never be as big as he was. I could never be as strong.

But now I held his old hand, bruised from the IV, and cradled it like I was holding a little tiny child. How could time have done this? What would I do without him?

The hospital released Dad the next day - yesterday - because he didn't have anything physically wrong with him. CT scans and heart monitors showed nothing unexpected, so he was discharged. He insisted on sleeping in his own bed last night on the second floor. My Mom and my brother barricaded the top of the stairs with a table to keep him there, but in the morning he stepped over the table and fell down the stairs. He's back in the hospital now for at least three days with cuts, bruises and a hematoma on his brain from when he hit the wall.

One time when I was in my early teens I went for a walk with him. His business had fallen apart and the debt was piling up. He put his arm around me and told me that he was having a hard time, and asked that I try to understand if he seemed a little lost. I did everything I could to be with him and help him. I knew that it was now my time to help him, after all the years that he had guided me.

Tonight I pray, "My Lord my Father, please hold my hand and tell me what I can do to help my Dad. How can I be there for him as he has always been there for me? Holy God, hold his head in your hands and fill him with peace. Let him know that he is deeply loved and cherished. In the name of Jesus Christ my Lord I pray. Amen."

Lucky Me

The title of this post is something I say to myself all the time. Why am I so lucky? Because I get to wake up and get out of bed every morning in my house and get into my car and go to work. At the end of the day, I get to come home and be with my wife and our beagle, Tucker. On the weekends I rake leaves and do laundry. Sometimes I go food shopping.

On Fridays, I drive 40 miles from work to pick up my son and bring him to our house which is an hour away from there. I clean up the dishes on Saturday mornings and take my son to band practice in Boston. I go in to pick him up after he's done at 7pm and take him home. 

Sometimes I lose sleep, but mostly I get sleep. I take a lot of medications for my pituitary issues which I have to swallow, inject, refill, refrigerate, store, update and remember! I have extra weight that I'm trying to lose. We have a house that needs some new repair every couple of months. We have a lot of debt from when I was sick and unemployed. I work on commission, so it's hard to budget.

Oh, the misery!

No. Oh, the grace! I am blessed in every step, in every mile I drive, in every leaf I rake, in every dish I clean. Why? Because I can do all of those things. I CAN do them! I don't have to rely on someone to help me because I can't do things. Think about it that way. What a blessing that my hands work, that I have eyes to see, ears to hear. How lucky I am to have two legs that can take me wherever I want to go. How lucky I am to have a mind that allows me to be thankful.

I can move, see, hear, speak. What else do I need? How about you? Can you thank God for your wholeness? Thank God I'm here!

Building Memories

What do you get out of your life?

Now there's a loaded question! That's why I left it up there on its own line. Living is a sum of days, of hours and minutes. So, maybe I should say, what so you get out of every day, every hour, every minute? If you're part of the go, go, go culture like I am, you're probably freaking out right now! You're asking youself "how can I get the most of every minute of every day"?

Well, that's not the point.

If we run around and do stuff all the time, what happens? We miss the things that add meaning to our lives! Think about it. What do you treasure most in your memory? Is it pushing through a day, or is it the times when you have stopped and looked at what is right in front of you?

I'll give you some examples from my own life. See if you can think of some of your own. Listening to one of my sons talk. Looking at my wife's beautiful smile. Watching my beagle chase after a squirrel. Seeing the trees sway with the wind. Did some images pop into your mind of times like these that you have had? Think of what you were doing at the time. You were allowing yourself to slow down, even for a moment, to make a wonderful memory.

I love talking to my parents because now in their senior years, much of what they like to talk about are memories. Times with us kids, time with friends. Now, if you think about it, many of those memories came from fleeting experiences - 60 years ago! What will your bank of memories be? If we don't pay attention, we won't have much of a bank at all.

I'm not saying that we need to go on vacation to have these things happen, though vacation is nice! We just need to live every day mindfully. "Stop and smell the roses"! You've heard that saying all your life, but I'm say yes - STOP, and smell the roses! Build in a way to pause for moments throughout your day and allow yourself to just "be". Let you mind be like a sponge and take in the beauty that is all around you. Even in the middle of an office or a parking lot, you will find beauty. Honestly.

I follow a great blog called DailyOM. They had a good one today that was the inspiration for this story. Check it out here: http://www.dailyom.com/articles/2011/30826.html. You can find the poem  Take Time to ... by Jeanette Cooper on it's own page on this site.

Seeing Life’s Miracles

My wife and I live in a small town not far outside of Boston. The other day I was thinking back to a cool day at the end of May, but everything was in bloom, the lawns were a beautiful green, and everyone had a smile on their face. And why not? The land was coming alive, and so were we weary New Englanders after a too-long and too-cold winter. I knew that many in the northern parts of the country were still in the waning days of the winter doldrums, but they were the waning days! Soon the hearty people of North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin enjoyed their spring too.

Now that winter is again pressing forward in New England, I look forward to another change in the seasons, and all of the joy it brings with family and faith.

Something that I have come to realize from meeting people all over this beautiful country is that we all are grateful for what we have for the most part – some more than others. Certainly there is plenty to complain about within our day to day lives: the driveway needs to be plowed; the lawn needs to be mowed; the garden needs to be weeded. But, if I allow myself to be in the moment of the snowstorm, or of the tall grass, I can still see the miracles that God brings to all of us every day.

God’s intention for us is to inspire us to do the very best that we can for Him every day. Many of you will look at this statement and think that it’s not true. Some will question and say, “If God’s will is for His people to thrive, then why did He flood my fields and distroy my crops?”, or “Why did He give me so much debt?” In reality, He didn’t do any of that to any one of us. His interest is in our success and in our salvation. Why would He do these things to us?

Many of you may disagree with me on this point. That’s OK, and I’d like to hear your thoughts. God has worked hard to make us responsible in His Word. He wants us to go forth, multiply, and take dominion over this earth and the animals that occupy it with us. But we have decided to walk away from His path and form our own way. Sadly, many of these choices have been poorly planned and not well mapped. When we start believing that our human ways are fine on their own, without God’s careful guidance, we can get ourselves into trouble. Sometimes big trouble.

Yes, there are bound to be floods when we build farms and houses close to rivers, knowing that we are taking a chance that the river may rise and distroy our property. Also, God didn’t give us credit cards and tell us to spend beyond our means. We chose to do that.

What I’m trying to say is that these are human problems, not God problems. Certainly there are those of us that are well-meaning in all that we do and bad things happen to us. I know this feeling myself. Five years ago I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, had a difficult surgery and two follow-up surgeries, lost part of my eyesight and all of my pituitary functioning. I have to take all kinds of pills and injections for the rest of my life, but I never blamed God. I pleaded to him sometimes, but never blamed Him. If anything, it taught me to look for life’s miracles and celebrate then as much as I can.

So, when you set out to blame our Lord for something in your life, just stop for a bit and think – why then would Jesus have died for us and our sins on the cross? God has a passionate love for us – greater than any love. It is not His will for us to suffer in any way.

As you work through something that has ruined you, or crippled you, look still for your purpose and your blessing and continue to serve Him. We are in His image. Be wounded and strong. See beauty in all that surrounds us.