A Day in the Life - inside edition

I wake up at 7 a.m. and feel refreshed. It helps to have good long night's sleep.  

I pad off to the office, roll out my yoga mat,  and turn on my YouTube Pilates session. Short but effective is the way I like my online exercise to be. Next I click on Caroline Williams Yoga to do some calm, gentle movements with a prayerful focus. This is really a great way to start the day. I am happy with myself if I get to it four times a week. Lately, I've been doing alright. If I fall off the wagon, it always takes me a while to get back into the groove. 

Speaking of groove, have you heard of Body Groove? My friend at church mentioned she does this exercise program regularly (I found the free version on YouTube) focused on fun dance movements.  

After breakfast and preparing for the day, I grab my coffee, and head to my office to review my notes and begin writing my end of term reflection paper for the Spiritual Formation course I'm enrolled in. The paper is somewhat challenging, but hopefully it'll all come together. It's been a VERY long time since I had serious homework and a deadline to meet! 

Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash

I hear a knock knock at our door. My two grandchildren, Clark (5) and Audrey (3) are spending a few hours with us while mom takes little Dean to a doctor's appointment. Snacks, games, and laughter fill the next three hours. 

Then it's back to my office. I settle into my swivel chair, notebook at my right side on the desk extension, and a few pages open on the desktop computer.... oh, and my jar filled with individually wrapped ginger chews. The evidence of how many I've eaten mindlessly is in the wastebasket ;) 

A break for supper. 

Hubby leaves for floor hockey. 

A bit of Body Groove (it's got a good vibe :)  

Back to the computer for an hour or so... 

Time to relax with some knitting and perhaps a podcast or movie. 

Tomorrow I'm spending some time outside! 

Thursday Thirteen

 Thirteen Beautiful Things 

1. a five week old baby girl, looking intently into her mother's eyes

2. first snow

3. the sound of a pebble whizzing across frozen water

4. fresh eggs from happy chickens

5. birds at the feeder

6. a cup of delicious creamy coffee

7. freshly baked cake

9. classical music to write by

10.  chatting with a friend in a coffee shop 

11.  library books awaiting pickup on the holds shelf

12.  words on a page, finally completed

13. a phone chat with Mom

Then and Now

While working at decluttering a home a few weeks ago, I came upon stacks of old newspapers. This particular article had been torn from a page in our local paper dated Tuesday, January 13, 1976! It was a fascinating read. 

We probably have all heard of people or organizations  on social media whose personal articles, interviews, opinions, and more have been 'taken down' by 'fact checkers' simply because they have the power to do so.  

This published article below was spurred on by the death of the Chinese premier Chou Enlai (China's head of government from 1949-1976)  who who was apparently revered in the press for his intelligence, wit, and accomplishments, but hardly a journalist thought it important to mention the evil regime he was a part of. The italicized words here are excerpted directly from this newspaper editorial. I have highlighted some of the words in red ink. This is a timely reminder to us all. 

Selling One's Birthright 

 .... Just what is it we as journalists are here for......? 

We are here to make sure there is never one single, undisputed version of the truth handed down from the government to the people, to be accepted without question. This is the sole reason we make such pests of ourselves around the politicians and the police, and the reason we often draw attacks from the Chamber of Commerce types for being "knockers, not boosters". 

In short, we are the guardians of pluralism. And the Chinese Communists are the open and sworn enemies of pluralism. In China, a single institution, the Communist Party, controls every school, every press, every loudspeaker and every pen in the land. All books, all paintings, all music, drama and ballet are judged by a single criterion; whether they express the approved ideology.... 

The Chinese communists intend to do far more than merely make life difficult or impossible for independent thinkers, as the Soviet government did to Alexander Solzhenitsyn. They intend to make it impossible for independent thought to exist. 

Remember, independent thought is not a universal trait: it takes a special environment to survive. It is only possible where every individual is a member of many different institutions - family, church, club, labor union, trade association, state -- all making different and sometimes conflicting demands on his loyalty, forcing him constantly to choose and decide between different values and alternatives. 

Under the Chinese system, every institution in the land, including the family, is considered to be a local branch office of the state. The Chinese attitude towards the press was expressed perfectly by a Chinese journalist who was asked by a Western journalist whether a government-controlled press was consistent with liberty. 

"But  of course," he answered. "Here, the government serves the people, and the press serves the government. What could be simpler than that?"

But it doesn't work that way. No government, no matter how chosen, can ever "serve the people" so completely to be above criticism. If that attitude had prevailed in the US, the Watergate scandal would never have been brought to light. 

There is one right way for human beings to live, and that is the state of having no one right way to live forced down their throats. Even the Christians, who believe in God's plan for mankind, accept this: in their belief, God chooses to allow Satan to exist and tempt mankind, so that he may choose the good of his own free will, rather than accept it blindly. 

It is a strange symptom of the malaise of our times that many Western intellectuals seem to have a death wish: a desire to destroy the very social system that made it possible for them to become intellectuals. They tire of the pain of thinking, the hardship of choosing, and the constant frustration that comes of being responsible for the fulfilment of one's own dreams. They seem to want to give it all up for a system that offers security and a sense of common purpose --at the expense of thought. 

This, to our minds, is a perfect example of selling one's birthright for a mess of pottage. And journalists especially should keep this in mind... 

We cannot leave it to journalists and mainstream media to give us both sides of a story anymore. It's important to continue to exercise our right to freedom of speech, which includes the right to access various opinions and information so that we may determine the truth for ourselves. The information is out there. It should continue to be accessible. 

A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize.

 ~Sir Winston Churchill

An Epistolary Relationship

 As a child, we moved not only from house to house, but several times between provinces.  One of these transitions was at the age of fifteen.  New province. New neighborhood. New school. New church. That was hard. 

 I was leaving friends I had known for about seven years. We had all attended the same small Christian school, so our class didn't change much as we advanced grades. We were a close bunch. Thirteen of my  classmates agreed to become penpals with me. I took this letter writing very seriously, since it was my lifeline during a difficult time.  A few of my friends ended up writing for several years. One in particular is one of my best and dearest friends to this day, and we still communicate, but mostly through texting or phone calls (she lives in another province). 

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

Some days I really miss handwritten letters. They are tangible and feel more personal, I guess partly because they are often written in someone's own handwriting (vs typed) . A letter or card feels more like a gift. Often the writer's personality is reflected through the stationary used. Sometimes a small gift is tucked inside. I still have a box of letters saved from my younger days. It is one of my prized possessions.

 I'm not naive enough to think that letter writing will make a comeback. Emails, texts, and messages are much too convenient, which makes them more likely to occur. I do love that! 

Do you regularly send letters or cards through the mail? If you could choose between a friend's multi page handwritten letter once every two months or random emails, which would you choose? 

remembering moments

Although I haven't been blogging much lately, I usually have a million thoughts whizzing through my head, it seems. It's remembering them for later, deciding whether to share them, and then taking the time to actually share them that's the issue!

I came across an interesting quote recently as I was checking out the site www.matthewdicks.com, on how to remember the interesting stories we live, so that we can write about them later. The question to ask yourself everyday is:

If I had to tell a story from today, no matter how benign or ordinary it may seem, what would that most storyworthy moment be?

Matthew Dick suggests writing this memory down in two or three sentences at the most, with just enough details to remember it later. That's it. He dubs this "homework for life".

That seems to me a great way to generate content for a blog. I'm beginning to write these experiences in my bullet journal. We'll see where it takes me. At least I will have them down somewhere. Perhaps it'll inspire me to continue blogging more regularly.

Putting It in Writing

I was twelve years old when my youngest sibling was born. I was third oldest, in a family of seven children. My mom was very busy with running a household. I was so thrilled to have another little brother so I basically "adopted" him as my own. I loved that little guy and spent hours and hours carrying him around and  feeding him his bottles. As he grew, I played games with him, taught him  him and my second youngest brother songs while I played guitar, spent time with him outdoors, and even taught him dance steps to Abba songs (our favorite memory)! This created a special bond which we still have to this day.

When he was about eight years old, I moved out of our family home for good. When he was ten, I moved a good day and some's travel away from home to take on my very first teaching position as a Grade 3 teacher in a small remote village on Vancouver Island. It seemed like a million miles away.

Recently I came across a letter I received during that time.  On one side was my dad's handwriting, a  letter telling me how proud he was of me. He had suggested my little brother write me on the back of the page. What a memory! I valued those letters so much.  I have stored this wrinkled, repeatedly folded and unfolded page in its original envelope in  my bedside table drawer for many years--I don't want to risk misplacing it. It is a connection to that special time in my life when I was beginning to venture out into the world as a young adult.

For my brother's birthday this year, I sent him a card with a copy of his letter included in it. We had a great time reminiscing about it.

The art of handwritten communication is worth reviving. Somehow an email doesn't bring the same sense of joy and appreciation as a handwritten card or letter, does it? I hope to do better and send more personal notes and less emails to thank or celebrate those I appreciate.

Do you value handwritten cards and letters?