National Day of Gratitude

I follow Christian author Anne Lamott on Facebook. She seems to have this uncanny ability to know when I need a pick me up, in spite of the fact that I'm kind of agnostic about this whole God-thing. My feeling is that he's up there, but there are so many people; some I know personally; who need him way more than me, that he's busy. He just sort of looks in on me occasionally and then goes back to tending the flock of those who are really in need of a faith boost.

Today, when I logged into Facebook, Anne had a picture in her feed. It's National Gratitude Day. Of course her bent was for us to be grateful to have a loving God looking over us. My take is a bit different.

I could spend hours typing the things for which I'm grateful and that list would run into the hundreds or even thousands of items. Today, for instance, when I think about it, I'm grateful for spoons. I'm grateful for the yogurt which needed a spoon to eat. I'm grateful for water and for the bottled water I'm consuming more after having gone through a summer of relying upon soda. I'm grateful for Priority Mail from the post office. I'm grateful for electricity. I'm grateful for Google Maps. (Oooh. Those houses are an hour apart. I can do an inspection and a complaint in a day.) I'm grateful for hand lotion and wonderfully smelling liquid hand soap. I'm grateful for people giving specific directions to their place of business. I'm grateful for gasoline to get me to those places of business. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

I was, ironically, thinking of this over the weekend. I did laundry and I am grateful to Patt and Pam for giving me, this summer, probably the best gift they have given me, other than their friendship. They did laundry for me. Getting ahead, having nothing that needed to be done in that month while I saved for a new washer has meant the world in terms of quality of life. In August, when I felt like I'd been hit by a truck, the knowledge that I didn't have mountains of laundry to do meant the naps I took when I came home from work were done without guilt. Both of them are so smart. They can see what I need way before I see it. This is but one example.

It's easy to fall into the "oh woe is me" trap. I know this well. When one thing happens, another thing happens and then a third thing happens and it can snowball. It's so very human of us to look at our lives and think we're never going to catch a break rather than what is good about even a bad day. I'm so guilty of that myself. When I pass through those pot holes and come out on the other side, I feel like banging my head on my desk. "You dolt! You didn't practice what you preach. It was never as bad as you made it out to be." Our human nature gets the best of us.

It's good to have a refresher. Every day should be Gratitude Day. I need to remember that every day has something for which to be grateful. I tell those going through a bad piece that it's okay to wallow, to throw yourself a pity party, but only for an hour. Then hoist up your big girl panties, as the aphorism says, and deal with the issue at hand. Plus, remember that you awoke in the morning even if it was to bad news or a slog through a figurative molasses river, uphill, in the winter and barefoot.

So, I am grateful for my family and my friends. I'm grateful for a lot of things, small as well as large. I should be grateful every day and this date reminds me to do that.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

"It's okay. God's got it."

If you've been with my blog for some time, you know that I'm rather apathetic about this god person. I've been stepped on for a great many years and I think I can be forgiven for saying that I'm not sure he/she/it (?) pays any sort of attention to me. I can't worship any deity that seems to be apathetic to me; that seems to not know what I'm going through. I'm not into statue prayer, bead prayer or prayer of the desperate looking for anything. I just want to be acknowledged. There is an old question amongst ministry people when you say you're praying for something. "What if the answer is, 'No." Can you handle that?" Heck yeah. At least I'd know that I'd been heard.

In my theology, there is one God and all religions are manifestations of that one deity. It's like every religion is ice cream, but some are butter brickle or peanut butter or chocolate or chunky monkey. The similarities between religions are more prevalent than differences, although some religions more resemble chili dogs than ice cream. (They have extra onions, too, for extra heartburn.) So, if you have this prayer reality within your religion and you believe your deity hears you, then there is the possibility that she will not grant your request. (You cannot have a flame thrower to melt the snow in your front yard.) Perhaps your request would come with a caveat. (While you can't have a flame thrower, you can pay the tween kid down the block to break up the ice dam in the drive to let the melting snow run into the street. It's win-win for both of you.)

And then, there is the knowledge that [insert person or group of people] has life way worse than you will ever have it due to [insert life sucks moment or existence]. It's hard to be praying for a parking space to open up closer to the store so you don't have to walk as far when someone is praying not to die. It's about perspective.

Yet, when life hands you lemons, you can be forgive for saying, "I am sick of lemonade! I don't even like the stuff!" I find myself in this situation and I'm struggling with my perspective, even as the days have lengthened and the smell of spring is in the air.

I got a decent tax return this year. I spent 4 days, count 'em, DAYS, working the possibilities for what to do with this. Eventually, the numbers which won were to take down the dead tree at the NW corner of the house, get the cats their check up and shots, add to the rainy day fund and set aside seed money to replace the Jeep. There would be a bit for a treat for me and I would have money for the wedding trip.

Then the furnace died.

I awoke at 4:30 a.m. two weeks ago, thinking it seemed chilly in the house. Checking the thermometer, it was 58 degrees. Now, I turn down the temp at night, but not that low. I called the company who last performed actual service as opposed to the company who merely cleaned the beast. The latter company didn't have a 24-hour hot line. When diagnosed, the heater coil had gone out. Replacing that took 75% of my tax refund. Oh well, at least I had the money to fix it. Once fixed, it occurred to me that this problem has been on-going for several years. I've had to crank up the heat on several occasions because it just didn't feel like the house was warming. The repair company felt that the cleaning company, who said "everything is good for this year", didn't do any diagnosis. When I tried to find them in the yellow pages, they had vanished. [Insert sarcasm] I wonder why.

Anyway, there goes getting bids on taking the tree down. I can't have companies come out knowing I can't accept a bid. I'll just have to hope there are no hugely powerful storms which would cause a branch to come down.

I headed off to get the oil changed in the Jeep. It was time for the 21-point inspection. My U-joints are shot and the radiator has a very slow leak. The U-joints were of immediate concern so they were replaced last week. The radiator has to wait. I always keep a bottle of oil and a bottle of anti-freeze in the Jeep at all times. You just never know. My mechanic topped off the anti-freeze and said, "See you next month." Would that this were true.

I've just come back from an inspection trip to Iowa. The expense check I'm destined to get for that trip would, in theory, pay for a radiator replacement. My extremely car-handy brother has offered, instead, to replace the radiator if I buy the parts and dinner. I just need to take a weekend and get the car out there. We priced radiators and the attendant hoses and the $40 in gas it would take to get out there (Thank you, God, for low gas prices.) and man, is that tempting. There was a "funky" noise when I started the car today, after driving from Iowa to the office. We'll see if it's still there tomorrow.

There is wash overflowing in the laundry chute. I toss a load in the machine and go upstairs. After the thing fills, there is a horrible screeching noise. I go downstairs and it does not seem that the tub is agitating. I open and close the top several times and it appears that this agitation process is on-off, on-off. It still spins, however and the clothes were okay to be hung up to dry. But have they been agitated to be washed? Maybe just sitting soaking is okay? Maybe what I think I'm supposed to see is not what happens when it's on permanent press? Maybe I can find a rock along a stream somewhere? Or maybe I could take all my dirty clothes to my daughter's and spend the day before the wedding doing laundry? Maybe it's really okay?

The cats have to be postponed, at least until April. They seem to be fine, if more than a bit too fat. If the washer spun the clothes out, maybe, if I do small loads, it won't matter as much. If my brother really feels he can replace the radiator, it will just cost me a visit home and I can nurse the thing until then. I'm still really worried about the tree and I need to find a mowing service because the guy who used to mow my lawn is moving. I had sort of planned for that, which is "me-speak" for "I know it's coming but maybe it won't so I don't have to add mowing into my thin budget".

And then, Anne Lamott, the Christian writer I love so well, writes an amazing column about the trials and tribulations of being human. I won't post a link to the Facebook post here for those of you who loathe Facebook. If you'd like to read it, just type Anne Lamott in the search function and look for last Sunday's column. In essence, she was talking about prayer, about life and how frustration at irritations leads us to being angry. She drives a 1959 Volkswagon which doesn't have a gas gauge. She keeps meticulous records on how much gas she puts in the tank versus how much she's driven. The VW died but she said it couldn't be because it was out of gas. The good Samaritan who stopped to help her thought otherwise, but humored her while they when to his garage, got his big gas can, filled it and then added that to a bone-dry gas tank. He refused money for helping her.

She had recently encountered the title of this post coming from a woman who had been dealt a "high card" hand when everyone else had full-houses. I've encountered this in my travels about the Chicagoland area, coming from people with sagging and fallen plaster, remnants of sewage in the basement and a construction project digging up the front yard. "God is good," I've heard.

Suffice it to say I don't get it, not wholly, not fully. Lamott didn't get it either, at the time, but, this is what I love about her willingness to talk about this faith journey she's on, she admits that this is a struggle, that she's always going to wrestle with the "not getting it" part. The "It's okay. God's got it" is never going to come easily or quickly to the point that she can just blithely go through life secure in "God is good". When you're like me and you're not even sure God is aware of you or you think he merely opens a window "Laugh-In"-style and says, "Yeah, she's still there," it's not okay and God is not good and it's not going to matter if my god is cookie dough or strawberry ice cream flavor.

So, I'm struggling right now. The load of wash I did tonight is drying on the line. (In case you're wondering, I've never owned a dryer. It takes planning to make sure you have adequate clothes for the days ahead while a load dries on the line, but I grew up in another era when wash on the line was how you dried things.) I have 2 cats thrilled to see me. I have leftover pizza in the fridge and I'm grateful that's still working. The sun is out and the snow and ice are leaving. I'll need to jump into my financials and see where I'm at. Is there any extra in the rainy day fund for a washer? I don't know. But, I do know I can go to a laundromat and do a couple loads which would tide me over for at least a week. There are options.

I don't know if it's okay. I don't know if God's got it, whatever "it" happens to be. I'm soldiering on the only way I know how. I was thankful for a beautiful drive, for a chance to connect with my mom and my brother. It's in the little things that I think this God is good. The big stuff will sort itself out.

Beverage:  English Teatime Tea

Deb