…..the village would be clean. This saying has been reverberating in my heart and mind all afternoon.  I can see my little girl self with my braids and plaid skirt looking up at a picture hanging on my grandparents wall in the entry.  The little scene was of a woman. Sweeping her doorstep in the cutest little village. At the bottom of the painting was the inscription…

If each before their own door swept the village would be clean.

Our little patch of dirt. That little doorstep. That’s our responsibility. No need to tsk tsk the neighbours garbage that may be piled up. Most signs of neglect come because someone is sick. Overwhelmed. Sad. Hopeless.

So let’s look after our little patch of dirt. If your neighbour’s step is in a little need of love, take your small straw broom and sweep your neighbours step. Don’t complain to the other neighbours. Don’t draw attention to others lack. Just silently and gently sweep the dirt away.

Thanks to all those who have swept my step when I couldn’t .

Sometimes it takes a village.

I love you

xoxo

 

 

 

 

As I busy myself making rhubarb lemonade for my daughter’s Helen’s bridal shower, I have some classic country music streaming in.  Memories flood in on little butterfly wings as the songs I heard my Grampa sing in his rocking chair. Slapping his knee along with his deep baritone.  Other songs that have played today I’ve heard  my beautiful auntie Verilynn sing and Uncle Don.  It feels like such a gift as I head into these next beautiful days with my daughter.  Yesterday on the way to get some thrift store vases for the flowers, I saw a vehicle my dad used to drive and melted into tears.  These moments you wish they all could be here.  My darling grammie Helen with her rosy apple cheeks.  My dad with his quiet grace.  I look at my daughter Helen and see so much of her great grandmother in her and it makes my heart smile.

I love the intertwining of the generations at times like these.  The sweet memories that life enfolds us in.  So grateful that others have given me so many beautiful moments in this Journey of Life.

Enjoy your journey.

I love you.

xoxo

 

One thing that isn’t habitable is a war torn country.  When your safety is challenged every day, the citizens can’t be fully engaged in their lives and their families.  The privileges that were theirs before the war become frivolous.  They no longer matter.  All they dream of is Peace.  Safety.  Without it, we have nothing.

We live in Canada.  It’s a Safe Country.  Do we treasure our Peace?  Are we every day adding to that Harmony?  How about our Families?  How safe are our children in our home to be themselves?  Do they feel unconditionally loved?  Do they feel peace?  If they don’t, consider this…..

Unsafe is an Unhabitable Environment.  Let’s be Safe for Others.

I love you.

xoxo

 

I don’t know about you, but I lost my connection to my soul for many years.  When I was a child I knew how to feed my soul.  I laid amongst flowers.  I dug holes with my dog all afternoon.  I built sand castles.  Most of all, I talked to God.  My serotonin fix came from breathing salt air, running barefoot.  I ran.  I hopped.  I skipped.  My bathing suit was olive green.  I remember Aubrey in Barbados giving me my first swimming lesson.  I was probably three.

About bathing suits….

When I was a child, the beach was my home.  As the sun peaked it’s pretty happy head above the horizon, my little pink toes were hitting the deck.  Swimsuit.  Check.  Towel.  Check.  Adults. Sleeping. Uncheck.  The smooth stones of Grand Lake made a shaky wobbly welcome as my small feet tried to find foothold as I slipped and shuddered my way along to the inky darkness of the lake.  The morning rays of the sun glinting like little diamond sailboats along the surface.  The call of the loon so lovely echoing in the morning air.  My throat constricts as I recall these precious moments.

My toes gingerly would sink into the frothy shore of the lake.  Testing the water, my youthful back would arch backwards as the cool bite of the water would send a chill up my spine. Causing little goosebumps on my brown summer skin.  A smile would break over my youthful face. Ahh, morning swims.  The towel with it’s broad stripes would be abandoned by the shore.  Usually in childish neglect, the edges being licked by the water. Taking a few quick leaps, my  body would splash into the waves, my bottom would find a resting place in the the silky sand.  Little minnows would flit away from my happy body.  I would tilt my body backwards, and my young feet would poke out of the water like happy buoys bobbing along on the waves.

I spend time lately remembering.  So I can get back there.  When I became a teenager, so much changed for me.  The lake became about looking cute in a bathing suit.  Agonizing about perceived flaws.  That awful plague of irrational ugly thinking stole joys from me for too many years.

No more.

Today, I run.  I skip. I hop.  I lay in meadows.  I talk to God.  I have left Adulthood behind. I’m returning to Innocence.

I love you.

xoxo

 

 

Synonyms: martyr, fatality, casualty, underdog, stooge, pawn, gull, dupe, patsy, mark, innocent, sucker, hunted, sitting duck, babe in woods, injured party, sitting target, clown

Some of the synonyms for victim actually made me smirk.  There’s something funny about the unsuspecting getting the chair pulled out from under them as they sit down.  But really sometimes there’s damage done.  Wounds that take awhile to heal.  Yes we have been a victim of circumstance.  It’s true, at different times in our lives we all are a victim.  It’s life.  This crazy carnival of life sometimes will smash our pretty heads up along the side of the merry go round. Does that mean we didn’t enjoy the ride?  I don’t think so.  I’m waiting in line for my next go round.  I hope you’re all with me.

There’s a great capacity to heal in the human heart and body.  And we all heal.  Well most of us.  Unless we have a Victim Mentality.  Those are the people on the benches nursing their wounds.  Peeling the band aid every three seconds and wondering why it won’t heal.  Those are the ones focusing on the millisecond when fate had it that something malfunctioned and there was pain.  For a minute.  Maybe the ride had to stop.  Maybe paramedics were called.  Your heart pounded and there was weakness and even blood.  The worried stares of passersby and whispered words of worst case scenario.

So we have a choice.  Don’t you enjoy the wind in your hair?  The pleasant experience of soaring along on the ride of life? Hearing the music, feeling the beat of life’s dance?  The times you let go of the bar and put your hands in the air and your eyes water from the wind on your face?  Or are you enjoying that hard bench in the heat.  Your shoe sticking to the kids bubblegum spat onto the pavement.  The baby screaming in the stroller beside you.

Get back on the ride.  It’s where magic happens.  Your head may get smacked again against that candy cane painted grate again.  But so what.  Most of the ride will be exhilarating and joy inducing.

I’m next in line.  You with me?

Enjoy the Ride.

 

I love you xoxo

 

 

 

 

Those who sow in tears, shall reap in joy.  Sometimes our lives require us to sow seeds when it’s storming.  On stony ground.  On windswept cliffs.  Maybe the farmer’s almanac says its going to be a horrible growing season.   But we sow anyway.  Those tender little seeds contain life.  There’s hope in the seed of a harvest.  The sower has no control over the condition of the ground.  The weather.  But hope is what motivates the sower.  They’ve seen beautiful fruit come to fruition in seasons past.  They know the potential of the seed.   And their love for the beauty of the fruit and it’s gift to the world is why they sow.

“he that regardeth the wind will not sow.  whoever regardeth the clouds will not reap”

Pay no heed to the sheets of rain.  The dryness of the earth.  The stones that protrude.  Statistics that point to doom.  Gather tenderly the little precious seeds into the palm of your hand.  Those precious seeds from the fruit of generations before.  And scatter them in hope.

One day, you will reap with joy.

I love you.

xoxo

 

 

It does.  But it’s so worth It.  I realize I’d rather love and hurt than turn the tap off.  Because no matter what, there’s that dang trickle.  And eventually your heart just fills up and wants to explode. So let it gush.  Throw it around like confetti.  Don’t expect anything back.  If you do, it’s not love at all.  It’s selfish.  Nothing about love is selfish.  It sometimes feels scary to love like that.  Like somehow we will be consumed.  Drained.  But really giving love is what actually heals us.  Fills us.  It truly is better to give than to receive.  It’s a spiritual law.  Like gravity it cannot be denied. One thing we can be assured of, love sown in a soft heart will grow the sweet fruit of a relationship.  In whatever form it takes. So sow those seeds.  Recklessly and with abandon.  Rich will be your harvest.  Sometimes in the most unlikely fields.  Generations will thank you for spreading those seeds and will fill the hearts of many for years to come.

Love you all.  Lets Spread the Love.

xoxo