33 quotes I'm keeping since the New Year

 Well, some things are just meant to be remembered. Here are some gems offered me in the past 10 weeks.
Keepers.  Can you cull thirty things said to you that you'll keep?

33 Quotes Directed at Me Since January 1, 2010

or Things I can’t forget I was told:

1.   People need to be called on their bullshit.

2.     You're an easy lady to talk with.  I'll be keeping my fingers crossed and saying a little prayer (agnostics like to cover all the bases) that you find work and money for school.

3.     Being derivative is good – you make a ton of money, honey.

4.    You seem to be living a life of great vulnerability and compassion which challenges and blesses me.

5.     There is very little nutritional value to the potato (except for the iron in the skin, and beef and pumpkin seeds are equally good sources), and to top it off, they are in the "deadly nightshade" class of foods, which aggravate all inflammatory conditions.  As pain and inflammation are high on your list, I would plan for lifelong avoidance of white potatoes.

6.     You are a bitchy cantankerous sour puss.

7.    I am anxious to hear about your studies.  You aren’t just bright, you actively put your light to work. 

8.     If you are a Jayhawk, or just a Jayhawk fan, and you are in my address book, you are receiving this email. Sherron Collins is a candidate for the Bob Cousy Award this year (you probably already knew that!) and we need to show our support by voting for him.

9.   How can you sit there, not knowing anything about the rest of your life, where you're going to get a job, where you're going to live, and still have a smile on your face?

10.Yes. Your application is complete.

11.You're a tad younger than we are, but perhaps you remember the folk craze that went on late-50's early-60's. 

12.You didn't shoot yourself in the foot--that implies really wanting something and then inadvertently doing something that makes achieving that desire impossible.

13.    I’m hoping that Serena’s leg doesn’t fall off and that she beats Henin in the finals.    

14.  Nobody dishonored you or your family intentionally.

15.Hi Gaile, It was very good seeing you. You still have that great spirit that I remembered as soon as I saw you.

16.The word horrific is not good.  If you were here I'd give you a big hug.

17.Eat a few cucumbers before going to bed and you’ll wake up feeling refreshed and without a hangover.

18.You are a GOOD Chaplain.  You seem to instinctively know what the needs are or are not.  That IS a gift.  Go for it!

19.I too feel that it is so easy to be around you, Gaile. And I'm so glad to be reconnected. You know, I would love to have lunch frequently with you.

20.You are invited to attend an Open House at Catholic Theological Union (CTU), the largest Roman Catholic graduate school of theology and ministry in the United States.

21.                 I hope you had a wonderful time while you traveled the world of chocolate.

22.Were you in fear of losing everything, if you spoke your truth? I sometimes got the feeling you were defending something you were working really hard to defend.

23.Our conversation was energizing for me, too.

24.Your letter was the most acknowledging that I have received, Gaile.  Thank you.

25.I’m so glad they sent me YOU, a woman who’s been around. You are a professional.

     26.  Let’s just keep writing to each other on a regular basis and take it from there.


     27. I’m certainly glad that you burned some cookies as you made them for the boys.  I was glad to take them off your hands although I had a hard time getting the box open.


       28,    We all have had way too much to deal with to keep stepping into the same sad confrontations.
     29. You always used to be such a positive person.


      30.  Thank you for the smile....you know that it is good to smile and feel happy even for a second or two. Good stuff, Gaile


        31. Hoping for some good cheese and arugula, whatever the hell that is.
           
           32.  I've secretly believed for some time there is a racist element to the opposition to Obama, but I can't prove it.  I am praying for him.
        
            33. Crap, it's cold.

The Art of Forgiveness and the Power of Words

The Art of Forgiveness and the Power of Words

I have had the luxury or bad luck, depending on your point of view, of once having participated in a dog-birthing.  My three young sons , their Dad and I watched our dear young husky/shepherd give birth to nine puppies.  She had mated in her first heat with the Chocolate Lab down the road -(and having had the kids watch THAT prompted my new BOOK: “Sex Education: Looking Out the Window at what the Puppy’s Doing”). She now was ensconced in a humbly-fashioned huge cardboard pen we’d made in a spare bedroom just for that event.   We even pulled apart one of the pup’s sacs as Champ labored to complete her natural task and was falling behind. 

So, you can imagine how close we all felt to those pups.  Eventually, we gave them all away - all but one - the runt of the litter.  He, named Peregrine Falcon for the ebony of his coat and some romantic book-memories from the boys, became Perry for short, and  along with his mother Champ, and our other dog, Uncle Jake, (a stray whose story I have fashioned into an article elsewhere), became the Gang of Three.  They would roam our acres, they would run off to the nearby lake, they explored everywhere within reason, and always returned, led first by Mom, then her son, with Uncle Jake bringing up the rear.  So it was for one blissful spring.

One day I got a call from a far-distant neighbor, leaving word that they’d been spotted some distance away.  I jumped in the car to retrieve them. Driving down our long, steep hill, I saw too late the wagging yellow blade of Champ’s tail in the woods to my right. Just at that moment, I felt the thud of my car’s wheel - and despaired instantly of what I knew was to come.  Please, I thought, don’t let it be.... But it was.  I had hit Perry - and hard.  

I pulled him out from around my wheel, not knowing then that I had broken his back. 

I knew only the screams that he howled into my chest, for over thirty minutes as I drove to the vet’s.  He lay across my lap, then a 40 lb teen, and kept trying to reach up at me.  I knew I must; yet wasn’t there something - I thought - we could do - not to put him down? My husband joined me there; it took but one wail for him to hear and then say - Stop the pain.  And we did.

Any of you who has lost a loved pet knows the sobs that wracked me then.  Double sobs - for I felt the burden of having killed him.  I had taken a life.  The pain seemed unendurable.  But the worst was yet to come.

When we reached our driveway once more, I saw then that the dog’s collar lay there.  I had missed it in my hurry, but now realized that my sons were gone too - on their bikes, looking everywhere for the mishap they felt had occurred.  Soon here they came - Mom -where’s Perry/ Where’s Perry? - they cried.

 Now, if your household is anything like ours was while raising kids, you know the pace at which life goes.  We didn’t at that moment even have time to process grief.  We had soccer practices to attend. 

“Get in the car, guys,” I said bleakly.  “We’ll tell you about Perry.””

And so - as my husband drove with the 7 year old up front, I blithered my way from the back seat about what had happened, my ten year old beside me, agog and then stricken. Shouts of rib-binding “NO’s” -and honest tears - hot, blinding, rained in that stifling car.  And then, we reached the soccer field, and my seven year old, clothed still with the armor of YOUTH, wiped his tears, and sniffled aloud, “Okay. Okay, Mom and Dad. I’m going to go play soccer now, but then, when I get back I’m going to CRY some more.” He ran out and onto the field, with my husband in tow.

But the son still next to me, now TEN, had no such protection. He continued to heave and cry so that I thought the  both of us would break.   And then, a miracle happened.

Somehow, he pulled himself up, and sat tall, and turned fully to me, and grabbed my face in his two little hands.  He pulled me to him, almost nose to nose, and in the space of inches and the wisdom of centuries, he said the following.

Mom.  It was an Accident.  AND I FORGIVE YOU.

In that moment - my body changed.  I felt an extreme rush of relief.  Not joy, of course, but reassurance.  Relaxation.  I knew in that instant that all would-eventually - return to well.  My sobs stopped. The heaving lessened.  I could catch my breath, as I took in all the while the POWER and the MIGHT of those uttered words: I -forgive -you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have ever caused an injury of sorts - whether physical or mental - real OR imagined, and have then known forgiveness, you know what happened to me that day. If you have ever been the brunt of a hurt - physical or mental - real OR imagined, and have had the GRACE and AUTHORITY and WILLINGNESS to forgive - you know what happened between my son and me that day. 

The fact is, it wasn’t he whom I had harmed directly, but Perry.  Perry, though, wasn’t around to offer up his love to me once more - to show me that all would be right again in my world. For that’s what the gift of forgiveness brings one:  the ability to know that another chance - another opportunity to live in better harmony with the world - is his.  (And if you know dogs,  you know that dog would have forgiven me if he could.  For dogs really are the higher creatures on earth, as still another son has told me.  They know the ‘Secret to Life’ and it’s very simple - LOVE and BE LOVED.  Frankly, these ambassadors of love are really our angels on earth...). 

But no, Perry was gone.

Yet my son took ownership of the responsibility of letting another human being know that even if wrong, one gets another chance. Everyone deserves it!    Somehow, out of the mouth of this young boy came the balm to heal my soul for a careless act.

And what I learned above all, is that words DO count.  When I heard that phrase uttered, in all sincerity, I knew that never again would I take lightly how powerful words are. 

And since that time, forgiveness in all its complexity has become my life-long study. More on that later.