Lessons in Gratitude Day 421

Posted on September 7, 2012 by mtchamblee

And here we are at the end of another week. My oh my the time is streaking by now. There’s no point in pretending it’s not, so I might as well go along for the ride. I am relieved to have reached the weekend, because even though I plan to work all of Saturday and Sunday packing and clearing out various parts of my house, I get to sleep in until 7 a.m., heck maybe even 8! I am exhausted and look forward to sleeping a little more than I do during the week and perhaps getting some much-needed.

This evening I am deeply grateful for my friends. It is characteristic of introverted people to have a few, close, deep friendships (extraverted people, by contrast tend to have a larger number and greater breadth friendships) and true to my nature I have developed a handful of close friendships in the seven years I’ve lived in California. Today I bookended times with friends—breakfast with one friend this morning and dinner with another this evening, with work and a visit to my wonderfully helpful therapist in between. All of this was preceded by an extremely valuable, practical, encouraging phone conversation with one of my sisters. I am deeply grateful to have wonderful people in my life—siblings by birth and others by choice.

Case in point: my friend Roland—who was the subject of the very first blog post I wrote for Lessons in Gratitude back in June of 2011. I realize how blessed I am to have Roland in my life. Today I talked about my life, about the lessons I’ve learned from the trials I’ve faced, about a lot of things. He listened deeply and intently, and every time I tried to bring the conversation around to him and how he was doing, he deflected it back to me, asking probing questions to get more deeply at something I’d said. At one point when I tried to divert the conversation yet again, he stopped me saying, “No, wait a moment, I want to sit with what you just said.” We sat for a few moments in silence as he went inward, head slightly bowed, eyes unfocused. Then we resumed, moving on to other related topics. I meant to write a brief note to him later, telling him how much I love and appreciate him, but got bogged down in work, traffic, and a whole host of things and didn’t get to it. I’ll do it before I take my rest this evening, sending him a link to this blog post so I can show him that I value him so much that I tell the world (well, my faithful readers) about what a wonderful human being he is.

It is such a gift to be listened to. I believe all humans crave connection, desire intensely to be known and understood by another human, to be listened to and really heard. That is what I get from Roland and from my friend Mary, with whom I had dinner tonight. Each of them possesses the talent for deep listening and for providing a gentle, loving container for me talk about whatever might be on my heart. They are different in how they do it, each bringing their unique presence to the conversation, their authentic selves to the friendship. These relationships are priceless beyond measure and will rank right up there with those important connections that will remain with me for the rest of my life. There are a number of people who hold particular places in my life, who fulfill different roles. Each has their unique space notched into my heart. I may not write much about them, but I am deeply grateful for them. (I hope you know who you are.)

I will likely soon be moving far away from these friends, and I will find myself creating relationships with new people in the new place. I hope I am able to develop a few sustaining friendships in the new place, while maintaining as best I can the friendships I’ve enjoyed out here. Technology makes it a whole lot easier to connect visually now by way of real-time video chats. It’s obviously not as good as being in the same physical space, but it’s got to be one of the next best things. And as corny as it sounds, I carry them in my heart. I’m grateful for my friends; she who has friends is rich indeed. And so I am.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 420

Posted on September 6, 2012 by mtchamblee

Tonight I am grateful for positivity. I have not always been the most positive person in the world; over the course of my lifetime, I’ve suffered from persistent bouts of pessimism, skepticism and other forms of negativity. As I have gotten older, though, I seem to be strengthening my capacity for optimism and positivity. That this is developing right in the midst of relatively challenging life circumstances is as remarkable as it is miraculous, but I’ll take it. Part of it has involved my being determined that I would not be overcome by the depression that has hampered me throughout much of my life. At a time when I could have easily succumbed to sadness, grief, and loss that engulfed me early in 20111, I fought mightily to pull myself out of the abyss of  self pity, self criticism, and despair. That was a long, slow climb, but I made it out of the hole and onto level ground.

There’s a line from a Wynonna song that says, “When you hit rock bottom you’ve got two ways to go: straight up, and sideways.” Well, that’s kinda right, isn’t it? I can’t say that I didn’t go sideways for a little bit before I headed straight up, but head up I did. And while I haven’t quite ascended to the top of the mountain, I’m climbing. And I’m grateful to be able to look back and see the progress.

The world can feel like a pretty negative place at times–sometimes I despair at the some of the hatred I see among people who have different social, cultural, and idealogical backgrounds. There are people who hold animosity against me simply for what I look like–they can’t see past the brown skin to even want to understand who I am and what it is I bring to the world. The vitriolic speech and sometimes violent actions that people direct against one other adds to all already toxic cloud of negativity that permeates our atmosphere and rains down on everyone. It makes the work of becoming and remaining positive quite taxing. Nevertheless, I continue working the muscle of positivity and am getting stronger.

The other morning I was fighting the blues hard. I decided to put on some upbeat music and dance around my room until I was feeling a little better. My daughter had created a playlist for me compiled solely of upbeat songs with positive, you-can-make-it lyrics. I was feeling better by the third song, and by the time the whole playlist had played all the way through, the blues were far behind me. The road to feeling better started with a decision to break myself out of a rut and intentionally put myself into a position to be influenced by positivity and to likewise influence others. I have made that decision many times over the past year and it has resulted in me being a healthier person–even in the midst of trying and depressing circumstances–than I was even before the calamities of 2011 hit me. It begins with the decision.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be little miss sunshine, seeing everything as beautiful and positive and perennially seeing the glass as half full; but I’m pretty sure that I also won’t be crawling out of a deep hole of depression and despair. I have learned/am learning that I can decide to move myself to a better place through an act of will and intention. It is not easy and I am not always 100 percent successful, but I’m determined to keep working at it and looking for positive results. Last week I ran across a quote from Oprah Winfrey that really summed up this aspect of my journey thus far, “It is a blessing to be able to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to be in a position to make the climb and to know the summit is still up ahead.” A big part of my journey of the past 18 months has been just that: putting one foot in front of the other, to keep moving forward as best I can, even if it feels like wading through peanut butter. I am grateful to have had the desire and the strength of will to do it. I’ll keep climbing until I get to the summit–I hear the view is spectacular from there.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 419

Posted on September 5, 2012 by mtchamblee

It was a long, tiring three-and-a-half hours at the Berkeley Food Pantry today. We served nearly 90 families in the small two-hour window during which we provide food to our clients. We were short-staffed on a day when the line up to the door curled out of sight into the parking lot and around the corner. There were points during that two hours when we were running short on food, people were coming in for bags faster than we could put them together. We worked nonstop for nearly three hours–my back and legs are tired and aching. But I am grateful to have been there today serving my neighbors.

There were familiar faces I’ve come to know over the year that I’ve worked at the pantry, but there were also newcomers, first timers coming in to get food because they could no longer figure out how to get through the month without help. I can’t help but believe that something is terribly wrong with the way things are happening in the country when I look at the range of people who were in the line today. Among the first timers was an ex-college professor who had lost his job a few years ago and has been trying to piece together a living ever since. I had first met him at the school where I had been employed and had been laid off from in March of last year. It was kind of a surreal moment for the two of us to be standing there. These are tough times for a lot of people.

I am grateful for the work of the Berkeley Food Pantry, for the service it provides for so many people in the community; but I wish that it didn’t exist and that it weren’t doing such a vigorous business as we did today. For so many people to be so in need of food in such numbers speaks to me of something being fundamentally wrong in our country. The statistics on hunger in America are staggering, and the people who show up at places like the Berkeley Food Pantry are not who some people might expect to be there. The face of American hunger is that of your neighbor whom you have no idea is struggling to make ends meet. It could be the student sitting next to you in class or the receptionist at your doctor’s office. It could be  a former college professor and a former university administrator meeting over two bags of groceries rather than a glass of wine.

Back in the days when I was much more financially comfortable than I currently am, I used to write decent-sized checks to a number of charities, including the local food pantry and an area homeless shelter that serves pregnant women. It’s one thing for me to write a check to a charitable organization that’s doing good work and write the contribution off on my taxes, but it has been another affair entirely to be actually working there week in and week out and interacting with the clients. And quite different for me to have experienced times when I was grateful to be volunteering there because my own refrigerator didn’t have much in it but condiments and I was able to take some food home for myself.

I am grateful for the moment of wisdom that compelled me to begin volunteering at the Berkeley Food Pantry in June of 2011. To have been able to give to and connect with my fellow human beings and join in the hard and rewarding work with my fellow volunteers has been and remains a powerful anchor in my life. When I am once again financially comfortable, I will be able to resume my charitable giving, which I have not been able to do in the last 18 months or so. But as best I can, wherever my “what’s next” leads me, I will continue to find ways to serve and support others with the gifts of my time and energy as well as my finances. God, let it be so!

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 418

Posted on September 4, 2012 by mtchamblee

Tonight I am grateful for who I am, not from an egocentric perspective of “I am wonderful, who wouldn’t be grateful to be me,” but from a social, cultural, familial, and spiritual perspective. I am definitely a product of my African American heritage, middle class  socioeconomic status, higher educational attainment, Catholic/Christian upbringing, Midwestern roots, family birth order, life dramas, traumas, and accomplishments, and countless other circumstances and influences that have imprinted themselves onto the fabric of my life, or rather are the threads with which the tapestry of my life is woven. I am grateful for the myriad micro and macro influences, the transformational, iron-forging moments that have shaped me into the person I am today.

I am proud to be African American. That has almost always been true, but it has never been easy or simple. I come from strong stock, from women and men who, though they came from having very little, worked with what they had and made it better for themselves and for their families. Like many African Americans in this country, I can trace my family line back to slavery on both of my parents’ sides of the family. But even in slavery and in the first years after emancipation, my grandfather’s grandparents were entrepreneurial and politically active. The passion for freedom and equality for all people runs strong through my father’s family line in particular; it was strong in him and my mother and they passed it on to their six children, and I can see strong threads of it running through my children and my siblings’ children.

I am grateful for all the marching and fighting and working and speaking of many African Americans (and their allies) who made it possible for me to achieve all that I’ve been able to do. We are a beautiful, strong, resilient people and yet we also continue to struggle as targets of hatred, prejudice, discrimination and the crushing weight of our own internalized racism and oppression that are flourishing in this country in 2012 in ways reminiscent of what we experienced decades ago. In spite of the struggles and challenges, I am grateful for my brown skin and all that has come along with it. Like I said, it’s never been easy or simple, but it is a core piece of who I am and how I walk in the world.

For the majority of my working life I have engaged in the work of pushing colleges and universities to welcome and embrace the human diversity present on and around their campuses and to create environments in which all people feel included and vital parts of the campus community. When I first started working on this back in the early 1980s it was really about building a critical mass of students of color and providing them support to help ensure their success. It was slow, frustrating work and while we helped many students be successful, I also saw a whole lot of them fail, having gotten chewed up and spit out by a system that at that time cared more about the numbers of “minority” students who were admitted to campus than whether or not those same students survived through to graduation. Many, many times over the past 29 years of doing this work I have wanted to quit–burned out, frustrated, angry, exhausted by all the opposition and obstacles to doing the critically important work of achieving equity and inclusion.

But whenever I’ve wanted to quit and return to the career goal of being a farmer that I’ve held since I was a child, something has happened. Sometimes, a former student who has gone on to do great work in her/his life will contact me and say, “I really thank you for the support you gave me back then. Because of you I am doing what I love and am making a difference in the world.” Whenever that happens, I am immediately reconnected with why I do what I do. Or sometimes, I look back at my parents or other people I admire who have labored long and hard for the causes of equality and social justice and I am inspired to keep going. They didn’t quit, and for now at least, neither can I.

One of these days I’m going to write a book–probably more than one–about this journey I’ve been on these many years. I am grateful for the lessons, even the most excruciatingly painful ones, because they are what has brought me to where I am today and will continue to move me forward. I will leave you with a poem that I wrote in 2002 titled, “The Fire that Forges My Iron.” I am grateful to be all of who I am and celebrate who I am becoming. Selah.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Fire That Forges My Iron
I look and listen while you speak
and I wonder about what lies beneath
beneath the surface, behind the mask
What white-hot fires have you been smelted, forged in?
What forces have hammered you into what you are now?
What shock of cold water, hissing steam solidified
you into what you are at this moment?
And what kind of new fires may forge you into something else?

I look at you, and for a moment I see me.
But when I look again more closely I see
That your iron was forged in different fires than mine.

I have been forged in the white-hot fires
of my unique circumstance.
I have been bent and shaped.
Hammered and flattened against the anvils
of time and history
of birth order and family circumstance
of genetics and biology and geography
Formed both in darkness and light
in dead silence and clamorous din.

And though your fires have burned as hot
And the hammer blows as brutal and loud
The fire that forges my iron is for me and me alone.

We may both be swords or shields or helms
and are wielded, brandished, or worn the same
Yet we each carry our own weight and uniquely
fit the bearer, the wearer, the brandisher.

I look around at other faces, now familiar
and recognize the scorch marks
the indentation of the smith’s tongs
and unmistakable signs of fire.

Molded, formed, wrought, shaped, pressed, fired, thrown, glazed.
Whether earthen or metal, each of us has come through fire.

“I know that I am fearfully and wonderfully made…I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth…”
To be continued….

© Marquita T. Chamblee, 2002
© Marquita T. Chamblee, 2012
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Lessons in Gratitude Day 417

Posted on September 3, 2012 by mtchamblee

It has been a long day. And while I worked steadily all day, I had a few more breaks during the work than I’d expected when I wrote out my to-do list for the weekend and for today. I crossed fewer things off the list today than I had earlier in the weekend, so I am feeling decidedly under-accomplished at the moment. Nevertheless I am grateful for what I did manage to get done. At the moment I am simply grateful to be sitting down, winding down getting ready for sleep. I would like nothing more than to get myself ready for tomorrow morning and then crawl into bed, but I wanted to spend at least a few minutes thinking together with you about gratitude.

I am grateful this evening for all the many blessings in my life–those basic needs for shelter, food, relative good health and many things I have at one time or other in my life taken pretty much for granted. One thing that has been clear to me over the past 18 months is how fortunate I have been throughout much of my life in terms of having the means to meet the basic needs of myself and my family. The past 18 months of financial and emotional hardship has taught me a lot about myself, about what I’m made of, and what I can do without. I am reminded of the every day struggles that so many people have experienced routinely for much of their lives in this country. I know what it feels like to have financial struggles during which I haven’t been quite sure how I was going to eat in a given day. (Thank goodness that as a volunteer at the Berkeley Food Pantry, I periodically can bring some food home.)

I have learned a lot during this time, lessons that I will keep close to me even after my situation improves. I don’t want to forget the challenges I’ve faced and the challenges I see others around me facing. I want to keep my attention on finding ways to contribute to the benefit of others above and beyond what I’m doing at work. Suffering is a good teacher in terms of helping me learn to relate to others who are going through life difficulties. Having struggled myself gives me a deeper understanding and connection to others who are struggling and creates a deep compassion and empathy for my fellow human beings. And I want to take to heart and continue to spread and share lessons in gratitude, to share with readers how one navigates the vicissitudes of life from a place of gratefulness. This too has been a very important part of my life.

Each morning as I finish up writing my morning journal, I write well wishes, phrases of lovingkindness and compassion for myself and others. I include in these last lines each day the fervent desire that I learn to cultivate the four divine abodes that the Buddhists teach: lovingkindness (unlimited friendliness), compassion, joy and equanimity. If I can cultivate these qualities in the midst of challenging circumstances, I will move that much closer to being the human being I want to be: living in the moment, not rueful of the past or fearful of the future, but truly living in the here and now. Gratitude is part of that for me; it is another practice that I continue to work to cultivate in my daily life. I am grateful for all the lessons learned over these days, weeks, and months. While I would not have chosen to experience the various challenges I’ve faced, they have forged in me a person of strength, determination and compassion for the suffering of others. I still have a ways to go to develop and strengthen the gifts. I look forward to the journey ahead of me. Selah.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 416

Posted on September 2, 2012 by mtchamblee

Someone should tell the moon that it’s waning and that in such a diminished state it is supposed to be less spectacular than it was two nights ago when it was full, the rare blue moon that won’t show up again until 2015. How is it that the rising moon, now on the wane, is so spectacular that I stood outside for a few minutes tonight and enjoyed it? It’ll be even more fabulous in about an hour when it has lifted above the treetops and I can see it from my window. I am grateful for the things I see from these windows in my bedroom. I don’t have sweeping vistas, views of the bay, or anything of the sort, but I see and hear enchanting things from these windows. Where I live next must have windows that provide me with the degree of entertainment and appreciation I benefit from now.

Eighteen months ago when I moved from what had been my home for five years to move into this condo I would have said that I was grateful to find a suitable place for me and my son to call home while I sorted out my life and began the long, slow process of making sense of all that had happened at the start of 2011. Still, moving from a comfortable, three bedroom home that I had shared with a significant other into a two bedroom condo in a complex ten miles away was a significant adjustment at a time when I was up to my eyeballs in adjustments. In some ways, I never fully settled into this space, which is too bad because it has been a relatively soft place to land when that first wild ride of the mechanical bull of life sent me sailing. While I have many times expressed gratitude for having a roof over my head, a safe, warm space for me to live while undergoing the healing process that is still unfolding, I haven’t often expressed gratitude for this place.

I am a big believer in signs so when we came to look at this place I recognized two things before we even went inside: the address was the day and year of my son’s birth and that the name of the street means “treasure” in Spanish. While that could simply have been an interesting coincidence, I like to think that it was a sign that we had found the right place. For the most part, it has proven to be so. Now as I prepare myself to move to another place in another town in another state I am hopeful that I can find another “treasure” where my dog and I can settle in and make a home.

Home has been a life theme for me; the concept of “home” has popped up in earlier blog posts. I have at some level been searching for home for much of my life, and while I know that “home is where the heart is” or home is where you make it, I still believe that there is a particular place where I can exhale like I haven’t in any other place. There might be many such places around the world, but I haven’t quite found home yet. I am not actively searching for it, either. That feels a bit like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. Perhaps it is a function of my age, (at 55 I think I can safely say I am now past middle age…) but I am less inclined to go looking for the things I want and more likely to let them find me. I’m sure that sounds odd, but I’m equally sure that’s the right approach for me where I am right now. As clear as I am about this, I nonetheless get a bit melancholy when I think of how much finding home means to me.

While there are a number of good songs that express the longing for home, the song, “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday” from the Muppet Movie (yes, the 1979 movie starring Kermit the Frog and Company) best captures how I feel about this mystical place. I am grateful to have lived in a number of different places, each representing some aspect of my life at the time. Only one of those places has really felt like home, but now that I know what home feels like, I’ll know it again when I find it. And as Gonzo sings, “I’ve never been there, but I know the way…I’m going to go back there someday.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m Going to Go Back There Someday

This looks familiar, vaguely familiar,
Almost unreal, yet, it’s too soon to feel yet.
Close to my soul, and yet so far away.
I’m going to go back there someday.
Sun rises, night falls, sometimes the sky calls.
Is that a song there, and do I belong there?
I’ve never been there, but I know the way.
I’m going to go back there someday.
Come and go with me, it’s more fun to share,
We’ll both be completely at home in midair.
We’re flyin’, not walkin’, on featherless wings.
We can hold onto love like invisible strings.
There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met.
Part heaven, part space, or have I found my place?
You can just visit, but I plan to stay.
I’m going to go back there someday.
I’m going to go back there someday.
written by Kenny Ascher and Paul Williams
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Lessons in Gratitude Day 415

Posted on September 1, 2012 by mtchamblee

Today has been a busy and reasonably productive day. I am grateful to be sitting down and essentially calling it a night in terms of physical work. Once again I spent most of the day on my feet or walking around, organizing, packing, throwing things away with a ruthlessness that would have made my friend Pat proud. As I mentioned during yesterday’s blog, I wanted to invoke the voice of Pat as I sorted through things and accomplished that in some good measure today. In spite of all of my ruthlessness and working, I am still surrounded by piles of junk: perfectly good things become junk when they congregate together. What I would really like to do is to create another space where things look relatively orderly. One room I can go into and say, “Ahhhhh, this room is done.”

I have that with Jared’s room. He moved out over the course of a about a week or so, finally getting 98 percent of his things out of his room. Today I removed the last remnants he’d left behind: a bunch of wire hangers in the close, two mismatched shoes and the air mattress on which he’d slept for some 15 months. I deflated the bed, storing it and its accessories in it’s carry bag, removed the last items and ran the vacuum cleaner in there. It was a very good feeling to clean the room up and long for being able to do that in other parts of the house, though I think that won’t happen in any meaningful way until I am actually ready to move out. I can’t yet say when that will be, though I am hoping it will be within the next few weeks or so, certainly by the end of September. October 1 won’t find me here, not if I can will this plan into place. We shall see.

I was quite shocked to be turning the page of my calendar from August to September. I remain baffled by what happened to the summer, it blazed by so quickly. The line from one of James Taylor’s songs popped into my head just now, “The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time…” It’s a reminder to me that, while time marches inexorably on, I can choose to  be overwhelmed by how fast everything seems to be moving, or I can enjoy it, learning to live in the moment with whatever that moment chooses to bring. Some days I am better at this than others, but it does feel like a worthy thing to strive for. Gratitude for each day, for something in each hour of the day helps contribute to my overall sense of wellbeing. It offers me a refuge during those times when I am overwhelmed by life and trying to make sense of what’s happening in my world. Even when I’m not sure what else to say, “Thank you, God” is simple enough.

This evening as I took a break to take Honor outside for brief walk, I reveled in the sights and sounds of nature in a little wooded area right behind our condo complex. I saw birds I hadn’t seen before, standing and admiring the beautiful colors and streaks of white in wing and tail. I basked briefly in the warmth of the sun and realized with startled surprise that we are rapidly approaching Autumn, my favorite of the four season. As I drove home from errands the other day, I noticed the leaves of the sweet gum trees already turning brilliant reds and oranges. So much beauty around me, how can I help but be grateful, appreciative of the wonders all around me.

Tomorrow when I rise, I will run a few errands before settling in to another long day of work. Tonight before I put my head on my pillow, I will flesh out a few more items on my to-do list, with a goal of getting a a bunch more accomplished. We shall see how it goes. Whatever I do manage to get done, it will be that much less I’ll have to do the next day. Still, I need to “rear back and pass a miracle” as my mother used to say. I’m not sure about the miracle part, but I’m going to dig in and work as hard as I can to get as much done as I can. I’ll be sure to report back in here as to how well I manage to do that, all the while holding a grateful heart which in the end is a very good thing.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 414

Posted on August 31, 2012 by mtchamblee

This has been one of those quiet, kind of low energy days. I didn’t get a lot accomplished, and I will have to get serious work done tomorrow. I’m glad to have a long weekend as I could use the extra day. I continue to look around me at all the stuff I have to deal with as I prepare to move myself. Most days I look at it and shake my head wondering what on earth I am going to do with all this stuff and how I will decide what to keep and what to offload.

I realize though that I am grateful for my stuff. There are things that are going to be hard to part with–some things that are sentimental, others that are useful but would be impractical to haul someplace else, and still others that I have absolutely no idea why I’ve kept them for as long as I have. There is furniture, like my daughter’s loft bed that stood in her room during high school and that she actually used her last year of college. With her having moved on to graduate school, it is time to dispose of the bed (though she asked me if I would save it for her children…) Then there’s the antique school desk and chair I bought at a flea market over 20 years ago. I lovingly refinished both pieces of furniture and for a number of years one or the other of the kids used it. When I moved to California from Michigan I brought it with me, purely for sentimental reasons, though I did find some use for it for a time. Now, however, it is time for it to go. It makes me a bit sad, but to keep it would be silly and impractical to haul it across the country as I head toward my what’s next.

As I’ve packed over these months I’ve gradually come to the conclusion that I have a lot of stuff that I no longer need. Whenever and wherever  I move next I need to lighten the load of things I am moving, and I will. In the interest of saving time I will also likely end up hauling some things that I won’t need and will have to offload them from the next place. I will try to minimize this, but know already that this will be the case. It is a bitter-sweet thing to do. I look at some of the items of all shapes and sizes and know that I need to let them go; but the letting go feels difficult and a bit melancholy. This is when I need to have a ruthless friend with me who will look at my stuff and look at me and say, “Some of this crap has to go.” My friend Pat would be good at that, but as she is all the way in Detroit. I will have to employ Pat-by-proxy allowing her voice to creep in my head and say, “Ter, let it go. You have to get rid of some of this stuff.”

And so I will let it go, with gratitude for all the pleasure I’ve gotten from some of these old books, toys, pieces of furniture, coffee mugs, knick knacks, and other sentimental items that I will either donate and pass along to others who can use them or will recycle them. There will of course be plenty of other things I will keep and bring along with me; things I will have to offload at some point in the future. But I am grateful for the opportunity to lighten my load somewhat as I prepare to move and no doubt somebody is going to be very happy to give my stuff a new home. It’s all good.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 413

Posted on August 30, 2012 by mtchamblee

Tonight I am too tired to write, but not too tired to be grateful. Sometimes when I arrive home in the evenings I should get out and kiss the ground, grateful to have safely made it home after nearly an hour’s commute. A few years ago I could get from my front door to my office in 1o minutes, 15 if there was traffic. Now getting home in under an hour is a miracle. But I am oh so grateful to have work that I can drive home from after nearly a year without having a job after having been laid off.

I am grateful that the organization for whom I have been doing contract work over the past six months was willing to take a chance on me. The work that they do is very different from the work I’ve spent my career doing, and the learning curve has been fairly steep for me. But they have stuck with me and I’ve been able to contribute positively to the work their doing in the community. I owe a lot to my friend Mary’s husband who introduced me to the organization and recommended me as someone who could do a good job even though it was well outside of my area of expertise. The leadership of the organization took him at his word, trusted his judgment and hired me on. It’s been a very valuable growth experience for me, allowing me, among other things, to recognize that I have transferrable skills–abilities that are valuable across a wide breadth of different types of agencies, institutions, and organizations. That has been very gratifying.

It has been interesting being a statistic, but then in one way or another I have spent most of my life being a statistic. Being among the large number of people who are unemployed or underemployed is not one I had anticipated for myself, and to be approaching the statistic of chronically unemployed (over two years) has at times felt demoralizing. One begins to wonder after so long a time without full-time work if they have any skills or competencies left that anyone would want and if they would ever find a place where they could demonstrate that they still have them. For too many people, they feel that the work they do is a reflection of their value as a person. So if they find themselves not working or not engaging their gifts and talents doing what they were trained to do, studied to do, were naturally gifted at doing, then somehow their sense of self worth is somehow diminished. I have struggled a bit with that over these months, but keep managing to bring myself back from it. I am not defined by what I do, what matters is who I am at my core. And that essence is definitely transferrable to whatever I might choose to do in my life.

I look forward to soon being able to demonstrate once again what I am capable of, doing work that is aligned with my background, experience, training and expertise. But until that time, I am faithful and honoring the work that I’m doing now and give the tasks that I do the same attention to excellence I would anything I might put my hand to do. It doesn’t matter what you do, what matters is the attitude and the energy with which you do it. My mother used to tell me, “I don’t care if you dig ditches for a living as long as you give it your best.” Now I would contend that my mother certainly did care about what I did for a living–I don’t think she had aspirations for me that I would be a most excellent ditch digger. But I understood her point and do my best at whatever endeavor I’m engaged in. I am grateful to be earning income working with an organization that does good work out in the community. My hope is that I can continue to engage in work that allows me to work for the good of others. In that I know Mom would be proud.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 412

Posted on August 29, 2012 by mtchamblee

I am sitting in my room, looking out the window at the rising of the near-full moon, listening to the sounds of the night critters croaking and chirping. They seem particularly noisy this evening; perhaps because it is such a fine night after what was a beautiful day. I find that I am drawing comfort from the sights and sounds and almost wish I were sitting outside to write. My heart is feeling a little restless tonight, though I’m not inclined at the moment to spend a great deal of time contemplating the nature of the disquiet. I merely want to acknowledge it.

I have been in the midst of  transition for quite some time. Simply put, my life was thrown into chaos at the beginning of 2011 and it has taken me many, many months to begin to collect my wits about me and orient myself into the strange world in which I landed. It was like being flung into another time or an alternate universe where some things looked the same but behaved in very different and unexpected ways. There have been times when I thought I was finally seeing the light at the end of a very long tunnel only to realize I wasn’t in a tunnel, but a cave–there was no other side, or so it felt at times.

This is one of those moments I wish I were a poet. I wish I could capture the essence of what I am feeling and convey it in such a manner that it would so resonate with anyone reading it, that they would be touched and moved. The best I can do most nights is offer simple reflections of gratitude as it presents itself in my life, how the many blessings of life bubble up into my consciousness and into these words each night.  I am grateful for other’s words of inspiration that seem to come from all around me–from authors and poets, philosophers and public figures, religious leaders and CEOs–their words encourage my heart, fire my imagination, stir my soul.

One of the upsides of social networking and the explosion of the blogosphere and other forms of instant communication is that our access to the words and ideas of others are immediately available. That is of course also one of the downsides. Simply by scrolling down a few screens of my Facebook page I can be both inspired by the words of the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa and other notable people and disheartened, incensed, and inflamed by the harsh, vitriolic, and hate-filled words of other public figures that squeeze my heart with sadness and anguish at the state of human relations in our country.

Oh yes, I wish I were a poet and could describe the incredible beauty that exists, even in the midst of difficulty. That has been part of my journey of the past 18 months. But alas, I am not, though I have instant access to the poets and preachers who can articulate for me what I can’t find words for myself. I will perhaps avail myself of the words of others this evening, reading Mary Oliver or Parker Palmer or the psalmist David. Or perhaps I will simply sit here in the dark stillness of my room, gaze at the moon, listen to the poetry of the insects and animals and feel gratitude for my one wild and precious life.

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