Color Outside the Lines

"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”

-Joseph Chilton Pearce

I was very fortunate to be raised by a woman who let me color outside the lines.

She raised her daughters singing and playing the guitar to us, and always made the time to read aloud. She has a beautiful range to her voice. Her artistic talents and tastes are different than my own, but she always praises and complements every thing I do.

I remember once my daughter was coloring a coloring book picture at my father-in-law's house. As he watched her, he kept pointing out that she needed to color inside the lines. Unable to bite my lip any longer, I smiled and gently told my daughter "It is okay to color outside the lines."

I learned that from my mom.

Alliance with Patience

I continue on my journey.

I see my life as a series of paths, and I am faced with many choices. When I speak of this journey, it is not as if I am ignoring my family and friends, but it is more of a journey within myself. A journey for me to determine who I am, who I want to be and who I will be remembered as.

What I have learned, thus far, is it isn't going to be easy, and my journey would be better served by entering into an alliance with patience.

I now need to find the path where patience resides.

Stories to Tell

I have so many stories I want to tell, but like most writers, I think it would help if I organized my thoughts. But for someone who doesn't want to make lists, this is almost impossible!

Life

Like, Love or In Love

Yesterday, I was so compelled to write about how much I miss my priest who is on a six month sabbatical. What made me realize how much I miss him, was going to church yesterday morning and sitting through a Mass listening to the priest filling in for him.

I listened as the replacement priest talked about his theory of “love” and “in love.” He stated that when people get married they are making a commitment to “love,” but not to be “in love.” So basically, too bad. If you are not “in love” any longer, regardless of your situation, you need to stay in the marriage because you made the commitment to “love.” No exceptions.

Wow.

I disagree, but I started thinking about “like,” “love” and “in love” and the difference between the three. I read an article with a good analogy. The article compared how a person would feel if someone they knew died.

If they “liked” the person they would be sad, and maybe cry once or twice.

If they “loved” the person, they would be devastated; the death would leave a lasting impression, impacting their life. They would cry a lot more.

If they were “in love” with someone, they would want their own life to end. I think when you are “in love” it means you can’t see yourself living without the other person by your side.

I don't think anyone explained the difference between "like," "love" and "in love" to the priest. And based on what he said, I don't think it would matter anyways.

How Did He Know?

The priest at my church is on a six month sabbatical leave traveling in Europe, spending the time learning to listen. I miss him very much.

I have to say, I really like my priest.

He is different than any other priest I have ever encountered. He has a hearty laugh, angelic voice and a peaceful calmness about him. He sings the Eucharistic prayers and when he stands on the alter and gives his homily, he speaks with grace and passion.

He is a tall man, somewhere in his upper 50s and smiles all the time. He lives in a house on the church property, along with his ailing sister, and has a golden retriever dog who spends her dog days with the priest. He holds a blessing of the pets ceremony every year, and the area where we live is rural enough where people have brought horses for the blessing. The priest walks around with the holy water making sure to bless all the creatures, big and small. Once, we took a gerbil, so we qualified for the smallest pet.

My children are not intimidated by him and he always welcomes them with open arms, cups their faces in his hands and teases them. One time my children were talking to the priest at a church function and they found out he is a Harry Potter fan. Because some churches have made the series out to be about witchcraft they looked at him with curious eyes as he talked about how the series is just about good vs. evil. He won them over.

I remember one time a few years ago, after mass I was standing in the atrium of the church, and the look in my eyes must have been one of being lost. He walked up to me, placed his hands on my cheeks, told me it would be okay, he kindly kissed my forehead and hugged me.

I was actually standing there, watching my children in the distance, wishing that time could stand still a little bit longer, so they wouldn't grow up so fast. How did he know all I needed was someone to tell me it was going to be okay?

I miss my priest.

Embracing Death

Death. No one ever wants to talk about it. I guess I can understand why. It all depends on your view of what happens after this life to determine if you are ready to talk about what might happen at the moment of death.

Over the years, I have had friends who are agnostic, atheist, and to sum it up, pretty much every religion. But one of the most interesting, intelligent people I know, signed an agreement about 20 years ago with a cyronics company to have his head suspended in liquid nitrogen after his death.

I have thought about it over the years because it is such a unique belief. He is an atheist so he doesn't believe there is anything after death, so his logic is why not take a chance that he can come back in the future?

Not me. I hope at the moment of my death, I embrace it. I hope I live a long life, can look back on it with happiness and die smiling. That works for me.