There is Bright to Be Seen

            It is said that your situation is unchangeable. You are where you are. The only thing that is changeable is your outlook; your perspective.

My dear Fiancé, bless his beautiful heart, the other night said to me (oh how I love these moments)...“Either you aren’t being fully real with me all the time or you are just the most joyous person…ever.” It got me thinking because I couldn’t immediately say which one was true. I began to analyze how I look at things and how I deal with the things around me. I was trying to see if I do hide those things that are hard to deal with or if I really am just simply content with them.
           I am not here to say which I figured out was true about myself; I am still not totally sure. It’s probably a balance in between the two, but that’s not what my goal in writing this was.

It was just that it got me thinking;
A positive perspective is one of the greatest virtues.

I see and work with people all the time that would seemingly have a nightmare of a life to those looking in. But I see moments of total bliss and true happiness ALL the time in them; even pure contentment.
So I decided for the next few days I would post a new story that has taught me about proper perspective. These moments seem to always come so timely when I have been working with people, I’ll feel a lack of peace or discontentment with something and then God gives me a holy slap in the face…

           The first story comes from when I recently had to look at the life of a middle aged man that was developmentally delayed and write a paper on his strengths for an assignment.
Something that stood out to me was this quote of his…“I like candles and lamps and light fixtures and sunshine and something bright to be seen in our world and street lights and everything.”

Something bright to be seen in our world. He may not have been able to do a lot of things for himself, he may never be able to do anything close to what we feel is a normal life, but he stopped in wonder at anything that had light and had a belief that there was something bright to be seen in our world.

Yesterday morning as I walked to work at five a.m. in the rain and dark, tired and cold and in a bad mood I suddenly had to stop and look at the Christmas lights on some of the houses. I smiled thinking of Carl and the joy he would have found in that moment.

I feel I am the luckiest person on earth for getting to be around people who have such an amazing perspective on things of life. It constantly shakes me awake to the beauty God has placed on Earth.

That beautiful perspective is in a moment with Geoff where we are watching Sharon, Lois and Bram on my laptop and he reaches over to hold my hand, or when I give him some yogurt and he spits out a “thank you” in between fits of giggles.

I think of the joy children find in bubbles and wish we could carry that throughout our life.

It’s all about focus.

Do you focus on the bad, the mundane, the ugly;

Or do you focus on the Beauty of God in the light fixture and the bubbles.

Jean Vanier once said......

“Can we reasonably have a dream, like Martin Luther King, of a world where people, whatever their race, religion, culture, abilities, or disabilities, whatever their education or economic situation, whatever their age or gender, can find a place and reveal their gifts? Can we hope for a society whose metaphor is not a pyramid but a body, and where each of us is a vital part in the harmony and function of the whole? I believe we can, because I believe that the aspiration for peace, communion, and universal love is greater and deeper in people than the need to win in the competition of life.”

Oh..this time of year again.

There is just something about this time of year;

Something that makes us feel like kids again

Something that almost allows us to believe in something magical

Something that allows half the world, whether they realize it or not, to celebrate the birth of our savior

It is such a beautiful time.

Worth the time? Yes.

We have to meet with the decorator soon.
This means I should put together a book of all my ideas.
This also means hours of wasted time...but is it really wasted ???
I'll conclude; not.

A few ideas....

I have a few ideas to add a bit of colour to the wedding...wonder what Ben will think?? :)


First I could wear this sash and the girls could wear the matching hair clips as either broaches or hair clips.. the woman on etsy makes them all herself!


The second idea...which could also be modified was to have the girls wear colour tights with either neutral or navy dresses....

At least my thoughts are going somewhere....Its progress....

I carry your heart.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in

my heart) i am never without it (anywhere

i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

                                  

i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want

no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

 e.e. cummings 

The Beauty of a Child Like Mind

I have realized something that I have learned from working and volunteering with disabled people over the last few years. I often find there is so much I can learn from the people I work with, they contain something that most people sadly lose in life; they have a childlike hope and innocence when looking at life and most importantly - those that do - hold a simple faith and love for the Divine.

                I often find myself getting lost in ideas of life and all my personal theologies. I worry often about missing out on something or getting the wrong idea about who the Divine is and who He would want me to be. By monitoring everything I lose out on the simple moments of the Divines love for me. This is not the case for many I have worked with. Some people, I know, look at them and feel remorse or question God on the equal love He claims, but I don’t. I see a beautiful soul blessed with the wonder and beauty of a child’s mind. For a child, everything is simple. Doubt often hasn’t begun to creep up on them quite yet.

                I look at Geoff and see a strong and beautiful faith. He may not grasp the whole concept or many of the ideas; regardless, he loves those moments he can sit and listen to his Bible music for hours on end. What he knows to be true in that moment is the contentment and joy that he feels. He doesn’t worry about what he has or hasn’t done to please God and he doesn’t wallow on the mistakes he may have made along the way. He doesn’t even worry about the purpose of his life. He just rests in the presence he knows is there among those old hymns and children’s church Bible songs. To be able to have a simple pure belief in something like that seems magical; seems impossible.

                I started a job three weeks ago working with a little girl who has infantile refsum; she is blind, deaf and developmentally disabled. I have already fallen in love with her and the job. I also look at the little girl I work with; her understanding even less. Instead of Bible songs her playlist usually consists of The Beatles. Though she doesn’t live in a Christian home I’d like to believe that God reaches her too. In the morning the one thing she hears from her parents is “Goodmorning, mommy loves you ….Daddy loves you.”  God says he opens the eyes of the blind; every morning I see this beautiful little girl that can’t see a thing but I believe her eyes are opened to the Abba’s immense  and SIMPLE love through the love expressed by her earthly parents and hopefully in the moments I spend with her as well. I see so much of the grace and beauty of God in her smile. I have to laugh to myself when I hear her laughing out loud lying by herself in her room though she has no sight or sound to stimulate that laughter. I believe God is whispering His love for her in those moments; she may be laughing at the pure joy there is in knowing you are unconditionally loved or she may be laughing that we don’t all see it as simply as she does.

                I remember being at a worship concert and seeing a boy going all out in worship; the people leading from the front then asked the audience to hold hands amongst each other. I saw this boy look around for someone to hold his hand, but no one offered or was willing to. I walked over to this boy and asked if he would like to hold my hand; I then saw his face light up. For the next song I watched him crying out to God his head turned upwards his free hand in the air. I watched this boy’s simple faith and was amazed, and was jealous, and was inspired. This boy had down syndrome. This boy was beautiful.

                We could all learn a lot about life and who God is and the love He offers from the people we too often disregard as incompetent and who we expect to know little to nothing about God, Theology and life. Trust me; they are often some of the smartest people I know. 

Engagement photo update

It'll be a few more weeks until the pictures are all in; we got another sneak peek though!
Brittany Hildebrandt check her out!
http://brittanyhildebrandt.blogspot.com/