Holding loosely

What is needed is to learn afresh, to observe, and to discover for ourselves the meaning of wholeness.” – David Bohn

I’ve been planning a baby shower for my first grandchild (to see that grand baby Noah, follow the “our pictures!” link here or to the right). In addition to honoring the baby and parents, the shower will be about remembering the infants and infant care practices that have come before. As I’ve gathered information on baby care past and present I am reminded of how much we really don’t know. What we think we “know” is ever changing. For example, here’s some baby care advice from some years before contrasted to now.

-“Fruit juice should be started when the baby is 2 weeks old…Cereals may be started when the baby is about 4 months old.” [1945, US Federal Security Agency, Infant Care publication] -Versus- “Breast milk is the only food your baby should have for at least the first six months.” [2005, Am Academy of Pediatrics, Pediatrics 115(2):496-506]

- “Babies do not see very much soon after birth.” [1945 Infant Care publication] -Versus- newborns “can see objects at close range (within 8-10 inches)…” [2001, Klaus & Kennel, Your Amazing Newborn]

- “Feed your baby at exactly the same hours every day.” [1938, Children’s Bureau, US Dept of Labor] -Versus- “Feed him whenever he gives any cues that he’s hungry and at least eight to twelve times a day.” [2005, Giving Birth With Confidence]

I’m thinking then that it behooves us to hold onto what we ‘know’ loosely. And not just in baby care, but in health practices, and ways of thinking and being.

How does holding loosely to what we know contribute to wellness? A counselor once said to me that “to get a good depression going, you need a strong attachment to being right, good, and in control.” (It was when I did – have a good depression going, and when I wanted – to be good, right, and in control. No longer do I have or do I intensely want that.)

For me, greater wellness has involved learning to let go of knowing and relax my rigid ways of thinking. I don’t have any research to mention in support, but anecdotally I’ve noticed that as I’ve loosened my grip on knowing or having the answer, I feel less internal stress and more enjoyment in the moment. It has freed me to listen to others and learn. Not needing to do it just right has lessened my fear of failure and given me a willingness to embrace adventure and try new ways. If I can delight in the process rather than the result, I more easily enjoy being flexible and releasing control of outcomes.

I’ve been reading lately about mindfulness meditation, described by author and researcher Jon Kabat-Zinn as “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally. This kind of attention nurtures greater awareness, clarity, and acceptance of present-moment reality. It wakes us up to the fact that our lives unfold only in moments. ” This stance of accepting attention to the present moment helps me hold 'knowing' more loosely.

On these thoughts of release and living in the now, Jesus’ words convey a supreme – divine even! - wisdom for living well,

“What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving...Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.” –Matthew 6: 32, 34 (The Message paraphrase)

Wishes for y'all to hold loosely and let each moment be just as it is.

The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. – Proverbs 16:9

[This post's photos show 3 generations of Menning baby boys - Gregg, Mark, Noah - who have helped and are helping teach me to 'hold loosely.']

Already present

"Simple attentiveness, moment by moment, can open us to see and receive what is already present - the touch of God and heaven in our midst."
- Tilden H. Edwards

Alaskan mountain picture taken by Seth Menning

Inconsistencies

If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc.,

beginning from his youth and so go on to old age,

what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last!

-Jonathan Swift, satirist (1667-1745)

A grand child

Last night, at 10:18 PM, our first grandchild was born. Noah Elloyd Menning, son of Mark and Bri Nordstand Menning arrived weighing 8 pounds 3 ounces and measuring 21 1/2 inches long.

Here’s just a few quotes and pictures to celebrate the new sweet arrival.

“Perfect love sometimes does not come until grandchildren are born.” – Welsh proverb

“Your sons weren't made to like you. That's what grandchildren are for.” - Jane Smiley

“The nice thing about grandchildren is that you aren't too busy supporting them to have time to enjoy them.” Anonymous

"Grandchildren are God's way of compensating us for growing old.” - Mary H. Waldrip

Richer

"In youth we feel richer for every new illusion;

in maturer years, for every one we lose."

-Madame Anne Sophie Swetchine, mystic (1782-1857)

“Parker Palmer offers an insight into the experience of disillusionment: when we are disillusioned, we are sad, defeated, empty, and perhaps feeling betrayed; something we believed or trusted in has been taken away. Palmer notes, however, that the word suggests that what we have lost is an illusion; we believed in something we thought was real, but it was not real at all. Rather than mourn the loss of illusion, we might want to consider accepting the ‘disillusionment’ with gratitude – after all, we’ve realized we trusted something that turned out to be more mirage than reality…

As the old Zen saying has it: “Barn burned down- now I can see the moon.” Our “barns” of innocence and ambition sometimes burn down, and we mourn all the accomplishments and personal meaning we were going to store in them – but now we can see a reality beyond the barn that before was hidden.”

- Arthur Gross-Schaefer and Steve Jacobsen, from article “Understanding Clergy Burnout” in Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Matthew 5:4

Greatest bestest

Happy Father's Day!!

Love and gratitude to all attentive fathers, but especially to the father of my children. Gregg, you are the most greatest bestest!

If you know what I mean.

Make you happy?

Want to know what will make you happy? Then ask for neighborly advice - or so says a study from Harvard University, which shows that another person's experience is often more informative than your own best guess.

The study, which appears in the March 2009 issue of Science (Vol. 323, no. 5921, pp 1617-1619), was led by Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard and author of the 2007 bestseller "Stumbling on Happiness," along with Matthew Killingsworth and Rebecca Eyre, also of Harvard, and Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia.

"If you want to know how much you will enjoy an experience, you are better off knowing how much someone else enjoyed it than knowing anything about the experience itself," says Gilbert. "People do not realize what a powerful source of information another person's experience can be because they mistakenly believe that everyone is remarkably different from everyone else.” [From a Harvard news release]

Even though I’d rather believe that I really am remarkably different from anyone else, I’m leaning into this idea of learning from another’s experience. Just last night I listened to a couple of friends’ perspective: their wisdom gained from experience is now informing one of my decisions around vocation.

Cloud pictures

The heavens are telling the glory of God.

Psalm 19:1

Don't really know why, but I'm fascinated with clouds and love to take their picture. Of course, the photo never really captures the beauty, but nonetheless I persist. Certainly the created order reminds me of the Creator, and maybe my attentive fascination is as simple as that.

Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the soul.
- Nicolas de Malebranche

Flag day

After my mom chastised me for not remembering Flag Day some years ago, I seem to not forget the date anymore. I just learned (oh the wonder of the world wide web) that our US flag needs 64 pieces of fabric to make and that our flag has changed designs more than any other flag in the world. I don’t care to speculate what all that hints at. But still I am grateful for what the flag represents and the remarkable freedoms and opportunities this country provides. This nation has afforded my immigrant relatives a new start and me a secure life. Yes, I am grateful.

Continually fearing

"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."

- Elbert Hubbard

(Not a relative, though Edward Hubbard, who, in the 1930s lived across the street from this Frederic, WI water tower, was. I had two grandpas named Edward - neither of which did I have the good fortune to meet. )

It is time

it is time for me
to see the flaws of myself
and stop being alarmed

it is time for me
to halt my drive for perfection
and to accept my blemishes

it is time for me
to receive slowly evolving growth
the kind that comes
in God's own good time
and pays no heed to my panicky pushing

it is time for me
to embrace my humanness
to love my incompleteness

it is time for me
to cherish the unwanted
to welcome the unknown
to treasure the unfulfilled

if I wait to be perfect
before I love myself
I will always be
unsatisfied and ungrateful

if I wait until
all the flaws, chips, and cracks disappear
I will be the cup that stands on the shelf
and is never used

- Joyce Rupp
The Cup of Our Life: A Guide for Spiritual Growth
(Thanks to Susie for her "cup" picture)

Cramped

"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life."
- Anne Lamott

The flow

I appreciate these couple of different takes on the imagery of flowing river as it relates to spirituality:

Oswald Chambers compared the spiritual impact of a life to that of a flowing river. He observed, “A river touches places of which its source knows nothing.” And he encouraged Christians not to focus so much on where that river will eventually flow, but instead to focus on staying close to the source of our spiritual life.

And, I often need this reminder to go with the flow of the Spirit rather than my own effort:

"Don’t push the river; it will flow on its own.”

–Polish proverb

"Essential" good

A few suggestions for essential oil use (find some background and basics in previous day’s post):

*Maybe start with lavender. It acts as an all-purpose soother: pulls the heat from burns, quiets rashes, and decreases redness and swelling of wounds with its antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory properties.

*Next eucalyptus. It provides quick relief from congested airways and is easy to drop onto a tissue, or add to a room spray or humidifier. And it increases alertness – in studies done on truck drivers, inhaling eucalyptus periodically was found more effective than ingesting caffeine.

Add in others – For a boost in accuracy, try citrus oils – Japanese researchers found 54% fewer typing errors among keyboard operators when the workplace was scented with lemon.

As an aid in prayer and meditation try frankincense. I enjoy putting an oil blend on my palms and cupping them over my nose while slowly breathing in the vapours. [For my preferred meditative prayer oil blend, go to www.deesdirt.blogspot.com post Tues, June 2, 2009]

Especially lavender and eucalyptus and citrus oils are affordable for many. [To obtain essential oils, check the local coop. Find more aromatherapy uses and information at www.naturallyyoursforgood.net]

Lavender can be applied undiluted and directly to skin. NOTE: Because essential oils are so potent, most need to be diluted in a carrier oil for application to the body. It’s advisable to obtain a book on aromatherapy or do some research online, and follow the guidelines and recipes; there are some warnings to be heeded. Rarely though will an essential oil do harm rather benefit: essentially made of the same molecular essences as are found in our bodies, they are a natural good!

Another natural good

Plants are green and growing this early summer in Minnesota, and much on my mind. Today's post focuses on a component of some plants: the natural good of essential oils. I am fascinated by these molecules of aroma and find that exposure to them is therapy to me.

[Possibly you’ve heard of aromatherapy? - It is the skilled use of essential oils from flowers, leaves, seeds, fruits, roots, or resins of plants for aesthetic, psychological, and therapeutic effects.]

What are essential oils?

The use of the word “oil” is a bit misleading. Differing considerably from the fixed oils we readily call to mind such as motor oil or vegetable oil, essential oils are volatile: they evaporate quickly at room temperature. The essential oil is a tiny yet complex molecular substance that gives fragrance to a plant, is secreted and stored in specialized cells, and in the plant has functions in propagation and defense. For human use, essential oils are extracted from plants mostly by distillation or expression to yield a liquid which gets absorbed into the bloodstream either by inhalation or application to the skin.

Why use them?

Plants and all that can be derived from plants, especially utilized in whole as opposed to isolating chemical parts, are God’s idea and creation, and thus “it is good.”

“And God said, ‘Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees…And God saw that it was good.’” Gen 1:11a, 12b

"The cure of the part should not be attempted without treatment of the whole." – Plato

Essential oils can positively affect the whole person. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French Jesuit priest trained as a philosopher, is attributed with saying, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience” and “There is neither spirit nor matter in the world; the stuff of the universe is spirit-matter.” Essential oils and their effects remind me of this crossover between what we so often think of as separate parts of our being but what are merely components of our whole. A few examples of this melding of body-soul-spirit with essential oils:

While lavender helps the body by contributing to skin integrity and wound healing, it also aids in calming the mind by increasing alpha brain wave activity which is associated with a restful mental state. As needed, lavender can increase alertness through an increase in cerebral blood circulation, or it can be used as a sleep aid – research has found lavender vapour to be as effective for night sedation as many prescription drugs with components of linalol and terpinol having central nervous system depressant effects to help induce sleep. [Research cited in Nature’s Cures by Michael Castleman (1996)]

The scent of rose uplifts; this effect on the psyche is thought to be caused by release of endorphins. It is also beneficial to the body in various ways: tones and lifts skin, regulates hormone production, promotes circulation, and more.

Frankincense not only has a vast history of spiritual applications but also acts as a disinfectant for the body, and was used in ancient healing preparations. Recent research has implicated frankincense oil in killing bladder cancer cells without affecting non-cancerous cells. A gummy resin found in small thorny trees called Boswellia genus and well known as one of the treasures given to baby Jesus; frankincense was so prized in more ancient times that trade routes were established for distribution. Solomon had royal herb gardens with plants brought from Egypt that included myrrh and frankincense. Today frankincense is still used in meditation and worship: it effectively slows respirations to help quiet body and mind, and by symbolic association leads to centering calm for the spirit.

Oil and perfume make the heart glad. Proverbs 27:9

Much more information on uses of essential oils and explanations of aromatherapy can be accessed at my new NaturallyYours web site (though still under minor construction it is now up and running!) at www.naturallyyoursforgood.net. Thanks in advance for checking it out.

Were all the world

For years, I’ve heard character described as “who you are when no one’s looking.” Possibly this quote is a source:

“Perfect valor is to behave, without witnesses, as one would act were all the world watching.

-Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld, moralist (1613-1680)

[okay, so there's no pertinent reason to use this picture of the Appleseth girls, I just wanted to. How 'bout those anklets and homemade dresses though - maybe all the world was watching...]