Time Passages

Stop wasting your time.

Words spoken out loud.  Plain as day. During my early morning walk.  On the first day of .... June.  There was no doubt who was doing the talking.  It wasn't E. F. Hutton.

Still.  I was listening.

It was a day full of powerful messages ... that has been followed by more days of insightful prods ... which is very cool ... because once again I am choosing to believe that June ... will somehow hold some of the magic ... that's missing in my life.

Enjoy your time.

A friend's facebook post.  I saw it after I completed my walk.  Put the two together ... it's making perfect sense.

If I stop wasting my time ... on things that aren't real ... then I will be free to ... enjoy my time ...on real stuff ... in real time.

I am listening. Still.

I have been bombarded with thoughts ... messages ... opportunities ... about me ... my time ... it's value ... and where to share it.

Not exactly sure when the word ... bombard ... popped into my head.  But it's appropriate.  And accurate.  It has to do with the hurling of large stones ... and there's no doubt the head-smacks are on target ... and have captured my attention.

A bombard ... and a catapult.  No arsenal is complete without them.

Plans are unfolding.  Changes are revealing themselves.  Unseen blessings are already on the way.  Plans, changes & blessings ... that are going to define the next chapter of my life.

All of these thoughts have been energizing & exciting. And in typical MJ-fashion, I have been arranging and re-arranging the hodgepodge of puzzle pieces on the table.  The old comfortable ones that I am sure still have a place in the picture ... and the new vibrant ones that are begging to be picked up & handled.

At long last, it seems that things are starting to fall into place ... to fit into a pattern that makes sense ... and I can almost see it ... the emerging image of what's coming next ...

Then out of the blue ... sitting on a patio ... a friend offered up a different perspective.

Sure these pieces all fit together ... but if you move this one over here ... and that one over there ... everything changes ... it's a much BIGGER picture ... than you have even imagined! Surely you can see it ... now. Why in the world would you settle for anything less?!? Haven't you wasted enough time ... where you're at ... already

"Don't you want to be ... ALL .. that you can be, MJ?!?"

That's what he said. And ... I am ... still ... listening.

Transit of Venus. June 6, 2012. Little Rock, Arkansas by Ben Moody, Ben Moody Photography

It's June. The transit of Venus ... a harbinger of great change.  All of the elements line up ... exactly right ... only twice every hundred years or so. And if you miss it ... because you're too busy ... wasting your time ... waiting on something to happen ... then, well, you let the chance pass ... to experience something amazing ... that only comes along ... twice-in-a-lifetime ... if you're lucky.

Venus celebrates our desire for good things in life.  And supports our aspirations, successes & achievements in life. Venus coming face-to-face with the Sun ... source of energy and light ... brings an intensity to our desire for real & genuine relationships.

I took time ... to acknowledge the passage ... with delight.

As I returned from my morning walk ... today ... my brain & my heart were coming to terms with a new resolve for moving forward.  It has to do with not allowing people to become priorities who only see me as an option.  That's a recurring theme in my story ... & not a very good use of my time ... or so I've been reminded recently.  So I am deliberately wrapping up that storyline ... leaving it behind ... in the chapter ... that's ending ... now.

Make changes gradually to realign your life with your hearts desires. 

Once again, I am reassured.  Reminded of the promise that came as the chapter ... before this one ... was closing.  Chapters end.  Story continues.  And promises made are always kept.  He is faithful.

Not a big fan of options.  Options are optional, after all.  

Possibilities are more my style.  That's where I am going to invest my time ... my energy ... my passion ... my life.  In possibilities ... not options.

So I will keep singing along with Al Stewart:
 I know you're in there, you're just out of sight ... time passages ...

Some of the best days of my life ... haven't happened ... yet.

www.lifelessons-mj.blogspot.com

(c) June 2012

Run, MJ! Run!

How well are you running the race?

That was the subject line on the first email in my inbox  ... the day after ... I came clean ... about my hamster wheel ... habit.

Honest. I don't make this stuff up.  And even though I had 8 viewers ... and 2 watchers ... my hamster wheel ... received 0 bids ... on ebay this week ... again.

Maybe I should just give it away ...

I think I'm doing ok ... in the race running ... that is.  De-cluttering.  That's my goal.  It has been for more than a few weeks ... this time.  Ever since I got that direct message:

You're holding on to too many things, MJ.

When my best friend speaks that plainly & directly, I always listen!  No.  It's not

E.F. Hutton ... it's God, Creator of the Universe.  And, granted, He isn't just talking about things in my garage ... in my house ... in the little room off the sunporch.

Starting to clear out my house ... is just easier ... than clearing out my heart.

You see it's not the fact that I am holding on to ... too many things .. that's the problem.  It's the ... holding on ... to too many things.

Letting go is very hard for me.  Maybe that's because I have spent my entire adult life trying to make someplace feel like home.  So I gather up things that I think should be important ... and meaningful ... and I keep carrying 'em along with me.  Whereever I go. 

Thinking surely ... those things ... will make this place ... or that place ... feel like ... home. 

From time to time ... it's almost worked ... for a year or so ... then reality sets in.  You'd think I would have figured it out ... long before now ... 

Things don't make a home. 

And even though I am totally committed to cleaning out ... de-cluttering ... ridding myself of things that are no longer necessary to me ... I falter.

I pick it up.  Spend a little too long remembering where it came from .. why I have it ... & analyzing why I thought it needed to be brought along ... this time ...

Determined & cynical in my old age ... I am getting pretty good at cutting the cord ...

to a lot of things.  There is always that moment of hesitation, though, when I realize that there is still some life left in it ... it's just hard to give up something ... that still has

a little bit of life.

So this go round ... I am striving to be more practical.  Telling myself that, yes, the object in question still has value & purpose ... it has something to offer ... to someone ...  

just not to me ... not anymore.

Hanging on to things ... that may ... or may not ... have a little life left ... has been sucking the life ... right out of me ... for a very long time.

Thinking about things ... always leads to thinking about people.

I tend to hang on ... a little too long ... to friendships that have run their course ... too.

And ... to be perfectly honest ... at times it's the idea of a relationship ... that never actually unfolds ... the way I think it might ... the way I want it to ... that I allow to occupy a little too much space in my heart.

Imaginary relationships ... with real live people ... hopefully building my house of cards on whims ... silly, silly me.

It's a game I play with myself ... it seems safer ... than playing for real ... playing games with my head ... to guard my heart ... and MJ loses ... every single time.

Pretty sure those make-believes are part of the "too many" things I am holding on to ....

Seriously ... you'd think those would be the easiest to put out on the curb ... cuz there's no life in pipe dreams & "what ifs" ...

But they're not.

And after months of silence, the little bear has suddenly become Chatty Cathy.  Cheering me along the race course, maybe. 

I have written about the talking little bear ... a couple of times before.  He's special. 

Unpredictable ... unexplainable ...

The possibility of it being a battery that's running down has long been put to rest.  If it takes over a year & a half for those batteries to ... lose their charge ... then I am thinking I want some more batteries from where those came from ...

Some days ... it's simply a random outburst ... maybe 2 or 3 times in a 24 hour span.  Other times, it's a frenzy of chatter ... clusters of messages ... running together ... separated by pauses of varying lengths ... conversation-like.

It seems that the little bear talks to me more at night.  Sometimes it's constant ... all through the night.  There's meaning to the rhythm and timing of the messages.

I am sure of it.

The little bear only knows one sentence.

I love you THIS much !

Powerful ... important words.

For now, I am choosing to believe ... each time the little bear speaks ... it's because someone important to me ... is thinking about me ... maybe even allowing a little

MJ make-believe to come alive in their own hearts ...

You see, I'm pretty sure that I am not the only one who plays that mind-tricking-the-heart game ... especially in the still of the night ...

The little bear does occasionally speak to me during the day ... like first thing in the morning ... or when I am working from the house ... or when I return from the

busyness of my day.

Just more often ... in the dark ... in the wee hours ...

And I wonder ... does the little bear speak ... when no one's around to hear ?!? 

Triggered magically by someone's heartfelt thought ... words hanging in the air of an empty house ... waiting for me to hear them ... in my own heart ... upon my return.

The whole thing reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode.  Little bear proclaims ... outloud ... the desire of MaryJane's heart.  A baby-monitor ... of sorts ... channeling messages from a real live person in an imaginary relationship ... a fairy tale she is about to put

out-on-the-curb ... letting go ... before it's time ...

... ok, so maybe there's a little bit of life left in that one ... 

It's a great story.  And I will tell it ... when I am sure

what it all means ...

Home is where your heart is ... open your heart ...

find your home ...

Run, MJ! Run!

www.lifelessons-mj.blogspot.com

(c)september 2011

Stream of conciousness ....

Beautiful fall days ... several in a row ... life is good ...

... then not so good ... but really ... It's all good.

Rather randomly, I tossed my phone into the washing machine on Saturday. Not sure how THAT happened. But it did.

And I melted down. Totally out-of-character for me. To let something as dumb as that send me over the edge.

It's just that I have been so concious of slowing down ... being still ... listening ... and hearing all of the messages ... finding some pieces that actually fit in my puzzle ...

I wasn't expecting such a blind-side. Imagine that.

A friend was laura-on-the-spot with a replacement.

Within minutes ... problem solved.

And still I was overwhelmed ... hyper-ventilating ... over-reacting in a hand-wringing frenzy.

She set me straight when I arrived to pick up the cute little pink razr.

"You threw your phone in the washer so that I could help you."

That's what she said. Then she shared all of the reasons WHY that was the case.  She was right.

I was totally humbled.

Yesterday my horoscope spoke of my "heart's desire". Of course, the context was romantic, love drivel. Still. It made me pause.

It's been quite a long time since I received a message that referenced the "desires of my heart". It's a personal promise from God ... to me ... one that I know He will keep because He always keeps His promises.

The first one came on December 31, 2004. The day that life as I knew it changed forever. The mailman delivered the letter in the midst of the chaos & confusion.

It referenced Psalm 37:4.

"Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart."

The weeks & months that followed brought that same message back to me ... specifically ... time after time after time.

Once I even got confirmation in my fortune cookie:

God will give you the desire of your heart.

That was the first time I knew for sure that God was speaking to me through fortune cookie notes. I still have that one.

It was very cool.

Yes, I have pondered the "desires of my heart" on occasion. I am pretty sure that somehow it's something more real & important than the "romantic love" espoused in my horoscope over the weekend.

I know what I think I want ... the life I want to be living ... but is that REALLY the desire of my heart?!?!

*sigh* maybe I should just punt ...

Ok, I'll take Door #3, Monty ...

When I mowed on Saturday ... prior to the washing incident ... my little rabbit followed behind me in his frolicsome fashion ... and then later after the turmoil ... he was roaming around the yard enjoying the fresh cut grass ...

Randomly ... Del made references from the platform in church yesterday to "chasing rabbits" and "making simple things complicated" ... for real ... he did.

Both comments made me smile.

.... lost for words ... lost in love ... sweetly broken ...

wholly surrendered ...

Sang the words and they touched me deeply ...

Sang some more ...

...and time is in His hands ... How great is our God ...

Then God ... through Del ... spoke directly to me ...

Yep. Indeed He did. Imagine that.

Somewhere in the beginning of His friendly prodding ... Del said something about how God finds "willing partners" ... to do what He needs done ...

Let's don't go there ... "willing partners" ... indeed ...

The message was simple ...

Most people live "in order to" instead of "because" ... and that's what makes life so complicated ...

You see, real life comes out of our brokeness ... not out of our success. That's what Del said.

Life is way simpler than we humans make it.

A friend shared that with me last week .. & he expanded on that idea ...

Too many times we get caught up in trying to figure something out and end up missing the 'event". Sometimes the simplest answer is truly the right answer. The answer has to be simple because everyone in the world regardless of their intellect has to be able to understand the message.

It is a simple message. "Jesus loves me..and so does God".


By golly ... I think he's on to something.

When messages come to me in waves, I know that's it important & that I should pay attention ... so when this quote posted up on Facebook ... I felt the nudge ...

‎"Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple."~Charles Mingus

Really, MJ. Just relax. It's all so simple ... if you just let it ... be simple.

Working the deal.

Del say that's what a lot of us do as we go about our lives. Always doing something in order to make something else happen ... to get what we want ... because, of course ... we all know exactly what we want ... and have it all figured out ... how to get it ...

... and then we wonder how everything gets so messed up ... so complicated ...

When it's really so simple.

Give of yourself out of "because" and not "in order to" ... and you will find your heart's desires.

God's gonna give me EVERYTHING I need. Really. He is. So why not accept what He is offering instead of trying to hold out for something better?!?

Like I could ever come up with something better on my own.

That's a hard one. Accepting what God is sending my way instead of trying to figure out how to get what I think I want.  As if I even have a clue.
  
I suffer from a serious case of "failure to receive" ... I admit it ... openly ... it's just so much easier to "give ...

Receiving ... that would mean being open somehow ... to let someone step a little closer ... you know, letting them actually see my vulnerability ... isn't it enough that I "give" of myself so freely!?!  Do I really have to "receive"?!?

So my cute little pink phone ... it has picture of a little dog that reminds me of Pete as the background. It makes me smile everytime I open it. And the ringtones my friend had on there are very cool, too.

I chose "Blessed be the name of the Lord" as the one for my text messages ... at least until I get a new phone of my own & can go back to my "Twilight Zone" one.

It's appropriate, you know.

... you give and take away ... you give and take away ...

... and still my heart will say ...

Blessed Be The Name Of The Lord ...

My friend said she has had that phone all rigged up and waiting just for me ... to need it ... for a long time ... we both laughed.

It's something like that ... no doubt.

The desires of my heart. God knows what those are. He's the one who placed them there ... in my heart ... after all.

You're almost there, MJ.

Turtle pondering ... maybe what you need to do is ask a different question ... that's the answer I've been searching for ... a different question.

And God ... through Del ... provided it ... right on time ... & in their typical double-teaming fashion ... the question was boldly projected onto the screen ... so there would be NO WAY for me to not GET IT ...

"Can I be a 'giving" person who knows HOW to 'receive?"

That's the question.

Once I allow myself to start "receiving" ... then ... and only then ... will I be a blessing from God in the life of someone else.

My horoscope said that I couldn't expect to get what I wanted if I didn't ask for it ... my heart's desire ...

It's really that simple.

www.lifelessons-mj.blogspot.com

(c) Mary Jane Sawyer, 2010