Embracing the Magic of the Season with Compassion

As winter's chill wraps the world in a cozy embrace, some hearts are filled with warmth and joy as we gather to celebrate the most magical time of the year. Let's remember all aspects of this time of year: the good, the happy, the sad, and the lost.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas

The air is filled with the sweet melodies of carols, and the streets are adorned with twinkling lights, creating a festive atmosphere that warms even the coldest of nights. It's a season of love, laughter, and the simple pleasures that can make life truly special.

During this enchanting time, families come together, creating cherished memories that will be fondly remembered for years. 

Whether it's sharing a cup of hot cocoa by the fireplace, decorating the tree with ornaments collected over the years, or simply relishing in the company of loved ones, the holidays remind us of the importance of connection and the joy of togetherness. 

Let's take a moment to appreciate the love surrounding us and express gratitude for the bonds that make life meaningful.

Amidst the hustle and bustle of holiday preparations, let's remember the spirit of giving and generosity. The joy derived from sharing our blessings with others is immeasurable. 

Whether donating to a local charity, volunteering at a community event, or simply extending a helping hand to those in need, the true magic of the season lies in spreading kindness and goodwill.

 May this season inspire us to be more compassionate, and may the ripple effect of our actions create a wave of positivity that extends far beyond the holidays.

The Holiday Season can be a Challenging Time for Some

Yet, amid the merriment, let us pause to acknowledge that the holidays can be challenging for some. While many of us are surrounded by the love of family and friends, some may be grappling with loss, loneliness, or difficult circumstances. 

Let us extend our hearts and minds to those who find this season a poignant reminder of their struggles. 

Amid our celebrations, let's remember to reach out with empathy and kindness to uplift those experiencing a difficult time. This can be done by sharing time, prayers, money, gifts, or a helping hand.

Farewell to Another Trip Around the Sun

As we bid farewell to another year and welcome the promise of new beginnings, let's carry the warmth and goodwill of the holiday season into the days ahead. 

May the coming year be filled with love, laughter, and endless possibilities. 

May the season's spirit linger in our hearts, guiding us to a future filled with joy, prosperity, and the magic that makes life truly extraordinary. 

Cheers to a season of love, laughter, and the joyous celebration of life's beautiful moments, mindful of those needing an extra dose of kindness during this time.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to You 💗

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To Dream of Shadows ~Steve N. Lee ~ A Book Review

To Dream of Shadows is a book that I could not put down.  While I love many different types of novels, I find that I have been drawn to those that take place before/during and after the Second World War.

I know there is a fascination with all that went on during that time and I'm sure that having had family in the European world during that horrific time, makes those novels seem to come alive for me.

It was a horrible time in our history for sure.  Given what we know now about the atrocities that took place during that time, but, we also hear of immense heroic acts as well.

Even though the German army was the perpetrators of many of these terrible deeds, there were those who used their rank to undermine the intentions of the Nazi party!  Just think of Schindler's List as one of those!

To Dream of Shadows falls into that category of book.  While the Nazi's were the POWER , many of the people who found themselves in positions within the Reich,  really thought that the intention of the labor camps was to make the workforce (they were not humans) productive for the needs of the Reich.  To be sure,  these individuals were totally deluded in their thinking.  The Reich did not care about productivity of their workforce (Jews were replaceable), as much as it cared about showing the Jews who was in power and yielding that power without consideration for anything humane or decent.  The Germans did not think that the Jews were human, they were less than the family dog!  They were there to be dominated, made to feel less than dirt! Their main use was being worked death or on really bad days, being used for the entertainment of the officers!  They would find all kinds of ways to make a Jew suffer for their very sordid amusement. When morality gives way to power, all manner of abuse is possible and some of these officers devised ways that were so horrific that even today we get the chills at the thought of what was happening in those prison camps.

Even in these terrible circumstances, the light of hope is never extinguished.  There will always be hope and that is what author Steve N. Lee uses to drive this story.  Hope in the midst of every possible horror and dehumanizing situation, can keep the strong willed alive!  

From the time of her incarceration at 18, Inge has been relocated away from her family to a hellhole of a war prison.  Not knowing what has happened to the rest of her family, Inge undergoes all manner of deprivation.  Starving and being worked almost to death, she finds her inner strength with the hopes of liberation. But can there be hope right here in the midst of this prison?

Heinz, aka as Rudi,  one of her captors and an SS Sergeant, has been fed the lies about the Jews since childhood.  He never questions what is happening right before his eyes until he falls in love with one of the prisoners and begins to see that they are just as human as he is.  

He becomes a bright light in a very dark place, trying to make things better for all those captives.  But his intentions do not go unnoticed by others in the rank and file, at the prison.  Turning in one of their own (who is helping the enemy) would mean extra honors for them.  Heinz needs to watch his back as his subordinates are getting concerned about his treatment of their "subjects/prisoners".

Can he get out of this squalid place with the prisoner that he adores? He and Inge can be put to death in a heartbeat if their relationship becomes public. It is a forbidden love and the consequences of this union could result in death for both of them.  

What can be done?  You will have to read this book and see what happens.  Just be ready to hold your breath in anticipation.

Steve N. Lee has done a masterful job in retelling this story and I know if you are anything like me, you will have a hard time putting this book down.  Suffice it to say this could make a great movie along the lines of Schindler's List and maybe open your eyes to what the human spirit is capable of when love is the driving force.

***All pictures used in this blog post come from Pixabay, thank you!

 

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Barking to the Choir - Book Review

Some books change us by flipping what we think we know, or what we think we are about, on its head. Barking to the Choir is one of those books. I am not the same person I was when I first cracked open the cover of this book.

In showing me what radical kinship looks like—in living it out on these pages—Gregory Boyle has me wondering: 

What if outreach to the marginalized is really about being willing to be reached by them?

What if it's about receiving rather than giving or doing?  You know—truly receiving the unwelcome with a welcoming embrace?

What if I came to know, deep within my core, that you are the other me, and I am the other you... that our separateness is only an illusion?

What if I said yes to entering into the fullness of kinship with you, and you, and you?

What if we meet there at the edge of I and Not I and discover unity?

What if we lifted one another out of isolation by merely showing up... every time?

Perhaps radical kinship begins with living these questions. 

Perhaps compassion is the answer to every question.

Perhaps the welcoming embrace begins there—begins here.

I open myself to it... to being it.

I invite you into this beautiful kinship. 

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The Emptiness of Our Hands - Book Review

Who would you become if you were to suddenly find yourself without a home?  Some of you here know the answer to that question because you have lived it.  For the authors of The Emptiness of Our Hands, the answer was far beyond what they could ever have imagined.  Living the question forever changed who they were and who they continue to become to this day.

Choosing to live on the streets of Columbus, Ohio for 47 days may not seem earth-shattering, but for Phyllis Cole-Dai, and her photographer friend, James Murray, the experience was, in many ways, soul-shattering.  They found themselves immersed in an alternate universe offering up the kind of devastation that stripped bare their psyches and spirits.  After just two nights, Murray was already broken to pieces. 

The decision to go to the streets had not been made lightly or done as a stunt.  Cole-Dai felt a deep call she could not ignore.  Her intent was to offer up the gift of presence to everyone she met.  

So then what transpires when you suddenly find yourself in deep survival mode?  How are you transformed while living in a world ill at ease with the homeless... with you?  How do you cope with feeling invisible, despised, and less than human?  When constantly wrestling with intense fear, uncertainty, and struggle, what gives?  What sustains?  

How is it that something as simple as being seen can be such a consolation?  Nothing is inconsequential to the one in need of the kind of attention that shelters, or the haven to be found in the eyes of compassion.  To be seen like that is to receive an act of love.

As one with an outreach to those without a home, immersing myself within The Emptiness of Our Hands has reaffirmed for me the power of "thereness" (really being there for, and with, someone).  It has stirred a deep desire to be a very present haven to the one who might need to rest for a moment in my embracing presence.  

This book is for anyone who seeks to express the kind of humanity that feeds and shelters souls.  Just as there are many ways to experience homelessness, there are also many ways to be the kind of home presence needed by the displaced, the lost, or the lonely souls we encounter all around us.  

I also highly recommend the companion volume entitled Practicing Presence.  This compilation of 47 reflections (one from each of the author's 47 days on the streets) enables each of us to more fully develop and engage our mindfulness intentions.  I consider these two books the most important reading I have done all year.  

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The Honey Bus - Book Review

Read an Excerpt

Honey has long been known as the elixir of life.  For Meredith May, a young child whose life had been turned upside down and inside out by parental discord, the miraculous powers of honey, bees, and her beekeeper grandfather would be a vital lifeline.  To read Meredith's memoir, The Honey Bus, is to be mesmerized by how honeybees took the raw material of a confused girl and turned her into something golden.

At five years of age, May found herself uprooted from everything familiar.  Due to the divorce of her parents, Meredith and her brother were suddenly moved cross-country to live with their grandfather in California.  This was an incredibly upsetting, and confusing, turn of events.  For May, things no longer made sense, as no one had explained what was happening.  To make matters worse, her mother barricaded herself behind a bedroom door, and entered a seemingly endless season of child abandonment.

Sensing the need for connection, nurturing, and something to fill the deep hole in his granddaughter's psyche, Franklin Peace began to introduce Meredith to the wonders of beekeeping.  That journey began with a flurry of bee stings—which would terrorize most children.  Counter to what one might expect, the temporary pain of that surprise attack by swarming bees built up a kind of immunity to the deeper sting of feeling alone in the world.

Like a bee drawn to honey, May's curiosity about the rusty old Army bus in her grandfather's back yard was not to be denied.  The ramshackle honey bus was the object of Meredith's great desire.  She longed to be granted entry into that portal, for she knew that magical things happened inside her grandfather's top secret laboratory.  On the day when she was finally deemed old enough for a membership into the honey bus's secret society, May's joy knew no bounds.

As her grandfather's beekeeping apprentice, Meredith not only entered into the fantastical world of honeybees, but more importantly, she found her forever family.

Bees need the warmth of family.  Alone, a single bee isn't likely to make it through the night.  A beehive revolves around one principle—the family.  I knew that gnawing need for a family.

May's sage, quietly unassuming grandfather used the language of bees to reveal the ancient ways that were relevant to learning how to persevere through collective strength.  As she fed off of this Way of the Bees, Meredith learned all that she could not learn from her birth parents.  It was the bees that were, in essence, raising her.  From them, the author gained insight into compassion and how to thrive by caring for others. 

In following Meredith through the mystical portal into honeybee society, we find ourselves joining in the dance of the bees.  You will revel in the poetry of what it is to be in the presence of sacred creatures that exist for the greater good.  The artistry of Meredith May's writing was, to this reader, the sweetest of nectars.

Just as honeybees make themselves essential through their generosity, this book is essential reading in that it gives us what we need to enter into the bee's state of grace.  Bees give far more than they ever take.  Spending time in The Honey Bus has given me the desire to be more of what someone else might need right now.  And, perhaps, that is the true elixir of life.

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An Invisible Thread - Book Review

"An invisible thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, and circumstance.  The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break."  ~ Ancient Chinese Proverb

Read an Excerpt

It began, for both the author and me, in much the same way.  We were two busy professional women, rushing past panhandlers, only to feel yanked back by an invisible thread.  Something we knew nothing about at the time, Laura Schroff in bustling Manhattan, and me in sleepy, rural Colorado, drew us to connect with individuals whose circles and lives were so far removed from our normal daily existence.

Was it destiny?  Perhaps.  All I know is that one instant of pausing to really see the person behind the sign became a moment of recognition.  For some reason, both Schroff and I were to have an awakening that came at the hands of destitution.

You never really see that coming—a whole new purpose born of paying attention, of listening, and of being drawn into the stories of those who have so little... those who are stereotyped as takers rather than givers.  This book review, of An Invisible Thread, is really the story within a story of how all of our lives are intertwined.

It seemed like any other ordinary day when Laura Scroff's life was profoundly, and forever, changed.  She had no intention of meeting up with a disadvantaged street child, but things that are meant to be tend to override executive sales agendas.

After initially passing up eleven-year-old Maurice, who asked Scroff for spare change because he was hungry, she found herself looking back over her shoulder at him, and then backpedaling to take Maurice to McDonald's for lunch.  This seemingly unassuming, one-time act of kindness then took on a life of its own.  Over Big Macs and fries, Laura and Maurice launched what would become a lifelong friendship.  Through months, and then years, of weekly meal dates and life-enriching experiences, these two became chosen family.

As one who had grown up with abuse, Schroff could empathize, and feel great compassion for this young boy who was attempting to survive the most extreme poverty—a poverty that extended well beyond that of hunger and lack of safe shelter.  Surrounded by drug-addled adults who were emotionally unavailable to nurture him, and living by his wits alone, Maurice's poverty went soul deep.

Though her friends and colleagues warned her off, thinking Schroff's outreach to Maurice was too risky, Laura's commitment to, and bond with him would not, and could not, be broken.  This would not turn out to be a one-way charity case.  It became a mutually beneficial friendship that transformed and healed both individuals.

He Shared His Story With Me Over a Subway Sandwich

Those who follow my Facebook postings know that I interact with homeless individuals on a daily basis.  It isn't something I would ever have thought would become a mission for me.  I just felt compelled one day to stop and listen to the personal story of the man behind one of those panhandling signs.

I Felt Compelled to Stop and Let Kindness Connect Us

I don't even like the word panhandler because of its negative connotation.  Doesn't it spark labels of beggar, or for some people, even something as ugly as loser?  I've seen and heard those drive-by insults when standing on a corner checking up on one of my homeless friends.  You know... the guy who rolls down his window and shouts, "Get a job, loser!"

Perhaps We Are All Living on a Prayer

What Laura and I found, when really getting to know the person holding that piece of cardboard in his hands, was a whole new way of living... a whole new way of perceiving those willing to bare their vulnerable souls to a public that isn't always very welcoming to them.  We both discovered, and opened up, the gifts of these beautiful souls.  We became the recipients of change that is not spare.

I highly recommend An Invisible Thread, not because it has been a New York Times bestseller, but because of its focus on kindness and goodness.  Do I believe there is an invisible thread?  Oh, yes... absolutely... and I am so thankful for those on the other end of my thread.

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The Best Gift You Can Give Your Dad that Doesn't Cost a Dime

It's Corny. It's Cliché. But if You Can Give it, It's the Best Gift.

The best gift you can give Dad, is your time.

If you're one of the fortunate with a living father, and a father you enjoy a good relationship with, then it's a certainty that your voice or your company ranks highest on his list of wants.

This suggestion is not meant to sound preachy, it merely comes from the heart of a person whose father has passed on.

My dad loved when we visited, he often said to me, "Barb, I love it when you're here". That's exactly how we feel when our children are home as well.

Dad gave us the greatest gift, the gift of love, and we're passing that down from generation to generation. It doesn't get any better than that: Love, compassion and family.

When He Hears Your Voice, I'll Bet Your Father Lights Up

There isn't anything your father wants more than to be with you or to at least talk with you on Father's Day.

When he thinks about you I'll bet dollars to donuts that he reflects upon every aspect of your growing up. I say that because, when I speak to my sons, I see every age and almost every moment of their life in that moment. 

With social media and personal devices, our habit of texting, emailing or posting our sentiment crosses over into expressing ourselves on special occasions. That's OK too. There's nothing wrong with posting a song for dad, or texting a personal note of love to him, but if you're able to, a phone call or a visit ranks at the top.

Although you can get dad a gift, and I'm sure he'll appreciate whatever you choose, when he looks around his kitchen table at his family sharing memories and laughing, that's the gift that beats them all. His heart is your heart.

Written for My Dad in Heaven - He Blessed Us With Love

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3 Outstanding Picture Book Stories to Win Little Hearts

Three Outstanding Picture Books to Win Little Hearts (A Review)

Today we will look at three books written by Pat Furstenberg

Everyone knows that children love Pictures and Picture books with lots of interesting words and sounds.  Part of every childs' development comes from those times when they are snuggled up with mom or dad, Grammie or Grandpa listening to the words and looking at the pictures.  It's also a wonderful time to bond with our children and grandchildren in a way that will bring fond memories back to them one day.

From my own experience, there is nothing quite like the quiet time spent with my little ones telling a story, listening to them describe how they see the pictures and teaching them some great life lessons all at the same time.  Books and the words they contain are stepping stones that children love to learn and hear.  So when you come across some books that you know children will love, it's only fair to share what you have found.

Rhyming and word-play are an important part of every child's verbal development.  There are word rhymes that are still taught to children today that go back at least 60 to 70 years and we are still teaching these same rhymes with their sing song rythms.  The kids just love them all.

These three books by Pat Furstenberg are all written in this way.  The pictures are delightful and the stories themselves are ones that will resonate with big and  little hearts.  Children will enjoy the stories of unlikely friends, while parents and grandparents can tell little side stories too. 

The Cheetah and the Dog are an unlikely pair, yet they become and remain good friends even though no on thought this was possible.  Too many differences don't matter when your hearts are in the same place.  How many times does that happen in real life?  Do you have a friendship that is still as strong as the Cheetah's and the Dog's? 

The Elephant and the Sheep is an endearing story too!  How often we make friends but don't think beyond what we see right in front of us.  Each of our lives are different, but, the one thing we all need is a friend.  A friend that can see beyond our hardships and differences. Only when we try really hard do we sometimes find out the truth.  Little sheep learns a valuable lesson about friendship,  love, and family.  Elephant learns something too,  family can be much more than living with other elephants.  Family can be living with those who love us!

The Lion and the Dog is another story about our differences and how they really don't matter.  What matters is how we care and treat each other.  Lion is so sad, yet the little dog Milo doesn't give up on Leo, even when he is less than friendly.  Milo knows what every good dog knows,  everyone needs a friend!  

If you have children, reading them stories about friendship and caring for others is a great way to encourage empathy at a young age.  The world needs more of that!  Word play and stories with great illustrations makes it easy for parents and grandparents to instill little life lessons in a very heart-warming way.  

If you are a member of Amazon Prime, you can get these books and so many more by Patricia and other authors as well, delivered right to your Kindle device and some are free with Prime Membership.

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