Eyeshadow on my hand

Acupuncture is changing my life.  I'm sleeping better, getting up with a skippy step in the morning, and walking taller.  I look forward to Saturday mornings, to seeing Maura ('puncturer exraordinaire), and to the deep rest I get while those needles do what they do best:  Puncture. I'm not sure how it works or why, I'm just sure that it does.

Lifechange has been on my mind quite a bit lately.  Lifechange, like lifestyle, is a set of choices.  T-bone or salmon, heels or flats, truth or lie, live or die.  My biggest choices are those I make when no one is watching because its within the folds of time that are hidden from public view that define my character with a carving knife that is integrity and sand paper of grace.  Fine grit leaves the most lustrous finish.  Choices.  The sum of which is the whole.

So, while my choice to obey the mystery of acupuncture alters my posture, other lifechange creeps in and the spine of my soul unfurls.  I apply prayer in the morning along with eyeshadow.  My eyes are changed.  I pluck weeds from the earthy plot surrounding my home and excavate deep rooted fears and insecurities.  They slowly make it to the trash bin, sometimes sitting near the garage for a week, baking in the sun.  I wear gloves.  Daydreams and dreamstorms dance in the sky and rain down on my head.  Flat hair, still heart.

Lifechange happens in layers, with different shades, and requires different tools for different looks.  My eyeshadow goes on the same way.  Raw color on the top of my left hand.  Carefully selected tool in my right.  Pick up color, draw on, brush on, smudge, and blend.  When all the work is done, the top of my hand is stained with remnants of pigment that now frames my vision of the world.

Acupuncture leaves bruises sometimes, too.  There's one on my hand right now.  Change is a set of choices, a selection of colors, the embrace of mystery, and moments of satisfaction among the folds of time that wrap us in quiet moments that belong to the heart, bruises and all.

The only universal truth is bread

Bread is universal.  It represents family and comfort, fortune and blessings.  It's the art of peasants and princes alike, enjoyed no less by one than the other.  It's as old as grain itself and may be the answer to our quest for world peace.  Breaking bread with your neighbor is sure to break judgment and hostilities, too.

To celebrate the gift of bread and neighborly love, I'm taking up the art of bread making.  I'll bake breads from around the world whose histories are as interesting as the grains they are made of, as different as the festivals they accompany.  Generations of people, spanning every continent, climate, religion, and era have enjoyed bread alongside family and friends celebrating seasons, births, rights of passage, and blessings.  One could say that bread is, simply, common to the human experience.  And, who wouldn't want to get their hands dirty in such a powerful dough?

On being pescetarian

I love fish and veggies and fruits and so it seems obvious that I should be a pescetarian.  I know, it sounds weird, but it just means that I choose to eat things that grow from the Earth along with fish/seafood.  No red meat, foul, or "the other white meat".  Tonight is the first moment since my week-old decision was made, that I am authentically excited to identify with my new self-slapped-on label because it's forced me to think more creatively about food choices.
I made Perch with a peach/habanero glaze and veggies (lots of them) in a tomato base.  It's become a standard formula:  fish and veggies all dressed up in various spices.  Tonight's medley was really quite tasty.  I'd put it up against any steak and potato dish.  Choosing a meal low in energy concentration and high in nutritional quality is a step toward strength, balance, and physical freedom.  One meal at a time.

What brings you joy?

Joy is different than happiness.  Joy is slow burning while happiness is often experienced as a blazing wildfire, easy to extinguish with a shift of the winds.  I am warmed by joy from the inside out when I inhale the crisp ocean breeze under a sunset painted over the Pacific Ocean at the edge of Los Angeles, the cityscape faintly dancing behind me.  Joy swells up and radiates out of me when I fan the inner flame with fresh air borne of the Rocky Mountains.  I'm happy that I have the opportunity to be in these places again and again, to climb into those spaces and touch the waves and trees.  It's the blessing of joy, however, that lingers in the form of knowing Heaven is just ahead and the brilliance of color and light and peace consumed by our senses on Earth are only whispered hints of what is to come.

(Submitted to www.oprah.com by me.  If I get published, I won't have rights to my words, but they are mine and I'd like to share them here with you.  So, in the spirit of sharing thoughts and giving up the royalties, what brings YOU joy?  I'd like to know.  Promise I won't sell your answer.)

"Customer service is closed."

Walmart is one of the most irritating experiences a person can have.  Well, that and dealing with the less-than-just justice system.  I'm so frustrated, I can't even write sensibly. Where is the justice in this world?  Does it exist or is it a fleeting idea, a notion built of utopia and faith in the mostly unrealized upstanding human spirit.

I wonder if Walmart would do a better job at managing the justice system so that it takes less time to find out if you're going to be victimized by the system intended to protect the innocent.  And, I suppose the courts and police and legislature might reduce the gross gaps in management style in local markets which Walmart can't seem to standardize.  They'll empower nearly anyone who will work the hours and who has put in their time, it appears, regardless of whether they actually have any leadership skills.  The government seems to really enjoy standards and lock-step classifications, stripping people of any individual latitude to make reasonable judgments and decisions for the sake of precedent and standards.  In both situations, I will quote a Walmart worker in a faded blue shirt:  "customer service is closed."  Ironic and uncanny.

It's frightening how unreasonable the law can be...police officers pumped up on false authority, court window clerks feeding on hallow tenure, and lawyers who jump in bed together to siphon funds from people needing help.  It's infuriating how shoddy service can be at any random Walmart store run by people who paid their dues on the store floor but have no real clue how to create a positive retail experience.  Seriously, it's not brain surgery and yet both situations, paralyzing. 

Lately, the mantra that rings in my mind is simple:  "Be still and know that I am God."  Psalm 46:10

I suppose there's nothing better to marinade my thoughts in, no better anti-venom for the deep bite from a losing battle with injustice.  And, consider the monuments of injustice like wrongful imprisonment and reckless, random killings.  I can be thankful that the most unjust thing I experienced today was an unexpected, unfortunate waste of time at a Walmart store and not unsubstantiated imprisonment or senseless, random homicide.

Be still and know that I am God.  Be still.  And know.  That he...HE is God.

My ALPFA Story: A Sneak Peek!

My ALPFA story is one of family found in unlikely places like New York, Houston, Seattle, and LA. It’s one of friendships based on sharing life, dreams, compassion, loyalty, and encouragement. Recently, I had the honor of sharing a few days in Las Vegas with some of my dear friends as we mulled over the future of ALPFA keeping in mind that our innovation and foresight today will become the fruitful vines of tomorrow’s organization. One of our guest speakers, Casey Carlson, presented on the idea that generational differences are a force like the tide in our exponentially dynamic world and considering the impact of new era technology on yesteryear’s business values and ideals would be important as we shape ALPFA’s future. I considered the advice Casey shared and agreed with her that we, together, get to weave the future history of ALPFA. And, despite all the changes that are tumbling toward us at lightning speed, the one underpinning that I suspect will remain unchanged is the sense of family we share across miles, time zones, and birthdates.

The future of ALPFA is yet to be written in ink, but we’ve penciled in a few drafts for consideration. Technology will sweep by and change the storyline. Young and emerging professionals will throw in a few ideas that we’ve yet to include; they will be outstanding, innovative ideas, too! Seasoned professionals are reliable pillars of strength and wisdom, offering the sweet stories of the past which stand as heritage to our collective experience. The thing that remains constant is that my story is your story…one of family found in unlikely places and generations of people who – regardless of technical aptitude or generational categorization – want to be part of something bigger than oneself. I used to look on at ALPFA leadership and wonder how they got on the short list, how they were invited in. Now, I look around and wonder how I found the door and why it was opened when I knocked. Maybe it was opened because I knocked.

For me, my ALPFA story has become bigger than even ALPFA itself because the people with whom I’m connected are part of my journey that will be forever a part of my life’s fiber. Generations come and go. Ideas, strategies, and priorities change. Even the most awesome leaders serve for a time and then are called away for various reasons as a part of life. But for a time, our paths intersect and we get to choose those whom we wish to keep forever. Some of my most prized relationships were borne of ALPFA and for that – for you – I am forever grateful.

(Learn more about ALPFA at www.alpfa.org)

Take Prevacid, Find a Husband

I bet my single girlfriends haven't realized that their heartburn medication is what's holding them back from finding Mr. Right.  I was clueless myself until just tonight when I was enlightened by a Prevacid commercial that aired during The Biggest Loser Finale.  Really, how could we all have missed such an obvious connection?

Have you seen the advertisement?  An illustriously complected woman wearing a chalky green dress with pleats jutting out from under her bosom and flat brown hair talks about how her date with Hunk-o-Love was going nowhere fast because she had unresolved heartburn.  The moment she found Prevacid, he discovered the real beauty that was hiding under the pain of her unresolved heartburn.  At first, I balked at the commercial for its far reaching reality and wondered how many desperate people were taking notes to remember which pill to ask the doctor to prescribe.  Ironically, though, I also wonder if the marketing people at Novartis are really undercover Mensa lifetime members.  Maybe there is more to heartburn than acid and more to the Chalky Dress Woman's love life than Prevacid.

We live in a world of pills.  Jagged pills, pink pills, white ones, horse pills, and people who are little pills.  Pills that make us thin, happy, sleepy, zippy, and calm.  With the pop of a pill, you can change the pace of your heart, the regularity of your irregularity, and the size of your penis for up to four hours at a time after which time you should consult a physician.  We've come to believe and expect that there isn't anything for which there isn't a pill to cure.  After all, even socially inept Chalky Dress Woman cures singleness with a little Prevacid. 

There are some ailments that don't go away with pills.  They can be muted, tranquilized for a time.  One in particular, heart break, as common to the human experience as hunger, strikes the unsuspecting and takes no prisoners.  Similar to heartburn, it's fiery and ravaging and leaves scars in hidden places.

You should know that I watched the commercial, analyzing the obvious and subliminal genius of heartburn pills while thawing out from a Colorado deep freeze.  Just a few months ago, summer blazed over head and life sprung up all around us.  Tonight, Denver is being preserved in below-freezing temperatures, the signs of life tucked away like roly poly legs under the curious investigation of a young child.

Winter is kind of like heart break.  Sunlight is dim.  Flowers don't bloom.  Clouds loom overhead.  The crystalized air cauterizes your lungs like love songs shred the images of once beautifully framed hopes and plans.  I think it's times like these that women wear chalky green dresses and let their hair fall flat.  Yes, I really did think about all this while watching The Biggest Loser and then The Jay Leno Show.  Ironically my mind gained speed, racing off the back stretch when I formulated a cocktail to cure the chill of hopelessness that began to settle in.  We need a pill for winter, for heartburn, for heart ache, for dashed hopes and dreams.  And, with a little philosophical reflection by Jay Leno, the Prevacid advertisement began to make sense.

There are no pills to cure the paralysis of deep freeze temperatures, heart break, or dreams that bleed.  Being cold is part of being in winter and winter is part of spring.  Who better to appreciate the blooms of summer than she who's known the cold stillness of winter?  Who more fitting to lap up the Hollywood spotlight as a thin, fit athlete than the guy who was spotlighted for being a person of size just seven months ago?

You see, sometimes the painful things are the most important things to endure.  If there were a pill for all our ailments, we'd miss the glory of victory that's reserved for fighters and survivors.  I've toiled for a long time to avoid disappointment.  I guess you could say I'm wearing some chalky green underpants beneath an otherwise coordinated effort and I bet most of you are, too.  Maybe it's a new job, better health, lower debt, less stressful relationships, or more joy in your heart that you'd take a quick-fix pill for, but I'm afraid there's no pill for these things.

And, if I'm to be honest, the idea of shedding those chalky green underpants is pretty alluring.  The thought of shimmying out of them and jumping into a deep pool of disappointment only to emerge as an emotional, spiritual Olympian is -- while frightening -- strangely alluring.  Pills don't make legends of cowards.  Valor, unwavering determination, and the fire of spiritual hunger are the armor of legends.

So, what is the heartburn you're medicating?  How much chalky green fabric is restricting you from the dance of life?  Are your toes and fingers freezing in the cold of a season that seems to never end?  How buoyant is the dream that seems to grow more and more pale with every passing year?

I'm as certain that Prevacid won't result in marriage as I am that winter is followed by spring.  And, I'm also convinced that heart break and runaway dreams, unlike heartburn, are mended most carefully one piece at a time, in time, and a day will come when the victory of healing the hard way will seem like the only way.  As for me, I'll pass on the pills.

The mall is dead at Christmas

Our economy is bleeding.  Together, we are wounded and fearing the unthinkable:  an unrepairable break in the comfort of our society and economy.  To be honest, I haven't personally felt the economic dip.  I feel privileged to have missed the painful punch, but slightly ashamed that I've been slumping along oblivious to the plight of others.  Seeing it on the news and hearing about it in conversations just isn't the same as witnessing or experiencing it first-hand.

Westminster Mall was, at one time, a bustling metropolis of retail, a frenzy of holiday bustle, where patrons lugged around bags and boxes of treasured finds during the holiday season.  Anchor department stores flanked wildly popular specialty shops that made hefty fortunes for small business owners and franchise managers alike.  All that was before the demise of a once-leading retail mecca.

Today, Westminster Mall is an eerily still shell of a long-ago retail success.  Entire wings, amounting to hundreds of thousands of square feet of commercial real estate, are dimly lit and the heat is set very low.  Store fronts are "decorated" with empty chairs.  Walls are empty, corridors echo silence, and neon signs flicker on their way to darkness.  The few chambers that do boast business operations offer knock-off brands and flimsy trinkets.

This photo shows a storefront of a store advertising children's birthday parties, but the horrific moving statue to the left is enough to send Alfred Hitchcock into a nightmare.  The most disturbing element of this retail corpse is the echo of Christmas music piped through the building.  I fully expected to be assaulted by an unseen spirit haunting the hallways.

As with all things, there is a birth, a life, and a death.  This mall has a rapidly decreasing heartbeat, nearing the flat line.  I suddenly felt the economic depression as I walked around.  It's lonely, cold, and hopeless.

Walking through this empty place caused me to reflect on what I am thankful for and the things I most fear.

I am thankful for my economic success; I have a job!  What a blessing in this country where 10% of our population is unemployed.  I get to work with outstanding people on projects that I enjoy and allow me to positively impact the lives of others.  I'm thankful for my vitality, family, and friends.  I'm thankful that my life isn't as empty as this dying mall.  I'm thankful that, although sometimes distantly felt, I have a warm community with which to share my walk through life.

I fear the deafening echo of emptiness and loneliness.  While it seems unlikely, it's this time of year when one's relationships -- or lack thereof -- are amplified.  What was once lively can be rendered hallow with a few changes in environment and this is possible of economics and in relationships.

The most unsettling part of this situation is that outside these walls are homeless people for whom this throw-away of a mall would seem like a mansion of warmth, comfort, and safety from the bitter Colorado winter.  I estimate that hundreds of freezing, hungry, lonely, hopeless young and old people on the city streets tonight would appreciate this mall's shell, turning it from a desolate cavern to a home for the forgotten.

It's one idea.  Innovation and generosity might be the fuel of profit and philanthropy, but my guess is that this place is ruled by greed and the paralysis of yesterday's formula for success.

This Christmas season, I hope that you walk through the corridors of your life and enjoy the warmth of friendships, alive and well.  That the bustle of hope and dreams keep your eyes looking ahead to more fruitful times and aware of the blessings of today.  I hope that your life is filled with light and warmth and family and friends, that the ailments of our economy are held at arm's length by the immunity of a spirit filled with hope, optimism, and loving relationships.

And, if this season, your heart is feeling empty like the corridors of this pathetic mall, I hope that you'll entertain thoughts on ways to bring new life into your spirit.  Invite new opportunities, new ideas, new dreams into the scary hallows so that the bustle of life is invigorated in your soul and I promise that heartbeat of community will be the sweet tune of holiday spirit that makes magic of this time of year.

The peaceful side of Los Angeles

I love sunsets.  Everything about a sunset ignites inspiration and peace inside my soul.  Most recently, I spent a few precious moments over the course of three evenings watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean, my toes digging into the sand under cool water that lapped up to soak my jeans up to my knees.  I walked along the tide and with each step, prayed that the next would precede another, and then another, for many more steps than I actually took.  Those three evenings vanished, like bird prints in the sand under the quick rise and fall of the tide.  As fast as the sun sinks into the ocean's depths, so too were my hopes that those evenings might each last a lifetime, kept warm by the blazing brilliance of the southern California sun.

While independently magnificent, sunsets are like any other miracle of the heavens:  more enjoyable when shared.  I've spent a good many evenings considering life's blessings, questions, and purpose.  Each time, as the sun sets on another day, I look ahead with joy to a time when I can share my life with someone else, the days numbered in sunsets.  It's twice as exhilarating to stand in the sand and gaze into the sky with the comfort of a close by companion than to fall under it's awe alone.

I don't really know why sunsets sing such a mesmerizing tune to me except that looking west my entire life, I've seen the majestic Rocky Mountains and hundreds of breathtaking sketches and pigments over those peaks.  Blue, silver, pink, orange, red, yellow, or any combination thereof.  Sunsets in Colorado can bring your feet to a stop and your eyes into focus that the world we live in is so much bigger than our nano-measured lives.  Some of the best sunsets have been over blazing forests and the destruction that comes from ash and cinder thrust into the sky.  Indeed, Colorado's skies are breathtaking and tell stories of life and sorrow beneath them.

My blog is about what's in my mind as each day draws to a close.  It's about the things that are loudest in my mind at night and the things I hope for with each new morning.  One of the two most painful days of my life was defined by a sunrise.  My heart was broken and I wandered out to an early September dew-covered pasture in the mountains where I greeted the sun as it took hold of the day.  I cursed the sun for rising in audacity that morning because my world felt dark and still, but that sun didn't miss a beat and rose with power and heat like each day before and every day since.  The other extremely painful day of my life was shared with a sunset as I sat next to the river in Breckenridge and wondered what it's all for anyway.  My heart bled and the same sun that rose with passion five years earlier gently dropped, quietly subdued to the rush of the ice cold river at my feet.

I guess one could say that the sun's awakening and slumber are two of the most reliable occurrences any of us can imagine.  So, it's when I'm unsure of life or question myself, I tend to look to God's creations as reminders that He is still, unchanging, and bravely near without exception.  I see God when I see the sun and even as it sets each day, the lullaby sung to me in it's radiance is a promise that I will wake to His loving compassion and deep, wide mercies.