To Live, To Learn, To Love, and To Leave a Legacy

7-23-11                                             4 Needs” Priorities and life view

I’ve been pondering the world-view perspective of a friend.  As I think about what is important to her and how she filters or views the experiences in her life, I think she sees the world through the priority of relationships and emotional deposits.  When I was thinking about this today I was reminded of my world view as a child (and even partially now).  I remember evaluating every word spoken to me from other people trying to read into it what they meant.  So much of relationships are Unseen, and I was trying to see that Unseen part which remains under the surface.

At this point in my life, I think I tend to look at the world through the context of learning.  Every interaction in my mind is evaluating what I can learn from every person I interact with.  My other 4 human needs are filled through the context of the door of learning.  I feel emotional deposits when others learn and share with me.  I get SO elated when we find epiphanies together.  I share things with others in the context of what I feel they can learn from me, or what lessons I have learned that might help them.   Too often I cross the line and start to give advice, but I am learning that I really am in no position to council another person not under my stewardship.  I am trying to rid myself of this pollution of advising others in what I still need to apply for myself. 

Sometimes people don’t understand my context, and misunderstand the content.  A simple way to look at context and content that I often remind myself of is that ‘content’ is like what fills the glass.  Context is the glass.  When someone says something, their words are like the content in the glass.  We do not, however, understand the full picture until we look at the context.  What is their world view?  Why are they saying this? W hat are their motives?  Looking into the heart, seeking to understand life from their perspective, the truth will eventually come to light. 

It seems like this friend’s mission is to help others come into trusting relationships so we can feel like we are in a safe environment together.  Whereas it seems like mine is more suited to learning, living, and sharing after that trust is attained. 

I just had an epiphany.  Let me see if I can explain what I saw.  Missions are like a gray scale that grows lighter the more we get closer to living our mission.  Our mission is not one block of this gray scale alone but we grow in vibrancy the closer we get to our focal purpose.  I know that building relationships is important, and I want to do it, but I don’t feel like I am very good at it.  That is like this friend’s focal mission- her lightest color of block.  Where as my ‘building relationships’ block is a darker shade of gray; it is not my focal mission.  My mission grows lighter in the gray scale as we move toward learning and sharing in trusted relationships.  This is my joy and my life; my purpose and my desire. 

As we learn to work together in synergy, or individual weaknesses are minimized and our strengths together are maximized.

Comparisons

Thought of the day:

Convincing others becomes so much easier have we have convinced ourselves. 

Comparisons

For the most part, most people will never struggle with feeling like I am un-touchable because my faults and imperfections are so visible they sometimes catch my eye like a glare off a windshield.  For the few who may have a tendency to compare others strengths to our individual weaknesses as I do, this is for you.

I suppose, for me, that when I first come to know someone it is easy for me to admire the good I see in them.  At a distance, it becomes easy to assume that they have all the things I have ever wanted or that they’re life is perfect: A beautiful house, the perfect marriage, and the inner strength to deal with every challenge that comes their way.  After a while I get to know them better and then I learn the first picture was an illusion from my rose-colored glasses.  After I get to know someone well enough to see their faults, I then have a decision in how I choose to see them.

It is interesting to ponder who we admire and why.  I have thought about the ones we admire on the ‘silver screen’ and see them larger than life.  We call them idols.  After some thought I have come to the conclusion that idols are someone we put up on a silver pedestal and conclude that we can never really become like them cause they are ‘too cool’.  We set ourselves apart as less than they are, and give them permission to allow us to feel inferior to them.  (As Eleanor Roosevelt said: No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.)  We consign ourselves to ‘google and awe’ from afar and give them glory by our admiration of them. 

On the other hand, if we were to find real every-day hero’s that we admire and want to become like, working toward that end, will we not in actuality attain that hope?  This is so much more powerful than deceiving ourselves into a false hope and worshiping idols.  We can change because we have the power to choose.

I am concerned that when you see the fruits of my harvest that you will mistake the genius of the Lord for my own.  I am concerned that when you see the effort and results I get that you will think that I am ‘un-touchable’ or that you could “never do that”.  It is God that inspires men and women with great ideas, and the power to do great things.  Anyone who thinks they do great things of their own power is just fooling themselves and the truth will be known in time.

In the world of athletics, it is unreasonable and unfair to compare someone who has been a weight lifter for years and years to someone who is just thinking about starting weight training.  Each individual has their own body, and each person has been in training for different amounts of time.  It is not a like-kind comparison and the result is a lie.

The thing that is amazing to me is that I have only been in my Garden School training for 3 years (having been spiritually awakened.)  As I look back on the last three years it is staggering to realize all that I have learned in relatively such a short amount of time.  I feel like it has been more than I learned combined in all the 30+ years prior to that.  When we learn to cast our net in the ‘one right place’ where the Lord directs us to cast our net, it is truly amazing what we can accomplish with His power. 

I remember how I used to be amazed by how beautiful the gifts of the spirit were in a person who had been spiritually awakened.  It was amazing and it was a mystery to me because I understood not the things of the Spirit.  I can’t tell you the countless number of speakers I listened to, both religious our otherwise, where I would look up to them and think that I was inferior to them.  I always had such a feeling of gratitude for their message, but I never felt ‘good enough’ to even be able to talk to them.  I dared not even approach them. 

The reason I’m telling you this is because if you feel this way, you need to know that I used to be exactly where you are.  And the distance between you to me is NOT an impossible chasm.  There is a way to cross it.  Have hope that you can learn to believe in yourself and become who you want to be.

Joy School Connection Overton, Logandale NV

JOY SCHOOL Connection

We are putting a JOY SCHOOL group together for next year 2011-2012.  We have a few openings in our group.  If we get more people than we can have in our group, we would be happy to coordinate connections for other groups getting together. Joy School is traditionally a pre-school aged group.  I use it in my home-school program for learning in core phase (See “Thomas Jefferson Education”).  If you don’t yet know about JOY SCHOOL, take the time to learn about it out at http://www.valuesparenting.com/joyschool/.  I think you will be very glad you did.

Why I think Joy School is essential for my life:

I was over 30 years old, married for several years, and in the middle of raising three children when I realized that I found no Joy in my life.  I was focused on the negative, critical, and addicted to the Urgency of life.  I grew up in a small town, went to public school, and followed the path that life expected from me.  Through the twists and turns of living and learning I found myself in what seemed to me a strange place.  I had everything I needed yet life held no Joy for me.  I had beautiful children whose giggle I only seldom smiled at.  There was something always more important that needed to be done, or something else on my mind.  I was never at rest, or at peace with myself.  I was certainly missing something very important.

I was introduced to JOY SCHOOL through a couple different directions in my life.  I see now that God was trying to help me find joy in my life.  It was fortunate for me that I had preschool aged children to share Joy School with.  Regardless, I knew I needed it for me, not just for them.  I know they can be no better than the example I set for them.  I want my children to be happy, to find joy in life, and to like who they are.   As I have learned from the Joy School principles this last year, I have found in part some of these answers my heart was searching for.  I have learned to find joy in the world around me, appreciation for the people in my life, and learned to find peace by slowing down.  I can actually play with my children (sometimes) without feeling like I need to be somewhere else.  I can even occasionally go a day without my computer or planner.  I know I still have much to learn, but I also know there is much I have gained so far.

Thank you, Richard & Linda Eyre, for living your mission and creating Joy School.  You are a living example of living great.

oops

 

Children's Book: Looking for an illustrator and a publisher

A Prince or a Pig

By Pennie M. Rumsey

© 2011 Pennie Rumsey, all rights reserved

Dedicated to my first born son, Spencer.  May you ever choose to become a Prince.

One day there was a little boy who lived with his family on a small farm.

Every day the boy’s Mom would teach him that one day he would become a man. 

She told him that his actions today would choose what kind of man he would become.

She also told him that to become a Prince in the future, he would need to act like a Prince now.  She taught him a prince is kind and generous, and always remembers to think of others.   She taught him that a Prince knows who he really is and remembers that one day he will become a King.”

She also told him he could choose to become a pig.  Pigs were greedy, selfish, and mean.  A pig rarely looks out for other people and doesn’t care how his actions make other people feel inside.  A pig doesn’t know who he really is and has forgotten what he could some day become.

Every day as the little boy grew his mother would remind him to make his choice wisely for today would decide if someday he would become

A Prince or a Pig.

I am open to suggestions for changes if you have any.

Metamorphosis of the Soul

The Little Lady Bug

By Pennie M. Rumsey

© 2011 Pennie Rumsey, all rights reserved

 Dedicated to soul who has longed to know who you are, yes you.

 The little baby lady bug crawled out of her egg.  She began to wander searching for something.  She talked to bigger lady bugs with beautiful wings.  Sometimes she felt like an ugly black bug and so very alone.  She had moments that she felt confident and free, but mostly she knew that she different because she could not fly.  The little lady bug did not look much like a grown up lady bug.  Still she kept searching. 

 As she wandered she learned, and as she learned she changed.  Sometimes as she was searching, she found other little lady bugs that were searching too.  She felt happy as she shared the lessons she had learned to become more.  Now she had tiny wings, but she could still not fly.  Slowly she was changing and becoming.  Now, the lady bug could look back and see how far she’d come and how much she’d grown.  She felt happy, but knew there was more.

 One day a long, long time later after lots and lots and lots of searching becoming and growing, the lady bug made another cocoon around herself.  She felt more strong and free than ever before.  When she talked to the tiny lady bugs, they wanted to become like her.  Then as the wind blew across the garden, without even realizing it, she opened her wings and flew, to begin searching again.

How I see myself

My Self View

Some where in the back of my mind lingers a story I once heard about a Monk.  He spent many years in solitude and learning.  When he got out someone asked him, “What was the most important thing that you learned during all those years?”  The Monk answered something to the effect of, “That I am just the same as those murders and sinners that overcrowd the jail cells.”  Of course the man asking the question didn’t understand and asked, “What do you mean?”  The Monk said something like, “At any given moment if I were to choose a different choice I would be where they are.  I am no better than they.  I have just made different choices.”

I have been thinking a lot lately about our human tendency to view ourselves, and how that is often incongruent with truth or the way others actually see us.  As I begin this journey to share the journey with you, I invite you to see me (in the words of Richard and Linda Eyre) as I see myself: One in the struggle.  This is something I continually am reminded of through life’s experiences.  I am not superior, nor am I inferior, to other people who walk on two feet.  I am equal to each of them, placed in the same environment for the same purposes.  I am not righteous because of a self-elevated perspective that my choices make me better than anyone else.  I learned from Chauncey C. Riddle that righteousness is doing good to others.  There is no room for self-elevation in the responsibility to serve them. 

Through my journey in the 12 Step process, I have recognized fully and completely that I am held up from day to day by God’s sustaining hand.  Some days that support is removed so I can learn to be humble; and some days I feel Him carry me so I can be patient with my children to give them the love they need.  I can take no credit for who I am because He has made me all that I am, all that I know, all that I feel, think, and do: He gives me power to do.  The only thing I can take credit, and not even completely on that point, is the grit that I exhibit when I choose to get up every day at 5:00 am to study my scriptures- and even there I know He gives me the motivation to do that.  I know that on any given day, if I were to choose to be disobedient and sleep in that I would lose it, literally.  Without my determination to be obedient I am a raging selfish depressed woman, and that makes me a horrible mother.  I know that if I were aimed just two degrees to the right or the left that I too would be in that jail cell.  I am who I am because of God’s power, not mine.  I am no better than that person in the jail cell, I simply have made different choices and the rug could be ripped out from under my feet if I were to make a different choice on any given day.