Forever Remembering Tracey: A Friendship Journey

June 7, 2024

OHANA: Those who are family, and those you choose to call your family.

Tracey was out fishing today. It was the best news in a while. Today is April 20, 2021. It has been sunny, a beautiful day with a high  of 75 degrees. It is just the kind of day that makes you glad spring is here after a long winter. To be on a boat on the water on a day such as this , with the man you love, must have been glorious. 

It was 1976 when we met. Jimmy Carter would be elected President. Apple computers was a startup.  Video cassette recorders made an appearance. The Blues Brothers debuted on SNL. 

And the music! The Eagles, Frampton, Elton John, Queen, Paul McCartney, The Bee Gees, and Aerosmith were a constant on our  turntable and radio combos.  

Tracey and I met as high school sophomores at the age of 15. I was the new kid.. A public school , city girl from the Midwest who began a small, conservative, private Christian school in the south. The boys had to wear their hair off their collars and ears and girls had to wear dresses. It was the seventies, mind you. And I knew no one. I was shy with confidence that would fit in a thimble. It was hard to walk into class that day we met. 

I saw her immediately and thought how pretty she was. She seemed to radiate niceness. I decided to sit down beside her. It started what is now our 46 years of friendship. It was in our 44th year that she was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. 

She called and said, “Well, I have some news.” I assumed it was good news. “I have cancer.” We both started sobbing together. 

We have been through all our life stages together. She, an only child, and I having lost a brother at a young age, we became sisters of the heart.

My father said that everyone is about three different people over the course of a lifetime. We have been all our people together. Daughters, wives, parents, grandparents and, with those roles, all that life gifts us and all that befalls us. 

We did unwise and sometimes downright foolish things in high school after we met that day in 1976 as most teenagers do and  we both wore blue eyeshadow. Isn’t it strange the thoughts that come to mind in a crisis? The days after learning of her diagnosis, I just kept thinking “but you have been with me since we wore our blue eye shadow.” 

In our younger days, I saw that Tracey knew all the girl things which I did not know. How to apply makeup, how to do her hair –all the things that matter to a girl of 15. She was always so beautiful. She knew how to sew and cook. I wore blue eyeshadow to be like her. 

She was my first friend to marry, to have children and to have an apartment. I would go there some afternoons and we would catch the latest General Hospital and  dunk oreos in our milk together. We were in each others weddings. She threw me both a wedding and a baby shower. We were there for each other when our babies were born. 

For a number of years, still trying to find my more domestic side, I would call her from the grocery often with questions like “Tracey, I can’t tell all these roasts apart! What roast should I buy?” 

She had a gentleness with living things- human, mammal, or the plants growing in the garden. 

I heard her say a handful of times, “All my friends are smarter than me.” Not like she felt bad about herself but  like she was proud of the rest of us. I told her there are many ways to be smart. 

Tracey had a strong and very accurate intuition about people and situations. I guess you could say her gut was pretty much dead on. She was full of common sense which is not so common. 

She has been a  loyal and steadfast presence in the lives of those she loved. She knew all there was to know about me and loved me still. 

She had a solid  faith.  She prayed  often that she could know and  carry out God’s will in her life. She found comfort in her prayers. 

In the Book “Gratitude”, Dr Oliver Sacks, a neurosurgeon,  after being diagnosed with terminal cancer writes, “I cannot pretend that I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have given much and I have given something in return. Above all, I have been on this beautiful planet and that in itself has been an enormous privilege.” I think Tracey would agree. 

We don’t understand why she was called away when she was but we know as Christians that this world is not our permanent home. 

In 1 Corinthians we read: 

“What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that our physical bodies cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever. But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed!  It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed.  For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies. Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled:“Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory?O death, where is your sting?” For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ. So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.”

To her friends and family, I will leave you with remembering we know the “wonderful secret”  that is referenced here: Tracey is victorious and has been transformed. She conquered sin and death..  She knew where she was going and she was at peace about that. She was not without hope because she knew she would have  everlasting days in heaven. I like to think of her taking care of some beautiful horses there or loving on some friendly animal of some kind or eating good biscuits with her Granny. 

It seems like a blink of an eye between that day in 1976 when we met and today as I stand here before you. As we mourn the loss of Tracey, remember to cherish the time we have with those remaining here on our journey with us.   

Tracey’s earthly journey was a gift to each of us. Tracey, we will always love you.

May the Peace of Jesus be with us all. 

The above was Tracey’s eulogy when she lost her battle with cancer in 2022. She is very missed.

The Day we put a Christmas Tree in the Bird Bath: A COVID Christmas

December 30, 2020

COVID Stats December 19, 2020: Tennessee-527,000 cases/6,316 deaths *

Walking around the wet, muddy grass on a dreary, chilly December day, my husband and I were hunting for ways to turn our back yard into a place that would illicit warm fuzzy feelings of holiday cheer.

We were not looking to create a holiday display to impress the neighbors or provide pleasure for passers-by but to have our family gather for Christmas outside in our backyard during a global pandemic.

In the weeks prior, there was much discussion about whether we should gather and if we did, how to ensure we would be safe from COVID-19. If we open doors and windows is that safe enough? If we stay on our screened-in back porch would that be ok? We have all become amateur contact tracers. Who has been where? Who has seen who? Who do we all know that has it? Have we been exposed? If we stayed outside, would the two babies in our family just crawl on the cold ground, I asked. My two sons and I had a conference call at one point. I said, I do not want to sit in the yard for Christmas. Mom, the important thing is we are together, they responded.

We finally did settle on everyone staying in the backyard. We will build a fire, we said. It will be fun, we told ourselves and each other.

My father called to say we should not do it. You can skip this one and have many Christmases in the future in the warm house with your family or you can do this and die from the virus, he said. I was struck once again by all the odd, “alternative universe-like” topics of conversation that COVID has brought with it.

That morning of the family gathering, my husband tried to pull our small trailer in the yard to stack all the presents on to keep them off the ground. He nearly got stuck in the mud and it left big ruts in our family gathering space.

It was then that I saw the ugly, tilting concrete bird bath that sits on the property line between our house and the neighbor. It is over 30 years old and neither we nor the neighbor knows who it belongs to so it continues to stay there. We could put our small tree in the bird bath with a tree skirt and small gifts around it, I said. It is at least something. We placed a small decorated tree in the tilting bird bath, leveled it and placed a tree skirt around. We put some small gifts under it. We wrapped a garland around “the sun” – an orange-yellow metal sun in our yard purchased at a flea market a few years back. I put our holiday table cloths on folding tables and placed festive centerpieces on top. We placed a large paint canvas cloth, only thing we could find that was big enough, under the tables so the chairs would not sink in the mud.

Our family arrived and we were happy to see one another and exchange elbow hugs. We built a fire and ate our Christmas lunch on our “good dishes” that we use on the major holidays. Our grandchildren read aloud the birth of Jesus and acted it out with our Melissa & Doug Nativity figures. The babies did fine. We opened presents around the fire and enjoyed dessert.

Not the Christmas I envisioned, but I am thankful for these unique memories, togetherness, and our good health.

If you were not able to see your family this holiday season, keep the faith that 2021 will be better. I wrote about this as a way to show small ways life has changed but there have been many very big ways as well this year. We have all been overcomers in ways we could never have imagined.

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness. – Desmond Tutu

I have hope for the new year and will welcome 2021 like no new year that has come before it.

Blessings! Donna

*COVID Stats-New York Times

Light and the Pandemic

December 9, 2020

I notice light so often now. 

Driving home today the clouds were a silver gray with beautiful rays shooting through the breaks then making their way to a tree line, creating a glow in an empty field to my left.  My photographer’s eye immediately framed a picture, placing someone there as if looking through my camera viewfinder. Seeing perfect light and how it can be used in a photograph always lifts my spirits. When I witness that glow the sun gifts us at dawn or dusk, I always want to capture it now with my camera.  Any photographer knows the crucial importance of light in a photograph. 

In the spring of 2020, when the world was shut down, I began looking forward to daily walks in the sun as the days became warmer throughout the quarantine. Our neighborhood seemed silent with only the passing of the Amazon vans going one direction and another. It felt almost sinister as they broke the silence and stillness.  I learned the medicinal value of, not only seeing the light, but feeling the light on my skin as it warmed the fresh air around me. Some days a friend would walk on her side of town as I walked on mine and we would chat on our phones about everything and nothing. It almost seemed like we were enjoying the warmth of the sun together. The sun as medicine was a new experience. By some estimates the sun has been around for 4.5 billion years but it took a global pandemic in 2020 for me to learn the power of sunlight. 


I learned the power of candlelight while teaching small groups made up of youth experiencing generational poverty. Fire, primitive and tiny, but yet a force for calming.  The teens come to our group from a reality of violence, drugs, gangs, and feeling of hopelessness. Some nights we cry together over a family member lost from violence. We light a candle. “You are the light of the world.” and “Jesus came to the world to be a light for us and His light shines through us.” We talk about these spiritual aspects of our faith each week while sharing what is on our mind, heart and plate just then. The light from the candle seems to soothe us, unite us and make our space safe for sharing. When we leave, we always blow the candle out with intentionality and speak of going out into the world and being a light for those who need it. 

Fire, primitive and tiny, but yet a force for calming. (photo credit: dlm photos)

We are all drawn to light whether it is external light or the light someone brings to the world from within them. 

These pandemic days, I feel my inner light diminishing like someone is using a dimmer switch in slow motion, just a miniscule amount over what seems an extended period of time.  I have always felt my inner light burn brightly. Normally active, energetic, a lover of God, of people – especially children and having “FOMO” (fear of missing out) to the max leads me to be involved in all kinds of activities. I love to learn new things. I am grateful for everything you could ever put a name to. All of these things that are a part of me, that are me, are akin to a generator working to keep my inner light burning its brightest. 

I have now gained weight; my hair is a mess and I need a cut and color. I am spending too much time in my own head and too much time alone. I miss my community; my volunteer work and I miss hugs. When our school was passing out food boxes for the hungry and needed help, I did not go as I would be too close in proximity to others and I was fearful. Racial and political divides, which seemed heightened during this global health crisis, have weighed on me as well. 

A truth for me and perhaps all of us is that my inner light seems to shine brightest or even at all when it is reflected off others. 

This is true of all light according to science:

“Reflection is the change in direction of a wavefront at an interface between two different media so that the wavefront returns into the medium from which it originated.” 

When I can see smiles on the faces of those I care about, have conversations over coffee with a friend, work to feel I have made a difference in the life of anyone other than myself, or when I can be in the middle of what we call a “beautiful mess” at our house doing art projects with my grandchildren…. When I can cook dinner for a group of people we care about and sit together around the table afterwards catching up… These are all ways I see my light reflected in others and how their light in turn keeps mine burning bright. There can be no light without  possibility of reflection.

As a COVID-laden winter approaches, I find once again I am drawn to the light as we  enjoy stringing the lights on our house and Christmas tree. I notice the other decorated houses more in 2020 as well. 

“To shine your brightest light is to be who you truly are.” ― Roy T. Bennett

In the midst of this pandemic, we can keep looking to the light around us until this pandemic is behind us and we can be who we truly are again. 

Keep the Faith- #ktf

Donna

Participation Revisited – COVID 19 Induced Perspective on Sports

August 30, 2020

    “Just get rid of those. They won’t want them.”, my husband of 39 years said as we came across storage tubs of mostly “participation” trophies belonging to our sons while preparing for a move.

      As I sorted through them, memories from our good years as a “baseball family” came flooding back.

     This was just prior to this sports-less world we find ourselves in due to Covid-19. Who could have imagined something so much an integral part of our way of life would be gone quicker than you can steal second base? The world seems hardly recognizable when thinking of empty stadiums and athletic fields. Our local paper ran an article listing what sporting events would have taken place this week. Instead of sports coverage, there is coverage on coping with COVID19.

     Will sports participation, once we get it back, no longer be a given but something for which to be grateful?

      It is ironic, given my early years, that I would write about ballparks in any kind of a positive way. I was that girl in gym class who was always the last to be picked for any kind of a team sport. I could hardly run at all and found out years later that my feet are sort of a mess and I could have used some orthotic assistance. My mom, thinking she was sparing me humiliation and embarrassment, wrote note after note: Please excuse Donna from gym class today. She is not feeling well. My confidence dwindled until I never wanted to try for fear of failure.

     In my neighborhood, extra-curricular activities did not happen at a ballpark but on our city sidewalks outside our apartment building in the heart of South St. Louis. We lived across from a gas station and a bowling alley with a neon sign that I watched flash in my window in bed at night. There was a bar on the corner.  Circling the block on our bikes and hopscotch games with the neighborhood kids on the sidewalk- that is what I did. We spent much time at my grandparents who were in survival mode as generational poverty seems to make it go for folks. I did not know about youth sports teams, summers loading up the car for a day of ball, drinking Gatorade and disputing umpire calls.

     This changed when I was in middle school. The St. Louis Cardinals baseball team had a program honoring good grades. Middle school students who qualified were offered free admission to games at Busch Stadium in downtown St. Louis. Making good grades, except for gym class, was something I was good at. I was offered a card which I carried with me for years, I was so proud.

     My mom dropped me off at Busch Stadium. I was alone, but I loved every minute of the game. I loved the cheering of the crowd. I loved the concession stand smells- the hot dogs and popcorn and the game itself. I loved feeling the warmth of the afternoon sun and the stadium, the biggest place I had ever been. I knew then that while I might never be a strong athlete, I could enjoy rooting for others and loving the game of baseball.

    Is it any surprise, then, that I married a baseball player?  The first time I went to see him pitch, what stands out in my memory are the sounds at the ballpark. The crunch, crunch of players spikes on the asphalt as the players made their way to the field is still a sound that brings back pleasant memories. The crack-ping sound of the ball hitting the bat during warm-ups was a sound I loved.

   Along came two sons and we were packing it up and headed to the park as soon as they could play. One spring, our house burned, and our son’s 1st grade teacher, Jenne Thompson, replaced his glove and cleats out of her own pocket. I remember the young outfielder whose only focus was the bubble gum he was chewing, watching the bubble he was blowing grow bigger as the ball rolled right past him. “Pay attention and spit that gum out of your mouth!” the head coach shouted. It was straight out of the Bad News Bears.

      One week I spent 67 innings wrapped in a sleeping bag during the cold start to the season, but by the season’s end we were packing coolers of cold drinks and sandwiches.

     In high school, away tournaments were family vacations. We made ammonia water rags for the boys to cool their necks and moms unpacked battery operated fans to use while kicked back in our lawn chairs in shorts and sandals. We won a World Series, a State Championship and earned college scholarships but more importantly, we knew where our sons were most of the time and they were surrounded by people who cared about them. We were not home together eating dinner around our table most nights, but we were together and that is what counts most.

       Staring at the trophies that day, I realized having the chance to “just” participate meant someone cared enough to make that happen. In this case, my husband and me.

      These were, in effect, family participation trophies. Yogi Berra said, “Little League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets.”   Though my husbands and my athletic experiences were in stark contrast to each other, we came together to provide those opportunities for our children and that is a beautiful thing.

     As I reflect on this, we find ourselves in a sports-less world. Will the opportunity to participate be more meaningful once we are free to play again? Will we appreciate the power sports have to bring people together in all kinds of ways? As I hear that crack-ping of the bat hitting the ball in my mind I believe the simple act of participating may never seem so good.

I am keeping those trophies.

YOUTH

July 5, 2020
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is youth-blog.jpg

I was sitting in my car in the parking lot at the YMCA, having just finished my exercise. I was a sweaty mess and leaving to go prepare dinner. 

I was asking myself was it a positive or negative that I could now park in the “55 and Over” parking section of the Y parking lot when I looked over into the car next to me and a very pretty, very elderly woman,  caught my eye. I am guessing she was in her 90’s.  She was looking in the rearview mirror at herself. Looking this way and that. Examining. I sat and watched her dig for her lipstick. She applied it ever so carefully, looked for a tissue, blotted it with care. She then checked the mirror again, looking this way and that. Examining. Then she drove away. 

Being a photographer at heart who seems to walk around viewing things as if looking through a camera lens, I wished I had my “good camera”, as I call it, and somehow could have asked permission to take her picture looking in the mirror and applying her lipstick. It seemed such a beautiful, personal slice of someone’s life that I did not know and likely never will.  

I am finding myself examining “this way and that” as I look into my lighted make-up mirror I use to get ready for the day. Last night, my bedtime reading turned out to be “Makeup Pointers for over 50”.  Then I fell fast asleep before I could start my reading that I intended to do. I hope this does not sound vain; I do not think I am. I just do not want to be using non-age appropriate makeup techniques. 

I am reminded I am not thirty sometimes when I try to keep up with the energy level of my two sons, their wives and children. I can still hold up ok though. 

I read once that we should all be the best at each age we can be. We should not look back or be envious of those younger because we had our time to be that age and now it is theirs. So, I try to be the best at each age I can be. 

I LOVE the essay below and the definition of youth it provides. After I post this blog, I am going to hang it up next to my light- up, magnify -your- every-pore-and -more makeup mirror. 

Keep the Faith #ktf

#thisearthlyjourney

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

Youth

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind. It is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees. It is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep spring of life. 

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty, more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by the number of years; we grow old by deserting our ideas. 

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust. 

Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage, and power from men and from the Infinite, so long you are young. 

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with the snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there’s hope you may die young at eighty. 

Author: Samuel Ullman (April 13, 1840 – March 21, 1924) was an American businessman, poet, humanitarian. 

From one overcomer to another…

July 6, 2019

Hi! I am Donna Moffitt, overcomer. As we travel along this earthly journey together, you are an overcomer as well. What came to mind as I was thinking of this first post was one of those paper chains that we made as children. The ones out of construction paper mostly around Christmas time to hang on the tree. Each piece is connected and wrapped around another building on the one before.

 Overcoming is like that for us. We are interconnected and wrapped around each other in all sorts of real and figurative ways.  We often go from being the overcomer to helping someone else become one just like the construction paper chain which is intertwined, connected and loops around. And that is how we travel along through this life. Perhaps an over simplified life analogy but one that works. 

Booker T. Washington is attributed with one of my favorite quotes: “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.” 

I have shared this quote with the teens at Preston Taylor Ministries where I volunteer a number of times. I tell  them that I believe they may have overcome more obstacles to walk across the stage to get a high school diploma than most U.S. presidents have overcome to become president! Homelessness, fathers who walked out or they never knew, the lack of resources that comes with generational poverty and two had cancer and more!

According to recent research teens from all demographics are experiencing anxiety at all-time high levels. Why are they and what can help them?

How do we measure success as Booker T. referenced it? How should we?  How is it that some folks who have been through trials that would break many of us keep going? Why are there those who can’t go on and choose to end their journey on this earth, (in simple terms, the construction paper chain broke for them)?  What can we learn from the stories of others that can help us overcome? 

Again, we are all overcomers because we live in an imperfect world as and with imperfect people. 

Through sharing stories of overcomers from all walks of life, good thoughts, and good research I hope to bring inspiring material about all things related to overcoming your way. Stay tuned…

My good friend, Roosevelt, ends his emails with “Keep the Faith” from which a group of us have adopted the hashtag: #ktf – I will borrow it for this blog and end with:

Keep the Faith #ktf

#thisearthlyjourney

Donna

The Gift of Being Unfinished

February 16, 2021

When my now grown sons were in elementary school, one of their favorite teachers would often say, “You have two good boys. They are still in the making though…” 

I thought of this a couple of years ago and how it is applicable still.  While we all realize young children are “still in the making”, aren’t we all no matter our age? Thank God for that. 

Keeping this in the forefront of my mind has made me extend more grace to others. As someone who struggles with perfectionism for myself, it has helped me to extend grace to myself as well. Grace…so thankful for grace. For myself and others. As humans on this earthly journey, we are all fighting our own battles.  Where would we be without grace which is undeserved and unearned? 

We all wear many hats and have many roles. As a community volunteer,  an employee in the workplace, a wife, mother, grandmother and friend; I have learned to see myself, organizations  and others as “still in the making” and “unfinished”.

Less and less have I thought of situations in terms of “mistakes”, “blame” or “failure”, but more in terms of “being in process”, “a chance to grow”, and a “chance to learn and improve”.  

Tim Tebow, professional athlete and author said, “I have so many things to work on, and so many ways that I fail. But that’s what grace is all about. And I constantly wake up every morning trying to get better, trying to improve, trying to walk closer to God.” 

What a gift to be unfinished and to know when the sun rises tomorrow we can work on doing better and improving. Unfinished on this earth as earthly beings but made perfect in Christ as spiritual beings. A perfection not based on abilities, talents, or shortcomings. It is a win-win situation. 

The Mandisa song, “Unfinished”, always makes my spirits rise:

He started something good

And He’s gonna complete it

So I’ll celebrate the truth

His work in me ain’t through

I’m just unfinished

In 2021, take a minute and thank God for the gift of being unfinished  and having the chance to learn, grow, improve and serve. Celebrate and practice grace for yourself and others whenever possible remembering we are all, no matter our age, “still in the making.” 

Keep the Faith,

Donna

Life Navigation: Words to Remember from my Father

June 22, 2020

He has a genius IQ and street smarts to match. That is my father. I am thankful for the things he taught me. Things that have made me a stronger person and that have helped me navigate the world.

He wanted a better life for his children than he had. I am thankful because his life was difficult growing up poor and chopping cotton in the hot sun.  Our life has been better.

That, in turn, made it easier to give my children a better life than I had.  

We are in a good place but at times have not done so well.  Some say we are too much alike; code for “strong-willed” and “stubborn”. We are good at “sticking to our guns.” 

Some of his valuable thoughts on navigating life:

Unless you are nearly dead you go to school and to work. Of late, I have been struck by people of all ages who do not know the importance of just showing up. 

You work hard not because someone is standing over you but because that is just who you are and what you do.

Money is only important when you don’t have any. 

Everyone needs to wake up every day with something to do and something to look forward to or you will die. 

You should know, without a doubt, someone knows what they are talking about or do not believe it and keep asking questions until you find correct information. I am sure he has never heard the phrase “critical thinking skills” but taught them to us to the max. 

Gather all the facts before you decide.Be careful about what you say you will do. If you say you will do it, it should be as good as done. 

Complete your education. It is something no one can take away. Life is much harder without it.

Do not go in debt except for a necessity which is basically a house and a car.  It is no fun to have your money spent before it is earned. Debt is a bad cycle to find yourself in. 

Be careful what you go looking for because you might find it.

 Sometimes, “the more you stir crap, the more it stinks.’ Basically, be careful about “stirring the pot.”  I have thought of this many times when deciding whether to speak or remain silent.

At times, moving forward in life involves taking risks but you must take them sometimes.

Think big picture. The decisions you make do not just involve you but affect others as well.

 Do not give up until you have tried everything. Especially, do not give up because someone says it cannot be done.

Teens need boundaries. Curfews are good. And no one is ever old enough to watch “R” rated movies. As an adult, I have been thankful for those boundaries I protested loudly about as a teen.

If you miss church, watching “Touched by an Angel” is a surprisingly good substitute every now and then.

Do not ever think you have to keep doing things the way they are always done. Learn why they are being done that way.

If someone has two or three true friends in a lifetime, they are lucky.

If you are worried about using the wrong fork or other etiquette failures, just be yourself. That is always best.

Don’t let impressing others be your motivation for doing.

The older the violin, the sweeter the music.

Happy Father’s Day to my dad and to all who are doing this important, beautiful, and life-altering work. Stay encouraged and hopeful. You are changing the generations with each teachable moment. 

Keep the Faith #ktf

#thisearthlyjourney

 

 

How I Learned Not to be Color-Blind

June 18, 2020

“I don’t notice skin color. People are just people to me. There are good and bad people of every color and I try to think about the hearts of people.” In my younger adult years, I used to feel great about sharing and thinking this. I even wrote an Op-ed column that was published in The Tennessean newspaper about this very thing.

I thought not noticing color is what good people who are trying to love others do. In the Bible, God says to Samuel when Samuel thought God should choose David’s brother over David for King, “Do not look at his appearance or his height for I have rejected him. God does not see what the Lord sees, for man sees what is visible but the Lord sees the heart.” This verse was one of those that always spoke to me. I thought I was doing what God would want when I bypassed skin color to see someone’s heart instead.

There was much I did not know then. To be honest, at that time I had few black friends only because those relationships did not organically happen in my circles of connection when I was the busy mom of two young boys.

I had not listened to black youth share about their homes, neighborhood, public schools, and hopes and dreams for the future. I did not know Carlesha, Nia, Kennedy, Jabez, JP, La’Dejah and many other youth that I have come to know through volunteering.

I did not know about the obstacles faced by people of color who have spent generations in generational poverty. I did not realize that the lack of resources encompasses much more than just a lack of income.

I did not know about the injustices in our justice system if you are poor or a minority and you cannot hire someone to advocate and speak for you.

I did not understand the challenges of first-generation college goers.

I did not know about Reagan’s “War on Drugs” and how it had failed and disproportionately affected the black community.

I did not know my friend, Dwight, a Christian youth minister, the same age as my sons who shared with me one day how his mom taught him how to behave and what to do should he ever get pulled over by the police. I never gave a thought about my sons being pulled over and not being treated fairly. I had no idea anyone had to have such conversations.

I did not know my friend, Kimberly, who is currently serving alongside me on a non-profit Board of Directors, a beautiful young woman, who shared how she was stopped and questioned by the police when she was jogging through a nice white neighborhood and the humiliation she experienced.

I did not know my work friend , Pat, who had two sons the same age as mine who shared the fear she had experienced raising black sons making me aware that I had never had her same thoughts or fears for the reasons that she did.

Our friend, Jay, had not come to stay with us yet. He was a PTM youth leader and has deep feelings about race relations. He said to me during one of our conversations in my kitchen, “Donna, you have to think about skin color. Otherwise, you miss things. You don’t ask questions that need asking.”

And there it is in a nutshell.

These are but a few of the things I did not know when I thought I was doing the right thing by not seeing skin color. There are many more.

Today, I am glad that I now see skin color. I want to make sure I do. I no longer think of it as being a bad thing. I want to see skin color because to know a black or brown person and to see the color of their skin is to acknowledge that their experience in our country, even in our city, has not been the same as mine. It means I am not turning a blind eye to this truth. It means we can learn from each other and understand things we could not before. It is a step towards heartfelt and honest conversations about race issues in our country. It means we can acknowledge the lens through which we see things is likely going to be different. It means we can have a fuller understanding of the human experience through the eyes of those who are different than us while at the same time learning those differences are likely not as many as we might think.

It is a universal truth that we all want to be seen, to be known, to be loved, to be treated with dignity and fairness. Seeing skin color is one of the first steps for those of us who want to change the status quo. The sad truth is these things happen more organically and more easily for some of us than others and we must continue to ask why and fight the good fight to move humanity forward.

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*This blog post can also be found at: https://prestontaylorministries.org/

Keep the Faith- #ktf

#thisearthlyjourney

CONTROL

May 2, 2020

Have you ever been struck by another vehicle and the car you are in starts to spin and you have no control over where it is going or where it winds up stopping or what it might collide with in the in-between?  I have and it is just that kind of feeling – that loss of control- that is maybe my biggest fear.

Watching the news the last several weeks has been akin to the spinning car as we have all watched the global domino affect of COVID-19 feeling helpless in our living rooms unless, that is, you are in health care and then it is a different kind of  spinning out of control they are experiencing.  

My biggest fear, other than the common ones like something happening to my children, are situations where I feel I am not in control. Hmmm. Does that mean I am a controlling person? What would the origin of this fear be? What parts of life does this affect?

I am not a drinker or a drug user. It never appealed to me for a variety of reasons, the main one being I cannot imagine not being in control of what I do or say and perhaps hurting myself or others. That thought pretty much scares me to death. It makes me feel vulnerable and at risk.

Having witnessed adults not in control due to substance abuse while growing up, I decided early on I never wanted to be that person. This could be the origin of my fear when I am in situations over which I have no control.

In 1993, we were a young family with sons ages 4 and 7, on the Sunday that our house caught fire while we were gone to church. It was a very cold March day, a dreary day, with snow remaining on the ground from earlier in the week. We stood and watched, I in a skirt and heels, as everything we owned was lost. The house sat back far from the street in a rural area and the fire trucks could not get water there quick enough to save it. It was an old farmhouse and it went up like a torch. We lived in a close-knit community and friends were there while it was still burning asking us about sizes, stuffing money in our pockets and purse and offering their coats as it was so cold that day. There are few things, I would think, that create more a feeling of having lost control of a situation than watching your house burn to the ground. I have to say though that while our house and belongings were gone, the giving and loving spirit of our friends and family was life-giving, sustaining and unforgettable and we have always been grateful.

We have covered “life situations” now and how they play into this fear of not having control but what about people and relationships? Would I be considered a controlling person?

I have never thought anyone has to be like me. It is a tenet of Christianity that we strive to be like Jesus and everyone should and therefore everyone needs to be like us, so to speak. I have always thought  who the heck am I that anyone should be like me?  Are we all not like grains of sand in this universe? Certainly, I have few answers about anything.  Respect for differences in people and having an interest in learning about how we are both the same and different is something I love.

I do, however, have high expectations of others at times. Could that be considered controlling? Currently, an enjoyable activity I have been able to do during this Covid quarantine is a “walk and talk”. I plug my earbuds into my iPhone, suit up in my walking shoes (no need to put on elastic waisted pants as that is all I have worn right through here) and call friends while getting a great dose of sunshine and cardiac activity. It has been a bright spot in my day.

“I tend to always surround myself with people who do what they say they are going to do”, my friend said one day this week while we were each walking on separate sides of town.

“Me, too! That is a really big thing to me. I don’t do well with people who are not consistent and don’t follow through on what they say.”

In “The Speed of Trust”, Stephen M.R. Covey writes extensively about this trait in people and the important role it plays in building trust with others. Keeping commitments is the quickest way to build trust in any relationship. He goes further to say “‘When you make a commitment, you build hope; when you keep a commitment, you build trust”. When commitments are not kept, it creates immediate distrust.

We would all agree that keeping one’s word and the ability to follow through is a desirable and worthy trait to which we should all aspire.

As I looked more closely at the high expectation I have for others (and myself) to honor their words and commitments it helped me to decipher my fear as being something other than the feeling of loss of control. My fear is that of being vulnerable. Vulnerable for letdown, to suffer hurt feelings, to be disappointed. I shy away from vulnerability.

I watched Brene’ Browns hugely popular TedTalk on vulnerability again (47,087,379 views!). It is excellent. She talks about how to lean into vulnerability and become a “whole-hearted” person who has a deep sense of worthiness and the courage to place yourself in a vulnerable situation. Vulnerability is at the core of our struggle for worthiness but is also the birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging and love. If you never allow yourself to experience vulnerability out of fear of being hurt, you also miss out on many good things. You can listen to her TedTalk  and learn more here. 

My father told me once when I was making a critical decision, “Sometimes you just have to take a risk.”

When we place ourselves in vulnerable situations it can be a sign of courage and confidence. It also allows us to be more grace filled people toward others when we feel secure enough within ourselves to allow people to make mistakes and to know those mistakes are not about us.  And that is a sign we know deep down we are of value in this world and to others.  We must not be afraid to be our authentic selves and know we are worthy recipients of love and friendship.

“Afraid, afraid, afraid, afraid, afraid. That is the refrain of what we are and what we do. But don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to live and laugh and love. Don’t be afraid to give and serve and care. Don’t be afraid to speak and do. Don’t be afraid.”- Fred Craddock

It’s About Time

September 14, 2019

So long I’ve heard it said that ‘Time Is Money’. The only source of money for such as myself is labor. Consequently, the more time spent in labor must result in more money. So, I jumped on the wheel and ran.

 Running first with values fairly reasonably stacked by priority but for certain moments, maybe days, weeks…only one ‘priority, one ‘goal’ like the proverbial carrot, nothing else considered. All else falling behind and filling in—squeezing in- whenever there was time for them.

Then a disturbance, an irritation, started working on me. Not only were my priorities- my values-out of order but they were also out of proportion. So much so that some-ones which I had valued at an earlier time- were becoming extinct. 

This disturbance kept questions running through my mind- incomplete thoughts that needed completing. Until one day a transition took place – Time Is Money- Time Is Money- Time is…Time is… Time is…Time Is Love. 

Time Is an act of love when it contains kindness, concern; when it is given to lending a helping hand, admiring, encouraging, comforting, sharing- sharing a loaf, sharing a laugh, sharing a life in a beautiful world. 

Written by our friend Richard Brewer- 1931-2018–
Husband, father, Navy man, Cribbage/Scrabble player, book lover, now a guest blogger.

Keep the Faith- #KTF

#thisearthlyjourney

Donna