Why can't everything just be easy??

As most of you know, I totally use this blog to combine my education career, my spiritual life, marital life (with my sweet Dave, my husband of over 31 years), and communication about life, in general. This is definitely going to be a combination post.  

While Dave and I have been in Tucson this month, we both have had a great chance to get together with dear friends and family (mutually and separately), and the Labs have gotten to sniff on old and new plants (L.C. was pretty young when we moved to Texas from Tucson). Dave has been able to golf with some of his old buddies, and I have been able to get together with some of my dear spiritual partners many times. What has changed for us, mostly, is where we worship. It was really hard for us when we moved to Texas from Tucson as we had gotten SO close to our dear Episcopal priest (she has since "retired" and moved to Santa Fe). We were so afraid we would be unable to find a church in our area that would "feed our souls" as much as we had been fed in Tucson. We thought it would be so hard. Ummm.....the first church we went to was the one we still attend three years later and have become members. It wasn't hard to find....our worry MADE it hard. I was also worried I would not feel "church connected" while we spent a month out here. Dave and I have attended "couch church" the last few weeks, which is what we call attending our Boerne, Texas church online. 

For those of you who "celebrate" (that is SO not the right word, but stick with me) Lent, you know that Ash Wednesday is a pretty important day, and this past Wednesday gave me the blessed opportunity to go to get ashes and celebrate communion with one of my dearest spiritual partners.  Genesis 3:19 is a pretty important verse during that service, as we are reminded that we are "but dust, and to dust we shall return". Part of it, to me, is kind of saying, "You're not all that and a bag of doughnuts; God is".  Once I left the service (during which time we are supposed to be silent and meditative and contemplative, by the way), I had to call one of my very dearest friends who used to worship with me in Niceville, Florida and is now an Episcopal priest in NYC.  She makes me laugh as hard as almost anyone else in the world. When she answered the phone, she said, "I am so busy but I had to pick up because I knew you were calling about 'butt dust'." Yep, for over twenty years, we have laughed out loud (never, ever could we sit together in a Lenten service, which is convenient because I just attend and she preaches, now) about the 'but dust', because if it doesn't make you laugh to think about being "butt dust", I will order you a sense of humor for Easter.  It is not hard to find joy even during Lent, when there is fasting and taking on of new and improved habits, especially when you hang with the right people. 

This morning was the first Sunday of Lent, and Jamie, our dear Episcopal priest, talked about how we simply don't like or want things to be hard.  But, in a way, we somehow need hard work to get to the good stuff.  It reminded me of a workshop I was teaching a couple of months ago, during which I was teaching school leaders observation skills that would help their teachers.  One of the principals said, "This is really hard work!", and before I could respond, another principal answered, "Only if we do it right".  YES!! It would be easy to observe and evaluate teachers with just pencil-whipping the process, but what would they learn? For that matter, what would WE learn about ourselves and about how to communicate effectively and improve our own teaching practice? 
I was blessed again to be able to teach in a school district north of Chicago this week, and before the session started (it was an afternoon session after early release for students), several teachers brought their own "comfy" chairs in (while I was setting up the room) to switch out for the hard, cold, metal ones that were at each table. See....no one wants to be uncomfortable....and I get that!! Why can't all chairs be comfortable? The work we did Friday afternoon was hard work, for sure, but despite that, these teachers laughed, shared ideas, and stayed engaged until 3:20 in the afternoon! Hard work can also be fun work, I think.  

Lent is 40 days.....I am planning to do some fasting, some processing, and some being vulnerable by looking inside and outside myself.  After all, the work I do in education, marriage, my spirituality, and particularly in my communication is HARD.....but only if I do it right...and remember that I am "but(t) dust".  :)

Happy Communicating!

​Shelly

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