Intolerance and Impatience

Today I hope for intolerance and impatience.

If you see hatred or bigotry, do not tolerate it. Be intolerant. Be indignant. Take a stand for what is right.

If your child is rude to another or misspells a word, correct them.

If your elected representative fails to look out for the best interest of your community or the world, call them on it. Write, call, text … make your displeasure known. Support a better candidate.

If your child cannot read, do not wait for their next report card. Take your child’s narrow behind (or wide behind if that be the case) to the library. Read to them, with them, for them. Make flash cards. Turn off the television and take away the electronics. Require reading.

If you are in the store and the clerk decides to pay more attention to another worker, remind that clerk that their employer and its suppliers and their customer are depending on that person doing their job to the best of their ability at all times.

If you see someone throw litter on the street, admonish them. If you can’t admonish them and stay safe, at least pick it up. Do not allow the trash to remain.

If someone you love is abusing drugs or alcohol, tell them how their behavior is affecting you. Be firm. Do not tolerate their bad behavior in your presence.

If you are lonely, be a friend. Do not patiently wait for a friend to find you. Go outside of yourself and make it happen.

Be intolerant and impatient today. Make something good happen.

Day 14. Did I Ever Get Out of the Station?

Day 14 and nowhere near the end of my journey. This journey reminds me of pretty much everything else in my life. I lose focus. I end up at the wrong place and even though it's usually a very nice place to be, it's not where I intended to go.

I was supposed to hope for something everyday, but I did not do that. It didn't have to be the same thing, but it could have been. It didn't have to be something large or even attainable. All I was supposed to do was hope. But I didn't. Instead, I was me and questioned everything and tried to dissect hope so that I could understand it.

Is hope really dead in me? Just thinking that thought makes me sad. I can't imagine my life without hope. Perhaps it is just the opposite. Perhaps I hope so much and dream so big that trying to quantify it is what is stifling me.

So now I'm at a crossroads. Do I stick to my arbitrary deadline of 14-days for this journey or do I stay on the hopeful train and ride it to the end? I don't see where this is going, but does it even have to go anywhere?

Can I just hope for hope's sake?

Hope is a Matter of Choice

Ask and You Shall Receive. How many times have I heard that and not understood? It wasn't until the Davids made me watch "Evan Almighty" (instead of allowing me to watch "White Christmas" another time) that my misunderstanding was revealed to me. I learn from the strangest places.

I asked for strength, and God gave me the opportunity to be strong. I chose strength.

I asked for courage, and God gave me the opportunity to be courageous. I chose to be courageous.

I asked for wisdom, and God gave me the opportunity to be wise. I chose to be foolish.

I asked for peace, and God gave me the opportunity to be peaceful. I chose conflict.

I asked for hope, and God gave me the opportunity to be hopeful. I am choosing to be hopeful.

I am choosing wisdom.
I am choosing peace.
I am choosing hope.

Merry Christmas everybody.

Holding the Good Thoughts

It's Christmas Eve. If ever there was a day filled with hope, it has to be Christmas Eve. Christians commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Jewish singles holding Matzo Balls across the United States hoping to find suitable matches for matrimony. Little children all over the world with visions of Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, Kris Kringle, Sinterklass, or Father Christmas dancing through their heads. Soldiers laying down their arms in a Christmas truce praying for a day of peace. Retailers hoping for that last minute shopping blitz so they can make their sales numbers for the year.

I'm glad I let go of the bad yesterday. So many good things came my way since then, none of them expected but all of them appreciated.

Family members have told me how much they love me. Even though I always suspect as much, I never get tired of getting an "I love you" from a family member.

Friends have reminded me that they too love me and value my friendship. I often wonder if they just keep me around because I'm an enigma, but it turns out they really like me.

Facebook friends have reminded me that I am a nice person and that some times bad things happen to nice people, but that I should stay nice. It's wonderful to discover that there are more nice people than bad people in the world.

A neighbor brought us over a bag of groceries. He works for the Pepsi Company and they give out bag of groceries and he and his wife wanted to thank for me keeping such a lovely garden. At first it used to bother me that they would go out of their way to drive by my house every morning but after she explained that seeing my garden in the morning helped her start her day off right, I started enjoying my garden more and taking better care of it. (Turns out many of our favorite foods are made by the Pepsi Company!)

Another neighbor brought over gifts for David Jr. Her son will be 18 on Christmas Day. Three years ago his Dad physically attacked him with a tire iron on his birthday and David Sr. intervened. When Bear found out it was A's birthday, he gave him his copy of the "The Dangerous Book for Boys" which he had just received. Since then, Bear and I go by to visit to check on our neighbor, whose divorce should be final in April. Divorce is bad, but staying in an abusive relationship worse.

Another neighbor invited us in for dinner. We accepted. Her parents were visiting from Alabama and remembered Bear and I from their visit three years ago, so we had a great time catching up.

I could go on ... it was a very long day! As David Sr. and I compared notes on the great things that happened in less than 24-hours, he started crying. He had all but given up hope for humanity but from the kindness of so many, his faith was restored.

I am so, so glad I let go of the anger. My heart is open. I think I'm now ready to start my journey of hope. Turns out I was just preparing myself for the journey before.

Day 7. I Was Not Built to Break

Today marks the end of my first week on this journey. When I started it I didn't think I would make 3-days because "hope" is only a four-letter word and I had no idea how much I had to learn about the subject. I could turn what I've learned this week into a semester-long course and still not dent the surface.

Yesterday I was feeling rather bad about many things and as usual my feeling bad turned into feeling guilty.

We're not where we want to be physically ... we'd rather be in Virginia sitting in my Mom's kitchen drinking hot chocolate with my Dad and looking at the snow out the windows.

We're not where we want to be financially, still trying to recover from investing our life savings into David Bear then building them up again only to have them all stolen from a shady lender out of Florida and losing the rest to a Developer whose great intentions caused him to lose focus and lose millions.

We're not where we want to be emotionally, wasting too much energy on trying to get where we want to be physically and financially.

My bad feelings turn to guilt because then I remember that we're not at Children's Hospital, Hoag Hospital, or Fountain Valley Hospital dealing with a health emergency.

My bad feelings turn to guilt because I remember that 30-years after the doctors gave my Dad 30-days to live, I can still pick up the phone to call him ... so I do.

My bad feelings turn to guilt because I remember where we are trying to go, who we are trying to save and what really matters ... a continent, a country, a child.

David Sr. must have sensed that I was feeling bad for he called me downstairs just to hear a video. Hopefully I'm not violating any laws by sharing this with you. I encourage you all to go buy the latest work from one of my favorite female artists and help celebrate her return to us.

Whitney Houston: I Didn't Know My Own Strength
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1LS-Se-XS4

My sorrow turned to joy because I remembered that I have so many people who love me despite my many flaws that I should never be sad.

I'm hopeful for the next week, the next month, and beyond. I am hopeful for my son and his friends for despite being in Orange County, there is so much love that crossed racial and religious barriers that I know the world is better today than yesterday. I am hopeful for the world because there is so much hope in even the darkest corner of the world that light shines through.

Thank you for staying with me thus far.

The Opposite of Hope (Day 4 of my journey)

The opposite of "hope" is "despair". From the Merriam-webster.com/ dictionary

intransitive verb : to lose all hope or confidence <
despair of winning>transitive verb obsolete : to lose hope for

That doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, so I guess I’ll stay on the hopeful path. Still I have to be careful what I hope for. The cerebral part of me feels that it’s okay to hope for bad things, but every time I’ve tried that my gut and heart hurts, so I guess I’ll have to follow my gut/ heart on this one.

Maybe that is what I am supposed to learn on this journey, to quiet my head and listen to my heart.


(A warm welcome to my newest follower. THANKS for joining.)

Who Am I To Question God?

My Grandmother used to say that to me when I was a child. She would also say things like “God’s will be done” and “all things in time.” A few years back I caught my older sister saying “well that ain’t nothing but something to do” and I had to lol … if she didn’t sound just like Wootsie then no one ever did. Of all the words my Grandmother ever spoke to me, two echo off my brain wall (sorry VG but I’m just never going to understand the brain like you, so I’m going to continue to say brain wall):

Who are you to question God?

Next time it rains, be sure to tell God not to rain on your yard.

(The last statement has absolutely nothing to do with this topic but it was so hysterical at the time. My elderly next door neighbor was screaming at me for getting water in her yard when I was out watering my Mother’s plants and my Grandmother came to my defense. That is one of my happiest childhood memories.)

Whether or not you believe in God doesn’t matter to me. If you believe, WHY are you questioning and if you don’t believe, WHO are you questioning? It matters not to me.

It’s day 3 of my journey and I still have hope, though I’m not quite convinced that I’m hoping for the right things but I now realize that hope is not some discrete thing but rather a continual process. You can’t put hope on a schedule and give faith a deadline. It’s very easy to lose hope or stop hoping, so maybe that is why Reverend Jackson said “Keep Hope Alive.”

(As an aside, I find it ironic that I keep quoting Jesse Jackson since I have rarely agreed with him on anything in the past. I’ve only been in his presence once (after the LA riots) and was not the least receptive to his words, but that was back in my analytical, non-dreamer days. I wonder if I’d be cheering that same speech today. Things that make me go “hmmm”.)

Some good things happened to me yesterday, though they weren’t the things I had hoped to happen yesterday. They were things I’d hoped would happen last week or next week, but they happened yesterday. Perhaps my hopes shouldn’t be tied to a particular outcome but instead to my entire life.

Perhaps I should listen to my Grandmother’s words and stop questioning God. (Perhaps? … where is that sarcasm button when I need it?)

I question God when things go my way and when they don’t.

My hope is that I can accept things the way they are. I’ll have to listen to my oldest sister on this one, her with her Serenity poster probably still hanging over her wall.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

I guess I’m hoping for serenity with some Desiderata thrown in. I hope that is not too much to hope.

(Still working on not putting limits on my hopes.)

14-Day Hope Journey -- Climb Aboard

When did I lose the ability to hope? I know how to plan, how to analyze, and how to critique. If you don’t believe that I am “hopeless”, consider this:

1. When folks ask me my dreams I usually respond that my husband's dreams are big enough to sustain us both, share his dream and then explain how I am going to contribute to helping his dream become a reality.
2. When folks tell me that our son is “proof that God is still in the healing business” I always concur, but then I immediately explain about the steps we took to improve our son’s chances for recovery.
3. This is supposed to be about hope, but instead I called myself “hopeless”.

So back to hope. When Jesse Jackson started his “Keep Hope Alive” campaign I thought “Well I didn’t know hope was dead.” What an ignorant child I was back then. What could I have possibly understood about hope? I have two wonderful parents who love me, five siblings who treat me much better than I deserve, felt safe in the house I grew up in, have never been hungry, and have always had friends I to whom I could turn. Reverend Jackson wasn’t talking about me but he was talking to me, only I didn’t know it at the time.

I didn’t know that it was my job to hope for those who had no hope. I learned about hoping for others from a child on the Mexican border clinging to a cup of water, a cup which held his daily allotment of water.

When I read Obama’s book “The Audacity of Hope” I didn’t get it the first go round. I’m a black female Harvard John F. Kennedy Scholar/ former Navy rocket scientist married to a black male orphaned-at-birth Eagle Scout/ Air Force academy alum/ architect who helped heal a brain dead, blind, cerebral palsied, lung damaged baby. To me, everything is possible. President Obama wasn’t talking to me, but he was talking about me.

I didn’t know it at the time but it was pretty audacious of me to excel beyond my circumstances. I didn't know how unlikely my existence ever was until I spent an afternoon in Los Angeles speaking to delegates and leaders who were mesmerized that I'd reached my dream of becoming a rocket scientist only to discover that I meant to dream of becoming a research scientist. Be careful of the road you take for it just may take you to where it ends.

When Patti Labelle sang “Over the Rainbow” she was definitely singing to me, but somehow I forgot to make that wish upon a star. I know Judy Garland sang it first but I saw Pattie live and I like her version better anyway.

And when Al Jarreau sang "Could You Believe", I didn't really, despite listening to that song every morning for a year. Drove my roommates nuts!

So now I’m starting my own personal 14-day Hope Journey. Every day for the next fourteen days I’m going to hope for something. I’m going to hope blindly. I’m not going to plan my hope around what I know I can accomplish on my own but instead dare to dream that I can rely on others to help me achieve that which I dared not dream of last night. There’s plenty of room on this Hope Train so feel free to share your hopes with me.

Right now I hope that someone I don’t know gets this from someone I do and likes it.