Monday, Monday

♬ Monday Monday, so good to me,

♬ Monday Monday, it was all I hoped it would be ...

- The Mamas & The Papas

Sometimes, you can just feel the lilt in the air. It's as if the air itself is filled with joie de vivre ~ and everyone seems ready for a great day. That was today.

With no set lunch plans, I decided to wander into a nearby nursery instead of a restaurant. I thought it would be nice to stop and smell the roses. It was! You know how that goes: You step inside and the smell of plants & soil & life is there, hanging thick in the air. The staff gardener asked if she could help me, and when I said, "No, I'm just drinking in the fragrance," she laughed. I suspect I'm not the first person to commit that crime. After I drank in the roses, I wandered by the bulbs - the tulips and daffodils, the iris and hyacinth. Oh! the hyacinth! And then I wandered by the orchids. They are fragrance-free, but that's okay, they stand so tall and lithe and elegant in their little white jackets.

As I left the nursery, I thought how blessed we are to live in a time and place when it is altogether natural and normal to see and smell a wide variety of flowers ~ in March!! We don't even stop to wonder, 'Will the nursery have roses?' We know it does, complete with super-friendly gardeners.

Today, I'm grateful for 21st-century trucking & transport, and I'm especially grateful for happy nursery workers who don't mind my wandering eyes ~ and nose.
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The Best Portion

Manitou Incline

Mary Ellen Mark says, "Reality is always extraordinary." If that's a rule, today was no exception.

Steve and I began our hike up Manitou Incline as we have so many times before. He started running up; I took a more leisurely approach, though the Incline isn't a leisurely climb at any pace. It isn't a trail - it's an old railroad bed that rises over 2,000 feet in elevation in less than a mile. Climbing over 5,000 decaying railroad ties represents a unique and formidable challenge and hundreds, perhaps thousands of people march pass the "No Trespassing" sign each weekend, just to feel the burn. I'm not sure what makes it so darned fun, but it is.

At the top of the Incline, a little path leads to the Barr Trail, "the main path" to the top of Pikes Peak. At this junction, Incline hikers turn left and go downhill, back to the quaint town of Manitou Springs. It's a lovely downhill stroll through a forest of aspen trees, blue spruce and ponderosa pine. I should say, it could be a lovely stroll, but people want to race down, and the loose gravel isn't a safe surface for running.

On my descent today, a couple of teenage girls dashed past me, down the trail. Just a few yards forward, one of the girls tripped, and oh, what a terrible fall. Her ankle was visibly broken and she was visibly shaken. As I called the paramedic, her girlfriend cradled her, and other hikers stopped and offered to lend assistance.

It is in those moments that we witness the best of humanity. Strangers become comrades, quickly uniting to care for someone in need. We didn't exchange names, we didn't become friends. But we shared the best of ourselves, and I was so blessed to be there, to experience again the great goodness that exists within my fellow man.

William Wordsworth said it so simply, so eloquently ~

That best portion of a good man's life,

His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
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A Sanctuary Center

Aaah, this morning was a glorious morning. The sun shone bright and the air was oh-so-warm. My friend Marge and I rode hard & fast, a sub-threshold workout from Castle Rock to Larkspur and back, 35 miles through the rolling hills between Denver and Colorado Springs. At the end, we stopped at A Sanctuary Center.

The brainchild of  Jack and Sue Pfeiffer, it's a private space offering unlimited public use. Today Jack was tending the winter gardens, and he said, "One day my wife just said, 'we need to buy a piece of land' ...." And there it is. A contemplative structure and garden designed to afford passers-by the opportunity to stop, to reflect, to retreat.

For some it's a park, a picnic spot, a pit-stop. For others, it's their go-to place when there's no place to go. It's solitary, it's centering, it's serene. Best of all, it's open.

We didn't stay long; for us, today, it was a pit-stop. But as we pedaled away, I glanced back with a thankful heart. Thanks to the Pfeiffer's generosity, I am blessed to have A Sanctuary Center, just a short bike ride from my nearby life, where I can slow down, meet God in quiet stillness and find peace.

I biffed it

"What are friends for?" My girlfriend encouraged me, as I wiped the blood off my leg. We had just started the Friday Noon Race to the top of Hess Hill. It's a fun but competitive 12 mile race for KOM (King of Mountain) and QOM (Queen of Mountain) recognition among a handful of women and about twenty-or-so men.

Shortly after our start, which begins at the bike shop, I biffed it (which means, I had an inconceivably clutzy moment, akin to tripping over oneself). My bike and I flew over the curb and I scraped myself, pretty badly. I was at the back of the pack, and only one person saw my accident. She stopped and picked me up and said, "C'mon, let's go back to the shop".

As we walked inside, the mechanic asked, "What happened?" He immediately took my bike and hoisted it onto his rack. He checked my trusty steed and made some necessary adjustments while I cleaned up.

As the mechanic was pronouncing the bike ready to ride, the rest of the crowd piled into the shop. They didn't know I wrecked, they just knew my girlfriend and I were missing. The race was important, but not as important as caring for a teammate. "What happened?", they shouted from across the store. I gave them a brief summary, the bike mechanic wished me luck, and we were off again.

It was a little thing, my teammates' act of returning to the shop and losing 10 minutes off the starting time. But isn't it the little things that mean the most?

I am so tremendously blessed, in a thousand ways I am blessed. This is just one of the many, many ways  ...

One Thousand Gifts

 All I have seen

teaches me to trust the Creator

for all I have not seen.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Last month, I took an impulsive trip to Belleville, Michigan to celebrate my best friend's belated surprise 50th birthday party. It was great fun, flying in, catching a cab, blowing up balloons and shouting "SURPRISE!" within the folds of her enormous crowd of friends. Surprise it was!

After the party, we drove to a store to pick up a few items. As we walked, we fell predictably into thick conversation. I said, "Beth Ann, I feel as though I am being showered with a thousand gifts. I see these gifts and I feel these gifts," ~ blessings like the soft, renewing rain that falls from a sun-drenched cloud ~ "but I am not receiving these gifts. I want to open my hands and open my heart and receive all the gifts that are being showered upon me at this moment in my life."

She smiled a mischievous smile and said, "Oh, now I'm going to surprise you!" And she took my hand and led me through the store to a small aisle of books. "Let's see," she said, "I'm sure it's here." Her eyes scanned the shelf and then with enormous delight she grabbed Ann Voskamp's new book, "One Thousand Gifts." She planted it in my hand. "This is your answer," Beth Ann said with her characteristic sense of conviction.

So I've been curled up with Ann Voskamp this past month. She has a unique writing style - a conversational prose with a turn of phrase that makes you stop and listen again to the way the words lilt across her page. In this book, she examines the word "eucharisto," which was quickly shortened in my hasty mind as "eucharist" and then immediately filed away as "communion".

In that moment my mind closed, thinking, "After a lifetime of communion, I think I know communion." But I recognized my fault and back-tracked to re-read with an intent to listen ~ to hear ~ and to learn.

Eucharisto means thanksgiving and it envelopes the word "charis" which means "grace". It also holds the derivative, "chara" which means "joy". Ann Voskamp's book is an interesting study of the deeper significance and the transformative power of thanksgiving, of grace and joy in the ups and downs of daily life. She recognizes her own mind's inclination to close and she opens her mind and heart to God by accepting her friend's challenge to list 1,000 gifts that are hidden in plain view.

Beth Ann was right. "One Thousand Gifts" teaches me what I was longing to understand. It's not enough to *know* you are being showered with a thousand gifts. Each blessing has meaning and purpose, but like a prettily wrapped present resting in your hands, it is nothing until it is opened and accepted with joy and thanksgiving.

As G.K. Chesterton once said, "our perennial spiritual and psychological task is to look at things familiar until they become unfamiliar again." Because there's so much beauty to behold ...

Explain, please.

It's often the little things that make me pause and smile.

Today's little thing: I asked Chandler to explain the difference in the various carbon fibers used in the manufacture of bicycles. While there are grades of steel and aluminum and titanium, there are no industry standards for carbon. Thus it is difficult to compare Specialized's FACT 10r carbon and their FACT 11r carbon. "The 11's stiffer." "How much stiffer? $4,000 stiffer?"

Chandler was nice enough to nod his head and explain.

Though explaining is not easy to do. I want to cut the physics class and just get to the dollars and cents of it: "Is the carbon fiber on a Madone 5.2 really $4,000 less rigid than the carbon on a Madone 6.9?" (After all, it's just a small bike frame.)

But Chandler is patient with me. He builds bikes, he knows his stuff, and though he rides a Colnago, he gives an open and honest answer.

I like that.

감사합니다. Thank You.

Twenty five years ago today, I went to St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ypsilanti, Michigan. My obstetrician wanted to induce the birth of my child, and since I was 9 days overdue, I was down for that.

We settled into the room and my doctor examined me. His assisting nurse started the Pitocin drip and he broke my water. The doc then said to my husband Steve and I, "This will take a while. I'm going to lunch but I'll check back in an hour or so."

It wasn't 20 minutes later when my daughter decided she was ready to greet the world. Steve ran into the hallway and started calling for help. I remember that frightening moment when I was all alone - and pushing! - and the next moment, when I was surrounded by a crowd of students and nurses.

My quick and easy labor seemed finished before it started, and I was suddenly holding Christina Audrey, a delicate and beautiful babe, in my arms.

I'm not sure who caught Christina, though I do remember it was a student. I don't know the name of the woman who cleaned her and swaddled her. I don't remember the face of the nurse who monitored my condition. But they were there. And I was so dependent upon them, so thankful for them.

Today Christina Audrey is expecting the arrival of her first child. She will soon know those feelings - the physical duress of labor and delivery - the mystery and miracle of life - and the profound gratitude for each and every one who assists you on that day. She will deliver in a South Korean hospital, so I am practicing the Korean phrase that I will need most while I am by her side: Kam-sahm-nida. Thank You.

Sacred Beings

During the past few months, I've stumbled into conversations with men and women who are processing the pain of betrayal. "I was treated with contempt." "I was tossed aside with disregard." "I am a sacred being, but my best friend thought I was disposable."

I listen. I wonder.

How did I reach the ripe old age of 48 without developing antennae for this unique pain suffered by so many of my fellow travelers? I suppose I was blessed with true friends, and that blinded me to the existence of false ones.

But they're there.

Each time a man begins to tell his story, I marvel that I am here, listening. It is so rare to hear the feelings of a grown man. Yet here, suddenly, his thoughts spill out in a shared moment, and I learn.

Men communicate more succinctly than women. When the subject is rejection, men go from "The Act of Betrayal" to a brief expose on "Human Decency v. Hatred" to "Now I've Moved On" in surprising short order.

One man focused on what he has learned about himself and how he has grown. I listened and pondered the path of this man's life. Each day is a gift, and each moment presents the choice to grow or to languish. This particular man suffered an extraordinary betrayal in his professional life, cried a small puddle of tears, and then purposefully set a path for growth. He took an intensely injurious situation and authored his outcome in a simple yet effective 1, 2, 3.

I salute you who have suffered the indignity of betrayal only to embrace humanity with bigger, stronger arms. Your willingness to love and trust again, and the gracious and dignified way in which you live speaks volumes of your greatness.