OUR OWN SOLAR SYSTEM OF EXCELLENCE

 I must confess that yesterday was a hard day to love myself. I just didn't feel it. It didn't matter privately or publicly, I felt sick of myself. 

Now, these are lies. You can say it's the devil whispering in your ear (or whatever reasonable explanation tells you). It doesn't matter because thinking I'm not worth anything is simply not true.

Let's move away from me and focus on you okay? You struggle to wake up after the previous disaster of a day and you think: why bother? Your existence won't change anything or anyone right?

Wrong! You do not know, behind the scenes, what everyone else is going through. You do not know how your existence can change someone's day for the better. Your existence changes everything that orbits around you. It's true. The world needs differences made up of all of us to make it great. This means that you are a part of a day that is meant to be great. There are only things that you only you know how to be that are needed for tomorrow and forever after that.

Imagine that! You shouldn't try to be something you're not. In fact, you can't be something else because that's not you. For the same reason that I cannot be an auto mechanic, you cannot be <insert something you are not>.

I realize that my worth is spread out among all sorts of different roles in life. Spouse, parent, employee, hobby enthusiast, sibling, friend and child are just some of the things that we can spread the joy to that only we can spread.

So, yesterday was a rough day but today, I am better and I will spread my worth to my family, friends, colleagues and my writing.

You can spread your worth too.

May you shine like a brilliant emerald today.

May you give your doubts the middle finger.

May you learn to love yourself the way others do.

May you be the one, the only, you.

Forever and ever.

Amen.

JUMP ON IN!

Many years ago, I was on the cusp of graduating with my Bachelor's Degree in Religious Education. In order to gain experience in vocational pastoral ministry, I worked at a church as an intern. It didn't pay well but it provided me with a significant opportunity to learn how to provide pastoral care to high school students.

Today, I have two teenagers under our roof. One has graduated high school while the other is smack dab in the middle of it (poor guy). I can appreciate the anxiety and worry that parents and guardians have about their adolescent children doing crazy things.  As a parent now, I can really appreciate their anxiety.

One spring day during the May long weekend, I found myself at Sherkston Shores.  I'm not talking about the new age discovery of finding oneself, I was literally there with a couple dozen teenagers and adult volunteers. It was a cooler weekend but the sun was shining.

Now, I don't remember what led to this decision but most of the students thought it would be fun to jump in a water-filled quarry (think smaller than a lake but larger than a pond). It was a bit of a drop but all of the male students and leaders jumped in. Being a strong reason for why peer pressure exists, I jumped in too. When I hit the water, it felt like thousands of pins were stabbing my torso. It was COLD!

I tried to swim but I was so slow. Everyone was so much quicker in the water. I did the front stroke, back stroke and even felt like I was having a stroke. I couldn't wait to reach shallow water but now, I was in the middle of the quarry while everyone else was now in the shallows. I could hear people calling my name and yelling encouragement to keep swimming.

At this point, I started to panic. All I could muster was a lacklustre backstroke. 

I thought, 'You are going to die Greg. This is how you'll bite the big one, old chap.'

Slowly, I finally reached the safety of shallow water. Thank God. I really didn't want to die from drowning (for the record, in my sleep will do just fine). I could barely walk and had risked hypothermia but I came out on the other side intact.

Life's like that isn't it? Not the hypothermia part but the uncertainty. With adventure comes so many possible outcomes. You jump into a new job, new home, new partner, etc. and you don't know what will happen. You worry because these things carry risks like being fired, costly house repairs or heartbreak. To do something new is to invite risks.

You will fail (that should be a Hallmark card). It's really that simple. There will be times when failure is not only an option but a necessity for growth in the future.

Now, your fear isn't baseless because failing and losing are valid things to make you nervous.

But.

Never attempting and wishing is even worse. No one wants to fail but to never attempt is simply unfair to yourself. There are many regrets I have had in life but trying something new or chasing a dream is not one of them.

This doesn't mean that you don't plan or prepare when taking a risk. You need to prepare but never regret doing something too many people are afraid to try.

So, what are you waiting for?

Jump!

WHAT IS YOUR BEST?

So, there's this book, Walking Contradiction, you may have heard of it...

Okay, chances are if you're reading this, you've heard of it but take heart, you are a part of a very select group of people in the whole world to know about it. My contribution to the literary world is a challenge to you and I (and everyone else in existence) to do better. 

Yesterday, it didn't feel like a "do better" type of day but I did the best I could for those twenty four hours. There's something funny about doing your best. It's what we ask of ourselves, our family, friends, colleagues and people under our charge.

Do your best.

How can you tell if you're doing that? There's no meter that registers this for us to let us know if we've done our 100% best. What is it exactly?

There are days when we shine brightly and it shows. We're inspired. We work hard and feel very satisfied that our time was spent well. Those are the days that we dream of.  The dream is that every day could be a "best day".

They're not though are they?

In the cold and grey winter months, my best can be just rolling out of bed to take the kids to school. If I managed to load the dishwasher the same day, it was a success. At the time, these days rarely felt like I was doing anything other than mediocre.

If I'm being honest, I was doing as much as I could muster in the belly of the dark beast of depression. On other days (sunny springtime), I can take the kids to school, get the car looked over at the garage, do the dishes and the laundry, sweep and mop the floors, write five pages of a manuscript and a whole bunch of other things.

What's the difference between these two days? Not a single thing.

Every single day is the best that I can offer with what I am able to give.

Here's what I've learned: The best isn't the best when compared to others. It isn't hitting it out of the park everyday. Sometimes our days don't seem to add up to much but to start a new day after them means that we're still alive. That, my friends, is still the best because we chose to keep going. Remember that. Survival just might be your only option for the day. There will be days where it feels like you've reached the pinnacle.  Other times, it's somewhere in between.

Throw away the measuring stick and realize that your best is going to look different every single day and that is perfectly fine.

Why?

Because you're still here. You are still among the rest of us, trying to make it to the next day. Be kind to yourself because it can lead to healing. If your best requires a nap, take a nap. If  you need to stop everything and watch a funny movie, do it and laugh.

My best day might look like an average one to someone else and that's completely okay. I'm not living for someone else. I'm living for me. When that happens, everyone gets a better me over time based on my choice to know what I am capable of in the moment.

Today, you are doing your best. How do I know that? It's really quite simple: You're not giving up and that is the best that any one of us can ever hope to do.

DOG FOOD IS GOOD FOR YOU?

Many trips around the sun by the giant blue rock we call, “Earth”, ago, I was a teenage missionary.  For four summers, I would travel to various places around Ontario.  There’s a ton of weird stories that I can share. Look! Here's one now...My final summer was spent in and around Toronto.  Every week, another missionary and I would stay at a gracious person’s house for the week.  It was a bit of a crap shoot.  Some weeks, the places we stayed at rocked and other places socked, I mean, sucked.

One great week started off rough.  We arrived at a lovely woman’s home who was very gracious but also very old (nothing wrong with that). She had, unfortunately, lost her husband in the spring or late winter and the house was still set up to reflect that.  Towels were lined across the floor for where she would walk or assist her husband to the bathroom.  This woman was very sweet but perhaps, a little overwhelmed with life as it had been a rough few months.

We arrived and before we even had a chance to unpack, she had us sit down for lunch.  She had a small dog that didn’t move a whole lot but, from what I could tell, it was still breathing.  Waiting at the table, I noticed that the woman had a tray with pieces of lettuce circling it.  It looked pretty fancy.  

For this tray, she looked to prepare some lunch meat for us.  Glancing into the kitchen again, I saw a can of dog food (it could have been Dr. Ballard’s ‘cause it had a German Shepherd on it, I think).  Using the can opener, she opened the can and then let the meat slide out of the can onto the tray.

‘That’s a pretty fancy way to serve the dog, it's food.’ I thought. Hold the phone. She started to slice the meat into one inch wide pieces and splayed it out like a dealer in a casino would at the blackjack table. Placing the condiments on the table, she went back into the kitchen and picked up the tray and walked past the dog and into the dining room.

Uh, oh.

She placed the tray with other actual people food on the table and I thought this was perhaps a joke.  I glanced over at the other missionary because, maybe I just imagined it or was confused.

The other missionary’s eyes were as big as dinner plates.  He too realized what I had now realized. The cold, hard truth.

We were being served dog food. Arf! Arf!

Being the good missionaries that we were, we prayed and then began to survey what to eat.  The organization we worked for had trained us to be courteous, kind and polite.  What could we do but be courteous, kind and polite?

Immediately, I grabbed the mustard and a piece of the dog meat and I sprayed that mustard all over that meat.  My fellow missionary tried a different tactic and he put the meat in between two slices of bread and put some lettuce, mustard and perhaps other stuff to disguise the doggy truth.  I’ll be honest, it tasted like bad spam (is there actually any good spam?).

We did it and survived.  The next day, our stomachs revolted a little bit but all in all, it was survivable.  Plus I received all the proper nutrients a good dog needs!

The week went well after that as there were no canine foods prepared for us.  The only other thing that was a little scary was her driving us where a prerequisite was to cross yourself and say a prayer.  She was a really nice woman though who had seen some really tough times and she gave us someplace to stay.

I don’t know if there’s a moral to this tale but I can say that I respected that woman for sharing her home with us for a week.  She didn’t have to but she most certainly did.

I guess life is like that right?  All in all, we may have our good days and bad days but through it all, when we look back at those moments in time, we can look back in gratitude. We can be thankful for what we were given or be thankful that a major crapfest was over with and we've turned a corner.

Perspective takes us to a whole other world where the mundane is a little more magical and the terrible proved that we are warriors that overcame something once thought insurmountable.

My hope for you, regardless of the season you are in in your life that even if life gives you lemons (or dog food), it will pass.  When it passes, we reflect, contemplate and strive to do better.

May you and I do better in every bowl of doggie chow we encounter in life.

It will make for a cleaner fur coat and a better experience to live an authentic life.