I referenced the company Cardthartic before in this blog, and if you’ve ever received a greeting card from me, chances are pretty high that it was from this company. The founder, Jodee Stevens, and her wonderful card company email greetings out to their customers and “Cardies” on a regular basis. I always enjoy them, but Saturday’s really caught my eye. In fact, it caught both my eyes since I ended up in tears reading it.

I emailed her and asked her permission to include it in a SWOG blog post. Knowing what an influence my mom has been in my life and how she, in part, inspired this blog, I think you’ll understand the reason why this one hit me so hard–in a good way. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it helps you reflect on whomever in your life has inspired your purpose and your life’s work. Peace and blessings to you all in this New Year.

This weekend, many of us will be penning our post-Christmas thank you notes. Personally, I’ve always considered this little ritual an opportunity to savor all the sweet gifts and kind gestures I received all over again. I also know just how powerful getting a simple, heartfelt thank you can sometimes be …

Thirteen Christmasses ago, I arranged for my sister’s family to come cross-country to spend the holidays with my mother and me. At 82, my mom was Cardthartic’s original Fairy Cardmother, the unstoppable force who lived in the building next door. We had a great Christmas and, a week after our guests headed home — 13 years ago today — I found Mom on the floor of her kitchen. She’d suffered a stroke.

I was allowed in the ambulance with her, and got to stay by her side in the ER for those long nine hours she was parked on a gurney through the night. When she was finally given a room in the afternoon, I slipped home to shower and walk my poor dog. On the way in, I picked up my mail, and found this note from my mother.

Remember now, she lived right next door. She’d thanks me “for a wonderful Christmas” profusely in person. And by phone. And email. But, when it came to making sure a person felt truly seen and appreciated, my Fairy Cardmother firmly believed in notes — carefully written, stamped and mailed. 

Mom died peacefully a few weeks later. On the little desk in her kitchen, I’d found the open box of note cards she was writing, along with a roll of stamps, her pen on the floor where she’d fallen.

I’ve often thought, what a powerful legacy to leave me … the lasting reminder of just how meaningful expressing our appreciation on paper can be. I’ll never again be able to sit and talk books with my mother, or hear her nightly phoned-in, “Good night!” Her prolific emails? Long gone. But that note, in her handwriting, with her little signature mouse … it makes me feel like she’s sitting right here next to me. 
~ jodee stevens
founder & chief creative
 

For your own “thank you” cards or any other inspirational messages you want to send, you can access Cardthartic here: https://cardthartic.com

I was trying to catch up on my Richard Rohr blog posts or at least place the new sub-theme this week in context.  Rohr takes a theme for an entire year and builds it out in sub-themes that he tackles each week or every couple weeks.  This week’s theme is “Connecting with Universal Meaning.”  I was intrigued enough to read on.

After reading his post, I decided to listen to his 8 minute video introducing the theme for the year (2017) which is “From the Bottom Up.”  There were several things he said during that video that inspired me to blog.  Yes, I know it’s been a while.  I did have a vacation in there to Scotland…which is where my feature picture came from for today’s SWOG blog entry.  Eilean Donan Castle is my favorite spot in the Highlands of Scotland and we were fortunate to have the sun come out just before we got there.

But, I digress…

Back to Rohr.  So back in the late 1990’s all the world was talking about “paradigm shifts.”  It was becoming an overused phrase and many CEO business leaders would suffer a gag reflex when someone in their HR or OD areas would use it.  So swallow hard, because I’m about to pontificate on our own personal “paradigm shifts!”

Rohr quotes the author Thomas Kuhn who popularized the phrase, and it goes like this:

A paradigm shift becomes necessary when the plausibility structure of the previous paradigm becomes so full of holes and patchwork “fixes” that a complete overhaul, which once looked utterly threatening, now appears as a lifeline.

That quote really hit me as important in the journey of life.  We all create our own stories.  We create our own paradigms as we go through life.  Our stories are written initially by early influencers like parents, relatives, teachers, coaches and those who teach us and mold us according to their stories for navigating life.  Our stories help us choose and then rationalize actions and behaviors in accordance to our story.  We practice our politics and our religion according to the story we’ve adopted.  We choose our friends, our mates, our homes, our jobs according to the story we’ve crafted for ourselves.

And here’s the thing that nobody tells you early on in your story creation:  The story changes.  Yes, it does.  The story changes because something usually happens to us that makes us question our neatly created and well-maintained story. And, as the author says above, “when the plausibility structure of the previous paradigm (read here: story) becomes so full of holes and patchwork ‘fixes’ (read here: when we can no longer fit current events into our old story)… a complete overhaul now appears as a lifeline.”

This seemed to be saying to me:  Grab the lifeline.  Be flexible with your story.  Stay open to a different way of looking at things–including yourself.  Stay open to a different way of being.  Stay open to listening to the cues that prompt you to a different way of relating…to yourself…to others…to your spirituality.

I think this is the underpinning of vertical adult stage development.  When your way of making meaning in life is no longer working for you; when it “becomes so full of holes;” it may be time for a personal paradigm shift.  There’s a quote that goes, “Change your story, change your life.”  I know that can work, too.  But, sometimes your life changes first and then your story doesn’t seem quite right.

Is it time to update the edition of your story?  I wonder how many editions we will write until it’s all said and done?

Being a Superhero

Somehow the day after the Free Comic Book Giveaway seemed like a good time to talk about indestructibility.  We often think of superheroes like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman in those terms.  They’ve been through all sorts of dangerous plots and still come out the other side whole.

You just know, however, that this plot–ah, I mean post–will have a twist.  So let’s start with Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation, and I will endeavor to apply his guidance to our journeys through life AND indestructibility.

Dying Into Life

The Wisdom traditions look at dying and resurrection differently than we’ve been taught–at least in main stream Christianity.  And, just in case you’re about to tune out because I’ve said something that typically bores or offends you, please read on.  Several of you are dealing with “destructibility” issues right now, and all of us will deal with them at some point in time during our lives.  Rohr says:

Death is not just the death of the physical body, but all the times we hit bottom and must let go of how we thought life should be…

Now, I’ve got your attention.  I’ve experienced “hitting bottom,” and I’ve lived beside people who have lost children unexpectedly, who have lost spouses unexpectedly, who have lost parents unexpectedly, who have experienced debilitating health issues, who have lost jobs unexpectedly, who have lost life savings unexpectedly, who have lost siblings at a young age, who have experienced divorce unexpectedly, who have watched their companies experience rapid decline, and really, the examples could go on.  The examples of how “we hit bottom” are countless and usually don’t happen just once in our lives.

Here is where the plot gets interesting.  Let me continue to explain by returning to the quote from Rohr:

…must let go of how we thought life should be and surrender to a Larger Power.  And in that sense, we all probably go through many deaths in our lifetime.  These deaths to the small self (ego) are tipping points, opportunities to choose transformation early.  Unfortunately, most people turn bitter and look for someone to blame.  So their death is indeed death for them, because they close down to growth and new life.

But if you do choose to walk through the depths–even the depths of your own sin and mistakes–you will come out the other side, knowing you’ve been taken there by a Source larger than yourself.  Surely this is what it means to be saved. Being saved doesn’t mean that you are any better than anyone else or will be whisked off into heaven.  It means you’ve allowed and accepted the mystery of transformation here and now.

If we are to speak of miracles, the most miraculous thing of all is that God uses the very thing that would normally destroy you–the tragic, sorrowful, painful, or unjust–to transform and enlighten you.  Now you are indestructible; there are no dead ends….This is not a one-time cosmic transaction, but the constant pattern of all growth and change.

What Does This Mean To Me?

I watch all of us hang on to ways of life, ways of thinking, ways of doing that no longer serve us.  I hear people say things like, “I just want to get through this so I can get back to my normal life.”

What if you’re not supposed to get back to your normal life.  What if you’re supposed to allow the “death” you are experiencing to transform your way of being, your way of thinking, your way of behaving?  What if there’s a deeper message and you’re being “pursued” to open yourself to the learning it can teach.  What if your greatest living is yet to come when you listen and allow the lessons to soak in, changing your thinking, your beliefs and, therefore, your outcomes?  What if you are indestructible because you are reborn to a new way of approaching your changed life?

What if…?  Maybe you really are a superhero?!?!