Intentional (in-TEN-shun-ul)

My word for 2020:

INTENTIONAL

definition: "done or made or performed with purpose and intent" (vocabulary.com)

I want to be intentional this year in my relationship with God, with everyone else, forgiveness, humility, my time, learning, and plans.

What I am doing (am doing, not going to do) to implement this is easy, believe it or not., so this will be a short read. Also, this is not a New Year's Resolution. Note-the method is simple, but maintaining the impetus to be intentional? Not so much. So, I am not trivializing it. I'm sure my method will evolve, but for now...

When I have any kind of negative response to any task, whether work, relational, or personal, I stop and ask myself, Are you being intentional? Or I just say Be intentional. 

It means I need to get up and do it-that workout, that email, that job. Or get on the phone and say it, or get my heart attitude right and handle my relationship moves with love, decisively. 

A short read, as promised!

#intentional #twentytwenty #Godfirst #stopnegativity #endprocrastination #productivity #purpose

My Christmas Blog Post

In recent years I've been struggling with celebrating Christmas. I love so many things and there's so much Christmas linked sentimentally or faithfully constructed into my very core.

Over time, by learning and searching, I discovered some building materials and I think it’s time to reconstruct.

1) I have outgrown the Baby-Jesus-in-a-manger warm fuzzy. I treasure the beauty, but there’s more there, there.
2) I have a track record of downplaying the Santa/commercial element having decided it was way, way, overblown in our culture to the point of replacing Jesus, ironically without Whom there would be no Christmas.
3) I cringe at the dearth of Christmas faith factors in our culture’s “Christmas Season” and shake my head at how instead it’s an excuse sometimes to do things that are—how can I say this—sinful.
4) Some things I always loved - trees and other heirloom traditions - have had roots in paganism. My strategy thus far has been to infuse them with meaning from the real Christmas.
5) I’ve learned about some neglected Biblical holidays I never learned to celebrate and now wonder if more emphasis needs to go there instead. More learning is needed. Potential exists for a big overhaul.

So, I've been trying to assemble and reassemble my approach and I feel like I'm forever falling short. How can I embrace all that I grew up on for Christmas and say it still has meaning? Jesus Christ, the Namesake of the Holiday, came to bring salvation, not by His arrival into the world of itself, but through an event many years after His birth. That event's mention is mysteriously lacking inclusion in Christmas traditions and weighted with emotional polarity to the Joy of Christmas: Jesus’ death on the cross.

But here I am again. I happen to be getting another Christmas newsletter (and this post) together thereby striking up my internal Christmas orchestra. In the back of my mind is a compulsory list of Holiday To-Dos starting with “Get the Christmas boxes out of storage”. And hovering in my mind is the memory my family who loved Christmas dearly, and passed all their love of the season on to me. It almost feels “wrong” to reinvent my approach to celebrating.

So I'm questioning.  Why do people celebrate? Sentimental reasons, it’s fun, (but also work), it brightens up gloomy colorless winter, and it unites us together with all the other celebrators whether or not they even acknowledge Jesus as Lord, in some kind of brotherhood-of-man feel-good way that may be just an illusion. Still, doesn’t it warm us to drive by strangers’ houses and see those colorful lights? To hear carolers at the mall? To be at once, overwhelmed and still impressed with all the massive, endless hustle-bustle big-deal being made and know it started when my Savior was born? Do you wonder, as I do, and silently hope there is a glimmer there, just a tiny one that maybe, maybe, everyone knows deep down there is a Greater One Who is the at the foundation of this cavalcade of stuff we do to celebrate Christmas?

Today I'm celebrating a normal post Hurricane Dorian day!

My Celebration Action will be:

• spending 10 minutes on my porch watching the birds and enjoying the view. (I put the porch furniture back out this morning, along with the bird feeders, flags, and little decorative stuff.)

• Donating to Bahamas relief

What Are You Going To Celebrate Today?

A little over a week ago I was inspired. I put a reminder on my phone calendar that says, “What are you going to celebrate today?” I set it to repeat daily. I’m calling it Celebrate Something. I got this idea one morning thinking about my birthday approaching, and how when we're young we look forward to celebrating birthdays. Even when we're older we look forward to dinner out or special plans. I thought, ‘Why can't we celebrate something every day and make something fun out of it?’  It seemed like a capital idea! This could be a way to spark encouragement and infuse meaning into every day!

Some of the things I have chosen to celebrate include:  positive character attributes, long-distance  planning/co-planning of four parties, learning to use a zero-turn lawn mower, progress on a home improvement project, good news from a doctor, dog and cat pets feeling better without going to the vet, my last day of being fifty-something, my actual birthday of course, having home church when our church’s services were cancelled due to weather, and Hurricane Dorians’s downgrades.

Once I pick Something to Celebrate, I decide on a Celebration Action. I made a rule to avoid things that cost money or edible treats for obvious reasons. My Celebration Actions have included: scrapbooking (of course!), making plans for a future fun event, doing techy/geeky stuff that doesn’t sound like fun to most people, and allowing myself some comp time when my day runs amok. I had one food treat, (other than my birthday) which was a bacon, egg and cheese croissant!

This has all the attributes of a God thing, does it not? I am giving Him the glory for this super great idea.

Try it! There is cause for rejoicing! #RejoiceClub

PS - Ideas for celebrating in free, creative ways that do not involve eating can be found online in articles like this, "23 Ways to Treat Yo'Self Without Buying or Eating Anything" on YesAndYes.org:

http://bit.ly/2ki4gzi 

You're welcome.😁

Those Were the Days - NOT!

That's an expression we all use, "Those were the days", when we are recollecting good times from long ago. I have lots of treasured memories from my past, but I can't say it was all good on my part. Current situation:  Likely people who know me would consider my lifestyle a "straight and narrow" variety—you know, I go to church, and don't do the Don't Dos. Lots of the people who know me now have no idea about anything from my distant past. In my early days as a teen and young adult, I literally lived for the weekends when I could do what I liked best: get drunk and smoke pot/weed. I was straight on the weekdays and was either in school and working part-time or full time.  Some people who I have shared this with tell me they can't imagine me smoking cigarettes, cussing, or getting drunk/stoned. And, anyone who knows my current entertainment filters would be surprised to see what was on my TV/movie menu back then. I thought I was OK because I was a nice person-friendly, trustworthy and responsible. I was not aggressive toward others, (I "wasn't hurting anyone".) I had been brought up to believe in God and Jesus, but fell away from it in high school because I wanted a social life. It seemed like it was worth it, and I justified my choice by my loneliness without a social life. Those initial decisions to do whatever it takes to be in a tribe led to more of the same until I wasn’t sure there was a God. I rationalized that by all kinds of arguments. I cannot regret enough my decision to turn away from God and the faith my parents taught me, and have paid the price. While I was away from God I always had moments when my “heart was pricked”.  One example is I would be returning from some kind of partying or on my way to it and see a little church on the roadside with cars parked out front. It would hit me that there was another world that I had left that was still there. I would feel it – and ignore it. Of course, God did not give up on me. His Holy Spirit was at work in ways that were subtle and some not so subtle to woo me and have me where He wanted me all along, in His family with a social life of His design that was way better than the one I had sacrificed too much to gain. One of His representatives, Carolyn Lattanzi, my then-coworker was on special duty to tell me what I needed to hear. She was preachin’ it: Jesus is the Savior and Mediator, the world is on a destruction course, and His Love for us. When I argued that I was not a bad person, she quoted the scripture that “our righteousnesses are as filthy rags”, (Isaiah 64:6).  That hit hard. Next to God’s righteousness, whatever “good” I think I am is still pretty shabby. I rejected and resisted until I had to admit there was truth in what she said. Game over. I had a dream one night that Jesus was coming and I knew “how to get there”. The next day I returned to following Christ. This was in 1981. I have never looked back since. I plan to keep moving forward and glorify Jesus Christ until I die.
This is quite a condensed version, but feel free to ask me questions.
- Mary Ann Stein Raulerson

My Epiphany Experience

When I suddenly notice what has forever been before me like a towering monument of truth, I am having an Epiphany. I am happy to announce, I Am Free! I am free of compulsion to model my life after my former vision of Success. How did this happen?

I have been guilty of borrowing someone else’s playbook to fulfill my dreams, hence obstructing my own vision. A series of recent, unrelated distressing events led to my epiphany experience. My day-to-day took on some burdensome alterations and my time was eaten up by these intrusions. I went for weeks without “normal life”. I was not aware that these circumstances removed me from my misplaced ambitions and that my values were evolving—until the circumstances ended. Now I see how God truly does work all things for my good, (I am a Christian and that is a paraphrased excerpt from my favorite Bible verse, Romans 8:28), even things that for the present, seem to be ruining plans and taking me off the rails.

Lessons Learned:

·         First, do not borrow other people’s playbooks no matter how much I admire them, how successful they are or how convenient it is.

·         Query my plans, hopes dreams. Am I trying to please someone, impress, make myself more of something, make myself into something? Is my self esteem involved? There are plenty of other questions to prayerfully consider.

·         Know that even prayer doesn’t always prevent a detour on the way to the answer.  In my case I think the answer to the prayer was the detour. It reminds me of a lesson from a childhood favorite. In the film, The Wizard of Oz, Glenda the Good Witch of the North allowed Dorothy to travel to Oz to use the power she already had in the ruby slippers. Glenda knew that the treacherous detour allowed Dorothy to realize there is no place like home. Detours can yield a lot of priceless learning.

·         Do not do something just because I can.

·         Take cues from those closest and most supportive.

·         When a light-up-the-sky moment occurs, take note. A light-up-the-sky moment is one that causes a brightening in emotions, a lightening of the load, inspiration and joy. Drop what I am doing and take note immediately. Follow and track like I am on a Treasure Hunt.

Put a Wreath On The Door

So here it is January 7 and my Christmas tree is still up. I've been looking at it and thinking, and I just decided to keep it up a while longer. For years I used to keep the tree up until Epiphany, January 6. That was tradition and I think I’ll revive it. Epiphany, for anyone who may not be familiar with it is the day to commemorate the visit to the Christ Child by the wise men from the East. It's the last official calendar day for Christmas holy days.

Looking at my tree, I also hesitated to take it down because of its presence. What else can I use to fill up that space where the twinkling colorful lit grandeur of my tree was? And it is a three-dimensional scrapbook, with mementos and dated ornaments galore.

So what to do? Is there still a reason to be festive, celebrate and be merry? I sure hope so. It can’t just end with the last piece of décor being packed away. So I will FIND reasons to celebrate, some that aren’t dependent on a calendar or a season. There may be no more tree, but I will hang a wreath on my door and celebrate!

P.S. I'm leaning toward a rag wreath. I have an old wreath form, fabric scraps are easy to come by and I am sure I can find a way to add some meaning and significance to each scrap - sort of like a quilt!

Here's a link with directions on how to make a rag wreath: Rag Wreath How-To