Lana Vaughan

Have you surrendered?

March 26, 2012 in Questions, Re-creation with 0 Comments

I know it’s Monday morning. Many of my Facebook friends are bemoaning the start of another week. For many that includes having to be somewhere at a specific time to resume specific tasks with specific people for specific compensation.

I have to wonder this morning how much different the day would be if instead of dread and dragging the joy of “first day on the job” enthusiasm propelled them out of bed and into the shower. If they were looking at the people around them with anticipation of getting to know their co-workers and learning everything there was to be done at work, would the day seem like an adventure instead of a drudgery.

If the mindset was “I GET to go to work” instead of “I HAVE to go to work” would there be an unseen reward that motivates the effort to be better and the countenance to change?

Depending on where you get your numbers, anywhere from 155,000 to 300,000 people who woke up yesterday morning with Sunday ahead of them did not wake up this morning to face another Monday. For them the battle is over. The day is lost. But if you are reading this, you have today. Now the battle is for how you will spend it.

You can whine and complain and remind everyone it’s Monday. You can surrender and walk through what is the last day of someone’s life defeated and discouraged or….

You can claim the amazing gift you have of MONDAY and celebrate it. Today is someone’s birthday. Today is someone’s first day at work. Today, someone got married. Today someone walks out of the prison of fear and pain.

Today is Monday! Happy Monday!

Talk?

March 19, 2012 in Questions, Relation Ships with 0 Comments

How often do you chat with your friends when you see them pop up as online?

Does access increase communication, deepen relationship or just serve as a reminder you haven’t talked in way too long?

Give the opportunity do you reach out or draw back?

How many chances will you pass up today to tell someone you see them or to really ask them how they are? My guess is more than you realize and far less than you act on.

Where do you get your content?

March 6, 2012 in Questions, Relevance with 0 Comments

I like words that have more than one meaning. Many of you read the question “Where do you get the stuff you put in your blog?” But other’s may have read “Where do you get the stuff that makes you satisfied?”

Either way the question is one of filling up the blank space with something. Where do you get that something? What is it about that blank space that is so compelling and so intimidating all at the same time?

For writers the terror of sitting before a screen with the little cursor blinking is enough to make us figure out the settings necessary to make the stupid thing stop flashing at least. Something about it’s steady pulsing and inexhaustible patience is taunting and just borderline cruel. “I can wait…I can wait…I can wait…” It is only by my efforts to get my thoughts out of my head and heart and on to the screen that the little line moves forward and for a moment stop the blinking. I think it was named a cursor more for the emotion it causes than for it’s actual function. I may be wrong.

Transfer that incessant blinking to the rest of the world and you get the massive accumulation of stress that is humanity. “Everybody’s searching for something” Annie Lennox sang. Something to fill the blank space of our closet, our garage, our bank account, our home, our stomach, our calendar, our days, our nights, our lives.

How fitting is it that between the date of your birth and the date of your death chiseled in stone is a sideways cursor that has stopped blinking.

Will you be content with your content?

What would you do with 6 hours?

March 5, 2012 in Questions, Response Ability with 0 Comments

Today is one of two days this month I get 6 hours to myself. This year I am homeschooling our 8th grader. She attends class just two days a month on the first and second Monday for 6 hours. The rest of the month she works on the curriculum independently. Throw in a rotating band rehearsal schedule and private music lessons, orthodontist and chiropractor appointments and you can see keeping up with her schedule chops mine up a bit.

But Monday School…that is the day I drop her off at 9 and pick her up at 3. The temptation to use that time to blast through house cleaning and errands is pretty easy to resist. Other focus intense activities far out rank rotating dishes and laundry. Those can be worked into the shorter blocks of time. Today I have two big projects. One I can complete and mark as done for the year. The other is creative and only a looming deadline will push me across the finished line on it.

If you had 6 hours to yourself how would you use the time? What would you like to accomplish or create? Would you consider resting and silence a good use of your time? Would you fill it with friends and play? What would you do today?

What Can I Do To Help?

March 4, 2012 in Questions, Relation Ships with 7 Comments

Friday was a stressful day for my sister. Her oldest son’s high school was hit by a tornado around 9:30 that morning. As you can imagine, being several hundred miles away with communications out, her worst imaginations were running rampant. A few hours later communication via Facebook confirmed he was safe and unharmed. His home was also spared the devastation so many of his neighbors experienced.

When nature or circumstances change abruptly for the worse or tragic there is an outpouring of support and a deeper sense of community coming together to rise above and rebuild. As a nation we not only help our own but have a global response to suffering.

All of this can lead to compassion burnout. Sometimes it just seems like everyone is in crisis or looking to us to fill whatever need they have. I’m not talking about wants, I’m talking about real need. So often the request is for money. Just donate what you can…it’s tax deductible…it’s to save… or to fix…

Many times I hear the phrase ”Our thoughts and prayer are with….” from news reporters and I wonder if there is any power, any comfort knowing someone is thinking of you or praying for you. But then Friday hits and I type my words of comfort to my sister and she knows she’s not alone. She knows someone else is as worried about her son as she is. She knows there are people who care even if the only thing they can do is reach out across the internet or the phone and offer those simple words, “What can I do to help?”

Today my family is all safe and healthy. I hope your’s is, too. But if they aren’t…what can I do to help?