Once or 'Ones" In Your Life

Today is a very special and unique day for at least two reasons.  First, and most importantly, it is Veterans Day, and time when a grateful nation pauses to honor and offer thanks to those who have served, and those who are currently serving our country.  As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving in a few weeks, it is good for us to first pause and give thanks for the people who have helped make possible that for which we are grateful.   Today is also special because for “ones” in our lifetime the date contains six ones--11/11/11.  This will not happen again for another one hundred years.  There has been a great deal of hype around this special day.  Some have predicted supernatural occurrences (I haven't heard of anything along these lines happening yet) and others have connected today's date with Mayan prophecies about the end of the world.  Thousands of couples have chosen today to get married because they associate good luck with this date, and also probably because it will make it easy to remember their anniversary!

  Here is how I would like to think about the uniqueness of this day.  While the date, 11/11/11 will not occur again for one hundred years, the reality is that the uniqueness of this day will never occur again either.  This is of course true about every day.  Each moment of each day is unique in and of itself and will never present itself again, this is why it is so important that we learn to live “in the moment” and be “present” to all that each day uniquely contains and presents to us.

  When I was pastoring a church I would sometimes say to the congregation, “This is a very special morning because this exact group of people gathered here today have never gathered together before, nor will they ever be together again.”  This was true because of course every Sunday we had visitors, guests, as well as some members being present while others others were missing. That meant that each Sunday was its own unique gathering of people, never to be repeated again.

  A veteran is someone who at a unique time in history either made, or continues to make, a courageous decision to serve their country.  Each day that they served or serve, they continued or continue to make the decision anew to serve a purpose higher than themselves.

  Our unique call may not be to serve our country in the military.  But each unique day still holds a unique call for each of us to live fully into the moment of that day appreciating that the opportunities, and people that we interact with that day will never be there again in the exact same way and serving a purpose higher than ourselves. Today's opportunities are unique to today. This day and this date will not occur again in our life time.  The same is true about yesterday and tomorrow.  The way we can honor our veterans today is to make our own unique decisions at this unique moment in our lives, serving a purpose higher than ourselves.  And then we can honor them again tomorrow, and the day after that, by continuing to do the same thing, one day at time.

Your Current Balance

The last two weekends my wife and I have led retreats based on our Living Compass program on both coasts of our country. The first weekend we were in Westport, Connecticut, an hour outside of New York City. This past weekend we were in two cities in California--Sacramento and Sutter Creek. As different as these three communities are from one another, the people at each of the retreats all reported that they were looking for the same thing in their lives--a greater sense of balance. This tells me a couple of things, both good and bad. The bad news is that maintaining a sense of balance in our lives is becoming more of challenge in our world today. The good news though is that people are more aware of the consequences of living chronically out of balance and are becoming more intentional about making the necessary choices that will bring greater balance and wellness to their lives.

I was thinking about balance when I stopped by my local bank this morning to make a deposit. When I finished the transaction the teller gave me my receipt which conveniently showed me my "current balance." Because I had just made a deposit, my current balance had increased. As I begin to make withdrawals of course my current balance will decline. This same basic accounting principle applies to my current sense of life balance and personal wellness. If I have been making more deposits than withdrawals in my relationships with family and friends, then my current balance in that area of my life will be increasing. If I have been making more withdrawals than deposits in regards to my physical wellness, my current balance in that area of my life will be decreasing. If that trend continues I will become overdrawn and will most likely become sick. At that point I will have to start making some deposits regarding my physical wellness in order to restore my health.

The current balance in terms of my emotional and spiritual balance works the same way. The ratio of deposits and withdrawals I have been making will determine whether I am experiencing health or "dis-ease" in these areas of my life. A chronic feeling of tiredness or exhaustion is usually a warning sign that I have been making more withdrawals than deposits in the areas of my spiritual and/or emotional wellness.

Your bank is the best place to turn to find out the current balance of our checking account. Who can you turn to help you find out your current balance in terms of wellness and wholeness? The best person to turn to for this is you! Take a few minutes--maybe even right now-- to reflect on your state of physical, spiritual, emotional and relational wellness. Listen to what your body, heart, soul, and relationships are telling you. Where do you find yourself in or out of balance right now? In what areas of your life have you been making more withdrawals than deposits? Decide on a few specific deposits you can begin making right now to correct any current imbalances.

Maintaining our wellness and wholeness is as simple as checking our current balance on a regular basis and then changing the ratio of deposits to withdrawals in the areas that need rebalancing. It is as simple as that and as hard as that, as we learned from our recent retreat experiences. The rewards are so worth the effort though, not just for ourselves, but for everyone else in our lives.

So next time you are making a deposit at the bank, stop and reflect on what other kinds of deposits you can make to enhance your current balance and wellness in your life. And besides, don't we all want to avoid the discomfort and embarrassment of becoming overdrawn?

Haunted Houses

Haunted houses spring up all across the country this time of year as a way of celebrating Halloween.  Every year our local newspaper provides a guide to the local haunted houses complete with a rating system that rates each house for its fright factor.  Instead of the star system that is used by the movie critic, the haunted houses receive ratings on a scale of one to five ghosts.  This system helps parents and children alike to choose the house that matches their appetite for fright. When it comes to our emotional wellness, one of the many important influences that effects our well-being is the kind of home in which we grew up.   Some of us were blessed to grow up in homes with a stable emotional atmosphere.  Others of us grew up in homes that were haunted with high degrees of emotional turmoil; homes that may have been haunted with verbal abuse, untreated mental illness, drug or alcohol addiction, or domestic violence.

There are obvious and significant differences between the haunted houses of Halloween and haunted houses of emotional turmoil.  The former are not real and the latter are all too real.  A person can choose whether they want to enter a Halloween haunted house, but no one gets to choose the home and family he or she enters at birth.   The good news though is that we can choose to leave behind the effects of a home that was haunted with emotional dis-ease and turmoil.

It is one thing to physically leave our childhood homes, it is quite another to leave them emotionally and spiritually.  A person who grew up in a critical, shame-based home may not be aware of how much those ghosts of shame and criticism influence the way they treat themselves and others.   A person who grew up in a house haunted with anger, alcoholism or other drugs will have to be quite intentional to prevent those ghosts from residing in their own emotional houses as adults.

So if you are aware of some ghosts that are haunting your emotional, spiritual or relational house today, what can you do?  Or in the words of a movie that is always popular this time of year, “Who ya gonna call?”  The answer, as we know from the movie, is “Ghostbusters!”

Here are a few brief ghost busting tips to help with your emotional wellness: First, and most importantly, if you are struggling with some ghosts from your past, break through any denial that you may have and face the issues directly.  You cannot work to rid yourself of the ghosts that may live in your life if you do not first acknowledge that they are there.

Let others in and ask for help as you work to leave these ghosts behind.  Seek support from friends, family members, a counselor, a support group and your faith community.

Seek help from God or your Higher Power.  Spiritual support is invaluable as you discover that there is a higher Love that can cast out the fear of any ghosts from your past.

Be patient and gentle with yourself.  Celebrate the fact that you are on a journey of healing and wholeness and that real change and growth takes time.

Happy Halloween everyone.  And remember, if you do find yourself entering a haunted house of any kind, never go alone.  Be sure to surround yourself with others to help keep you safe.

What Cancer Cannot Do

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  All of us know someone whose life has been touched by this disease.  There are currently 2.5 million breast cancer survivors in the United States, with nearly 200,000 new diagnoses of breast cancer each year, including 2,000 men who are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. Breast cancer survivors need many kinds of support.  In addition to the best medical care, they need strong emotional and spiritual support from their families, friends, colleagues and faith communities.  To that end, there have been many recent studies that confrim the importance of spirituality in supporting the whole-person wellness of people with breast cancer.

A 2006 study that was published in The Oncology Nursing Forum (Vol. 33, No 1) backs up the belief that a strong spiritual life is a great support when a person has cancer.  The study assessed both the patients' sense of “a clear meaning in life” and whether or not they had a regular practice of praying.  Here are some of the conclusions from this study:

Having meaning in life and practicing prayer are associated with greater psychological well-being during cancer.

• Meaning in life mediates the effects of breast cancer on well-being.
• Aspects of spirituality, such as meaning in life and prayer, lessen the impact of  breast cancer.

These results support what I have witnessed first hand in my thirty years of ministry.  Just as a tree with a strong root system can better weather a strong storm, a person with a strong spiritual life is better able to survive the storm of breast cancer or any other adversity.  While the best time to develop a strong spiritual root system is long before a storm arrives, I have seen many people deepen their spiritual roots right in the middle of a storm in their lives.

If you know someone whose life has been touched by breast cancer, take this annual reminder to reach out and support them and maybe share with them the poem below  . It came to my to attention when it was shared by a friend at the time of my father's diagnosis of cancer earlier this year.  It is a great reminder that cancer does not have the final word!  These words remind us that cancer can not take away much of what is precious in life and that our spirits can be well when our bodies are not.

What Cancer Cannot Do (Author Unknown)

Cancer is so limited... It cannot cripple love. It cannot shatter hope. It cannot corrode faith. It cannot eat away peace. It cannot destroy confidence. It cannot kill friendship. It cannot shut out memories. It cannot silence courage. It cannot reduce eternal life. It cannot quench the Spirit.

Let's Root, Root, Root for the Home Team

The Milwaukee Brewers have a decisive game five in the National League Divisional Series later today. Fortunately for them, this game will happen right here in Milwaukee on their home field, Miller Park. This is fortunate because the Brewers have the best home field winning percentage of any team in baseball this year. Counting the playoffs, the Brewers are 59-24 at home, which means they have won seventy-one percent of their home games. Remarkable! While there are probably many factors that contribute to a home field advantage, clearly the support of forty thousand cheering fans gives the home team a tremendous boost. As the fans sing so clearly during the seventh inning stretch of each game, "we'll root, root, root for the home team!" With this type of support twenty-six of the thirty teams in Major League Baseball this year had better records at home than on the road, showing clearly that rooting for the home team really does make a difference. This is a column about wellness though, not about baseball, so what does this home field advantage phenomenon have to do with personal and family wellness? Quite simply, what I think we can learn from this information is what a positive difference it makes when we have people rooting for us! Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun and other professional athletes are not the only ones who benefit from the enthusiastic support of a home crowd! Fans at a ball game know what their role is and they do it with reckless abandon as you can see when watching any of the playoff games. They root, root, root for the home team. What if we could adopt this same role as friends, spouses, parents, families, colleagues and faith communities? Who better to root for one another than friends, families and congregations? Life can be challenging for all of us and so we certainly can all benefit from a strong home field advantage. Is there someone in your life that needs a little extra rooting for right now? Do you know someone who is going through a hard time, someone who is unemployed, or dealing with a loss or illness, or just a challenging time in their life? Why not do something to let them know you are rooting for them? Why not become their biggest fan and root for them so that they know that they are not alone in their struggles? I don't know if the Brewers will win later today or not. Rooting for the home team does not guarantee a winning outcome. It will, however, inspire the best possible efforts by the team. That is why rooting for one another is so important, whether in baseball, or in life.