Sorry for the delay friends. I keep wanting to find an extended period to sit down, think, write and post. It just hasn’t appeared yet. I’ll be carving it out soon.

How’s your weekend been going?  Mine?  Well, last night, Paul & I had us some yummy Ratatouille. Today, we spent a beautiful morning walking in the sun at Marymoor Dog Park. Amira loved all the dogs and hanging with her crew… Mama, Daddy, Tova and Aunt Rissa with her notorious beagle duo. The afternoon was a long luscious nap, followed by dinner and hanging out with Mom & Dad. And now off to bed.

“If I am not for me, who is for me? And being for me, what am I?”

Rabbi Hillel (1st Century BC), Jerusalem

Jaguar napping in the warm sun, originally uploaded by janece.

The problem with telling your 2 1/2 year old that you are going to the zoo today is that, even though it’s 5:30am, she’s ready to go NOW!

At the end of each day, as a family, we have started the daily practice of doing the examen. The examen is a practice you can do daily, weekly, yearly… or even at any given time during the day.  It is, in part, a practice of awareness.  Last week, we introduced this idea to a new gathering that we are having every Tuesday in our home.  Here’s the background on the examen that I gave to them.

The Origin of the Examen: Originally called the ‘Examen of Consciousness’ it comes out of nearly five-hundred years of Jesuit spiritual tradition built out of St. Ignatius’s writing,  Spiritual Exercises.

The Intention:  The point of the examen as a practice is to:

• Acknowledge sad or painful feelings that we have and heard how God is speaking to us through them.
• Overcome a pessimistic outlook by encouraging us to notice the good in each day.
• Tell the truth about who we truly are and what we need, rather than who we think we should be.
• Become aware of seemingly insignificant moments that ultimately can give direction to our lives.

Preparation:  You might wish to light a candle.  Do whatever helps you to experience God’s loving presence with you.  Take a few deep breaths.  Breathe in and become aware of God’s love.

The Questions:

• For what moment today am I least grateful?
• For what moment today am I most grateful?

There are many other ways to ask the same questions:

• When did I give and receive the least love today?
• When did I give and receive the most love today?

• When did I most feel life draining out of me?
• When did I feel most alive today?

• When did I have the least sense of belonging to myself, others, God and the universe?
• When today did I have the greatest sense of belonging?

• When was I saddest?
• When was I happiest today?

• What was today’s low point?
• What was today’s high point?

Excerpted from the book: Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life by Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn, Matthew Linn

I’m going to add ‘examen’ to my categories and share them with you.  You are always, welcome, anytime, to share yours in return with me. 

I have this cousin. He’s my baby cousin. I, much to his current day chagrin, changed his diapers and fed him baby food (which, if it was strained peas, he spit and sputtered right back at me). I can still remember, while trying to look like a pro, putting a diaper over my shoulder and pat, pat, patting his back until he burped. I remember giving him baths, in a tub that was, for him, the size of a large pool.

I remember brushing his soft blond hair. I remember the burn the back of my thighs took as we slid down a screaming fast slide at Dennis the Menace Park. That same park boasted a retired train engine that we crawled up, down and around like eager, tiny spiders. We spent summers digging and building sandcastles and running in and out of the water’s edge that turned our toes blue at Lover’s Point Cove Beach. We would eat grapes, apples, and sandwiches wrapped in crinkling waxed paper for lunch. Sunday evenings, we would sit together in church, him on my lap, his feet wrapped around the back of my ankles.

There were hours of curling up on his bed and reading Dr. Seuss, Chronicles of Narnia, Sugar Creek Gang and many other books to him. Uncountable hours of games of Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land and Uno were played. Later, endless rounds of stomping on mushrooms and turtles, battling Bowser while running and sliding with flamboyant fanfare across the screen as Mario and Luigi. No round of Mario Brothers was complete without being first wrapped in warm, cozy Mexico blankets and being stocked up with a supply of Black Forest Cherry gummies and a large glass of crushed ice.

I’m sure not without a lot of sadness on his parents part, he would visit Paul & I on some of his Easter or Thanksgiving Breaks. These were low-key but wonderful and fun visits. They were filled with little things like buying and decorating our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving… practicing driving a stick shift in the abandoned Costco parking lot… and long, lazy mornings playing with our cats, Sabu & Cous.

We moved from Seattle to San Diego while he was in college at PLNU and we were lucky enough to have him live with us. Family dinners, movie nights, and long talks in front of the fire or out on the patio overlooking downtown. I was lucky to be a part of his life as he met and fell in love with his future wife and was later a part of their wedding (I was the best man!).

There was the great migration of 2002. Paul & I, along with my parents, moved to the Pacific Northwest. Three months later, they moved up and lived with us until they found and bought a home. Those were tight living days, but I loved having them be a part of my daily life.

So much has changed with that little blond headed, blue eyed and freckled cheeks boy. Today, he’s a fair haired, blue-eyed man, who incredibly, is taller than me. He has built an incredible life for himself. He and his wife have a beautiful new home overlooking a lake, with their two beagles, awesome jobs and a great community of friends around them. He’s still within throwing distance geographically. But I do miss him. Don’t get me wrong, everything is okay and how it should be.

I couldn’t be happier or more proud of him.

Doug, you will forever be one of my best and dearest friends. I love you.

Happy Birthday!

Because I’m still not great about getting to bed at an early hour in the evenings… I usually nap when Amira does. Today, I woke up from my nap because my dream turned intense. To hear it, it may not sound intense, but in my dream state of mind, it was.

It started as an average dream about being in college at the beginning of a new school year. It wasn’t the school I went to - but something my brain made up. The dream meandered until this part.

I walked down to my resident assistant’s room. Her door was slightly ajar and I knocked. She called me in, where I saw her moving around her room unpacking her bags and talking on a cellphone. The next instant, I realized there were two white dogs playing in the room. One was Tova - the other an American Eskimo. I was embarrassed that Tova was somehow in her room and messing around. I called him and picked up his lead and started to take him and the other dog out of the her room. I figured I’d have to find the owner of the American Eskimo. I decided to take Tova to my room and leave him there while I found the Eskie’s owner.

That’s when I realized that Tova was in pain… pulling slightly from me and wincing. I looked and he had a huge gash in his side. It started at his shoulder and went laterally down his side and then opened up to an enormous wound. His stomach and insides were completely exposed. I was horrified. How did this happen? How could I get him to help before he might die. How could I bandage him so his insides stayed just that… inside!

My heart rushed as my anxiety and fear grew. Just as panic was about to take over… a policewoman came up the stairs with a German Shepherd. The dog’s muzzle was wrapped shut with white gauze. I stopped with both dogs and as she moved my direction, she said: “Get out of the way. This dog is vicious!” I asked her if that was the dog that did this to Tova.

And that was it. I woke up in a start, my heart still rushing and completely unsettled.

I looked up dream symbolism because I have learned that when a dream causes me that much intense emotion - there’s something there for me. This isn’t the first time I’ve had dreams like this. Here’s what I found:
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