Both-And

I'm made aware suddenly how long it's been since I have posted at this site. My younger son has posted a link for it on his blog site! Guess it's time to catch up.

A year is a long time and not a long time. Both-And. Isn't everything a both-and, really? Is anything really ALL bad? Is there anything that doesn't come with a silver lining in one case or a downside in the other? I am embracing the fact that it seems like yesterday that I last posted and yet all that has happened can't happen in a "yesterday". Both seem equally real to me.

It took a year for Evan's CD to mature to it's launch date on 1-11-11. It took a year for Melissa's relationship with Rob to bloom to engagement. It took a year to complete preparations for two family weddings, now behind us. It took the better part of a year for little Silas to finish cooking in his mamma's tummy and join us in the living-breathing world. It took a year for little Peyton to learn to walk, then run, then start potty-training and for Isaac and Noah to both be old enough to ride the bus to school. These things are easy to track and measure.

Somethings are less visible to me. A year of highs and lows, successes and less-than-successes bring me a year's worth of growth that I can't measure very well. But I am a better listener this year than last (I hope), I am a little more patient with myself and others, a bit better at taking responsibility only for what is mine. I am better at bringing myself into balance. I am better at seeing the yin-yang, the two sides of one coin, the blessings within the heartache...the both-and of all of life. Nothing is ever pure except maybe Love itself. And of that, I'm not sure I would know pure Love if it knocked me down! What is pure is the ability to embrace all of life at all times which means that in doing so, I am embracing All That Is, or, in my personal definition, God.

Maybe I need to rename God "Both-And".