Posts
Hi, I'm moving over to wordpress. Hope to see you. http://judybrutz.wordpress.com
Judy
Monday, January 25, 2010
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
48th Anniverary
Today is our 48th anniversary.
Query: What are the blessings, strengths and struggles of long term committed relationships?
How are the younger generations shaped by long term committed unions?
Friday, November 6, 2009
Impatience as a Virtue
I was startled to hear James Watson and Charlie Rose speak of IMAPATIENCE AS A VIRTUE. I'm always being told that I need to learn to develop patience. (October 29, 2009, Charlie Rose, PBS)
Patience is defined as the capacity for waiting, the ability to endure waiting, delay, or provocation without becoming annoyed or upset, or to persevere calmly when faced with difficulties. (Microsoft Office Word 2007)
When is PATIENCE an excuse for inaction? accepting oppression?
When there are chores to be done, is IMPATIENCE the energy in motion to accomplish the tasks?
Does IMPATIENCE provide eagerness to find solutions? to make discoveries? to create reconciliation?
In contrast, does IMPATIENCE result in violence, intolerance, or genocide?
BLESSING is a commitment to find peaceful solutions to bring about reconciliation, to create jobs, to provide healthcare for everyone, and to build community in a diverse world.
Where is your energy?
Monday, October 12, 2009
Simplicity & Stewardship
Simplicity & Stewardship
"Simplicity deals with the ownership of property, stewardship with the use of it. Simplicity tells us to ask for no more than we need: stewardship reminds us that we need less if we take care of what we have. Simplicity insists that we get rid of encumbrances: stewardship helps us decide what are encumbrances and what are not. It does this in a very straightforward way. If a possession, a or task, is an encumbrance, using it properly rapidly becomes much more trouble than it is worth, and the possession falls into disrepair, or the task remains constantly undone. It is this point that stewardship says: 'Wait a minute - we have too much to care of here,' and it becomes time, in the good Quaker phrase, to lay something down." Bill Ashworth, Oregon, 1986 in Daily Readings from Quaker Writings Ancient & Modern, edited and published by Linda Hill Renfer.
This message touches a deep place for me, leading to my own queries:
What is stewardship of space?
of beauty?
of clutter?
of stuff?
of recyclables?
of clothes not worn?
of books spilling out of bookcases?
of supplies kept just in case?
of time?
of energy?
of friendship?
of family?
of health?
of resources?
What do you put in your list concerning your practice of stewardship?
Am I living simply that others may simply live?
And then I return to the practice of blessing: what encumbrances get in the way of blessing?
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Resuming Life
Great News
I am Well and Off oxygen!
I have lots of energy.
I am resuming Life!
Mayo Clinic reports
neurological problems
are Resolved.
Query: What does "resuming life" mean for yourself?
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
A Beautiful Day
Today is a beautiful day in Pocatello with cool breezes and sunny skies. This is an unusual year, we are having monsoonal rains for weeks. No telling what the weather will be later today. Everything is green and mushrooms are growing abundantly, quite different from dry, brown, hot, very hot. Lots of flash flooding keeps us on our toes. Can't help wonder what global warming has to do with these changes?
I'm feeling better and doing more. Fooled myself into believing I was back to normal, (Whatever normal is?) I agreed to be a mentor in a two week READ program, three hours each morning for ten days. Monday was the first day, I got through it okay, but slept for three hours and the next morning my leg was collapsing. Welcome back reality!
How are you weathering reality?
Where is the blessing?
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Neuro-Degeneration Takes a Toll
I am committed to living a blessing life and this year I am challenged. The decline worsened with what we all believed to be Parkinson's. The offs and on's from Stalevo (a Parkinson's medication) became so drastic and short timed that I lost quality of life.
On March 5th I stopped taking the PD med AND THEN I started to improve. In six days when I saw my neurologist, there were no signs of PD. No tremor. My balance was normal. I could swallow. The mood swings were gone. I could think clearly. My sense of humor returned. I was given back my self hood!!!
This all seems good, but what came into focus is generally called a autonomic degenerative disorder, a large umbrella which includes PD, PD plus, Multiple Systems Atrophy, and many more. The commonality is that the dopamine cells die off and the neurotransmitters affected fail to deliver their messages.
The decline with the autonomic disorders is rapid. My breathing is particularly affected. I am on oxygen and the liters needed to keep going continue to increase.
HELPFUL BOOK
Dr. Daniel Brooks just published "I Will Go On, Living with a Movement Disorder." I highly recommend it for those living with movement disorders and for those who love and care for us.
DO YOU LIVE WITH A MOVEMENT DISORDER? OR DO YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO DOES? Please, leave a comment. What is your experience?
WHAT ARE THE BLESSINGS YOU EXPERIENCE RECEIVING AND GIVING AS YOU LIVE WITH ILLNESS?
On March 5th I stopped taking the PD med AND THEN I started to improve. In six days when I saw my neurologist, there were no signs of PD. No tremor. My balance was normal. I could swallow. The mood swings were gone. I could think clearly. My sense of humor returned. I was given back my self hood!!!
This all seems good, but what came into focus is generally called a autonomic degenerative disorder, a large umbrella which includes PD, PD plus, Multiple Systems Atrophy, and many more. The commonality is that the dopamine cells die off and the neurotransmitters affected fail to deliver their messages.
The decline with the autonomic disorders is rapid. My breathing is particularly affected. I am on oxygen and the liters needed to keep going continue to increase.
HELPFUL BOOK
Dr. Daniel Brooks just published "I Will Go On, Living with a Movement Disorder." I highly recommend it for those living with movement disorders and for those who love and care for us.
DO YOU LIVE WITH A MOVEMENT DISORDER? OR DO YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO DOES? Please, leave a comment. What is your experience?
WHAT ARE THE BLESSINGS YOU EXPERIENCE RECEIVING AND GIVING AS YOU LIVE WITH ILLNESS?
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Confluence of Tough Times and Hope, THIS WEEK'S QUERY
Tough times for me, the Parkinson's progresses and I wonder how I am to continue sharing God's healing love with others when I have become so restricted in where and what I can do?
Tough times for all the world. I watch the festivities of our whole country as we prepare to inaugurate our 44th President. The people say that in celebrating, in coming together as a diverse community, we find hope to go on. How do we go forth from here, when so many are without shelter, jobs or health care and so many more are to be made naked?
Tough times and someone points to the top the crucifix and asks, "What do those letters mean." I am surprised as the conversation opens. Our little group of four Quakers is gathered in a Catholic meditation room and we are at the beginning of Meeting for Worship. I answer that it goes to the conversation of Pontius Pilot when Jesus is declared "King of the Jews." We talk about Jesus and Paul and the other followers of Jesus as being Jewish and not intending to start a new religion. We ponder the meaning of Messiah and what it means to the Jewish world, then and now? We reflect on passages from Isaiah. My Jewish Friend says we will know when the Messiah comes because the second temple will be rebuilt, in other words, he says, there will be a building up, not a tearing down. I ponder the meaning of hope in times of great turmoil?
Tough times and our beginning Worship reading is written by O Theodore Benfey, 1986. "When we, with our limited human intellect, see only more calamity, death, and destruction in our personal, community, or national life, when all we have lived and attempted to leads to nowhere, turns to dust and ashes, and the future looks hopelessly bleak, Pentecost tells us that the bleakness is of our own imagining, that our intellect and our fears blind us to deeper layers of reality." Turning to John Woolman we are reminded "to turn all that we possess into channels of universal love." Benfey prays that our hearts may be "filled with God's hope, the faith and the love that will prepare us spiritually, mentally, and physically for the tasks yet unknown or only dimly sensed, in a world which when looked at objectively seems quite doomed, with no sign of redemption or improvement. And may we have the courage to take on the tasks chosen for us and to carry them out in God's companionship and service. [p. 18, Daily Readings from Quaker Writings Ancient & Modern. Edited by Linda Hill Renfer, 1988, Serenity Press, Oregon.] I ponder the guidance each of is to be given and once again wonder how can this be for me who has become so restricted in the movement outside of home and now even with whether there is enough dopamine to allow me stand and walk inside my home?
Tough times and it is in the afternoon and a Stephen's Minister comes to visit. Again I am surprised by the opening and guidance we are given. We speak of Paul of the New Testament. I talk about how Paul was open to allowing gentiles to become Jewish and how he was less restrictive than Peter, who would require the gentile men to be circumcised. Paul, I say had the strength to follow the leadings he received, even to be imprisoned. My visitor asks me to stop and consider Paul as he was imprisoned in the house. His imprisonment, is like your being imprisoned in your body, how was Paul able to carry out Jesus' message of hope? and what might this mean for you? We talk about my two writing projects and how important they are in sharing God's words of hope for healing and for finding ways to live peaceably in tough times. I tell my visitor that during morning worship I was thinking about the writings I am to share with the world and even further, how my knitting may be of service to keep me on task. I love to knit, but I allow it to become all consuming, leaving no time for the work that God calls me to complete. During the Silence of morning worship, I thought about how I might bring the knitting to the writing by knitting the images of God's spirit of love, healing and peace as I am led. Tough times, living in the growing imprisonment of my own body, I ponder my sense of God's love and Jesus' presence with me. What is to happen next, I wonder?
Tough times, I receive a phone call from two friends living in Maine. It is early evening and the sun has set. They ask how I am doing and instead of minimizing the struggle I am experiencing, I tell them how it is. Later in the conversation my friends talk about the emergency landing of the Airbus in the Hudson River. One tells how she thinks of the event as an allegory for our times. She says that Bush's policies and actions are being sucked and shredded into the turbos while the hope Obama brings is the skill of guiding the plane to a safe landing where no one is lost. Ah, yes, the guidance we are to receive to make a safe landing, even in the face of death. May I remember this picture my friend has painted.
This week's Query: What is your sense of being personally guided in these troubled times?
Let's have a conversation, a forum, through the Comment feature.
Blessings,
Judy
Tough times for all the world. I watch the festivities of our whole country as we prepare to inaugurate our 44th President. The people say that in celebrating, in coming together as a diverse community, we find hope to go on. How do we go forth from here, when so many are without shelter, jobs or health care and so many more are to be made naked?
Tough times and someone points to the top the crucifix and asks, "What do those letters mean." I am surprised as the conversation opens. Our little group of four Quakers is gathered in a Catholic meditation room and we are at the beginning of Meeting for Worship. I answer that it goes to the conversation of Pontius Pilot when Jesus is declared "King of the Jews." We talk about Jesus and Paul and the other followers of Jesus as being Jewish and not intending to start a new religion. We ponder the meaning of Messiah and what it means to the Jewish world, then and now? We reflect on passages from Isaiah. My Jewish Friend says we will know when the Messiah comes because the second temple will be rebuilt, in other words, he says, there will be a building up, not a tearing down. I ponder the meaning of hope in times of great turmoil?
Tough times and our beginning Worship reading is written by O Theodore Benfey, 1986. "When we, with our limited human intellect, see only more calamity, death, and destruction in our personal, community, or national life, when all we have lived and attempted to leads to nowhere, turns to dust and ashes, and the future looks hopelessly bleak, Pentecost tells us that the bleakness is of our own imagining, that our intellect and our fears blind us to deeper layers of reality." Turning to John Woolman we are reminded "to turn all that we possess into channels of universal love." Benfey prays that our hearts may be "filled with God's hope, the faith and the love that will prepare us spiritually, mentally, and physically for the tasks yet unknown or only dimly sensed, in a world which when looked at objectively seems quite doomed, with no sign of redemption or improvement. And may we have the courage to take on the tasks chosen for us and to carry them out in God's companionship and service. [p. 18, Daily Readings from Quaker Writings Ancient & Modern. Edited by Linda Hill Renfer, 1988, Serenity Press, Oregon.] I ponder the guidance each of is to be given and once again wonder how can this be for me who has become so restricted in the movement outside of home and now even with whether there is enough dopamine to allow me stand and walk inside my home?
Tough times and it is in the afternoon and a Stephen's Minister comes to visit. Again I am surprised by the opening and guidance we are given. We speak of Paul of the New Testament. I talk about how Paul was open to allowing gentiles to become Jewish and how he was less restrictive than Peter, who would require the gentile men to be circumcised. Paul, I say had the strength to follow the leadings he received, even to be imprisoned. My visitor asks me to stop and consider Paul as he was imprisoned in the house. His imprisonment, is like your being imprisoned in your body, how was Paul able to carry out Jesus' message of hope? and what might this mean for you? We talk about my two writing projects and how important they are in sharing God's words of hope for healing and for finding ways to live peaceably in tough times. I tell my visitor that during morning worship I was thinking about the writings I am to share with the world and even further, how my knitting may be of service to keep me on task. I love to knit, but I allow it to become all consuming, leaving no time for the work that God calls me to complete. During the Silence of morning worship, I thought about how I might bring the knitting to the writing by knitting the images of God's spirit of love, healing and peace as I am led. Tough times, living in the growing imprisonment of my own body, I ponder my sense of God's love and Jesus' presence with me. What is to happen next, I wonder?
Tough times, I receive a phone call from two friends living in Maine. It is early evening and the sun has set. They ask how I am doing and instead of minimizing the struggle I am experiencing, I tell them how it is. Later in the conversation my friends talk about the emergency landing of the Airbus in the Hudson River. One tells how she thinks of the event as an allegory for our times. She says that Bush's policies and actions are being sucked and shredded into the turbos while the hope Obama brings is the skill of guiding the plane to a safe landing where no one is lost. Ah, yes, the guidance we are to receive to make a safe landing, even in the face of death. May I remember this picture my friend has painted.
This week's Query: What is your sense of being personally guided in these troubled times?
Let's have a conversation, a forum, through the Comment feature.
Blessings,
Judy
Monday, December 1, 2008
Blessing and Deep Listening
What are the blessings that come from deep listening?
My experience of deep listening comes from my Quaker practice of Worship. We enter the Silence, as Quakers call being in God's presence, listening, waiting for a message or light.
Quiet and still, I find peace, I rest, my mind becomes still.
I learn that anywhere I am that I may enter the Silence and when I do, God's Blessings are given.
Light is given to the person I'm with. In being faithful to being in the Silence, I become the observer or witness to God's love, forgiveness and healing of the brokenhearted, the oppressed, the abused, the one who is dying, the one who is being born.
The connection between God, the other person and myself is a mystery. Do we call it grace? Jesus' love? The gift of the Holy One? Great Mystery?
Question for your comments and stories:
What is your experience of the connection between blessing and deep listening? Please respond.
Blessings,
Judy
Sunday, October 5, 2008
New to Blog a Followers Widget
I've returned to blogging after a long absence due to illness and a long vacation.
As a welcome back to my readers, I've added a Followers Widget. Please add yourself as a Follower of the blog so that I know who who is checking in. (You may choose not to have your photo shown under Followers, I still would like to hear from you.)
Thank you for reading Commit to Blessing and Knitting Life. I'm interested in your response and sharing from you. Let us become a community dedicated to living a blessing life, and for those of us who knit, a community finding healing and joy in what we create.
Please send me your thoughts.
Blessings,
Judy Brutz
As a welcome back to my readers, I've added a Followers Widget. Please add yourself as a Follower of the blog so that I know who who is checking in. (You may choose not to have your photo shown under Followers, I still would like to hear from you.)
Thank you for reading Commit to Blessing and Knitting Life. I'm interested in your response and sharing from you. Let us become a community dedicated to living a blessing life, and for those of us who knit, a community finding healing and joy in what we create.
Please send me your thoughts.
Blessings,
Judy Brutz
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Freedom Haiku Prompt
wilderness path
discovering the unknown
Craters of the Moon.
How will I know when I have reached the end? What is the end? I walk the Blessing Path and discover delight in the earth. I am set free, able to let go of abilities and to open to receiving joy and peace.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Spring Reflections and To Live Fully in God's Love
"Hidden Face, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, photographed and copyrighted by Judy Brutz, 2008."
While studying the photograph I suddenly saw her face.
She waits, hot weather will come.
Spring leaves
wave to the figures
carved in stone.
"Petroglyphs" photographed and copyrighted
by Judy Brutz, 2008, Capitol Reef, Utah.
Sitting in Meeting for Worship, I ask, " Am I becoming fixed in stone or am I still warming to life? What does God ask of me?"
Post Meeting Reflection
During the silence of worship this morning, someone gave a message about starting to work with special needs children in the fourth grade. He had gone expecting that the children would be severely challenged. What he found was that each child is an individual, with talents, skills and sensitivity. He learned that the children will be his teachers.
My learning was similar. When I went to work as a chaplain with special needs adults, I learned that the challenged are my spiritual teachers. I had not wanted to take on new work because I found making professional transitions to be difficult. A window closes and a new window may or may not be evident, and may or may not be open. I rather remain where I was already planted. These feelings occurred when I went to the chaplaincy position.
I was working in rural Iowa for In-home Hospice and I loved my work, certainly didn't have any wish to leave. Yet people kept telling me about a new chaplaincy position that was opening and they though that the job was made for me. I would be working with adults living with special needs who lived in cottages on a campus. I ignored their messages. I loved my work with Hospice and didn't see any reason to change. After several months, I was surprised to learn that the position was still opened and again I was urged to apply.
"Could I be turning a deaf ear to a leading? Maybe I'm being led by the Holy One and I haven't wanted to pay attention because I love my job." I called and made an appointment to visit. It was after working hours and the clients had gone home. The assistant director was the one who answered the phone and urged me to come on over then. I did. It felt like I was being interviewed as he showed me around and took me into a cottage. It felt like I already had the position.
A few days later I was asked to come to a formal interviewing process of four hours. The night before the appointment, I stayed in a motel. I still did not want to make a professional change. I was angry at God. "Why are you leading me here? You have blessed my work with Hospice and I want to stay there. Why, dear Lord?" I promptly fell asleep.
When I awoke in the morning, there was an answer. "Because I want you to grow fully in my love," God's message left in my heart.
I can't say No to God's love for me, I thought. The position was offered to me and I accepted. After four years I left this special work for heath reasons. Later I was to be diagnosed with Parkinson's.
The Lord's message is still on my heart, although I don't always remember. This morning's Worship again brought the message home to me.
What does the Holy One ask of me?
TO LIVE FULLY IN GOD'S LOVE.
This message is what keeps me going, willing to change, and wanting to continue to live, finding joy, meaning and blessing in each day. The people I worked with who were dying and the individuals who were living with special needs remain my teachers and spiritual mentors as I live with chronic and debilitating illness. I too, walk the journey with my Beloved Jesus. Someday I will be called Home. May each day be a blessing day.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Late Spring
The ancient one opens leaves in frost and sun.
Celebrating better health and good news from the medical folk, late spring finds me in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. David and I join Quakers from the Utah Fellowship of Friends for a long weekend. It is late April and the night temperatures drop, even destroying the apricot crop. The days are in the 40s or 50s and windy. We hike in the morning. Afternoon we share news. Then glories, luscious potluck dishes and singing. Night comes on and the full moon rises over reefs.
This ancient tree captures my attention. How old is it? Surely it is more than one hundred years. It was probably here before the pioneers settled in this valley in the 1800s. Their fruit orchards still stand and are well attended. The apricots were lost this year when the temperatures dipped to twenty-three degrees two days before we arrived.
What lessons are there for me this late April?
New growth
my hope embraces
the mysteries
of the ancient one.
Good news, congestive heart failure is ruled out and the echocardiogram shows that my heart has strengthened in the last fourteen months. It is Parkinson's. my spiritual mentor at play. The diaphragm muscles are affected and I go into shallow breathing yet The Holy One who created us all, also created an incredible brain that can make new circuits. Are we open to learning to follow inner guidance, even when the specialists think that there is nothing to be done? Research show that the brain is able to develop new paths. In this case, it is the C Pap machine which is developing the new path to regular, normal deep breathing.
Alleluia.
Gnarled beauty continues
bringing joy
and blessings.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Blessings of Letting Go
This last week has been a struggle, new health issues, congestive heart failure, pulmonary problems, in addition to living with Parkinson's and my on-going facing of "Letting Go."
My body takes charge and tells me,
you must stop now and rest." It tells me to let go of responsibilities and commitments.
you must stop now and rest." It tells me to let go of responsibilities and commitments.
"How dear Lord am I to do this? What does all this mean in letting go? How am I to participate in the life of community?"
I prayerfully reflected on passages from the book of John and received comfort, peace and guidance.
The story of Nicodemus and Jesus telling him that he must be born anew. "Beloved Creator, help me to listen, that the Spirit is my guide. Letting go of being active is so hard. Letting go of commitments and responsibilities is such a challenge. Thank you for directing me to let go of leading a workshop at the FGC Gathering this summer and showing me ways to cut back on leadership with the Parkinson's Support Group I started. You were with me from the beginning, leading and blessing the establishment of the Support Group. You show me how I can prepare members on taking on the tasks I have shouldered." John 3:7-8
"I am happy to take refuge in you and experience your loving care and being with me." Psalm 33(34):8, 18
The story of the five barley loaves and two fish. "You show me that the little I have to offer after letting go is enough. I am still able to plant seeds, and to listen deeply to others. In listening deeply to others, you touch their lives with hope and love." John 6:5-11
The disciples saw Jesus walking on the water to come to them. "It is I; do not be afraid." he said. "Jesus, you are with me through my struggles of letting go and still living. You are with me even when I despair. Thank you." John 6:16-21
I woke this morning with the delightful guidance to invite members of the Support Group to come to my home to help get the mailing out.
In Meeting for Worship, I was shown that only when I let go will I be able to attend to the writing that only I can do. "Please, dear Lord, lead me on."
Blessings from Judy
Monday, March 31, 2008
Eldering Story by Anonymous
Anonymous said...
Judy, what a lovely post about eldering. RichardM, my husband, has been trying to get more people to discuss eldering as well. I think my first experience with eldering was the day an older, grandmotherly looking woman approached me at a pot luck, and said, 'I hear you're moving, is there a meeting, maybe you'll start one'. My response was total bafflement, I was only a relative newcomer to Friends. That was 23 years ago. We are in North Carolina and similar to you, there was a worship group here, and we were sufficient catalyst to get the meeting to weekly meeting for worship. We have over the years become the elders of the meeting. This past summer, the meeting was clear to appoint us both elders. (there has been a great deal of coming and going in membership over the years within the meeting and previous members were against appointing elders). Today after meeting we spent some time with a new attender at meeting who is very new to Quakerism and hopefully answered his questions. (Another form of eldering). Within our Yearly Meeting, eldering is a regular practice, at least at the Yearly meeting itself. I am still surprised when I am thanked for my work as elder. I hope I am a vehicle for God's work.MaryM
March 30, 2008 8:58 PM Anonymou, Thank you for your story. It helps me understand how we are being lead to eldering. Not something I thought I would be doing.
Blessings, Judy
Judy, what a lovely post about eldering. RichardM, my husband, has been trying to get more people to discuss eldering as well. I think my first experience with eldering was the day an older, grandmotherly looking woman approached me at a pot luck, and said, 'I hear you're moving, is there a meeting, maybe you'll start one'. My response was total bafflement, I was only a relative newcomer to Friends. That was 23 years ago. We are in North Carolina and similar to you, there was a worship group here, and we were sufficient catalyst to get the meeting to weekly meeting for worship. We have over the years become the elders of the meeting. This past summer, the meeting was clear to appoint us both elders. (there has been a great deal of coming and going in membership over the years within the meeting and previous members were against appointing elders). Today after meeting we spent some time with a new attender at meeting who is very new to Quakerism and hopefully answered his questions. (Another form of eldering). Within our Yearly Meeting, eldering is a regular practice, at least at the Yearly meeting itself. I am still surprised when I am thanked for my work as elder. I hope I am a vehicle for God's work.MaryM
March 30, 2008 8:58 PM Anonymou, Thank you for your story. It helps me understand how we are being lead to eldering. Not something I thought I would be doing.
Blessings, Judy
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)