No Fear Worm

This is what I see every morning when I come down the stairs: Marcenivo holding a sign that says “No Fear” and a yellow worm shining bright in colorful, abstract forest.

The titles of these words, respectively, are “No Place For You Here” and “Worm Shining Bright In The Forest In The Night.”

The artists are, respectively, Fabio Napoleoni and Dr. Suess.

The print mediums are, respectively, paper and wooden puzzle.

The purchase places are Fascination St. Fine Art in Denver, Colorado, and Gallery of Fine Art in Wilmington, NC.

The pieces were framed, respectively, by Nick and Steve at Hobby Lobby in Sanford, NC, and by Deanna and Sandra at home with a frame ordered directly from the puzzle company, Liberty Puzzles.

Not much is the same about these pieces. And yet they both set the tone of my day:

Live with no fear, Deanna. There is no fear in love. And be a worm shining bright in the dark in the night. Even in the middle of the day.

May they set the tone of your day, too, friends. Let’s be fearless, glowing worms together!

Thursday Night Thoughts From A Recovering People Pleaser

Before Texas Flip and Move, it was Rehab Addict. I still like Rehab Addict, but our DVR got reset and stopped recording it, so I haven’t been watching it recently. I actually didn’t know if they were still recording, but a quick Internet search revealed that they are…and that Nicole Curtis has had another baby…and some other really damning things about her.

As my mom and I scrolled through “The Truth About Nicole Curtis,” I read a bunch of really horrible things about this woman that I have come to admire via her TV show and Facebook page. Truth be told, Nicole’s philosophy of restoring old homes to their original glory has really influenced my thinking and changed the way that I think about restoration and redemption. So to read terrible things about her—her actions, decisions, personality, and life—was very disheartening…until I realized that if someone doesn’t like someone else—for whatever reason—then he/she can spin a tale to say whatever he/she wants it to say against whoever he/she wants to attack.

…

I am a recovering people-pleaser. Pin it on my personality type—or on being a preacher’s kid—but I am one of those people who cares a bit too much about what other people think. Years of therapy and a lot of prayer have nudged me out of the paralyzing fear that I used to live in, but quiet fear still lingers in my core—fear of disappointing, fear of not being liked, fear of making the wrong decision, fear of being questioned. Though logically I know that fear is not of God—I use the transitive property of fear here: If God is love, and there is no fear in love, then in God there is no fear—and though I know that living life worried about other peoples’ perceptions of me is no way to truly live—I, in all of my very human imperfection, still do it.

I think that this is part of the reason why major decisions are so difficult for me. I not only think about how a decision will affect me, but I think about how it will affect everyone else involved and how everyone else involved (and even people not involved) will perceive the decision. I know. This is somewhat egocentric. I know that I can’t control how someone else will react. I experience this all the time when my students love the songs I think that they will hate and hate the songs I think they will love. And it is crazy-making. But such is the reality of my life more often than I care to admit.

Friends: This is not good for someone going to graduate school for school administration!

Confession: I’m not sure why I’m going to graduate school. I know that God nudged me in this direction at 3am on a cruise ship in the Baltic Sea, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with the degree. School administration was never really on my radar screen. School music? Yes. Church administration? Yes. School administration? No. And yet...

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I saw a sign on the way to work this morning that said, “God just wants your ‘yes.’” I prayed aloud, “God, I’m saying ‘yes.’ I just don’t know what I’m saying yes to.” Then I silently continued, “Will you show me what I’m saying yes to—and how it is that I need to get there? My yes is and always has been to you, your call, and your desire for my life. My yes is to your love, peace, and justice, and I want to live in those—with integrity—but I need you to clearly show me how to make decisions that are fair, just, right, ethical, positive, and life-giving and I need you to give me the courage to make those decisions—for myself and for that which I have been called to lead—because I cannot do it alone. I’m really bad at it. Because I’m afraid of making the wrong decisions and I’m afraid that someone will get mad at me. Ugh. I don’t even like the words ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ But you know what I mean.”

…

This afternoon, I had the unique experience of sitting with a student who needed to be separated from his class during Field Day. He is an extremely high functioning autistic student who can tell you more than you ever need to know about dinosaurs and sea animals, and the super-sensory experience of Field Day had finally gotten to be too much. After a brief lesson on dolphins vs. porpoises, my student asked if he could draw with the sidewalk chalk. The teacher who owned the sidewalk chalk said that that would be fine, so off went my kid. He drew gigantic animals over the entirety of the sidewalk, so avoiding the drawings was difficult for a seeing person—much less someone who is blind! But my kid didn’t care about that.

When Stacey-My-Blind-Friend-and-Teacher stopped to talk to a colleague and landed right in the middle of an animal, my kid politely interrupted her conversation with an excuse me, waited to be acknowledged, and then proceeded to stutteringly, matter-of-factly- but without eye-contact ask Stacey to move off of his drawing. He was not trying to be mean, rude, or inconsiderate. He didn’t worry how Stacey would respond. If she would have gotten mad, then he would have gotten mad, too. Plain and simple. That’s how things work. My student simply stated his truth and desires and trusted the receiver to respond. As it was, Stacey gladly moved and immediately began talking to the student about his drawings, so he immediately began to share information about his drawings—that she could not see and that he could not know she could never fully understand. The whole situation made me chuckle. But then I realized just what an example my student had been.

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Despite my best efforts to stay in people’s good graces—I’m a recovering people-pleaser, remember—I have realized all too painfully that if someone decides that she does not like me, then she can easily piece together stories slamming my merits, no matter how hard I have tried to please her or how determinedly I have tried to do the best thing. I know this. I have experienced it. I just hope that when it happens again—because it will happen again—I can look up with the certainty of how I need to react and then act with that certainty, just as my student acted today. I hope that I can look up with the humility to say yes and then follow where that yes leads. And I hope that when my character is attacked and my decisions are questioned—as teacher, minister, family member, friend, customer, or yes, even, administrator—that I will be able to keep moving forward, offering hope, restoration, and redemption, one house—no—one person—and decision—at a time.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Well over a decade ago, I had a monthly mail-sending schedule. I wrote and sent out approximately 7 letters or cards per week, offering words of encouragement to various friends and family members each week—but contacting my grandmothers each week.

Because I was writing so much, my brother and sister-in-law decided to give me my own font for Christmas. They gave me the paperwork. I completed a hand-writing sample and sent it all in. To Sweden. A few weeks later, I received an e-mail with my very own font! It’s called Deanna’s Hand. I was thrilled. I’m still thrilled!

A few years ago, as I was window shopping in Blowing Rock, I suddenly stopped in my tracks. My handwriting was in the window!!! Toms, the shoe company, had chosen Deanna’s Hand for its handwriting font in one, small window cling campaign!!! Seeing my handwriting in the window for all of Blowing Rock to see prompted me figure out how Toms had gotten my font. Well. It’s a free download. Anyone can get it. Just do a search. You can get it, too…along with tons of other free fonts that people have created.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. I have a small classroom library that my students can access during class. I had the idea to create the library during one of our Book Fairs and started my collection with a 2-book donation from a parent. In the annual post-Christmas book sale at Books-A-Million, I grew the collection with a bunch of animal, dinosaur, and interesting fact books that kids love. Then, during a classroom library workshop at school, I grew the library even more with donations from the school.

A handful of students expectedly wandered to the library and happily read its books during class. My philosophy is that if the kids are reading, staying out of trouble, and not distracting other students, all the while subconsciously hearing the music lesson, then it’s a win-win for everyone. What I didn’t expect, however, was that that same handful of kids would want to take the books home. At first that was fine. But then classmates started to realize what was happening and they wanted to take books home, too.

So one Thursday afternoon while being bombarded with students wanting to take home books, I just said yes, yes, yes, so that they would stop asking! While one of those students stood with me to wait for the teacher, he first grossed me out by turning to a page on how a tribe in one part of Africa drinks cow’s blood during the drought season. I literally gagged and almost threw up, but then he turned the page and I gasped! MY FONT! My font was in the book! An entire two page spread was written in Deanna’s Hand!

I started babbling and trying to find the words to explain to the kids that it was a font that I had created but they didn’t quite understand and thought I meant that I had literally written out the pages but I was so excited that they were so excited so by the time the teacher got there we were all just in an excited state of font-appearance amazement!

I stayed that way for a few days. And clearly I am still excited. Not because I get paid. Not because I will be famous. But because it’s neat to see your handwriting in print…and to think that out of the fonts in the whole wide world, someone thought my font cool enough to use in a book.

When I wrote my brother and sister-in-law to tell them my exciting news, they were excited, too! I shared with the rest of my family, too. And then we all celebrated. And shared in thanksgiving for the gift that keeps on giving.

Love And Heartache In Between

In January, I had the privilege of officiating my second wedding. The wedding actually happened in two parts: Part one was a private ceremony at the hospital while part two was the public ceremony in an old church in Wilmington. At the time, the bride’s father was very sick and wasn’t able to attend his daughter’s wedding, so we took the wedding to him. Both parts of the wedding were beautiful, but the unplanned hospital ceremony was particularly special. It was one of those events that I will always feel humbled and honored to have been part of.

While waiting for that Saturday’s wedding festivities to begin, I went to an art gallery that carries Fabio Napoleoni’s work. [Fabio Napoleoni is my favorite artist.] While there, I was introduced to the art of Dr. Seuss for the first time. I didn’t know that Dr. Seuss artwork was a thing, but evidently it’s a pretty big thing. The gallery owner planted a seed of investment in my mind but that seed lay dormant until Read Across America Week. For that entire week and for the next week after, I thought and prayed and debated between two Seuss works but in the end decided not to get either piece until I could see them in person.

Last week, after a long, tough fight, my friend’s dad passed away. The funeral was Saturday. Because I was going to be in the area again, I decided to stop by the art gallery and look at those two pieces. I’m very glad that I did. In person, I didn’t like either piece. In a surprising twist, however, I found another piece that I really liked and ended up coming home with it. Even now, as I think about the piece, I smile…because I know that this was the piece for me. Will it end up being as great of an investment as the other two? I highly doubt it. But that doesn’t matter. Because it has meaning. I will include the image here so that you can find your own meaning:

The CD player in my car recently messed up. After 17 years of rotating between 6 CDs, I guess it just got tired. It’ll still play one CD, though, so I’ve been pulling random CDs out of my bag of CDs. One of the CDs was a Carolyn Arends CD and one of the songs on the CD sang out the lyrics, “Love and heartache and in between, Life is made up of little things.”

From the love shared in a wedding at the foot of a hospital bed to the heartache shared at a celebration of life, life is made up of little things—letters and writing and music and art and laughter and tears and shared meals and jeans days and talent shows and palindromes and sunsets and walks on the beach and challenges not to waste the time we’re given. May you, dear friends, celebrate your lives of little things and may none of us ever take for granted our moments with the people we love.