Simple Vegan | Bagel & Avo

Most who know me know that I'm a wannabe vegan. This morning I toyed with the idea of beginning a "simple vegan" blog. But then I realized I would have to generate content--as if I needed yet another blog to contribute to. (Smile.) So, you get the benefit of it here. (Carnivores feel free to skip.)

One of my favorite pre-vegetarian things was lox and bagels. As it turns out, toasting a bagel, smearing avocado on it and adding sliced tomatoes and capers is a surprisingly satisfying vegan version.

This was my breakfast and as a repeat, I'm having it for lunch too!

Belief impacts

What people believe about themselves and their world influences everything.

- I've known kind and beautiful people who believed they were worthless....
- I've known people who believed they could change the world and in many ways have...
- I've known angry people who believed the world cheated them from the life they were supposed to have...
- I've known disillusioned people whose worlds shattered when the ones they believed in failed...
- I've known people who have risked everything for what they believed...

The power of belief to both build and destroy is overwhelming. Science says that belief can even heal the body. (And I believe it.)

People make finding truth the most important thing because belief is so powerful. And it makes sense that you would want to believe in truth and not a lie. However truth isn't always so easy to find.

For example, the beautiful women I know who feel worthless. Some have abusive people in their present or past (parents, spouse, friends) who treat them as if they have no value. The media offers a steady stream of what constitutes beauty--most of it something being sold. Demanding jobs and family responsibilities don't exactly make one feel like the princess at the ball. If all the evidence points to a lack of worth, then what are they supposed to believe? How do they find the truth?

The religious world adds another layer of complexity. In the evangelical denominations alone, the amount of conflicting ideas is staggering. For example, I'm a universalist (My definition--that Jesus Christ defeated death and changed everything. He broke the gates to hell and set its prisoners free saving the whole world. Ie. we are all going to heaven.) But that definitely wasn't what I was taught as "truth" in my childhood. And as much as I read Scripture and can't understand it any differently, others would argue vehemently to prove otherwise (because they are afraid I'll go to hell for believing something not right).

Last Monday night, I lingered after a meeting to talk with a Hindi woman in her seventies who was trying desperately in broken English to get me to understand her view of God and the prophet I needed to follow. She was very beautiful in her desire to save me. Her son came up embarrassed and pulled her away. I smiled and told him that I was truly interested. And I was. It was interesting to me that a woman who grew up a world away would worry about an Anglo stranger she sat next to at a meeting. And it wasn't what she was saying, but the desire with which she said it.

Something about that desire has significance. On some level what we want matters.

Followers of Zen train themselves not to want anything. (For them, that is truth.) But no one would go see a movie where the hero didn't care what happened to him. We connect at a soul level with the person fighting injustice, pursuing their passion, trying to overcome the elements. We cheer when they get what they want. It gives the movie a satisfying ending. And when they don't get it--like in Casablanca when Bogart puts Bergman on the plane, we are saddened. And yet, that feels true too. Because the sacrifice allows someone else to get what they want.

There is some connection between what we want and truth that elludes me. And I wonder if the lies come about in things that offer to fill what we want, but can't deliver. (ie. Diet pills won't make you look like the girl on the television commercial so you will feel loved.)

No quippy ending for this post. I'm still thinking on this one.

Likeability

In a command and control hierarchy, you can be a jerk. After all, the very nature of the structure requires that people respect the hierarchy in order to keep their jobs. However, the world has changed. The digital world is a connect and collaborate model--which requires a different game plan.

In a connect and collaborate world, one of your most important assets is likeability.

As I've watched the tabloids play out the Jon and Kate drama over the past few weeks, the tide has shifted from Jon as "Bad Dad" to Kate as "Monster." How did that happen?

Likeability isn't about being nice. It is about being relatable. I wonder if Kate had simply broken down and cried on Larry King, if the public wouldn't have "liked" her. A betrayed wife grieving? We can relate to that. A perfect woman who has everything together? We can't.

I talked with a friend about the formula for likeability yesterday. I think it is likeability = empathy + accessibility + vulnerability.

Breaking down the formula...

Empathy - Genuine care for others success. There is nothing more attractive than knowning someone who "gets" you wants to help you.

Accessibility - Busy-ness is often used to generate a sense of importance. This does nothing to attract. People don't want to have to scale another wall be it social strata or scheduling. They are drawn to the path through.

Vulnerability - Vulnerability gives people power to hurt you but it is also the key to deep connection. With that said, don't mistake vulnerability for weakness. Vulnerability is about openness.

In the world we live in it is a far more important formula than polished + perfect = professional. Note that in both formulas being competent is your entry card to even get to play the game.

In a connect and collaborate world people have to like you to want to do business with you. When it hits critical mass, the command/control jerks are going to be sitting at their desks wondering what the heck happened.

Weekend with the BFF's

Every year I get together with my four best high school friends for reunion weekend. (Appropriately labeled "The BFF's" in Lynette's e-mail strings.)

There is something powerful about hanging out with extraordinary women--especially the ones who have known you forever.

Let me introduce going from left to right...

Kristi-G-from-Tennessee is a school teacher. She and her husband, Kevin, were high school sweethearts so we've known him forever too. Kristi has two daughters, is very active in her church and loves the small town she works in outside of Fort Worth. Rumor has it that Kristi paints her toenails school colors during football season and goes to all the games.

LC lives in a beautiful part of Texas full of rock and random wildflowers. She's an artist--a very talented one actually. Her husband--whom she met when she was pursuing her doctorate--moved from academic life to working with Olympic athletes.

Lynette-the-Cowgirl and I grew up on the same street in Fort Worth. She was an integral part of the western art museum in the city where she lives now; and recently took a post as assistant registrar at a university. I was in Lynette's wedding...she actually did marry a cowboy. I have the photos with the hats to prove it. (Smile.)

In this group, I'm Barney--a takeoff of my maiden name.

LP has two boys and a husband who is a high school teacher. All are avid outdoors people and most of LP's vacation pics have no makeup. (Which as it turns out looks adorable on LP.) Laura teaches at Northlake College a couple of days a week--which suits her schedule given the ages of her children.

This weekend was one of the most relaxing I've had in a very long time. We hung out in the hot tub, got pedicures, ate (a lot), laughed and laughed--and laughed some more.

We allegedly may have flamingoed someone's house--though I'm not sure standing in Garden Ridge with boxes of flamingos counts as actual evidence.

Here I am back home and I already miss you guys. Can't wait until next year.

Chase turns 21

Chase drove up for his birthday this weekend. Vadim (Katya and Clfton's son) is also staying with us before he goes to Dublin so he got to go with us for Chase's birthday celebration at the obligatory Uncle Julios.

Of course, this being the milestone 21 birthday, Chase requested a margarita. (Vadim didn't get to join in since he has to wait until August--though we understand drinking age in Dublin is 17 so he has another trip to the Guiness brewery planned.)

As with most holidays, it was fun to simply be together as a family. Even the dogs were happy to "have all the sheep in the pen." (John thinks I'm anthropomorphizing, but I KNOW that Casey looked very happy and content last night when we were all in the living room together.)

Of course it wouldn't be a birthday without all the photos. So, my digital camera was on overdrive. We have a whole series of Bethany taking advantage of the double flash where she looks cute and smiley one moment, then has eyes crossed or tongue sticking out the next. Too bad she doesn't have facebook. I so would have tagged her!

Go Knights!

I haven't gotten to come in forever. It feels so good to be sitting here on aluminum bleachers on a nice summer night cheering for my team. iPhone on shuffle and the smell of citronella. Softball rocks.

On being demonstrative...

David-the-Artist-Pastor often gives people the opportunity to do tangible things to celebrate faith. Several years ago on Good Friday, he set up a labrynth. As you walked to the center, it was about letting things go. Noise. Anger. Guilt. Shame. You had communion in the center, then as you went out, it was about action. Commitments. Praying for friends. Celebrating God. Asking for direction.

David had a candle garden set up in the "praying for friends" portion. I created a version of it at my house. Please understand there is no magic in this--ie) if I don't light a candle, Nancy might fall in a hole and break her foot. (That was TOTALLY not my fault.) But it is a very tangible way to express to God that I love my friends and it is important to me that He watch over them.

This week I had a conversation with a man who has a very pragmatic faith. For him, the core thing is apologetics and dogma. And that isn't bad exactly, just lacking somehow. Not only in beauty, but also in simplicity.

Our conversation made me feel like God was a term paper. Worse, it made me feel sad for the guy. Left-brained as he may be, it seems there should be more of the wonder and less of the this-equals-that. And while I respect him thoroughly, I need my God to be more than what I can memorize.

The candle garden reminds me of that.

Busy-ness

It's been a crazy couple of weeks. We just completed a merger. Not your usual scenario of assets and amalgamation, but a story about people. It is a great move for both firms.

However these things don't happen without tons of details, and I've been putting in a lot of hours along with the rest of the team.

I'm looking forward to the balance righting itself and catching my breath. Never a good sign when you wake up tired.

Random Spontaneous Family Reunion

At this mornings session, I was standing by the door, giving out handouts when I handed one to a woman who looked familiar. It took me a moment to process...

Paula?!!!

My cousin was here with her husband, Joel. Now, as it turns out we actually only live an hour away, but ran into each other at a conference in Long Beach, CA. And I love it that she happened to walk into our session at just the right time and that I happened to be the one with the handouts--otherwise we might never have known the other was here.

As it turns out, Paula and Joel's son, Aaron, is the contemporary worship leader at his church in College Station and came to WFX for training. Since he got to bring a couple of guests for free--he invited his parents who are active in their church in Fort Worth.

Tonight we all went to dinner together on the patio of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. It was fun to catch up--and Aaron and Joel actually showed me how to play my harmonica. (Which is good because this is the first actual music I've heard from the thing.) Paula is still beautiful--I always wanted to grow up to be just like her. She has this amazingly kind smile with a lovely voice and I was particularly envious of her hair! (Alas, I'll never have such curls.)

It was fun to hear about their life. That they teach Sunday School together and have a snow cone stand. (A serious addiction for me. My punch card from the Ice Wizard always nets me a few freebies each summer.) They live in their same house and the same day jobs they've had since I saw them last.

It was a wonderful unexpected surprise.

It's not a chore...

Spending time with my husband is not a chore. One of the things we've learned over the past two years is to seize the day and enjoy each other's company.

Paul and Mary Burleson were my pastors growing up back in the late 1970's. I enjoy reading Mary's blog. Today she wrote:

Both of us left a long time ago the thought that you meet God at church or you meet God in your closet. You might actually "meet" Him there. But you don't necessarily "enjoy" him there. We have learned that we meet God and enjoy Him every minute of every day in every activity we are involved in. There's no such thing to us as being disciplined to meet God. That's almost a foreign language to us any more. Our struggle is just forgetting to enjoy Him, always and forever...

As I exit talks, sermons, and teachings on being with Christ our Saviour, I want to do the excitement dance and leap for joy. I don't want to go away shamed, sad, and sure I will never be able to perform or DO what's required. That's the gospel I've embraced and am enjoying living.

I'm not sure I ever thought of this like Mary just phrased it.

So much of my early religious experience focused on outlining the standard of what I should be. It was a heavy weight. There was also an unreality to the conversion stories I was told which mostly went: "I lived a terrible life, met Jesus and now everthing is perfect."

Meeting Jesus has opened up a beautiful world for me, but it hasn't been perfect. It is more like something started back then that continues. As if you leave the path you were on to go somewhere else completely. And it is confusing and challenging and joyful and adventurous... I could go on, and never really hit quite the words I'm looking for.

Until I read Mary's post, I'm not sure I would have quantified it enjoying the ordinary moments--much like John and I cooking or doing dishes together--but I think that's exactly what it is. That warmth of knowing that the God who is love and who is light knows who you are and that there is nothing to earn--it's all been given.

That is a powerful freedom and a powerful joy.

Sunday morning

It is Sunday morning and the house is quiet. John and Bethany will sleep until the very last minute before we have to leave, but I find it hard to miss this part of the day.

The sun's soft light is gradually increasing and the world outside the window has been washed by a night of heavy rains.

I've just finished praying in my favorite chair--the one that faces the windows.

And though the past week has been one of intense work and the week to come will be also--there is this little moment of unhurried peace. A lovely Sunday morning. With dogs strewn about the living room like throw rugs and the sound of the fountain trickling outside.

And a sense of God in creating the whole thing in the first place.

The very best part of the day.

Because when you know their story, they feel like your friends...

When the ABC show "The Wonder Years" ended, I cried. It felt like people I knew were moving away after six years of hanging out together once a week. Even though in my head, I knew they weren't real.

Reality TV puts a different spin on this. You make that same connection, but with people who actually exist.

Last weekend, as John and I were walking through Walmart, I saw the US cover story on Jon and Kate Gosslen and I was genuinely sad. Over the past week, I've thought about their story with something akin to depression. Maybe because it connects with the stories of some of our real friends over the past few years. Or maybe just because I feel like I know them from watching Jon and Kate Plus 8 (or as Erin's son, Cody, calls it: My Boys and Girls.)

It's weird that a first instinct is to assess blame. If you read the press Kate either gets painted as a victim or a shrew, but we know from watching this drama play out before that more often it is about two very real, very imperfect people where one of them decides to test-drive a different life rather than pour love and energy into the one they already have.

I think the phrase that's haunted me the most on this is Jon's quote "Yes, I have female friends - but that is all she is." It is a phrase we've heard in different variations in all of the scenarios of our friends' marriages falling apart.

Which brings me to a concept I truly believe: you can't maintain close personal opposite-sex friendships when you are married. Take sex out of the equation. The challenge is that whatever time, compassion, energy, etc. you give to that relationship isn't going to your marriage, and your marriage will suffer for the lack. (BTW, I think this can be true of same-sex friendships as well.)

Reality is that marriages aren't perfect--in fact, even as I type this I'm particularly annoyed at John about something. The difference is that I'm not going to call someone else (or use this blog post) to vent about it. I'm going to talk with him and work it out. The thing is, I love him enough to wait until 9:30am. After all, it is Saturday morning.

Words in my head

Normally, I wake up with words in my head. As if my inner author pulls out her typewriter late at night when I'm sleeping and pounds away.

Back when I wrote fiction, it was usually dialogue. Scenes between characters.

Now, more often it is some thought I'm trying to piece together. Or threads of things where I suspect some vague correlation.

The amazing thing is that once I write them, they stop haunting me. They leave my head in satisfying silence.

Then, I can start my day.

Random Saturday Festivals

Years ago, when John and I first moved into our starter house, Carole was my neighbor. One day, she walked down to my house and invited me to a barbeque and we've been friends ever since.

A few years later, Carole moved away and we lost the casual ease of a "hello" from the porch, but we've maintained our favorite activity together. At least once every three months or so, we go downtown to Farmer's Market. Stands full of vegetables, vendors with handmade gifts, a breakfast burrito from the taqueria and very good company makes for a pretty fabulous Saturday morning.

This time when we went, we passed a fair and decided to stop. As it turned out, it was an Asian fair. Dancers, brightly colored scarves, bubble tea....and this very pretty stand by McDonalds where they took our picture. Yep, Saturday mornings with Carole rock.