By Debra Basham, on January 10, 2014
The gift of our serving others also blesses us. A teacher/friend of mine said our service also serves us. We are not talking about tit-for-tat. What we receive does not always come from the source to which we had given. I remember an experience I had about all of this a number of years ago, over a Labor Day weekend.
I had a wedding and a private consultation scheduled. On Thursday of that week I got a call that the wedding had been cancelled. On Friday, I also got a call cancelling the session. I hated to lose the income, but you do your best to be intentional about soulful living and so I noticed the thought, “I wonder what my time is being opened up for.”
Early Tuesday morning I was sitting in my living room—still in my nightgown—enjoying a cup of tea and some time for reflection. Our windows were open, and a gentle breeze of late summer air was filtering in with the quiet. Everything I was experiencing was busy easing my senses when I thought I heard someone calling my name.
Leaning into the sound, again I heard, “Debra…” almost a moan.
It seemed to be coming from the kitchen, so I got up to go look out into our backyard. I saw a friend of ours who stored her jet-ski trailer on our property. She was hunched over on the ground calling out my name!
Still in my nightclothes, I flew out the door and over to her. As I approached, I could see her left hand lying lifelessly in the palm of her right. No small amount of blood was oozing out of one finger, and when I looked more closely you could not avoid seeing the bone. The weight of the trailer had gotten away from her, and her hand had been crushed between the ball on the hitch and the door of our utility barn.
I quickly shut off her car, grabbed her purse, and helped her into my van. I hurriedly pulled on some sweats when I ran into the house to get my keys and rushed her to the hospital. She had no family in our town, so I stayed with her in the emergency room. When they took her into surgery, I was allowed to gown up and be with her throughout the procedure. As they worked to repair her mangled finger, I was calmly doing Healing Touch™. The surgeon said to me, “If I ever needed to have surgery, I would love to have you there with me.”
When my friend was out of post-op and settled into her hospital room, I did more energy work with her, and she slipped into a restful sleep. I was thinking about the privilege of having been there for her as I drove home.
Checking phone messages, I discovered while at the hospital working with my friend, I received a call from an area church asking me to speak. The speaker’s fee was exactly the same dollar amount as the wedding and the consultation would have been!
Having spent my day of service in a way I could not have even imagined, I mused about the way “As you give, so shall you receive.”
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| (From Osho Transformational Tarot) |
By Debra Basham, on January 5, 2014
It is truly amazing how the awareness you most need is being demonstrated to you over and over and over. This must be what is meant by the truth that we live in a failsafe universe.
I was driving my grandson Brad to the airport to pick up a rental car. We had Gabby II (the Garmin) programmed in with the address we got off the internet. As we approached, I was cautiously watching for the place to turn in, when he said to me, “It will save you a lot of stress if you delay being concerned about things. I learned that from pizza delivery work. You can always turn around.”
I felt a catch in my throat as a few tears formed in my eyes. How many times have I wasted my peace of mind living as though every thought, word, or deed was life or death?
Suddenly, my mind flashed back to another time I was driving to an airport with Brad in the car. I was in Tennessee, he was five, his mom was going into labor for his brother, and I was going to pick up his Grandpa. That was in the days before we had a GPS, so I had hand-written directions. My vehicle was off the side of the road, overhead light turned on, reading about where I needed to go.
“Gammie….You are doing it all wrong. You are wasting time. Use your eyes. It is right there.”
He was motioning out the windshield, showing me the airplanes landing and taking off. At a mere five years of age, he knew where the airport was because he was paying attention!
I shared that story with him as we proceeded to our current destination. We mused about how he knows he had that sense and now that he has graduated college with his Master’s Degree, he wants to walk across the country and/or move to a place he has never been. He says he wants to make his way without depending on his previous reputation. I am sure he is aware that where ever he goes, there he will be….
We found the street, followed the Enterprise signs, drove over those nasty tire-puncturing contraptions to make sure you only drive one way, and soon found ourselves in a parking garage along with dozens of returned rental cars. My van was alongside vehicles about three across and ten deep—all of them with no drivers, having been dropped off by those hurrying to catch a flight.
Brad got out and headed into the building to find the counter to pick up his car. More cars came in, now dozens behind me as well as in front of me. Remembering the conversation we had just shared, I fought the urge to panic.
Wearing an official-looking vest, a guy I presumed to be an Enterprise employee jumped into and drove away a car two lanes over, creating a narrow opening for me to squeeze out. Going the wrong-way along the arrows, I knew I was heading toward the tire torture contraption!
Just as I emerged back out into the sunlight, I saw what may or may not have also been an Enterprise employee. I waved and called out to him saying that I had gotten in there by mistake while dropping someone off to pick up a car, and I needed to get out. He said, “Hurry! Go this wrong way quickly, and get over there, and then follow the exit signs!”
Twisting and turning, I eventually came to an attendant who opened a gate and I was soon out on the road. I asked Siri to “call Brad mobile” and told him I was out and heading back to the house. We had planned to drive him to the airport, but at the last minute chose to rent a car so he could drive himself. As an aside, he was so excited to get a cute little red Fiat 500!
Even when you can’t literally turn around and go back exactly the same way you came, you can relax and enjoy a bit of patience and persistence and watch how things do have a way of working out….
By Debra Basham, on December 25, 2013
Neale Donald Walsch wrote on Christmas Day,
I believe God wants you to knowthat
the reason so much of humanity commemorates
this day is that so much of
humanity seeks to give and receive love.
During this holy time, know that all times are holy,
That every religion holds truth,
that each tradition is sacred,
and that it is in the simple sharing of love that
we make our beliefs come alive, and our dreams come true.
Years ago, I was so into Christmas that I had four trees in our house. We had the main tree in the family room, a smaller table-top tree in the living room, a four-foot Victorian style tree in our master bedroom, and a 3 foot tree in our daughter’s bedroom. In the main bath the shower curtain was swapped out for a Christmas motif, the toilet seat cover had Santa on it, and even the tissue box was in the style of a gingerbread house.
Shopping and wrapping and baking occupied every free waking moment for weeks and weeks….
What a welcome contrast to now hold the awareness of this season as one about giving and receiving love.
Do you notice how much more considerate drivers can be as the hustle and bustle reaches a fever pitch?
What about those who buy for a Christmas family, have a tree planted in a national forest, or provide chicks or sheep through Heifer International?
Over the past many years, as I have found myself on a much more inner journey, I can see it all with appreciation. I appreciate those who are true to what has heart and meaning for them. While out doing the last-minute shopping for stocking stuffers with my daughter, it was tender to remember all with love.
I remember the Christmas plays at school, the candlelight services at church, the family dinners at with my mom and dad and sisters and our kids. I remember the Christmas when I was five. My dad’s boss provided our Christmas of previously-loved toys.
All these memories are precious gifts. Nothing bought or wrapped or delivered compares. Faith, hope, and love—the greatest of these is love.
As Neale Donald Walsch finishes his message for the day:
Let this Christmas Day remind us that Christ came to
invite us to offer love to all humankind, and to
open the door of God’s kingdom to every soul.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
By Debra Basham, on December 18, 2013
No matter how long the room has been dark,
an hour or a million years,
the moment the lamp of awareness is lit the entire room becomes luminous.
You are that luminosity.
You are that clear light.
-Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
Time passes, and we view each new moment through the moments we have lived. Painful moments, joyful moments, busy moments, leisured moments. As a passenger on a train ride, we are watching the landscape out the window. We see the fields and the towns. We hear the call of the owl and watch the autumn leaves fall. Through it all, we are more than what we see or say or feel or know.
Today the sun was shining, then it wasn’t.
Today it was snowing and blowing and the roads were coated with ice.
Then they weren’t.
Tonight the moon was big and bright, and now it isn’t.
While everything outer waxes and wanes, you are that unchanging luminosity.
You are that clear light.
Tonight I am thankful.
Tomorrow I will recall today.
From Awakened by Stirrings:
Will we come to our senses and honor the will of the creator? “The greatest of these is love.” There is no way to know where we are going. We must move into the darkness of the preconceived ideas and from the very center of the soul weave together the threads of bodies, minds, and spirit.
Never again shall we walk this way. We must not look back, for fear will surely grab us and yank us into denial. We must let our heart guide us where our minds would not dare to let us go… Thereby we will find a way to invite others to join… Where all will remember that we were made to be free!
By Debra Basham, on December 7, 2013
Yesterday we received our first Christmas card, from Glenda Norris. Glenda goes all out, shopping, decorating, and celebrating life. The image on the card is a very lovely owl, and the quotation by William Shakespeare is equally lovely: One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. The card is from the Arbor Day Foundation, and the inscription reads, “In your name, a tree is being planted in one of our National Forests.” What a beautiful, thoughtful, insightful gift.
I was pondering this relationship humans have with nature when I read some excerpts from Listening to Your Inner Voice, by Douglas Bloch. Bloch writes about a young minister complimenting a farmer, saying that God had blessed him with an incredible piece of land. The farmer is said to have replied, “Yes, but you should have seen the mess it was when God had it to Himself!”
It appears to be quite obvious that life works best when we work with the divine.
This past summer I spent four weekends in an experiential workshop on how you can activate and maintain higher states of consciousness. Why is this significant for all? We are partners in the vision and creation of our world.
Last weekend while we were enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday with our family in Tennessee, my older grandson, Brad, stopped by his mom’s. On TV was a “reality show” about extreme couponing. I had never seen such a thing, and was appalled at the garage full of stuff, wondering why one would want 30 years supply of toothpaste. An extra tube, yes, but hundreds?
In about ten minutes of watching, Brad had an inspiration to fill food pantries with staples and stock home shelters with toiletries—with absolutely no cash outlay! He could form a not-for-profit program that trained volunteers how to use the process, and suddenly extreme couponing moved from excessive hording to a practical service to humanity.
As I was working on this blog, Joel sent a link for one of the most popular TEDTalks of all time, Simon Sinekspeaking about great leadership. Using Apple™ and Martin Luther King, Jr. as examples of great leaders, Simon describes the common threads of the most inspired and inspiring individuals or organizations. He says, “People don’t by what you do, they buy why you do it.”
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| The image on the card is a very lovely owl, and the quotation by William Shakespeare is equally lovely: |
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I may not ever know for sure exactly why Glenda invested her money to plant a tree in a National Forest in our name, but as Simon Sinek says, “The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have, the goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.”
Obviously, Glenda and I believe what William believes…
By Debra Basham, on November 30, 2013
No one has ever become poor by giving. ~ Anne Frank
Thanksgiving Day 2013 did not unfold exactly as we expected, but there certainly was plenty to be thankful for. Late Wednesday afternoon, we found out that the family member we had expected to be hosting our traditional feast had been in the hospital with kidney stones. Fortunately, a stop at the store on the way home from work by my son-in-love, Doug, produced a turkey and the makings for dressing.
Thursday morning started early, as we participated in Borodash (a fundraiser walk/run). It was a brisk 19 degrees when our warm hearts gathered at the start line with a dozen or more of our family members, including all of our grandones! Imagine walkers and runners—some clad as pilgrims, others as Indian maidens, and a wide variety of turkey hats!
Besides the sheer joy of being alive and spending time together, a highlight of the event was waiting to welcome the last walker across the finish line, a veteran who had one leg. It is hard to feel anything but blessed when you see how much some people are able to do with their lives, in spite of challenges along the way.
So after the Borodash and breakfast at Cracker Barrel, we headed to the house to begin preparing our Thanksgiving meal. We began slicing apples and making preparations to get the pie into the oven. We had planned to take the famous Dutch apple pie—using a recipe cobbled together by my daughter, Stacey, following the death of her Grandma Smith. This year (hoping to move closer to the desired results of my mom’s pie), I brought a different recipe with me.
We realized we did not have any cornstarch. The Publix around the corner was closed so their employees (including our grandson, Adam) could enjoy Thanksgiving with their families. Walmart is quite a bit farther away, and likely would have been filled with shoppers getting a head-start on the Black Friday specials. The apple slices were already turning brown (and we were waiting for the pie to come out of the oven for the turkey to go in).
Only needing ¼ cup of cornstarch, I sent my daughter (Stacey), and husband (John), and granddogger (Baxter), out to knock on neighbor’s doors. The first few houses, no one answered the door. The next house is occupied by a Hispanic family. The parents’ English would best be described as little-to-none. The young daughter tried unsuccessfully to translate. With the dad on his hands and knees mopping the kitchen floor in preparation for their own guests, the family graciously invited Stacey in, opened all their cupboards for her to look for what she needed. Even so, she returned without any cornstarch.
We were in the process of trying to make substitutions, when we heard a knock on the door. The young girl and her younger brother were standing there, having been sent over with a container of what turned out to be flour. Stacey told them she had flour, but thanked them for trying.
A few minutes later, another knock on the door, and they had returned with this box!
As Stacey and I took out the needed amount, thanked them, and turned back to the preparations of the pie, I was choking back tears thinking of loving and generous hearts that would motivate you to go to that extent to help someone. I was reminded of the stories of Jesus about going the extra mile.
I may never know the details of the conversations between this young girl and her family, but I will always remember the unexpected gifts of this Thanksgiving Day.
By Debra Basham, on November 23, 2013
One year ago, my grandson Adam, had his wisdom teeth removed. This week, my granddaughter Courtney, did the same. One year ago, when I went to Tennessee for Thanksgiving, I was facing major surgery when I returned. This year feels so much different, and yet I have a sense of déjà vu.
For sure, life is at any given moment more unsure than it seems, and also more sure. Last week a childhood friend of mine watched her husband die from lung cancer. We do not stay in these bodies forever….
When it is all said and done, what have I said and what have I done that has made life better for others? Have I picked up trash that I did not throw out? Have I held a hand, or opened a door? Have I dreamed a better way and done something to bring that dream into reality? I would say, yes.
This week a wonderful young woman who has survived a LOT in her 29 years, told me a favorite funny movie of hers is Yes Man, starring Jim Carrey.
Here is what I found about the film online:
Jim Carrey stars as Carl Allen, a guy whose life is going nowhere—the operative word being no—until he signs up for a self-help program based on one simple covenant: say yes to everything and anything. Unleashing the power of YES begins to transform Carl’s life in amazing and unexpected ways, getting him promoted at work and opening the door to a new romance. But his willingness to embrace every opportunity might just become too much of a good thing.
It may be wise to exercise some restraint rather than saying yes to everything and anything, but what might the world gain if you brought your authentic self to the fore? Might you be another Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni or Ludwig van Beethoven? What awakened the destiny of Christopher Columbus or Jehanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc)?
While I was in the hospital (6 Garden at Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center in Mishawaka, Indiana), I was surrounded by angels working as nurses. I am grateful I thought to take photos. Throughout the year their faces have come back to me wrapped in the lovely memories of their kindness and compassion. They were the best.
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| Elizabeth |
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| Francesca |
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| Kristie |
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| Pat |
I wonder about each of them and what this past year has brought to them and to those they have cared for. As a tribute to nurses everywhere, paid and volunteer, I would invite you to say this prayer every day from now until the end of the year. “I say yes to the best.”
That’s it. Short. Simple. Say yes to the best. Very easy to remember.
By Debra Basham, on November 19, 2013
Tonight I am thinking of the many people who lost their homes (or loved ones) in the scores of tornadoes that slammed through the Midwest yesterday. It brings to mind when our friends, Roger and Sharon, lost their home along with every other family in their home town of Firth, Nebraska, May 22, 2004.
Here the storm left my 90 year-old mother-in-love without electricity, so she is here with us. We were watching news and looking at some of the devastation on the internet. It is amazing how fortunate you feel when you see what others are experiencing.
I certainly am aware of how blessed I was with the surgery I went through last year. Yes, I had a very large (21 cm) ovarian growth removed, and, yes, I had post surgical complications that resulted in my spending some time in high rent district (intensive care).
If you would like to be inspired, watch this TED talk by branding guru Stacey Kramer. It is three minutes long, and inspirational in both its brevity and its punch. Nobody wishes for adversity but sometimes it is a profound teacher.
Tonight the thing that I am most aware of is how the human spirit survives the storms of life
—far more than one might think possible.
By Debra Basham, on November 13, 2013
Who is it that can make muddy water clear?
No one.
But left to stand, it will gradually clear of itself.
Lao-Tzu
Tao Te Ching
One year ago, I was on the roller-coaster ride of my life. Fortunately, a dear friend and wonderful intuitive healer gave me an image that carried me along as though on angels’ wings. When I told Dr. Mary Jo Bulbrook I had been diagnosed with a very aggressive mass in my abdomen, she told me there were be no shortcuts, but I would get through it.
Mary Jo told me, “There is a red carpet being rolled out for you.”
Things were certainly going quickly. On Friday I saw a gynecologist because I had been feeling a thickening in my lower left abdomen. He did an exam, said I had a hernia, and referred me to a general surgeon, whom I saw on Tuesday. The general surgeon said it was not a hernia; did a surface ultrasound and saw something on or behind the bladder; and referred me to a urologist, whom I saw on Friday. The urologist did an exam and scheduled me for a CT scan on Monday and a cystoscopy on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, I went right from the urologist’s office to the gynecologist/oncologist, who did an exam, blood work, urinalysis, and wanted to do surgery the next Monday.
Somewhere within this whirlwind, my heart had the presence of mind for me ask if my waiting one week would change the prognosis.
You see, the following week was Thanksgiving and we were scheduled to go to Tennessee to have time with kids and grandkids.
Dr. Method (there is a Method to the madness?) gave me the cautions of waiting but told me it would probably not make a huge difference. I said, “I need to go see my family.”
I shared the decision to wait to do the surgery in a Thanksgiving message to friends this week. I needed to see their faces, hear their voices, touch them and have them touch me. I made that trip lying in the backseat of my van, riding on what we referred to as my “Princess” bed, and the scheduled procedure took place Monday after Thanksgiving, November 26, 2012.
Yesterday, we got our first snow of the season here in Saint Joseph—and it was a big one!
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| I grabbed this snip from a video of the near white-out conditions. |
I saw reports of up to 17 inches of total snowfall near here, and I would say we had between 12 and 14 inches at our house!
Our snowblower had not even come out of the barn and into the garage yet, and I suggested we use the Tennessee snow strategy of the lord giveth and the lord taketh away.
This photo was taken about 3:00 in the afternoon. Who would have dreamed what a difference giving something the tincture of time can make.
Sometimes the situation resolves itself if you just wait.
By Debra Basham, on November 5, 2013
In some ways, right now I feel as though I am flipping through a tattered photo album. I am recalling precious memories and bringing to mind valuable things I knew but had forgotten. I am savoring where I am now looking back at where I had been. I am so grateful….
The writing below is my journal entry on November 20, 2012. This was a very tender time as I was anticipating a major surgery on the 26th. I was to have what was described as a “very aggressive” mass removed from my abdomen (along with all my feminine parts).
This morning I was having trouble seeing with a light in the living room. Over a year ago the lamp in there stopped working, and I have kept thinking I don’t want to live in this house so I don’t want to buy new furniture for it, so I have limped along with just the floor lamp. It has made morning devotions in there next to impossible.
This morning I decided that if I am going to be recovering in there over the next several weeks, I deserve to have a lamp that works. I decided I would go out and buy new lamps, then I got to thinking about these lamps. They are structurally good lamps, in great shape. It is just the touch-on/off sensor mechanism that is bad.
Before I had time to think about it, I took the lamp apart!
I decided, “I could rewire it!”
All the while, I was working on the lamp, I kept hearing my inner coach telling me what parts I needed,and where to find them. I was being told exactly what I needed to do right now.
At one point, it was a matter of making sure that I removed a little metal ring I had left on the lamp and the message (loud and clear) was, “What is not needed needs to be removed.”
Other messages came flooding in.
“For too long you have tolerated what wasn’t working.”
“When you really know what you want, everything you need has been there all along.”
“Body and mind need to work together, not too much focus on just one or the other.”
I only found one wire nut, and I needed two. As I kept looking for a second one, I heard, “Working on the body, without the mind or working on the mind, without the body is like only having one wire nut. It just doesn’t get the job done! It’s not much better than working on neither.”
I had the lamp reassembled, and I thought I had it tightened down, but when I looked more closely, it was actually very caddywhompus. I knew I needed to straighten it out. I was so excited to glue the base back on the lamp.
I heard, “It’s important to be patient. You need to prepare the work surface correctly, to ensure that what you are doing is safe, and won’t cause other damage.”
I was getting quite hyper, desperately wanting to find that second wire nut so that I could get the lamp finished. I only had one small pack of epoxy—the kind that I needed to mix— so I needed to glue the felt bottom on both lamps at the same time.
I became aware that I was hungry. I had been ignoring my body’s need for food, because I was so focused on finishing what I was doing. The message was clear, “You benefit by having patience and staying aware that the immediate needs of your body must take priority over the demands of your emotions or mind.”
Today I was telling all of this to some friends who stopped by. He worked as an electrician before he retired, so he knew very well what the steps are in the process of rewiring a touch-on/off lamp. He is going through cognitive challenges, having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. I know my sharing with him was not just about my handyman skills. The meaningful messages for all of us are right here in the lessons of the lamp….
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