I'm not sure when it began, but there has been a slow and steady shift in me. I felt it on the inside a couple of years back but I'm now hearing about it from the outside, a sort of confirmation for me.

I talk a lot in this blog about "lifeshocks," those wake up calls we get from God or life that tell us, "Wake up, be present!" Sometimes they are subtle, like a child misbehaving in a way that looks exactly like me. Others are huge, like the death of a loved one or losing a job (or the converse, a new baby or a windfall of money).

Since 1992, I have made a conscientious effort to pay attention to the lessons in my lifeshocks. Like everyone, I go through periods of sticking my head in the sand and trying to ignore these nudges and when that happens, they just get louder and louder until I have to pay attention! Back in the early 90s, my main goal was to find joy, to have a joyful life. That happened almost the instant I started paying attention! My secondary goal was to be a serene person; I wanted to learn to weather my lifeshocks with grace and tranquility.

That one took longer. Honestly, sometimes Life batters me around like a raft in a hurricane and tosses me, shipwrecked, on some foreign shore. Yet I notice it happens less and less often. It takes a big one, these days, to throw me off completely.

I had an unprovoked and amazing affirmation toward the end of school. Someone I work closely with and whom I greatly admire said, "Dreena, I want you to know I am trying to be more like you. You are a pillar of calmness and serenity in here."

Lifeshock! I do feel very calm and do not let little things or things outside my control rattle me, but it was so evocative to have someone notice it and call it out. Wow!! It's good to know, too, that my serenity does not look like complacency because -- on the inside -- it is anything but! I am focused on doing as an old Rudyard Kipling poem says, "keep my head while all about me are losing theirs."

I read a quote from Jean Nidetch, founder of Weight Watchers, after her death.  She said, "I do believe people can change." I believe it too. Genetics play a huge role in our personality but so do habitual responses. Automatic behaviors and learned responses so often rule the day. We are not slaves to these bad habits! We are able to learn to curb a harsh tongue, take a deep breath in crisis, learn to be less defensive, or become empathetic. Awareness is the first step. Choosing to be different is the second.

It's a self-serving time; we are in another "me" generation. Yet it is also a reflective and growth oriented time. As a nation, we have the opportunity to make a real difference in arenas of poverty, child welfare, hate crimes, our political system and climate change, as a start. Change happens from within. When, as individuals, we recognize our power to break free of the crippling habits and behaviors of our pasts, as a whole, we are then empowered to act on our collective conscious and work to reform our communities.

What is solid and holy and blooming in you? What steps can you take to nurture it and let it bear fruit?

Well Rooted

The enormous change in our family 2 years ago -- going from 2 to 5 children -- threw me for a loop.  Other things were going on at the time as well and all of the stress and change left me ungrounded.  I am not saying that on the whole I've been floundering; but there have been lots of times of unbalance.  I have struggled to right myself more than I would like.

I know myself; I am a person who craves structure; the rhythm of our days has been more discordant than I prefer.  Yet I have stood in; I have been willing, on the whole, to take the deep breath, to make an adjustment (or half a dozen), to keep coming back to the truth and my true center.

I think this is the blessing of mid-life.  The storms that would have rocked our little-seedling-new-lifestyle right out of the soil in my 30s or 40s seem more able to be weathered at this phase of life.  I have the good soil now: an active faith that sustains me, practices that right me when I get pushed over, support that upholds me until I regain my strength.  I am less easily uprooted these days, no matter how tenacious the storm.

It has been a long and tenacious storm.  There is so much to be tended to with a large family and I put so much pressure on myself to do it all.  I recognize the storm has brewed - largely -- from within.  Hurricanes start at the center, don't they?

And now, I feel a shift.  My sense of purpose is deepening, I feel myself softening at the edges,  the new realities around me are taking root.  It is, in part, the new opportunity of Lent that is encouraging this growth in me, but I also think it is time.  Two years is a good time to grow in love for these youngsters, a sufficient time for the original four of us to reform our systems and our relationships with one another. 

Relationships have to be maintained, of course; we are so not done yet!  There will still be weeding and culling and reshaping the ground as we move forward as a family into the future.  Yet we are in the spring it seems, in fertile ground for setting those good roots that will withstand a future tempest. 

I stand encouraged and full of hope.  I can't wait to see what the spring brings.

Changing Form

I am somewhat surprised, at 51 years of age, to find myself in a forming stage of life.  Growing up, I thought you became an adult and you "were something" -- a teacher, a missionary, a parent, whatever -- and that was it.  I have been many "somethings" and also had a few jobs that were more about my bills than about my path.

When I was a child, I frequently heard myself characterized as a "late bloomer."  That was a source of shame for me then, but now I embrace it.  I hope I never stop "blooming."  I met my soul mate, Paul, at age 36.  I was 37 when I became a mom for the first time.  And at 51, we started a whole new branch of the family.  This suits, me somehow.  I am comfortable in my skin and at this stage of life; I know what fits.

It reminds me of working with clay.  There is something so wholesome and earthy about it. It's sensuous -- and not in a corny, Ghost, sort of way.  The clay at first is in a slab, cold and unyielding.  The initial task is to warm it up with your hands; to soften it and make it pliable.  This takes some time and patience; some kneading, some faith.

Only after the clay is worked and warm can a new creation emerge. What is created is not always what I expected.  And it rarely, if ever, looks like I thought it would.  Yet it is always true to its nature.  Somehow it is exactly what it is "supposed" to be and exactly right.

The stress in my life comes in when I forget that I am in a forming phase.  In clearer moments, I understand that  "the forming phase" is every phase.  When I am willing to allow my life's circumstances and yes -- grace -- to do the shaping, then I am wholly me.  And something completely new can take shape.