Wisdom I’ve Borrowed from Friends

I have been highly blessed to have known wise women during my lifetime. What a difference they have made. Sometimes they appeared one at a time, sometimes as a group. Exactly the right people I needed at the right time. And no way could I have orchestrated all that!

What has turned my thoughts this direction today? What’s the story behind the story? Probably getting stung three times in the last six weeks by red wasps!

Again and again, I’ve heard the whispers of my wise ones, those living and those dead.

Will you stop trying to figure it out? It’s true you have never been stung before this summer, but give it a rest. You can’t be floating through this world and have ah-ha experiences and poetry all the time. Just go blank. Let yourself rest from it. Be in the ordinariness of now.

This is just another bump in the road. You know this. There will be more potholes and bumps ahead. There’ll be long stretches of strange troubles, too. Some will be tumultuous. They are in the future, and the present bumps are getting you ready for what’s coming. God is with you now. He will be with you then. No need to worry.

Do the best you can with what you’ve been given and let it go. Just let it go. That may mean that you dare to be different. Okay, be different. Be a sunflower instead of a daisy, zinnia, sweet potato vine. Be whoever God made you to be.

Receive the good gifts along the way, too. Like the sunflower seeds a friend gave you 10 days ago. Yes, you got stung. That wasp did nail you, but you also received a bunch of seeds to plant next year. Like everyone else, you get the good with the bad. Get your mind off the wasp. Think sunflowers.

Shoot for moderate and balanced, not intense, not lazy. Go to bed early. Get enough sleep. Give yourself permission to go blank while watching a bird. God’s beauty. It’s His great gift to you. No one wants to always listen to the wind blow hard through the chimes. Let life be plain and ordinary and balanced.

Sure it’s hard, but tell the truth. It has its own charm, its own surprise. Like lightning in the sky, it takes us out of the darkness which is deep.

Don’t fear the emotional quiet. In fact, invite it into your life. In the earlier years, some of us did not appreciate peace. However, the more peace you have, the better you’ll be at everything you attempt.

Hang on to hope. Don’t let it go. You see it in the potato with many eyes. It lives in the tail of the dog, lungs of the newborn, clear pebbles of rain. Hang on to it.

Give with no agenda. You and I know a few true-blue givers. Become one. They are not selfish. They do not know how to say “Me, first.” Instead, they step up like the man standing in line at the grocery store. On hearing and watching a frantic couple search for wallets or cash, the man whipped out a credit card while telling them, It’s okay, I’ve got your items covered. Later, this same man said, That was the best part of my day.

Forgive others. Give them grace. Now that doesn’t mean you and I have done things better than others. Most of us have disgraced ourselves at one time or another, making us want to put paper bags over our heads. Ask God to forgive you, then forgive yourself. Haven’t we all offended God, the Father, at some point in time?

Keep breathing. Just breathe like the trees in front of you and the shrubs alongside you. Stand still and stare and breathe. We breathe in rhythms. We are alive. Sometimes you may feel alone. Reality: you are never alone.

Work on becoming thankful instead of being sarcastic or negative. Just flip it around. The sun can melt a field of snow, a field of sorrow, a field of loss. That hard field, frozen and white, can melt and soften. May your field be covered by the sun, and may it melt the angry, negative, hardness.

Stay awake and aware. There are many gods in the darkness around you and me. It’s not hard to take an uncertain step and follow the wrong god, especially if you are not reminding yourself daily of the Almighty God. Hey, it may mean you become a sunflower, standing straight and tall and alone at times, but this way, you won’t miss your star. :)

I need every whisper of wisdom offered by my friends. Probably will always need it.

The Spirit in me wishes you blessings,

Pat Durmon

patdurmon.com

patdurmon@gmail.com

P.S. Sharing and Comments (below photo) are appreciated. Wisdom is meant to be shared. Thank you!

Sunflower, blooming its head off in the Montana mountains. Photo taken in September 2018, by Susan Kaufman, photographer.