All-in

Whoever joined together the word smooth with the word sailing?

My ideal sailing adventure—my smooth sailing—would be on a warm, clear and calm ocean…with land always in sight. Warm water says jump in…all-in. I love to flop around in warm water. As a young girl, I secretly wanted to be one of those underwater mermaids at Florida’s Weeki Wachee tourist attraction. Yet I am as much mermaid material as I am a smooth sailor.

For me, clarity while smooth sailing means vision in all directions...with no unexpected encounters. Similarly, underwater clarity means I can avoid creepy creatures above, below and beyond…no surprises. Calm waters invite peace and steadiness without threat of upheaval. However, with sailing, the more squally, the better the adventure. It would seem that my ideal smooth sail is as unrealistic as my mermaid-like, no surprises, risk-avoidant self.

I am a sailor…by marriage only. Though my heart is captivated by the captain, my soul would rather be on land. Curious how often I find myself in conflicting, unpredictable, tumultuous, unfathomable waters. Stretching beyond my comfort zone is an understatement when I have one foot on a moving boat and the other foot on the dock.

Even ashore, the ocean’s disturbing motion lingers long after a sail. I walk unsteadily along the beach avoiding more waves, spray, rocks and other impediments in my path. The unending, obstacle-strewn beach stretches ahead of me like my word for the year, pursue. 

My word, pursue, challenges me to consider how to respond in sailing and in life when rough waters are present. Pursue does not avoid, nor minimize, nor unwillingly tolerate, nor precariously straddle the gulf between all-in and all-out. Pursue weighs the options, decides and then moves onward. Powerful waves surge onto shore…all-in. The retreating water washes back out into the ocean…all-out.

All my previous words for the year have contributed to this time and space where pursue now requests something more of me. My words, like waypoints in sailing, mark progress points made as well as setting the course ahead. Pursue beckons me onward, keeping me on course for this year.

I glance back over my shoulder and notice the waypoints I have passed. At embolden, I asked for God’s help. Our grandson’s three-year old voice whispers through the wind. Jack comforted his howling little brother resisting his car seat and sleep, “It’s okay, Lukey, God will take care of you.” Jack’s simple faith contrasts to Granna’s cautious faith…I keep walking.

Release is where I stumbled over an old pattern of avoiding risk. Radical was the illusive waypoint that renounced all or nothing thinking. Willing acknowledged being on the right path. Just past open, I began noticing little treasures along the way…discarded, broken, insignificant bits of sea glass. A friend’s blog title pleasantly brings me back to the moment at hand as I ‘Gather the Fragments’. The sun is high in the sky; I pursue noticing and collecting the little treasures of fragments, words and insights along the way.

Back at home, I add my journey’s bounty to a container with previous discoveries. As my collection grows bit by bit, so does my gratitude, and my perspective…along with extra fragments of faith. My new, bigger, transparent vase is already half-full. This larger container holds all my assorted pieces together in one place, at one time…all-in.

The gift of a word

A calendar screen can simply scroll over into a new year. As for me,  I dawdle, sigh, reflect and mutter when approaching a new year. My transition into a new year is much like the way I approach Christmas morning. I don’t want to be rushed; I want to savor the gift in hand before moving on to the next. I want to fully appreciate the depth and breadth of the gift: the giver, the effort that went into its selection, the connection between giver and receiver, and the gift itself.

And so it is with a new year…a wrestling against the speed of time for space to savor what has been received this year before opening up the next one. A friend communicates similar angst at this time of year in her text message, “Just taped up the last box of Christmas. Some pieces went kicking and in protest of yet another closure.”

Before I can tidy up this past year without regret and look forward to the next, I want to take time to savor the year past and its many gifts. Were I just to recall those gifts packaged in festive paper and celebration, my gratitude and my growth would be lacking. Much like the gift of sea glass fragments found, collected and saved in a large, see-through, wide-open vase, I finger through gifts from last year marveling over the accumulated growth that time has produced bit-by-bit. 

Retrieving those gifts from the past year spotlights a new path for the new year. My recollection of the year is most visible from the vantage point of my word for the year. And it is by the light of my word for the year—last year—that I can best view the gifts I have gleaned. With my 2012 word in hand, I sift through the gifts I received in connection to my previous word, open. I recall, absorb and own each and every gift listed below…

Choice: Taking responsibility for my life opens up many different options. From the book, Boundaries, by Cloud and Townsend

Support: Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any one hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. Rev. 3:20

Spaciousness: I can't tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn't fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren't small, but you're living them in a small way. I'm speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!  2 Corinthians 6:11-13, The Message

Freedom: Beckoned from the shadows, from behind walls, I have been released into the open. Into the open, Julie Voorhees, Feb 2012

Love: Breathe in love, exhale captivity. Breathing lessons, Julie Voorhees, March 2012

Acceptance: I want to be Julie. Growing into my clothes, Julie Voorhees, April 2012

Redemption: Life’s traumas are not wasted; they are redeemed by forcing out seeds for new growth…by forcing new steps leading to new growth. The other side, Julie Voorhees, July 2012

Recovery: Buoyancy - the power to recover emotionally...I was okay. Under the surface, Julie Voorhees, August 2012

Value: That day I discovered a personal treasure….unique, fearfully and wonderfully made, and intrinsically valued. The pink one, Julie Voorhees, October 2012

Significance: My dad’s five words were his final gift to me. He heard me…therefore he cared. Loss and found, Julie Voorhees, November 2012

In a December 2012 sermon, pastor Jon Ireland challenged all to “live in a posture of generosity with open hands”. This past year has pried open my hands and my soul…to receive so that I might give.

Anonymously quoted words beckon me into 2013: “Dear Past, thanks for all the lessons. Dear Future, I’m ready!”

And I look ahead with the expanded view that my friend, Lorene, describes, “A windshield is much larger than the rearview mirror.”

I so want for you to look ahead through your own clean, large windshield with hope and promise. I encourage you to select your focus word for this current year. If you would like help in choosing your word, go to my blog post, One Word Challenge, or listen to my interview with Geri Swingle, radio show host and fellow life coach.

Your focus word has potential to enhance the year ahead of you, provided you don’t shelve it within a couple of weeks like a forgotten gift. On the contrary, a good gift is relevant and sustainable. A focus word can be a relevant and sustainable gift over the course of the year provided you ask the pertinent questions along the way. Click here for cool coaching questions that will help you stay focused with your word for an entire year.

My word…you want to know my word for 2013? Hey, thanks for asking. Having tried out several words, I narrowed it down to three. Like Goldilocks looking for the right bed in which to rest, I tested out two other words before settling into the best one for me this new year. I tried NOTICE…uh-uh, too passive. I switched to SEEK…um, not quite active enough. Then I stretched to PURSUE: to seek persistently, strive for something, carry something out…which encompasses noticing, seeking and activity. Yes, PURSUE is the next journey on which I am embarking for 2013. 

Inside Walls

Last spring I spotted a woven mesh of twigs affixed to a spot on the exterior of our dense juniper tree. I marveled at how a mother bird wedged the twigs across the opening to her interior nest as protection against invaders. I shared my discovery with my husband one morning over breakfast, “What a clever and good mother bird to weave that wall of twigs for protection.”

“Hmm,” my husband said, “I thought that the twig in her beak must have been too wide for the opening. As she tried to enter the opening into the branches toward her new nest each twig jammed into the needles and created that pattern. That’s a lot of twigs. I wonder if she ever figured it out, that those twigs were just too long.”

What I viewed as a wonderfully wise barrier was actually the work of a birdbrain doing the same ineffective activity over and over again…inadvertently creating a wall. And her nest failed to expand and thrive.

Like the mother bird, I also found myself in a new season…a frustrating season where twigs did not seem to just fall into place. And protective walls were engaged to hold onto the familiar: like rescue parenting, coaching and spousing. (That needs to be a verb.) But somehow doubt was always able to seep in through the cracks. And I retreated into my tree, into my nest.

Perhaps that was the moment, in my familiar robe and slippers, when I recalled my word for the year, willing. Have I been willing to face my defensive barriers? Have I really been willing to challenge doubt? Have I been willing to wholeheartedly receive and pass on God’s love?

On that note, my husband and I committed to a tour of Israel with a group of 150 other people at the last minute, before I could back out. That seemed to me everything unfamiliar: spontaneity, adventure just for adventure’s sake, a foreign country and language, and hanging out with strangers…touring by bus in the heat of June. I was, however, drawn to experiencing the history of my faith…something that is familiar and without doubt. Surely a visit to Israel could expand a mother bird’s brain and would reveal my willingness.

Wherever I went, I noticed walls…ancient walls in Israel and long-lasting walls that had, apparently, traveled to Israel with me. As I saw more of Israel, I saw more of me.

Walls that get buried, I learned in Israel, would eventually become a mountain. Tel is a term for a city mound; think of Tel Aviv. History told of conquering invaders leveling a city then building on top of the rubble of fallen walls. Over time the level on which the city was built rose. The buried walls undergirding the tels affected me the same way that the bird twigs punctured my perspective.

Conflict and resistance accompanied many of the walls I confronted. Four conflicting cultures divided historical Jerusalem into separate quadrants. While touring inside the walls of Jerusalem, a Palestinian passerby mumbled obscenities to our Israeli tour guide. A hawk-like vendor followed us to the steps of the tour bus, “The more you buy, the more we love you; the less you buy, the more we hate you.” Sometimes it was more comfortable to be inside the walls of the bus looking out.

The Western Wall of the Temple Mount—the Wailing Wall—being one of the most sacred sites for practicing Jews intimidated me. So divisive, as Jews—having access to the Western Wall again in 1967—oppose the Muslims, who have control of the upper Temple Mount. And more division as men separated from women into their respective prayer areas at the wall. So many unfamiliar practices to respect while advancing and retreating from the Wall itself. So many women bobbing and repeating Hebrew all around me. So much emotion through notes and prayers plugged into its crevices. Sights, sounds, smells, touch and emotions overwhelmed me at The Wailing Wall. I did not know if my small prayer for peace—facing this façade in Jerusalem, and other façades within me—could even make a difference.

One of the activities in our tour included a quarter-mile trek through Hezekiah’s tunnel, a narrow passage hand-chiseled through walls of hard rock. A quarter mile of inching forward along with the stream of people ahead and people behind. This was the first time I could actually touch walls that triggered panic in me. Having pressed through the passageway of panic, I emerged from the darkness into the light. And then I felt it…movement. It was by no means an earthquake but more like some walls had shifted ever so slightly. Warming in the sunlight, one of our tour mates confessed her own terror in the tunnel. “My feet turn red and ache when I get anxious,” she offered. I brushed some twigs from between us on the bench outside the tunnel as I scooted near her. Beyond the moment of hesitation, I reached down and lifted her red foot into my lap…and began massaging. Touching the feet of a stranger; how utterly unlike me. Could this possibly be God’s love at work…for her, for me?

Radical

I choose a word for the year because one word is a simple way to keep focus throughout an entire year. I don’t know about you but my head gets full fast and it seems like I can go in all different directions as urgency presents itself. So having a word for the year helps settle me as I recall the general direction provided by my God-given word. Just having one focus word keeps me from adopting “should” goals.

I do not like to set goals. I am amongst about 80 percent of the population who cringe when the word goal is mentioned, according to author Bobb Biehl. In his book, Stop Setting Goals…If You Would Rather Solve Problems, Biehl estimates that only 15 percent of people are energized by setting goals and reaching them. The majority of us prefer to identify problems and seek solutions. Since the writing of this book, Biehl has discovered yet another small percentage of people—five percent—who are neither motivated by problems or goals but by seizing opportunities.

Since I already have my own “non-goal” word for 2011, I like to look back over my shoulder and ponder how last year’s word unfolded in my life. It’s an enlightening exercise that I recommend to all who choose a word for the year.

I could trace my 2010 word—radical—throughout the whole of last year. Radical shock waves from alcoholism, panic attacks, sexual impurity, lay-offs, joblessness, relocation, recovery, and seclusion impacted many in proximity. Radical snuck up on me while I watched digital numbers of the clock slowly click through the night. Radical taunted me while I plotted how to handle the next new crisis. Radical loaded my shoulders pulling them down. Who picked such a dreadful word anyway?

Radical knocked me down several notches so that I was on the same level with our youngest grandson. One day while talking to my daughter-in-law on the phone, 22-month-old Jackson stomped into their kitchen perfectly pleading, “Crak-kerrr, mommy, Crak-kerrr.”

“Mommy is making your lunch, Jack, no crackers.”

Distance by telephone gave me a unique vantage point. Jackson cried and whimpered in frustration, “Crak-kerrr!”  From this same vantage point, I heard an echo of my own voice whining for want I wanted, and then petulantly protesting when I did not get what was expected. But my voice was not as cute as Jack’s.

Early last year, I attended a New Life Weekend in the San Francisco Bay Area… so that I could learn how to fix a relative who was threatening my expectations. I was energized to solve her problem. I arrived with luggage stuffed full of judgment and resentment. After two days, I emptied that suitcase and returned with radically different pieces of apparel…like humility, compassion and forgiveness. Those have been well-worn outfits during my year of radical.

When Christmas rolled around, the outfits were threadbare as I suited up for our first Christmas without family. Radical threatened me again as I dredged up expectations of Christmases past. Radical accused me as we went tree-cutting by ourselves. Our past adventures into the woods had meant family, friends, picnics, hot chocolate and the thrill of finding the best tree.

The search for the perfect Christmas tree, I believe, began many Decembers ago…maybe even in my childhood where there were no forests to be found. Whatever it takes, the Voorhees get their tree…and expectations are achieved. Even despite a few permitless years—shhh—we cut our tree during the night, having our young children stand on lookout. What were we teaching them anyway?

This past December, my husband and I quietly trekked through the snow, sometimes sinking up to our thighs. It started snowing; we were cold and hungry. We settled on a tree. Radical again…one side of the tree was pretty sparse. I lugged all the sorrows of a solitary Christmas all the way uphill to the car along with this imperfect tree. The uphill trudge with tree and resentment culminated in a welcome release upon reaching the car. As I dropped it next to the car, it felt like I had let go of something else as well. We looked forward to decorating the tree together.

This time, only a wisp of radical brushed past as we hung our absent daughter’s ornaments from previous years. Our imperfect tree sparkled…and a new kind of radical glistened. Tree cutting by ourselves wasn’t terrible afterall. Christmas morning could be different. 2011 could be different. I could be different. Radical.

I recalled my daughter-in-law prompting little Jack during his cracker disappointment, “Jack, is no cracker a bummer?”

He stopped whining to give voice to a different, matter-of-fact perspective, “Bumm-merr….bumm-merr.”  And then he ate his lunch. Problem solved.

As is fitting for a problem-solver, my word for 2011 is willing. Bumm-merr was already taken.

Word for the Year

In his book, Walking with God, John Eldredge, titles a section, The Power of the Right Word. Here he mentions choosing a word for the year, "I was asking God this morning what His word for the new year was [for me], if He wanted to say anything about that, set a sort of theme for this year..."
How cool is that? John the author—my new bff even if though he doesn't know it—does this word for year thing too. Great minds...
Your own selection process and your resulting word for the year has the potential to influence your mindset for an entire year. One word can keep you alert to each day where you can create it, discover it or resist that which threatens it. “Maybe it’s even at the heart of the life [you] want to live, the source out of which all else flows.” says Eldredge of the right word. 

Silly me thought I heard the whisper of a word…that frankly has me digging in my heels. Radical???

C’mon…..really, God? You know me, I’m SO NOT radical in any way, shape or form. And I don't prefer to be radical either. I must have misunderstood. Maybe Jackson (pictured above) and I were given the same word. Ravenous….radical, they kinda sound alike, right? Oh yeh, Jack and I could easily do ravenous.
No, Julie, your word is radical.
And Jackson’s mom assures me that 2010 is already manifesting ravenous as Jack yearns to eat, learn and scale everything!
Sooo, I'm ever so slightly challenging my color-inside-the-lines, play-by-the-rules familiar approach. Recently I came across the term "outrageous compassion". Outrageous….radical, they mean the same thing to me. Maybe, just possibly, I could kind of begin to imagine something like radical compassion, or radical love, or radical personal growth during 2010. Whoa….radical.