My Baptism

My Baptism

 

I was baptized when I was 12 years old in a Methodist church in Elida Ohio.  The meaning of this act was lost on me at the time.  It was just part of what we as kids did in our church at 12 years old.  It was a right of passage.  It was words and actions to further the growing-up stage of life.   I do not think I felt any different after my baptism then I did before.  I was still the same kid in the mirror with the same anxieties of the day before.  I did not even think about how I would change over the years. 

 

Now at 69 I look at my baptism quite differently.  I am dedicated to the effects of my baptism.  Being touched by the waters of baptism has created slow ongoing waves of a tsunami that has changed me in ways that I could never imagine as that 12-year-old standing in a line of other 12-year-olds so many years ago.

 

I float in the waters of my baptism.  I have been sucked to the bottom of the sea, rubbed raw by the sand and stones at the bottom and thrown up onto the shore far inland.  I have been unable to see the water at times although I heard the waves hitting in my head and dreamed at night of warm water touching me on my legs and feet as I walked the shore line.

 

I know from deep inside I will not drown from the waters of my baptism.  Sometimes, though, I am lonely, as if I am a leaf floating by myself in the ocean of my baptism.  I am at the whims of the breeze that blows constantly.  It is the wind of the Holy Spirit.  There is nowhere to hide from the wind of the Holy Spirit in the ocean of my baptism.

 

I am committed to the love of Christ more and more each day.  I can swim, dive, wash myself on a daily basis in my baptism and it will never be the same.  I hold all the years of my baptism in the foundation of where I stand today in my commitment to the eternal love of Christ. 

 

I am daily committed to being the hands, the mouth and the heart of Christ.  I do not make it most of the time.  I go to sleep at night thinking I could have done better that day.  But then I wake up in the morning in grace knowing I have been baptized and my job for the day is to use myself for Christ.  I taste excitement and leap out of bed.   I have a job to do.

 

Sharen  Eninger

 

Wisdom

Wisdom

I looked up Wisdom on the web and there were 103,000,000 sites to choose from.  I decided to write about a few things Wisdom is not , instead of what it is.

Wisdom is not hate.  Hate walks the earth killing Wisdom and creating dead space in its wake.  Wisdom follows hate putting people back together and planting trees to shade them.

Wisdom is not envy.  Envy builds buildings and makes people live in emptiness craving that which is not there.  Wisdom does not blame others for where it is in the world, it does not flair in anger at that which it does not understand, it does not flinch in fear of that which is not the same as itself.

Wisdom is not inanimate.  Wisdom has a fluidness that flows through human beings and animals.  Yes animals have wisdom too.  You can see it in some animals’ eyes.

Wisdom is not too fast, as in chaotic energy or too slow as in big business and big government.  It does not zip around at the speed of sound and it does not plod.

Wisdom sees the universe as a whole, not just the earth as the only place divinely put in the cosmos.

Wisdom does not stop learning.  It knows that life is a journey and that to stop learning is to stop gaining wisdom.

Wisdom can be very old and it can be very young.  I know of a very wise child who was only four.

Wisdom is not a loner.  It walks with courage, love, and grace.  Its foundation is faith.

But wisdom does have a rhythm about it.  It is the drumbeat of the hearts of all who are wise.  Wisdom is the sigh of being. 

Just being.

My Mother passed away this morning.  She was 92 years old.  I have wrote this for her funeral.

Because of Mom

Cooking
Mom taught us how to cook.  She taught us how to read recipes and then using that as our foundation we learned to cook.  Oh my, experimenting with recipes.  Are we allowed to do that?  We did.  Mom had the courage to teach us that we were allowed to experiment.  Sometimes we made great things, sometimes we did not.  (I remember a cherry pie once that was a little questionable)

 We eat the healthiest we know how.  Always pushing the fruits and vegetables, always adding stuff to cookies to make them healthier then the recipe.  I added to this knowledge, passed it on to my sons and now they have taken eating healthy to a whole new level.  All because of Mom.
 
We feed those who are hungry.  No body went hungry that Mom knew needed food.  No one would go without the cloths they needed.  Mom would go to her own closet and give them her cloths if they were in need.  I saw her do it.  I learned from Mom.
Sewing

When Moms sewing machine stopped it was about 50 years old.  We all learned to use that sewing machine from Mom.  I was in girl scouts, 4-H, and took sewing in school but they did not hold a candle to Mom when it comes to sewing. 

Relationships

Mom was not a joiner.  She did not join churches; she shied away from joining women’s organizations most of the time.  But if you made friends with Mom you were a friend for life.  You would get one of Moms little hand made gifts every once in a while.  Mom made friends with the people that worked at here assisted living building.  I think she was the most proud of the young man who worked there when she first came.  He has gone on to college and is doing quite well for his self.

Mom had a mission.  It was those she met everyday in her walk of life.  I think that is what we all are supposed to do. 

Creativity

Do you think she passed on her creativity to anyone?  Mom loved to create stuff.  Her closets were full of clothes she had taken apart and was in the process of remaking into something new and different.  She always wanted to design dresses.  Her house was full of stuff she was taking apart and stuff she was putting together. 

I live in my studio.  I do not see any difference between Mom and me.  To me this is just a continuation of creating.  She had a need to create and so do I.  God help the people who have to clean my studio out someday.

Acceptance

When Dad passed several years ago we moved Mom to Lima from Newark, Ohio.  We had to do it quickly because none of us were close enough to where her and Dad lived and winter was coming.  So within 2 months we had cleaned out her house of 60 years of saving and memories and moved here to Lima to Assisted living and had the house painted and up for sale.  We knew that was way too fast to do this but we, at that time, had no other choice. 

Loosing Dad and loosing her house and her way of life and being thrust into a new averment, new people, and new doctors was very hard on her.  She did it, though.  I only saw her break down once when I told her I had given her kitchen table and chairs away.  I could of cut my tongue out at that point. 

But you see I do not think she cried because I gave them away.  She cried because she did not know the people who got them and had not been able to tell them the history of the table and chairs.  I do not remember when they did not have that table set.  We eat all our meals there though out our growing up.  They had quit a history.

Because of Mom we all have a foundation of knowing we can make a difference, in our lives and those around us.  Be that just our small set of friends, our community or in the world at large.  I believe we are passing this on to the future generations.

Because of Mom we see what we have and create outrageous new stuff out of it that we can use or give to others to use.  Most of creations were, functional, some of it decoration.  Some of it was funny.  Bev. received a lacy slip sent to her once with a tiny pocket sewn in it.  Mom liked to lift others spirit.

I am an artist and one of the rule I learned when I went to collage was, “You learn the rules so you can break them well”.  Mom broke rules.  She did it quietly but she did it.

That was the same rule my Mom taught us about sewing, cooking, relationships, creativity, and acceptance.

And God Smiled

And God Smiled

One day the computer worm was feeling ignored and decided to create a race with some other worms to show that he was the best of all the worms.  Computer worm invited Roly Poly worm, Earthworm, Thousand-legged worm, and   Inchworm to join him in a race.

God smiled!

 Roly Poly worm turned to Thousand-legged worm and said, “Who is this Computer worm?  I don’t know him and I have never seen him.  Why does he think that we will have a race with him?”

 Thousand-legged worm, dancing around in circles trying to stay close enough to talk, glared at Roly Poly and in his rapid fire high pitched voice he answered, “How could you know anything anyway considering you are always curled up under a rock and never see the light of day.  I don’t know who he is either but I feel he has a lot of energy and is rather large.  Large worms can’t go very fast so let’s run the race with him and leave him in the dirt.”

Inchworm climbed up on a blade of grass one precise inch step at a time bending it low over where Roly Poly and TL (short for Thousand-Legged worm) were talking and added his two cents.  “We need to know the exact path we are running so I can go practice.  I needed to know how many inches it is so I know how long it with take me. I have a busy schedule and do not have much time for races, especially if they are not on the way to where I need to be.

Earthworm came popping up from deep in the earth laying open a new path he had traveled where the dirt was deep dark and smelled of the plant roots, rain and the dirt itself.  “I think this is not a good idea to have a race.  I am not a very fast worm.  I do not climb trees or blades of grass and I have no legs or energy that makes me go fast.  In fact I was not born to be fast.  That is not in my nature.”

And God grinned

It was determined that the race would start at the big tree go down the hill around the big rock and back up the hill to the big tree. They talked the turtle into judging the race and the crow said he would be the time keeper.

 God giggled

The crow cawed and the race commenced down the hill.  Rolly Polly was in the lead with his ability to just roll around the blades of grass as he headed down the hill.  He did not seem, though, to be able to keep a straight line considering he could not see where he was going.

Thousand-legged worm was making a great effort twisting and turning around the blades of grass trying to keep all his thousand feet from tripping over each other on the way down.

Inchworm was really working hard inching up one blade of grass and back down the other side slowly making his methodical way down the hill.  The crow said to the turtle, “This is going to take a while” as he sat in the tree trying to figure out where Earthworm and Computer worm were.

All the time everyone was hearing a zapping sound flitting about in the leaves of grass and they could see the tips of the leaves turning black and leaving of a puff of smoke.  The leaves were being destroyed as Computer worm made its way down the hill.

God started to giggle.

Suddenly Thousand-legged worm saw the big rock at the bottom of the hill and yelled “We are almost there.”  Running as fast as he could coordinate his thousand feet to do he started to round the big rock and found himself precariously perched on the edge of a river with fast flowing water.  There was no way to get around the rock to the other side without walking through the water. Oh how Thousand-legged worm hated water.  He gingerly put his first toe in the water and shivered because it was very cold. 

Abruptly he heard Rolly Polly right behind him and frantically started to splash all thousand feet at once in the water around the rock.  Rounding the other side of the rock all of a sudden he felt that he could not move and turned around.  Attached to his back side was a big fish holding onto his last twenty feet and legs.  Frantic he jerked real hard and left the last segment of himself with twenty legs hanging from the mouth of the big fish.  With a deep sigh Thousand-legged worm scrambled back onto shore and started running like crazy on 988 legs.

 Rolly Polly ended up in the water next.  And the fish eat him down in one gulp.   The big fishes eyes got very large and it spit Roly Poly out on the other side of the rock.  Rolly Polly had released a whole bunch of spiky hairs on his back that pierced the fish in the mouth.   The fish was not amused.

God’s giggles got louder

Inchworm saw from the top of a grass blade what was going on and leaned the blade over the rock and just started climbing a blade of grass on that side. Then he methodically started back up to the big tree.

All of a sudden a loud crackle and zap was heard and smoke flowed into the river and sizzled. Silence!   Roly Poly unrolled and took a quick peek down the hill.   TL, still running on all his remaining legs, turned his head and gawked at the smoke rising from the water.  Inchworm stopped in mid inch swaying back and forth on the blade of grass he was ascending and just shook his head and sighed. And then continues to inch is way forward.

All of a sudden a hole opened up at the bottom of the hill next to the rock and out popped Earthworm.  Slowly he looked around, surveying the whole situation.  He had felt Computer worm descending the hill on a charge of electricity and, seeing the plume of smoke, understood that energy and water do not mix...  Water had won.

Earthworm crawled back into the hole he had come out of, and dug a path to the bottom of the rock curled up and took a nap. 

God howled with laughter.

You see Earthworm knew he did not have to continue on and try to beat everyone.  We work too hard to be there first.  Where is there?  It is not getting there.  It is the journey.  And the friends we make along the way.  Earthworm knew that.

And God smiled    

Sharen Eninger

Walking Through Warm Mud Barefoot

Walking Through Warm Mud Barefoot

Balancing From the Left Side of the Brain

Depending on the day I will be writing the articles expounding on fostering creativity in our children, in ourselves, in our world, in our spirituality, in our problem solving abilities, and I could go on and on.  Our creative side is half of the brain that God has given us.  We need to acknowledge it and foster it and use it.  This will help us to balance ourselves and our lives.

We have two sides of our brain. The right side which is visual, perceptual, and simultaneous and the left side which is verbal, analytical and sequential.   To pursue one side of the brain and not the other is not using and/or ignoring all that God has given us.

Children today are bombarded with all kinds of hi-tech stuff that encourage fast thumbs, zombie stares and a generation that is mostly connecting with each other through facebook and texting. 

We are not fostering permission to be creative, to think creatively. 

 One of the first things I try to teach people is to come to a project as a five-year-olds with joy and no rules.  The journey itself will teach the rules, one step at a time. The journey is where I find the joy. 

 When was the last time your children went out into their yards pulled everything together, made up a game and just played for the afternoon?   Just piled a mound of stuff together and called it a mountain.  Built an imaginary planet and populated it with wild and crazy beings?

We are losing the ability to use our imagination.  We do not encourage ourselves or our children to have a creative outlet in anything.  Our whole lives and our children’s days are full of “have to’s”.

We all need a space set aside in our homes and our lives where we can cut, paste, mold, paint, mess, glue, pound, put together, take apart.  Do we have these spaces?  Do we have a space set aside for day dreams and rainbows to grow and expand?  Do we give ourselves and our children permission to just be on the journey of creating something?  (Coloring books and stickers are not my idea of being creative.)

I like to call the creative journey the thin place where one can touch God.  Time evaporates and is lost. There is no space except where you are.  You could be writing a story, building a village with paper, tape and scissors, or painting a picture.  You could be learning to use a needle to sew two things together or 50 buttons on a coat.  (You know, making the coat of many buttons).  You could be weaving bright colored yarn together to create something very small like a bracelet or very big like a blanket.    

Creativity should be as important as math, history, biology, because it is created by us who were created by God in God’s image.  Think about it.

Peace