My basement is my own personal museum.

On display, I have hopes and dreams.  In boxes, I hide unfinished projects.  And a lot of other crap.  Stuff that I have no idea how it even came into my house.  What was I thinking?

The basement is the final frontier on a journey to tame the "stuff" wilderness.  Closets, drawers, under beds, even the shelves in the garage have all been cleaned and preened.  

It has taken me a year to go through the entire house, and I can no longer avoid it.  

Today I wrote about Grabbing 2018 by the . . . horns and clearing out the basement is necessary for clearing out the foundation of what is keeping me stuck.  I can't explain it very well, but I'm working on the metaphor and relationship between having a messy basement and having a messy life foundation.

Stick with me . . . I will make sense of it all.

Write Here...

Pray without ceasing.  

In everything, give thanks.

In 2009 I started a blog by the same name . . . in everything give thanks.  I thought my life was in the shitter then but I had no idea the free fall I would find myself in.  You know the Wylie Coyote cartoon when he falls off the cliff and lands in a puff of dust . . . that was me.  For years, disappointment after disappointment.  In all that was happening, I gave thanks.  Gratitude was the antidote.  

Joy, it is our focus for this third week of advent. How will you let joy into your life?

The holy space of struggle.

Struggle is a sacred space between you and the Divine to work out a solution.

Hope, the first candle lit.  The wisdom scriptures all tell us to be aware, watchful, awake . . . 

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.  Tom Bodett

I love, probably too much.  I thrive to fulfill my life's purpose each day.  I hold onto hope by doing what the Divine sets before me in every moment.  

 We are all walking the path back home and people join us along the way. Some people stay longer than others but each of us assists one another in a purposefully way.

When I worked the graveyard shift in the nursing home, LeEtta a dementia patient, worked my shift with me.  She stayed up all night telling me jokes.  LeEtta and I journeyed together for over a year. 

The day I came to work and her room was empty, I cried.  It was the longest night of work.  I never said goodbye to my funny friend.  But you know what?  The goodbye doesn't matter nearly as much as our first Hello.

The first Hello equals the first step on our journey together.  There really aren't any goodbyes because her spirit continues to walk with me.