Reverb...

I have decided to participate in an online initiative called Reverb10.

Reverb 10 is an annual event and online initiative to reflect on your year and manifest what’s next. Use the end of your year as an opportunity to reflect on what's happened, and to send out reverberations for the year ahead. With Reverb 10 - and the 31 prompts our authors have created for you - you'll have support on your journey.
http://www.reverb10.com/

So although I am starting a bit behind I thought it might be fun...

December 1 – One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you? (Author: Gwen Bell)

2010
Integrate.
This past year has been full of growth, change, loss, love and light. All of the things that cause me think more about living and loving more fully and more authentically. And I have spent the past year integrating the lessons that I have been learning for the past 20 years... and to truly begin to live my life in a different way, as though the words that I have believed for so long have moved to integrating into each cell.

2011
Claiming
There are some dreams that I want to spend the next year claiming and realizing. And I am excited to think more about what that would look like.

What are your words?

Those who love you...

Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself.
They remember your beauty when you feel ugly;
your wholeness when you are broken;
your innocence when you feel guilty;
and your purpose when you are confused.

African saying

A Blessing for Wholeness...

Wholeness Blessing - We Are Not Broken
We walk in troubled times,But let us not be troubled souls.
We stand in financial challenge,But let us not see our lives only in crisis.
We have suffered loss, pain, and indignities.But we have survived, and we will survive.
We have been hurt and we may be broke,But we are not broken.
Amen.
- Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway

Video and Article from Newsweek...

Video
http://video.newsweek.com/#?t=1830094057&l=1825927394

http://www.newsweek.com/id/162792

The Pornification Of A Generation

A new book traces the migration of porn culture from adult theaters to the mainstream—and asks what that means for kids.
Jessica Bennett
NEWSWEEK

The idea for a book about porn culture came to Kevin Scott the day his daughter decided she absolutely had to have a Bratz-doll pony. For months, the 5-year-old had begged him for a Bratz doll—clad in spike heels, fishnets and miniskirt, enormous puppy-dog eyes protruding from her oversized head. Her sexy look seemed a little too sexy for a preschooler, so he and his wife bought her a different doll, which she was happy with. Except that a few months later, Bratz came out with Bratz Babyz. "If Bratz had looked like Barbie hookers, these looked like baby hookers," Scott says. Again, he convinced his daughter that My Little Pony was just as cool—and for a moment, the conversation ended. Until, of course, the Bratz came out with Bratz Ponyz. And then, says Scott, an English professor at a small college in Georgia, "I realized porn culture and I were in a death match for my daughter's soul."

In a market that sells high heels for babies and thongs for tweens, it doesn't take a genius to see that sex, if not porn, has invaded our lives. Whether we welcome it or not, television brings it into our living rooms and the Web brings it into our bedrooms. According to a 2007 study from the University of Alberta, as many as 90 percent of boys and 70 percent of girls aged 13 to 14 have accessed sexually explicit content at least once.

But it isn't just sex that Scott is worried about. He's more interested in how we, as a culture, often mimic the most raunchy, degrading parts of it—many of which, he says, come directly from pornography. In "The Porning of America" (Beacon), which he has written with colleague Carmine Sarracino, a professor of American literature, the duo argue that, through Bratz dolls and beyond, the influence of porn on mainstream culture is affecting our self perceptions and behavior—in everything from fashion to body image to how we conceptualize our sexuality.
It's too early to know exactly how kids who grow up in this hypersexualized environment will be affected in the long term. But Scott and his coauthor say it's not too soon—or too prudish—to sound the alarm, and to look critically at the sexualized culture we're exposed to every day. The authors don't suggest banishing porn to back alleys, however. Both grew up when people were crying out for sexual liberation. And, they contend, porn certainly played a role in achieving it. But somehow between then and now, porn themes have gone from adult entertainment to prime time, seeping into nearly every aspect of popular culture. Sarracino and Scott define "porning" as the way advertising and society in general have borrowed from the ideas and characteristics central to most American pornography: sex as commodity, sexuality as overt, narrow views of women and male-female relationships, bad girls and dirty boys, domination and submission.
All it takes is one look at MySpace photos of teens to see examples—if they aren't imitating porn they've actually seen, they're imitating the porn-inspired images and poses they've absorbed elsewhere. Latex, corsets and stripper heels, once the fashion of porn stars, have made their way into middle and high school. An ad for Axe shower gel, marketed to teen boys, uses the slogan "How Dirty Boys Get Clean," while Burton, the snowboard company, partnered with Playboy earlier this year on a new line of "Love" boards—complete with voluptuous cheeks smack dab in the middle of each. The boards' online description reads: "I enjoy laps through the park; long, hard grinds on my meaty Park Edges followed by a good, hot waxing." One of the most popular kids' videogames, Guitar Hero, features animated rock stars that stand on a stage with a neon stripper gyrating on a pole behind them. Strippers have become cool—unremarkable even.
Celebrities, too, have become amateur porn stars. They show up in sex tapes (Colin Farrell, Kim Kardashian), hire porn producers to shoot their videos (Britney Spears) or produce porn outright (Snoop Dogg). Actual porn stars and call girls, meanwhile, have become celebs. Ron Jeremy regularly takes cameos in movies and on TV, while adult star Jenna Jameson is a best-selling author.

In July, a Florida defense attorney argued in an obscenity trial that porn had become so commonplace—evidenced by the fact that a Google search for "orgy" is twice as common as one for "apple pie"—that his client, a porn-site operator charged with racketeering and prostitution, could not be considered as behaving outside the societal norm. (The obscenity charges were dropped, though the defendant was found guilty of money laundering.) "All you have to do is live here on a daily basis, and you pick this stuff up through every medium," says Sarracino, who teaches at Pennsylvania's Elizabethtown College. "But it's been so absorbed that it has almost ceased to exist as something separate from the culture."

The prevalence or porn leaves today's children with a lot of conflicting ideas and misconceptions, says Lyn Mikel Brown, the coauthor of "Packaging Girlhood," about marketers' influence on teen girls. "All this sex gives a misinformed notion of what it means to be grown-up." Studies show that kids who consume this kind of sex in the media inherit more traditional views of gender—boys as dominant, girls as submissive, in the bedroom and beyond. (In a survey of 244 high-school students earlier this year, researchers at the University of Michigan found that those who frequently viewed talk shows and prime-time programs with sexualized content endorsed sexual stereotypes more strongly.) Kids are less likely to know when and how to express themselves sexually—or what behavior crosses the border into sexual harassment. As part of their research, the authors of "Porning" talked to middle-school teachers who told stories of girls sending half-nude pictures to classmates they'd barely met, then strutting around in classrooms in provocative clothing to reveal what's underneath.

The authors of "So Sexy So Soon" (Ballantine), which came out last month, believe that part of the problem for children is that they lack the emotional sophistication to understand the images they see. Last year, the American Psychological Association put out a compelling report that described the sexualization of young girls: a process that entails being stripped of all value except the sexual use to which they might be put. Once they subscribe to that belief, say some psychologists, those girls begin to self-objectify—with consequences ranging from cognitive problems to depression and eating disorders. "It's not as if we get our ideas straight from porn about what a kiss should be or what sex should be," says Sharon Lamb, a psychologist at Saint Michael's College in Burlington, Vt., and a coauthor of the APA report. "But you do see imitation of sex that was once found only in porn. It's a kind of education to kids about what sex is like before they have a real education of it."

That education involves seeing thousands of explicit sexual images by the time a person reaches his teenage years. Experts say that exposure can make real-life sex a letdown for men driven by porn-style fantasies. In porn culture, women are overwhelmingly viewed as sexually rapacious or as victims of verbal, physical or sexual violence. And young girls, not knowing any different, may play straight into the watered-down mainstream versions of those roles. Today, terms like slut and whore are commonplace among teens. And whether it's porn or a combination of influences, anonymous, no-strings-attached-style casual sex, now commonly called "hookup" culture, has come to be one of the defining characteristics of a whole generation of teens. (That culture is the subject of a number of publications, including this year's "Hooking Up," by sociologist Kathleen Bogle.)

It's the porn ideal of sex as commodity in a competitive market—and to see rapper Nelly swipe a credit card through a young girl's backside in a music video only reaffirms that notion. It's artificiality as a replacement for authenticity, the Miley Cyrus-type plasticity that's become the mainstream, prepubescent sexual ideal. (Not only has Cyrus been photographed wrapped in a sheet looking like she just had sex—she claims she was manipulated by the photographer—but revealing photos of her, taken by herself and friends, have also emerged online.) "Both boys and girls are really confused about what's appropriate," says Brown. Helping kids make that distinction may be an increasingly uphill battle.


URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/162792

My Christmas Letter...

Normally Christmas letters are to recap the past year, to recall the sunny vacations that were full of sunburns, sand and laughter, and of children's accomplishments and happy times. And this year it was different. Not that there weren't moments of shear grace and joy, but there was the overwhelming events that colored the rest of the year. And so this Christmas letter was a bit different. And some years are like that, different, new lessons, new beginnings, struggles adn stagnancy, followed by the light once more.

And so here I sit yet again, as always with the best of intentions and a little behind the ball, writing my Christmas letter on the 29th of December. But if you listen to many there are those who say that Jesus wasn't born in the end of December, instead he was born more around spring or early summer, when shepherds would have been "watching their flock by night" so maybe instead of being late I am actually early for next year! As you all know it has been an intense year, one of many twists and turns. It is amazing how quickly your life can turn and in one moment be divided into two time periods, the before years and the after years. And this is where I find myself, determining how to begin the after years.

This has been a time of tremendous change and thankfully it didn't all hit me at once, it has been a gradual process, one where I have been incredibly grateful for the gift of denial. As long as you are aware of the pitfalls, and don't dwell too long there, denial can be an powerful gift to help you deal with things more fully when you are able to grasp them. There have been many miracles, moments of grace, moments when the only way I got through them were by my angels- both here and above- that were sent to guide me, to hold me and to heal me. I am tired now, these past few months of nothing but pure intensity, of reminders of loss, change and reminders of how little we are truly in control of, my reserves were tapped and my soul wrung dry. I am in the midst of limbo, of learning how to live again, in the midst of healing a broken heart. I am again faced with the question of being stripped down to the core, who am I and what do I have to bring to the world, what I am here to offer.

These past few months I have been humbled, learning how to ask for help, accepting help and realizing that I can't do it all- incredible and difficult lessons to learn. I have been more vulnerable than I have ever imagined possible, and yet I stand. I am used to having more answers than questions, but yet it seems that these past few months have been filled with far more questions than answers.

I know that the only way that I have been able to struggle through the past few months is through the help of my family and friends. I have been reminded of how important we are to one another, how sometimes just knowing that you are being through of and prayed for is enough. And like the seasons I know spring will come again, the sun will shine down and warm me once more. I know that what has been frozen will thaw, and what has been dormant will sprout. I will rely on the patience of Mother Nature when I run short on my own, I will hold fast to the prayers and thoughts that you have sent my way to help guide me through the dark nights ahead.

And yet there has been the golden thread that has held my heart together when I thought for sure that it was too broken to ever be mended. There is the thread of gratefulness that I am surrounded by so many that give so much to me, I am so grateful for the love that surrounds me each and every day. I am so grateful for the friends who have listened and held me close literally and figuratively. I am so grateful for our little angel Annabelle and being able to be a part of her life. I am so grateful for the understanding of so many of you who gave me the time and space to grieve, to cry, to restart a life here in MN, to mourn the loss of my life in SC.

And so this year I begin with grief having carved its initials in my heart, and yet a deeper peace that passes all understanding holding me close. I will finish the work that grief and loss require of me, and move forward having lived life more deeply and fully and continuing to choose love, continue to live life fully. The light will shine again and soon I will have more of me to share once more.

Thank you to those who have held hope for me when I have needed it. I will close with something I wrote for a friend, but today the words apply to me, and perhaps some day they will apply to you as well and you can use them when you need them:

As for your healing I have no doubt that it is happening, if you will step outside of yourself long enough to take a good deep look you will see how much you have changed, how far you have come. Allow me to help you when I can. I will hold for you the vision of yourself when you are lacking in clarity, I will hold for you the trust you have in love, in life, so when you are ready to trust again I can give you that back to use when and where you choose. So share with me your fears, your thoughts, your excitement, your moments of finding your courage, I will keep them for you so you can go through them later on, and with distance you will be able to laugh, to cry, but most of all you will celebrate the You you have become and you will remember how you got there.

Because life will try you again, in different ways, but you will be able to take the lessons you have learned and apply them again.

Trust in yourself, trust in the relationships you have built. Know that healing is all about balance, about knowing when to listen to the stories of others and when to talk about and live your own, it is about the balance of sorting through the past, and choosing your future.

Also know that the inherent difficult of healing is that we don't always do things in balance, and that is okay too… but if we pay attention we know when we need to do what, when we need to move forward, when we need to rest, and when we are feeling stronger when we leap forward and amaze ourselves with our ability to move with such speed once more.

One breath at a time, then one hour at a time, then one day at a time.
One healing moment at a time.
I believe in you.

And so my dear friends, this Christmas I look to the velvety night sky adorned with stars and see the light that shines through the darkness without fail and I give to you light to guide you when your soul is dark, hope to hold you when your sky is bleak, and trust that we are all held in the heart of something beyond our comprehension.

On losses and new beginnings...

I haven't had a whole lot to say, as many of you can imagine it has been quite the whirlwind of days... but I did take some time to sit and compile some thoughts I wanted to share with each of you... I just wanted you to know how much your kindness has touched me... and helped me through these dark days...

To those who are sending me thoughts and prayers.... Where to begin.

There is a hole in my heart, and so many losses in my life right now. There is the move, the temporary changing of careers, the loss of a marriage, the loss of what could have been, there is of course the largest and most incomprehensible loss of all, the loss of my brother. The loss of our chance to see him grow into his new life of fatherhood, the loss of his light, and his place in our lives.

But in every loss there are those things that sustain us, that remind us of why this life is so valuable. It is in moments like the phone call that I received two Tuesday's ago that life is stripped down to the very core. At that moment that I had to fight simply to breathe. My whole world came crashing down and there was that moment that seemed suspended in time that I didn't even remember how to breathe. Grief literally brought me to my knees and nothing mattered but going to be with the people who love me, and who I love. It was the love of others, and those first few hours of phone calls, of text messages and e-mails of love and concern that sustained me. It was the phone ringing off the hook, and the doorbell ringing that reminded me that I, and my family, are so very loved.

If I had only one word to say it would be to borrow my dad's word and to say... Overwhelming. To see the line of people with heavy hearts, sad eyes, and open arms was indescribable. To know that there was such support, such love, such compassion... and that other people have struggled in that place of such pain and we weren't alone. It was overwhelming to know that when we grieve others come to join us in that place.

Overwhelming grief, loss and pain, coupled with overwhelming beauty, vulnerability, kindness and compassion.

People keep asking what they can do, and at first my answer only to myself was "if you can't bring him back, then there is nothing, nothing you can do". But I realize that there is much you can do. You can continue to love me, and each other, fully and completely. You can continue to nurture and sustain the bonds of friendship between each other. You can continue to ask the question "What can I do?" because there are so many answers... at first it was to simply be there, to be with the heavy silence, the unanswered questions, the shock, the denial and the mind-numbing grief. And then it turned to the self-care things... making sure that we had food, that we were sleeping as well as we could, and the simple things like making sure the cars had gas, the beds had sheets and the guests had towels. And now it turns to continuing those things, but there are a few other things that I would like to add... Continue to understand that this is a process and there will be good days and bad. Continue to call, send e-mails, and other ways of letting me know that you care, and understand that there are some days when I will have no words, but know that your caring deeply touches me. Continue to talk about Mitch, to share the laughter and the tears. Continue to keep him alive in your hearts and share with us your memories.

Also, make your choice. Trauma asks us to decide: Will I let what has happened crush me, distance me from people, from life... or will I let what has happened soften me, allow me to empathize more quickly, to choose love more easily?... Trauma doesn't ask us if we want this to happen, but it does leave us with a choice of where we go from here. I am choosing to allow myself the time to feel angry, sad, grief stricken, disappointed, all of those other emotions that we like to avoid, but I am also choosing not to dwell there, to honor the gifts that they bring, but I will choose to live my life out of love and to allow this to soften me, to connect me to the heart of others, to change me.

None of us, of life, will be the same.

As for me, I am allowing the healing to happen slowly. I have been slow to believe that this truly happened because I don't know what it all means, what does it mean to not have a brother anymore? What does it mean to not have someone who shared so much of your life? And it will continue to show itself what it does mean... and that is where the pain comes, but that is also where the healing comes.

It seems odd that with the denial there is also a desire to live life more simply, more honestly, more fully. The naked heart wracked with grief is not pretty, but there is so much beauty in the love that is shared, the eyes that glisten with tears of pain, and tears of love, there is so much beauty in the community that is created.

There are no answers for so many of the questions, and there are days when there are no questions, no answers, just deep sadness. But as always I tend to look for the lessons, and there are so many.

And so many that sound cliché, but yet, they are so true.

That you don't know how much time you have, so use it!

Don't save your love for a distant day.

Love as fiercely, and deeply as possible.

It is the love that remains, all else fades away.

That time does heal.

It doesn't make it better, or go away, but you do learn to adapt.

The grief comes, goes and then comes again.

Out of nowhere it returns; but so does love, and laughter.

Continue to gather, to hold your family and friends close, tell each other that you love them.

We always wait until the "big" stuff to get together, to enjoy each other. This reminds me that it is the other times that we remember, the simple stuff, the impromptu trip to Dairy Queen, the campfire chats, the sleepover at grandma and grandpa's, those are the times we remember, the things that sustain us.

One thing that has come back to me over and over is that you do get what you give. I have tried for years to give love and friendship and be the friend that I would want... and I have been blessed 100 times over with what I have given. I could not ask for better or more amazing people in my life.

One of the things that I have been focusing on this year is gratitude, and I cannot even begin to tell you how grateful I am for each and every one of you for all the gifts you bring to my life.

My life is so full and rich with the mosaic of people that fill my life, and each of you have such special places in my heart. Thank you seems like such an understatement for the swelling of love and appreciation that is in my heart, but I will use it anyway... Thank You.

Thank you for caring, for coming to be with us in person and in spirit, for the thoughts of love and prayers of healing.

Thank you for being willing to come to the place where there are so few words and so much pain. Thank you for the flowers to remind us of beauty and of life, and for the food that represents your love.

Thank you for reminding us of our connection to one another, and for the reminder that we are never truly alone.

One of the ironies of death is that it truly reminds us to live. And I for one, as a way to honor Mitch will continue to live my life fully, deeply and with great love.

Every time that I see people I love gathered to share time, to share stories, laughter and tears it warms my heart and reminds me that this is why we are here... to make the way a little softer for one another.

Continue to hold me, my family and one another in your thoughts and prayers, and know that I feel each prayer, each loving thought.

Updates...

I have found that perfectionism often keeps me from connecting and from doing what I need to do. I want to do it completely, fully and give everyone the complete update. It comes from the best of intentions, but it often keeps me from doing things because they aren't perfect or just so. So now I will put a few of the more poignant moments from the past year as a jumping off point and I hope that I will be updating more frequently.

Creativity...

I have started to allow my creativity to flow through again... it has been wonderful, to dive deeply into the creative process, to allow myself to be giddy with the thought of putting these beautiful jewels together to create something to adorn a beatiful being. It has also been exciting to see everyone get excited about them and to see them choose what delights their heart.

Update on the plant...

The plant, much like me has grown. It has new leaves, new growth. It is reaching up towards the sun, towards the light. It also has strengthened its roots. It isn't growing too fast, just fast enough to be able to sustain it's new growth. There are many things I should learn from my little plant.

Cutting it Back. Trusting the Process.

Today I cut off my plant.

It has been in a pot that is too small for a long time. About as long as I have. The leaves were desperately trying to grow, but they were shriveling up at the edges. Little brown, unnourished edges that were curling up around the supple, healthy green part of the leaves. I replanted it last night, put it in a new larger container that was a long time coming; it was filled with soil that had nutrients and new soil that would nourish it for its new life.

It perked up, but it was long and leggy, not full and lush like the ones downstairs. And someone who has a green thumb suggested that I cut it all back. “I know it sounds harsh, but the plant has been busy putting all of its energy into maintaining the old leaves, so much so that it can’t create new growth. If you cut it all back and start over it will be able to heal itself and start sprouting new growth.”

Of course at first I was fearful of cutting it all down. Especially after repotting it and giving it a new home. But yet it felt right. It needed a new beginning. It needed to start over from scratch. It needed me to trust that it had deep below where I couldn’t see, the resources, the ability, the knowledge to start over and heal.

“Just give it time.” She said.

So I did. I said a short prayer before, honoring the growth that had been made, and asked for the plants understanding of the new growth that was to come and how this was part of the process. Now I need to be willing to be that brutal with myself, to know that by cutting myself down to the roots I can grow back lush and full, that putting my resources where they have been going no longer serves me and isn't enough anymore, and to trust that deep below I have the resources, the ability and the knowledge to start over and heal.