Thing #29. Live in awe.

The world is a wonderful place. Amazing, astounding, awe-inspiring. But it is possible to lose sight of that when life gets tough. When humanity expresses its ugly side, when men and women are hateful and cruel. Especially at those times, we need to be very intentional about seeing the wonder all around us.

One thing you could do is select a particular something that inspires you and collect all kinds of info on that thing. Then you can call those things to mind when you need to reroute your train of thought.

Maybe you’re inspired by flowers. Or mountains. Or broccoli. Okay, maybe not broccoli.

But how about elephants?

Yes, I have a fondness for the grand beast known as elephantidae.

Did you know--

• Calves rely on their mothers for as long as three years.
• Elephants can live up to 70 years in the wild.
• They communicate by touch, sight, smell, and sound. Elephants use infrasound, and seismic communication over long distances.

And they’re adorable when they sneeze: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtIz1u8g1F0

Elephants--

•          can play piano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjsu3SGAdLs
•          can be trained to draw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZxSPSWxwjI
•          can form genuine, lifelong friendships. Watch this story. If you want a single awe-inspiring image, go to 6:54. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF8em4uPdCg

By noticing little snippets about elephants here and there, I have increased my sense of wonder about these grand beasts and their Creator. It’s like collecting tea cups or bookmarks, only I’m collecting information, facts that increase my sense of awe for our planet.

So try it. Try to live with a sense of awe about creation, and the magnificent God behind it all.

Thing 27.   Keep a folder called “How To” on your computer at work and at home.

For most of us, repetition is a good teacher. But how can we remember how to do those tasks we only do once in a while? My suggestion: Write it down, and keep it in a file on your computer/tablet/phone. Or a paper file of some kind.

I have such a file on my computer at work. Inside 

are instructions for how to find a specific document on a shared computer drive, how to restore a deleted file, how to do certain tasks on a project management system, how to change default settings on my computer. The instructions are very basic: “Click here.” “Select this.” That way I don’t have to ask Randy (our department answer man) every single time I want to do one of these tasks. (Though Randy is kind and gracious every single time I ask for his help.)

Thing #28.   Carry a notebook or electronic tablet for keeping track of ideas.

I used to carry a notebook in my purse with my calendar, address lists, family information, and a tab for “ideas.” I’d jot down ideas for articles, projects, gifts, trips, organization—any fun idea I didn’t want to forget.

I’ve since converted to an electronic version of my notebook, and I confess I miss the paper, pen, colorful tabs…. Stickers don’t work nearly as well on my Nook. But the advantages of the electronic device outweigh the tactile pleasures of my old notebook. I think I have even more notes now, some of them tucked away under a password protected program.

Some people prefer to dictate their ideas into a recording device. I heard a comedian once who said he used to keep a note pad and paper on his night stand so when he’d wake up in the middle of the night with an idea for a joke, he could jot it down. The only problem was, when he tried to write things down he was only half awake; his penmanship was illegible. So he switched to a recording device.

One night he put it to the test. He woke up in the wee hours and recorded his idea. The next morning, full of anticipation, he played it back. He heard, “Sm hmm wana blah mm mm. . . . “ Just as unintelligible as his pen and paper attempt.

So whether it’s paper or electronic, I encourage you to carry around a notebook to keep track of all your creative and original ideas. And then write about your best ideas in a blog!

Great idea, huh? Glad I wrote it down.

In honor of Independence Day, here's a patriotic story from my book, Flying Cheese. 
(I don't know why the link isn't working here's the url: http://www.amazon.com/Flying-Cheese-Stories-Ordinary-Volume/dp/1480262773)

Happy Fourth, everyone!

Mary Pickersgill's Flag

Pickersgill. It’s an unusual name. Unusual, but fitting, for Mary Pickersgill was given an unusual task.

In the midst of The War of 1812 between the British and the Americans, Mary Pickersgill, a widowed Baltimore flag maker, was asked to sew a flag. But not just an ordinary flag. Major George Armistead wanted a big flag, a very big flag, to fly over Fort McHenry at the entrance to Baltimore Harbor. So Mary and her 13-year-old daughter, Caroline, spent weeks in the summer of 1813 assembling a flag measuring 30 feet by 42 feet. That's as big as almost 30 ping pong tables.

By September of 1814, the British had burned Washington, D.C., and were bombing Fort McHenry from land and sea. An American attorney was watching the battle from aboard a British ship, having just negotiated the release of an elderly physician who had been taken captive. The battle continued into the night until the British abandoned the attack, judging it would be too costly to complete the task. As the smoke cleared and the sun rose, this attorney saw Mary Pickersgill's flag flying over Fort McHenry. He was inspired to write these words:

Oh, say can you see,

By the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilights' last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?

Yes, Mary Pickersgill's flag became known as the Star Spangled Banner. The flag survives to this day and hangs in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Mary Pickersgill's home has been converted into a museum called Flag House.

Pickersgill. It is an unusual name. But it's a name forever linked with The Star Spangled Banner, an unforgettable flag.

 Source: Honor Our Flag, David Singleton, The Globe Pequot Press, 2002

 (c) Rebecca K. Grosenbach