Raise Your Words

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

-Robert Frost

With so much going on right now,

both big and small, macro and micro, my mind has been on a spin cycle. Big, cultural, societal problems take up mental real estate and battle with my smaller, everyday thoughts and frustrations about parenting, in particular.

How do I show support?

How brave will I be?

How many times do I have to tell them?

Just stop bickering!

What happened in the news today?

What happened at school today?

We have to do better.

How can I be a better mom?

I just want to cry.

I just want to scream.

Poetry that stuck.

On the screen in worship on Sunday was a poem by Rumi, a famous 13th century poet and scholar. It really spoke to my heart and my mind, addressing my big and small worries and thoughts. Raising my words in my parenting, in my relationships, in political discourse, in advocacy, in support, will cause so much more growth, so much more blooming, than simply raising my voice. I hope I can rise to the occasion.

Click here to download Raise Your Words doodle.

Comments

Fitness That Fits

Once upon a time,I was working at a local gym, teaching group fitness. My best friend (aka gym wife) and I taught a dance fitness class, and used our own choreography, but also a lot we found on the internet. (Shout out to the internet! You have all the things!) In this search, we discovered this YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/ReFitRev
We loved the choreography, but were really taken by the music. It was familiar and fun, but also we immediately noticed the values of the songs. Our gym is in a church, so the lyrics and meanings were especially significant to us because of that, but also to us personally. And then we noticed...
REFIT® was coming to Kansas City that fall to do a training!!!
We got approval and encouragement from our boss to sign up. We were so excited!
Flash Forward... It was now October, and I had signed up for the training, but my gym wife was no longer working at the gym, so I was going alone. I was nervous and as a true Missourian, completely …

I Love My Body

I Love My Body But I haven't always. Beginning in 4th or 5th grade I remember being conscious of the size and shape of my body and convinced of its "unrightness." Not a word; it is now; change approved.
Looking back of course, I can appreciate its beauty, my beauty, but back then, I just knew it didn't measure up (or down, as the case may be) to what I saw in magazines, on TV, or in movies. I knew I wasn't pretty like my sister. I knew, I knew, it wouldn't matter how smart or funny or all around rad I was, because I wasn't pretty enough, skinny enough, curvy enough, flawless enough. Thanks, society, for that.
Coupled with a struggle with depression, my insecurities turned really quickly into body image issues, and when I was in high school, I became bulimic. I learned all the tricks of the trade, I kid you not, from teen magazine articles that were supposed to be cautionary tales about eating disorders. Instead, they became a tutorial of how a…

There is no substitute...

Once upon a time I got a degree in Human Development and Family Studies and was employed as both an Infant/Toddler Classroom teacher and as a Preschool Teacher. I have always loved people, especially tiny people, and learning about their development and how to support their development was a natural turn for me. I developed many close bonds with many different kiddos, after all, I spent 8 hours a day with them 5 days a week. I knew which baby needed to be rocked a little extra, which one needed her binky, which toddler loved to have his face tickled, and who really needed to be sung to during a diaper change. I knew which little guy was having a hard time adjusting to a new place and needed to be tucked under my wing and be my little shadow for a few weeks. I knew which little girly would be my copy cat, naming her imaginary boyfriend Jicheal when I mentioned my husband was named Micheal. I knew which little squirt would challenge the "Where is tall man?" verse of tha…

The Whole Kristen ca-Doodle

Search This Blog