Hard Stuff

It has been a hard week. I have found that one of the biggest challenges of trying to walk the walk of being a Christian is owning a business and employing people. Finding the balance of showing grace yet holding people accountable, and just trying to be kind in the midst of all the pressure and stress takes its toll. There are a lot of times when I do not feel like I am being a very good rep for Christ. Since most of our employees are not Christians, it nmakes me feel bad to think they could use me as an example for why they don't like Christians. I know every day that we need God to show up in the midst of trying to do this, my strength is nowhere near adequate. It does not always feel like he does show up though, and quite often I go my own way and screw it up.



When my husband and I started this business we really wanted to help people who needed jobs. The thing is, sometimes people don't want to be helped and they can leave you feeling pretty used. Aside from that people are just plain messy. Sometimes it seems like our employees are especially so. When someone works for you you have no choice but to deal with their stuff. We would love to be able to just extend continual grace and let people take their time and work through things but we have a manufacturing company. If parts don't get out the door we don't get paid. There is a lot of pressure, and it is intense and incredibly precise work, when things don't go well it can be like a pressure cooker that needs to let off steam that has no release valve.


Sometimes as hard as we try to work through things we end up having to fire someone. It is really hard, and it leaves me feeling like we have failed this person. As much as we would like it too, things rarely seem to end well. It makes me sad. Someone who has been a part of our lives and who we really hoped would succeed is now gone and gone with everyone left feeling bad.


Being a boss really sucks sometimes.

Lemon Tree Oh So Pretty

Yes, I am writing yet another post about a tree.  By this blog you might think I am a gardener, but that is not the case. In reality I  have a brown thumb.  No house plant is safe within my domain.  That is why I am so very thrilled about my little lemon tree. We planted this tree back in February.  For the longest time it had this one enormous lemon that was on it when we bought it.  I finally picked that lemon because it was becoming an odd color.  Well this week my little tree finally began to show signs of having a crop of lemons.  I am thrilled. I keep going out every day to check on them to see if they have grown. 

This tree is important to me, and not just because of my usual quality of getting over attached to odd things.    Last year my dear friend lost her wonderful dog Miller to cancer.  Because she rents her home, she asked if we would let her bury Miller's ashes in our yard and maybe plant something in his memory.  I said sure.  Our dog Pooka is already  buried in the back yard.  (Do you think I need to disclose the pet cemetary in the backyard if we ever sell our house?)  Not too long after Miller died someone broke into my friend's house and the only thing they chose to steal besides a few small unimportant items was my friend's other dog Buddy.  It was devastating.  When we finally got around to burying Miller and planting the tree we decided to make it a tribute to all of the dear animals who have been part of our lives. We hung pet tags with each of their names on the tree.  I was really afraid I would kill the tree given my underwhelming success with plants.  I have faithfully watered this little tree twice a week like the nursery suggested since we planted it, and though many other plants have fallen victim  to the brown thumb the lemon tree has thrived. 

There is something that I like about planting something living  to honor those we no longer have with us.  I think it suggests the idea of death not being the end.  After my Dad died we planted three aspen trees in memory of him at the house we had in Big Bear.  They were outside our living room window and when the wind blew the leaves would rustle like wind chimes.  It sort of felt like my dad saying hi to me.  It struck me this week that the trees we planted to replace dead tree are similar to those trees which makes me like them more. 

 I also spent weeks planting bulbs all around the house in Big Bear.  There were tulips and daffodils and crocus, probably about 200 altogether.  We sold the house before I got to see them bloom and I have always wondered what it was like for the new owners when spring came and suddenly all of these flowers burst onto the scene.  We have some bulbs in our front yard here and it always seems like one day they are not there and the next day they are.  When I see them  it reminds me of a heavenly chorus, and I have to raise my voice in a high pitched Ohhhhhhhhh.  I hope my flowers made someone sing like that.   

Bleckkkkk

Can I just say, I really hate politics. More than anything I hate the way that it divides people. People on one side suddenly seem to think it is OK to name call and say hateful things about the other side, and ordinarily kind hearted people seem to turn sort of ugly when it comes to whomever they disagree with.


I have found that even some authors I ordinarily love like Anne Lammott I just cannot read when they start delving into the political realm. It feels to me like on both the liberal and the conservative side it is just too easy for people to start labelling those who do not agree with their point of view as wrong or bad. I am not sure what happened to the civilized discussion of ideas but it seems to have gotten lost somewhere along the way. One of my favorite bloggers wrote about this and I agree with her, she says it better and funnier than I do so you can read it here.


Many people start out their tirades saying they do not want to judge and then proceed to do exactly that. It all leaves me feeling nauseous. In some ways I just hope that whoever will cause the largest number of hate mongering people to be quiet will win. I am tired of walking around feeling queasy all the time.

Martha and Mary

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:38-42).

I have a confession, the story of Martha and Mary in the Bible has always bugged me. I find myself wanting to argue with Jesus on Martha's behalf. It has always seemed unfair to me that she gets called out for being a hard worker. He calls her "distracted" by her tasks. Because I am more like Martha than Mary I feel bad for her. I am a task oriented person and sometimes it drives me nuts when there are things that need to be done and people are just talking. Can't we carry on a conversation while we get something done people?

I think this story stings because I don't feel like when I am doing things that I am choosing tasks over sitting at the feet of Jesus. I feel like that is just the way I am built, even when I am in church listening to the sermon I am a note taker. It doesn't mean I am not paying attention.

So, in the spirit of trying to grow I have been asking myself if I am missing out on something by being "distracted" by all of my tasks. I certainly want to be there in my moments with people, to hear their stories and make them feel as though they are really being listened to. But at the same time there is a lot of stuff that needs doing and it's not just going to do itself . So I am wondering is it possible to be Martha and Mary? Can I do what needs doing but not miss out on the "better part." I hope so. Don't worry Martha, I'll come and help you in the kitchen.

To Stump or Not To Stump

My dead tree is now nothing but a pile of firewood.  My husband, who did not really share my affection for dead tree, tried to soften the blow for me.  When he sent the workers to cut it down he told them to leave me a tall stump for the birds and squirrels to sit on.  It was nice of him, but when I saw the stump it just looked sad, so I had them cut the whole thing down.  We bought three white birch trees to replace dead tree.  I know that they will be nice, eventually they will have that peely white bark that I love and lots of leaves that will rustle in the wind.  Just the same I'm feeling a little sad.

I think the mutant pine/aloe has to go next.  Learning to let go.

Experiments in flower arranging

My mother and father in-law are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in October.  Quite a milestone.  In preparation for the party that will be held in their honor I had a milestone of my own yesterday, I went to the flower mart for the first time.   That is one of the things that I love about Los Angeles, I have lived here off and on for most of my life but there are still so many new things to discover here.  There are entire worlds going on that I know nothing about.

 

In the downtown area of Los Angeles alone we have the flower district, fashion district, toy district, jewelry district, Chinatown and Koreatown.  Each of these is it's own world, with its own culture and way of operating.  Discovering all of the cultures and worlds that coexist within this one place could be anyone's life work.  I am continually amazed at how much of this city I still have not seen and known after all of these years of being here.  

It is easy to get comfortable in our little part of the world and not venture beyond its borders.  We can surround ourselves with people who think and act and eat like we do, and begin to think that is what the world is supposed to look like.  As much as I like to have the comfort of the familiar I also love the challenge of the unfamiliar, of stretching my comfort zones.  This I think is the strength of having stability, it allows us the freedom to explore new worlds knowing we have our safe nest to come back to.

My new world this weekend was the LA flower mart, I took a couple of friends with me who spoke the language and we made an adventure of it.  I wanted to do an exploratory mission to familiarize myself with the area before the big event.  It was an amazing place, filled with every kind of flower and plant you can imagine.  The mart itself is surrounded by small florist shops who are all trying to get your business.  An arrangement that would cost well over a hundred near my home was half the price there.  I was able to go and pick out flowers and then have them make a sample of what I wanted.  I used that sample to come home and work out an arrangement and then  figure out what flowers we will need to buy.   The photos above are two of my attempts at making arrangements out of the flowers I bought.  We finally settled on a third version as the one we will do for the party.  I will be going back to the flower mart to purchase all of the flowers and then  have a centerpiece party to make all the arrangements the day of the party.  

All of this comes from asking some  friends  to introduce me to a world I knew nothing about.  Thanks Cindy and Angie, I had a blast!

Who knows what the next world is that I will discover right here in Los Angeles.  

Tribute to a tree

Sometimes I get overly attached to odd things. The dead tree in my back yard is one of those things. I have been told by numerous people that the tree should go, and from a logical perspective I know they are right. I was looking at our yard the other day and had to admit it would be nice to have something with leaves, leaves would provide shade, and a little better screen from the yard behind ours with the creepy guy who sometimes just pops his head over the wall without warning. The yard would look less stark, more lush, and more finished. Just the same, while I was sitting outside this morning sipping my coffee I started to cry at the thought of losing my dead tree. I know, I probably should not admit that.

I have written before about my love for this tree. For a dead tree it still has a lot of purpose. It acts as a highway between the two trees on either side of it. Birds love to perch in it and the squirrels run around and chase each other through it. The bark is gradually being peeled away by various animals who use it for their nests. I think the reason I like this tree is that without any leaves I can really see all the animals that come and sit in it. Watching them makes me smile. I know the tree is dead and if it ever had any sort of feeling that is long gone, but I still feel like I am betraying the tree to cut it down and chop it up.

My attachment to this tree is an example of the difficulty I have letting things go. I had to say a lot of goodbyes as a child. My parents lived in two different states and I moved back and forth between them. For some people that kind of change makes them flexible, not me. I have been at the same job for 21 years, in the same house for 14 years, if an animal makes it's way to me I will keep it until it dies no matter how much of a pain it is. A certain amount of sameness makes me feel safe. Rather than letting go of one thing to embrace another I prefer to keep the old and add the new. It is not so much about material things as it is places, situations, animals and people I cling to, and of course the odd plant or two. You might have noticed there is an odd pine tree in the picture with my dead tree, it just started sprouting in the middle of the aloe plant. We don't know how it got there. I of course don't have the heart to remove it even though it looks like some sort of odd deformed pine/aloe mutant.

I am in the process of saying a long goodbye to my dog Roxy. She is 16 , has heart issues and kidney problems and has been in a gradual decline for months. I know that one day I will come home to find she has died, or worse yet that life has ceased to have joy for her and I should do the merciful thing and let her go. I am dreading that day with everything in me. I get tears in my eyes even writing that sentence. I do not know how to let go of what I love so much. I just keep loving the best I can and trying to savor every moment I have.

Maybe if I can let go of the tree it will help me to learn to say goodbye well, so here's to you my dead tree friend:

No buds, no leaves, yet filled with life

twisted branches, witches hair, smoke and fog

superhighway to trees, 

ramp to phone lines, thruway to life

perch, playground, filler of nests

dead yet alive

missed before gone