kindness – Page 2

December 28, 2017 By HallieZ 1 Comment

Christmas in China

Christmas in China is one of the most precious things in the world to me.

Christmas in China is a longing for home, a longing to be with my family, a longing for belonging. Christmas in China is choosing joy, and beauty in the way I never imagined before.

Christmas in China is tiny felt tree my first year, because someone gave it to me in a box of chocolate! It’s two tiny ornaments I bought in Thailand for my tiny daughters, when I was there to give birth to Esther.

Christmas in China this sounds, sensations, taste that make me feel safe. Christmas in China is a feeling of being outside looking in. It’s wondering why all my local friends keep giving us apples, until someone finally explains to me the deal.

Christmas in China is the few thousand foreigners who live in that city coming together under one roof for an international Christmas fair. It’s the Nigerians, the Samoans, hill tribe people, the Argentinians, the Colombians, the New Zealanders, all pressed into a small hall.

Christmas in China is finding some of my most precious household items for sale at the Christmas market. A Chinese nativity set, made by some people in a remote village. A tree skirt, made out of felt, handsewn by a group of women. Essential oil’s hand carried from New Zealand by a family who is so excited to share. Real German cookies, made by a real German lady.

It’s my beautiful children, dancing to Christmas ballet, to the song that still makes me cry every time. Their little ballerina friends so many shapes and colors, representing a love that moved their families from the many corners of the earth to be in this place.

Christmas in China is getting on my scooter, and driving downtown, an hour away to the post office, only to be told that the package I had hoped for is not there. But I know it’s there because the tracking said it was delivered. Christmas in China has me screaming at the workers, crying at the workers, begging them to let me in the back to find the package myself.

Christmas in China is sometimes they let me, and sometimes they don’t. Then I have to return to days later to try the process over again. Christmas in China is thinking a package from “home” will make everything OK, so I obsess about it until I almost can’t think about anything else. Christmas in China is the package helping, the package making us happy, but it actually didn’t make it OK. It just helped ease the pain.

Christmas in China is waking up with my kids, my husband, and knowing the day is perfect. It’s my favorite friends coming over for lunch and drinking wine from the import store. It’s us holding each other while we look at the crackling fire on the TV screen, and say to each other and this was the most perfect Christmas ever. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

Christmas in China is so painful in one moment I want to scream, and so full of love and acceptance and joy the next, I would choose to be here forever.

Christmas in China makes me feel different from my friends, who have never been away from their family on the holidays.

Christmas in China is bringing pecans all the way from my vacation in Thailand last year, and saving them so I can make Russian tea cakes. It’s a box I keep in the back of my cupboard, full of sprinkles, and candy canes I brought from America. It’s holding onto some of my favorite old traditions, and getting excited about making new ones. It’s a tree covered with ornaments from all over the world.

I hold the China Christmas years forever, with love and hope in my heart.

December 6, 2017 By HallieZ 4 Comments

I can do all things

One of my mom’s favorite stories about me is from when I was probably about 7 or 8.

I was taking swimming lessons in Seattle, in an olympic sized pool.

All the other kids had been swimming in the deep end for some time, and I couldn’t do it. I was paralyzed by fear.

She taught me

“I can do ALL THINGS through CHRIST, who STRENGTHENS ME”

She told me to sing it in my head as I stood on the diving board.

She showed me how to breath it in my breaths as I did the crawl stroke to the wall.

And then I did it.

That is the first significant moment of overcoming in my life.

As I washed dishes this morning, preparing for another day in court for my never-ending divorce, I heard her voice, and I saw her face, telling this story over the years.

I remembered a picture of me from that time, when I got a new bike.

I can and will kick all the ass through Christ who strengthens me.

As I was sitting here writing this, my mom, who was trying to call another place, accidentally called me. I haven’t spoken with her on the phone since the summer, when I was kicked out of the family picture. I told her about this memory, and I felt her love and connection through the pain, fear, and sorrow.

Perfect love casts out fear.

And as I hung up and let the sobs come, my friend walked the door unannounced to give me a hug.

I couldn’t be more loved or seen if I wrote the story of my life myself.

LOVE ALWAYS WINS

October 22, 2017 By HallieZ 4 Comments

A Way Out

Love brings me a way out every. Single. Time.

I was working at an event this weekend, representing the company for which I recently started working. My brother owns this event, and I knew that some of my family members would be working there. I had emotionally prepared myself to see them, and, though anxious, felt pretty peaceful. The further we get into this being shunned thing, the more compassion I feel for them, and peace about seeing them in public. Maybe they don’t want my compassion, but they have it! Having EVERYTHING IN THE WHOLE WORLD figured out and BEING RIGHT ABOUT ALL THE SHIT is exhausting and unsustainable. Maybe it will work out for them, I don’t know.

So I was doing pretty well, better than I would have a few months ago.

Until.

My nieces and nephew walked by with an Aunt.

I last laid eye on them 3 months ago.

I last played with them more than a year ago.

I hardly recognized the 2 littlest. They certainly didn’t recognize me.

It was too much. Yeah. All the crying.

But what happened next?

Love showed up in a boss who offered me compassion and let me run away from my work for a bit.

Love showed up in a BFF who was already planning to stop and have lunch with me… timing ended up perfect, she got there right after I lost all composure, with a big, juicy burger. I got to sit in her van with her and breath and stuff my face and feel safe and loved.

Love showed up in a vendor/friend gifting me a massage in her booth… moving the pain and sorrow right out of my shoulders.

Love showed up in the lady who ran the booth across from me, saw me fall apart, and bravely asked me, a stranger, if she could help.

Love was there when I called my Grande and asked her if I could party with her on Thanksgiving, and she joyfully welcomed me into her holiday, warts and all.

Love interrupted my sobbing on the way home from work with a double rainbow that popped out for a just a second.

Things come and go in my life that feel to painful to survive.

I tell you this without reservation. When I stay open and look for LOVE, no matter what, it always finds me.

September 26, 2017 By HallieZ 1 Comment

an open heart

One of the things I often wish is…

I wish I could be loved by more open hearts.

I wish a sister could hear my heart, offer me into the hands of God for judgement, and just be there for me. Just look at me. “Hold space” for me.

One of the hard works of healing that has been asked of me us to take the wishes of my heart, and flip the script.

Ask myself how I am giving the things I want for me, to others.

That’s looking like a kind of hard thing for me right now. So I am playing with some different ideas.

When I go into a shop, or store, I am often leaving my phone in the car.

This keeps my eyes up, my head up. It pushes my heart into interactive mode.

I don’t really like it most of the time. It is uncomfortable. I have a pretty strong, entrenched belief inside me that people are scary and cruel, and will betray me at every turn.

Don’t trust anyone. Ever. The end.

I was heading to Bend, sans kids, the other day. I stopped at a “crispy chicken” place along the freeway, thinking I would pick up a few chicken tenders real quick, and get back on the road. Um. No. The kitchen was mayhem, and I hadn’t realized how long the wait would be until I had already paid.

Panic was setting in. There were LOTS of men around me.

Young sportsing highschoolers, looking all mangy and greasy who obviously hadn’t slept in a few days. Every. Single. One. Ordered. A. milkshake.

A bunch of retirees coming in for coffee.

And some dudes my age.

I played some inner tapes in my heart and head. Spoke to my heart and told it to open and make space for the people around me.

Pep-talked myself out of running to my van and getting my phone.

I made eye contact with one guy who’s path normally wouldn’t cross mine.

We both remarked on how interesting we thought those “clam chowder bites” looked. He didn’t want to spend $8 on the experiment (neither did I ) and asked if I wanted to order it and split the cost and order.

Oh, I thought to myself, he’s one of those people who like community. Or something. Maybe he was at a music festival?

Just to clarify, he wasn’t hitting on me. He was ACTUALLY making friends. He was living with his heart wide open.

It felt so weird. Uncomfortable but really, really good.

I learned that he loves the band Modest Mouse. And sure enough, he’d been at their concert in Bend. With his pal. Who looked like more of a square. Turns out his pal is a Quaker. And a “right kind of f***ing guy”.

What even IS a modest mouse? I wondered to myself. Is he self-depreciating? Does she wear a one piece instead of a bikini? Maybe he just kind of covers his mouse parts with his sweet base guitar?

There was this other band, did I like them? I thought about all Laurie Berkner Band and Josh Garrells I usually listen to, and assured myself that this dude and I lived on different planets.

He dropped some parts of his sentences and conversations, damage from drug use? I wondered, and then immediately chastised myself.

He used to cook crack, he tells me. That was a while ago. But then he went to jail and is in recovery. And now he cooks this thing. He pulled it out of his pocket. I think it is #37 on the periodic table, but I’m going to have to as someone who knows this stuff better. “I melt it down and then mix it with ? and pour it over bent up forks and stuff and it just does what it wants to do”.

He pulled a couple out of his pocket and handed me one. “Merry Christmas! I sell those, but I want you to have one” and then he said a lot of words about some things I didn’t understand. So I just smiled.

The food was taking FOREVER. People were mad, some were swearing. My new friend was cheering on the kitchen staff “just keep doing the next thing! You got this! F*** it, I know how to work in a kitchen, want me to come in and help you? Because I WILL” and he MEANT it.

His square, Quaker friend was getting impatient.

“he’s mad because I’m enjoying myself!”

“sometimes you just gotta enjoy the detours, ya know?”

Some of his more complex thoughts got lost in his brain, and I could see his shame and frustration that he couldn’t access the thoughts he was wanting to share. He covered for his mistakes, and filled in the gaps with swear words. I don’t think he exactly wanted to use them, but that’s how he coped. So I sat with that thought.

I gave him $5, since that’s how much he usually charges for this little tiny artwork, and he goes “how about $10, then, if you’re handing money out?” I laughed at him, and said, you wish!

I will probably never see him again. I love his open heart. And I am glad I left that phone in the car.

August 23, 2017 By HallieZ 3 Comments

THE WAY THINGS ARE

I feel things, I see things, I sense things and know things, and sometimes I cannot explain how or why. When I think about how I experience the world, I think I would have to say that I do so through an intuitive, mystic, empathetic lens.

Watching the total eclipse of the sun today was an all-of-body experience for me.

My heart was racing as I counted down.

I could feel the energy of the earth responding to the call of our solar system.

The temperature was dropping, and the toddler yelled “its too COLD” and ran to get his blankey.

I felt the humming electricity through my spirit, as all the earth shifted colors and shades and “THE WAY THINGS ARE” wasn’t, for a brief moment.

How lucky are we, I said aloud, to be a time and place where we know what is happening to our sun. We don’t have to run in fear that the earth is ending, that the gods are coming to smite us. We can watch and enjoy and celebrate this thing.

In the short minute of darkness, I spun around to see the colors of the “sunset” all in a perfect circle around me.

I felt joy, peace, the aliveness of the world around me.

A sun, a moon, giving to us so many things, and in response we live our life, we give our offerings to the humans and the animals and the earth around us. We accept the gifts and we respond. And in doing so, our joy is made bigger, and brighter. Here, in the receiving and the responding, we experience the fullness of life.

There are things I KNOW about myself, my life, my children. I know that I was supposed to leave my husband. I have a lot of practical reasons. A lot of “Biblical” reasons. I choose NOT to share those here now, because part of what I think God is asking me to do, is to live life knowing that not everyone will agree with me, and that is ok.

Standing in the center of a darkness in the middle of the day, colors and sounds all around me, I was reminded that my heart, my body, my spirit, my very created person knows with all certainty that I am in the center of Love.

THE WAY THINGS ARE has shifted for me.

I am in the center of life and goodness and healing. I could try to explain forever why I have taken this path, why I stand in seeming darkness right now. To some, my explanation would make sense, and to others it wouldn’t. But just like the eclipse, my life IS happening, it is happening for a reason, and it will bring good and joy and life and change to all the people standing it’s path.

What I’m Writing