3 hours ago5 min read

Bring on the Flavor!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2025! Doesn’t it seem crazy to be here already?!?!

Breakfast at First Watch/Columbus with our Grands, our daughter and hubs, Mom G and Sis Amy.

I wanted to share with you some thoughts about last year and moving into this new year. Many of these thoughts are a response to things I have been reading and ideas we have been talking about on our Marco Polo thread with trusted friends and mutual mentors on this journey. First I want to share a couple of stories that relate well to the rest of the blog.

Years and years ago - I think I was about six - my Mom taught me how to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies. I was intrigued! Here's the deal! Chocolate Chip Cookies include SALT!!! HaHa! Who knew?!?! In fact, if you leave out the salt, the cookies are just not as flavorful, as the salt enhances FLAVOR!!! This was mind-blowing to my six-year-old self!

Fast forward to my teenage years when my Dad would walk down the long hallway to our bedrooms to check on us and make sure we were safe and sound in bed, but he would NEVER turn on the light. We would hear his heavy footfalls, and inadvertently we would hear him run into chairs or anything in the hallway - because he couldn't see - we would yell, "Turn on the light, Dad," only to hear him break his toe on the corner of doorway or "something." We would try not to laugh - but it seemed that he could avoid a ton of pain and anguish by just "illuminating" the situation!!! Haha!

(These stories relate to one another and to my goals for 2025! I promise! Haha!)

My goals for 2024 were pretty clear to me:

1. Self-Care, which has to begin with learning to love myself, allowing God to love me, and taking care of my body as well as my soul and mind. (This has been a tough one as I have realized that self-care can be undermined by exhaustion from working 2 jobs and losing 1 of 2 vehicles for a while. I started to see that so many people are hustling in order to pay the rent. We do not realize just how much of a privilege it is to take care of oneself. Right?)

2. Radical Resilience is a term that I picked up from Center for Action and Contemplation as this was the theme for the year in their meditations sent out each day. In some ways this is reflected in surviving the year and making it through.

Well, I joined Planet Fitness, I asked Ken to help me with weight lifting (although I am not yet consisten like he has always been), I found another job, I joined an internship that helped me work on some issues and history that usually send me into “panic” mode. I found a new determination to work toward being resilient. (Not gonna lie – this has been hard but quite rewarding- one step at a time, and sometimes one moment at a time, and yes, this includes some backward movement. I applied for a residency that I vowed I would not do just about a year ago. And there is so much more…)

Today, I am just in awe and wonder that it is 2025. And, over the last few days I have been reading and listening to some of my favorite authors bring new thoughts and old scriptures to life. (If you are like me – you have found that scripture can be loaded into canons and all types of weaponry, but this is not the case here. I promise!)

As a child and beyond, the Beatitudes and the “salt and light” talked about in Matthew 5 always intrigued me. In the last few meditations from The Center for Action and Contemplation, my heart has been revitalized by the challenges and hope of trying to live out these “timely metaphors” that cause us to think about “being” salt and light, bringing the flavor and illumination in such a difficult time in our world.

This is hard for me to think through, and yet it truly does bring a freedom that cannot exist otherwise. Please stick with me. Richard Rohr talks about the Beatitudes and being salt/light this way, “…those who live the Beatitudes will be the salt of the earth…which is a certain kind of gift for the earth, …not a prescription for getting into heaven but a description of a free life…that is what holiness will look like.” (these quotes are basically a mash-up of the last several days’ meditations from the CAAC/Center for Action and Contemplation/Richard Rohr, Brian McLaren, etc...).

Wowsers! Are you seeing this? Do you hear this?

If you understand – as I do – that there are literally 30,000+ iterations of Christianity just here in the states, and if you are aware that each individual that resides in this world has a different way of seeing just about ANYTHING including faith, etc… the thought that I can or want to coerce you to “see it” like I do – or believe it like I do, especially in this climate of war, political unrest, anger, polarity, and so much more – truly is untenable. The thought of just “BEING” salt and light, flavor and illumination, “a presence in this world that radiates and flavors the world with divine love, a warm and healing presence to a world that is dealing with so much…radiant with the light of love and truth, salty with justice and compassion, flavorful as salt that preserves and enhances all that is good in the world,…a way of seeing that unites our beliefs with how we live and serve,”(Brian McLaren 12/30, CAAC) – my answer is YES!!!

Let’s bring on the flavor! Let’s radiate light! Let’s bring the warmth! Let’s live out the truth of LOVE! (LET'S MAKE COOKIES WITH SALT - PLEASE DO NOT FORGET THE SALT!!! Haha!)

My Goals for 2025:

1. Self-Care (Yep! Still gonna try!)

2. Radical Resilience (Yep! There are still days that I am just surviving-not thriving.)

3. Bring on the Flavor! Radiate Light!

It is my desire to live out the Beatitudes, concentrating on the salt that brings flavor and preservation while radiating the light of LOVE! Oh God help me BE and BRING flavor, light, warmth, strength, kindness, freedom and NOT need to bring the AGENDA, the desire to control, the fear of "but what if THEY win?"

There is so much division, so much pain, so much hurt, so many weapons in play - MAY WE MAKE COOKIES WITH SALT AND FLIP ON THE LIGHT SWITCHES THAT MIGHT HELP TO BRING CLARITY TO DANGEROUS SITUATIONS. (We tried Dad! Haha!)

Happy New Year indeed!

May we live out LOVE.

Love More Less Fear! Always!

(Credit Due To: Center for Action and Contemplation, Daily Meditations from 12/30/24 through today, and the video explaining the theme for 2025 produced by Brian McLaren. If you would like to subscribe – it is free. Just look up Center for Action and Contemplation Daily Meditations, or send your email to me, and I can forward a way to subscribe.)

***Your responses and support have inspired me to continue writing, reading, listening, and BEING! 2025 here we come!***