Moving

I have moved this blog to my new web-site (still in progress). I hope you will move with me.
To follow me to new location click here. Or if this doesn't work, go to http://patriciamrobertson.com/

Giving Up Worry for Lent

This first appeared in Jackson Citizen Patriot on Friday, March 26. Still relevant, still worrying!

We are now in the season of Lent, a time for giving up certain vices, making sacrifices and striving to do good. This year, I decided to try something different for Lent: giving up worry.

Worry is hereditary, they say--you get it from your children.

Actually, there have been studies that indicate there is a genetic link to worry. Worriers have children who worry. It is connected to a certain part of the brain. I don't know about genetics, but I do know I learned to worry at the feet of a master, my mother.

Jesus tells us not to worry. But then, he wasn't a parent. He also died at 33, so he never had to worry about retirement or any of the problems associated with aging which confront our society. And just look where not worrying got him.

All of my life I've heard Jesus' admonition to not worry. I've struggled to let go of my worries and chided myself for my lack of faith.

The events I worry about rarely happen, whereas events it never occurred to me to worry about do happen. Therefore, I reason, If I had known to worry about the latter events, then I could have prevented them. However, there have been times when events I've worried about did happen--so much for that theory. But at least, after having worried sufficiently, I was prepared for the worst. So worry does have some benefits.

I engage in anticipatory worry, meaning I worry about future events so much ahead of time that by the time the event arrives, I'm relatively calm. If I have already faced the worst possible scenario in my mind, then I'm ready for anything.

I've been preparing for my children's graduations since the day of their birth. By the time the actual day arrives, it should be a cakewalk. Whenever my children have gone away for any length of time, I use this technique. In February, my daughter spent two weeks in Mali, Africa, helping to build a school. After imagining all the worst possible situations, from headhunters to hijackings, months before she left, those two weeks were relatively peaceful.

I worry months in advance in order to be calm when it happens, as opposed to those less skilled worriers who wait until the day is upon them and panic. That's why I need to have lots of time to prepare mentally for any big event in my own life and my loved ones' lives.

If I don't have adequate time, I worry that I've forgotten something or just haven't prepared myself sufficiently. It's quite an elaborate system that I've constructed.

Of course, I recognize all of this is craziness, but that doesn't make it any easier to stop this process. It's like an addiction. If I'm not worried it doesn't feel normal--it feels crazy. So this Lent I decided to admit my powerlessness over worry in my life, turn it over to a higher power and go on with more important aspects of life.

So far this Lent, I have been sorely tested by numerous invitation to worry and have failed miserably. however, our God is a God of forgiveness and second chances. There's always tomorrow to begin again. In the meantime, I'm counting the days until Lent is over!

Soft Launch for Buying Time, Beating Swords into Plowshares

Buying Time

Beating Swords into Plowshares

 

As I continue on my adventure in self-publishing, I now have a Kindle book. This will be followed by a paperback version but in preparation for that I need some reviews. There is still so much for me to learn as I fumble my way through learning about hyperlinks but hopefully this link will work. There also should be a way for me to give discounts but I haven't figured that out just yet. One thing at a time . ..

So . . . if any of you would be inclined to purchase my ebook and submit a review, it would be greatly appreciated. I might even be enticed to bake you my mom's famous cowboy cookies. Just click on the link below.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ISFB59Y

P.S. The charming young man in the picture is my son Dan. The picture was drawn by my daughter, Miriam, from a photo she had taken. Keeping it all in the family!

Do You Speak Geek? Learninge the Language of Technology

Throughout high school and college I studied languages. I studied French all eight years, plus several years of Russian in college, a semester of Mandarin Chinese, an independent study of ancient Greek, and some Spanish and Latin. With each new language, a new world and new way of thinking opened up before me. I loved this. I could have easily continued taking language classes had I not needed to graduate before my scholarship ran out. That was over thirty years ago.

As I’ve tried to learn more about computers and technology, I have felt frustrated and overwhelmed.

“I hate this stuff,” I would complain as I sat at the computer pulling out my hair lest I give into the temptation to throw my computer at the wall.

Our Inefficient God

Efficiency is over-rated. Efficiency experts tell us how to get organized, to only touch each piece of paper once, to multi-task and hence make the most of our time. However even the experts are realizing that effectiveness is more important than efficiency. You can be very efficient at doing the wrong thing, thereby being ineffective. Better to be effective than efficient.

Our God, though, is little concerned with efficiency or effectiveness. Just look at the human body and our need to refuel three times a day and to sleep every night. An efficient God would have designed a body that could go non-stop on only a few hours of sleep and would only have to eat once a week or even once a month. Just think of all the hours saved not sleeping and not preparing and eating meals.

Marriage After Fifty

            Marriage on the downhill side of fifty is different from marriage in my twenties. Back then, death, illness, cancer, retirement, were all far off phenomena, not on my radar screen. Life was long and we had years ahead of us before we would have to deal with such things, or so I thought. Even lack of employment was no concern. We were young and healthy and had many earning years ahead of us to amass a small fortune and retire—not that that had been on our minds either. We were confident in God’s providential care for us.

Praying Through the White-Out Conditions in our Lives

The following is from a column I had published in the Jackson Citizen Patriot on Feb. 23, 2007. In light of the bitter cold and blowing snow we have been experiencing this year, it seemed appropriate to post it again with small modifications. Stay safe!

 

During the extreme cold spell a few weeks ago, with blowing wind causing white-out conditions, I found myself repeatedly on the road. I just missed being in a 25 car pile-up on U.S 27 south of Ithaca. There were cars ahead of me off the road and rescue workers directing traffic, while behind me I heard the sound of cars crashing and saw the car immediately behind me spin out of control.
 
These white-out conditions can appear suddenly as they did that day. One minute you are cruising along, then you are blinded by snow and forced to hit the brakes.

What's in a Picture?

Why is it I can point this stuff out to others but have blinders one when it comes to my own stuff? All of the info I’ve been reading on blogging states you need to include your own picture, not a cartoon character, not one from your childhood, a current picture, preferably of professional quality. And yet I’ve had a cartoon character on my blog for months. And when I thought about other pictures, the first thing I did was go to my childhood pictures for me when I was “pattynicnac” – young and impressionable and oh, so cute.

Happy Ground Hog Day!

Oh, to be a ground hog. I’d pull back the covers and sleep until spring. The unusually cold and bitter weather has robbed me of all motivation. I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to work out. I just want to eat comfort food, after all, I need a few extra rolls of fat to stay warm! I would sleep till noon then spend my afternoon baking cookies and pies and pot roast and gazing at the white expanse outside my window, happy to be inside. Then I would fall asleep in front of the glow of the TV screen.

Let someone else buy the groceries and lug them through the snow to my abode so I can enjoy my hibernation, only unlike the bear who lives off fat during the winter and wakes up skinny and hungry, I will wake up fat and sassy.

Oh, to be a ground hog!

When You Have Everything You Ever Dreamed of and It's Not Enough

“The gods have two ways of dealing harshly with us, the first is to deny us our dreams and the second is to grant them.” Oscar Wilde

What do you do when you have everything you dreamed of and it’s not enough?

All of my adult life I dreamed of someday having the time and money to write. I’ve been writing in some shape or form all of my life but it has been squeezed in here and there during random moments of free time. When others would have been socializing, going on vacation, cleaning their homes, organizing closets or whatever normal people do, I would be writing.

The Long Winter

Another day of cold and snow. As this cold snap continues with no end in sight, I find myself lethargic and unorganized. I don’t know what I’m doing with my time, it just goes by until yet another day has passed with nothing to show for it.

Breakthrough - Hurray for Libraries!

 

            In this day and age of digital books and ereaders some predict the demise of libraries, at least as a physical building with real people. The libraries of the future will be virtual libraries that you visit via your computer, or whatever the next technological device might be. You will download not only books but whole experiences like the holodeck on Star Trek Next Generation. (Yes, I am a trekie from before it was cool to be one.) You can not only read great works, you can experience them.