Resume the Blog...Resume the Blog...Must Resume...

So the voice is no longer whispering...
It now yells.

I KNOW it is in my best interest (she says quite selfishly) to resume a project I recommitted to several months ago ...of tracking this journey from outer world to inner...from city to country (not that you can't live an inner life in the city, you can I'm told...I simply find shutting off certain noises  and removing myself from certain distractions to help.)

Since last I left you, a couple of things have transpired...

For starters, I haven't gotten much paying work completed this year...unless you count selling a few goats, which I pretty much suck at because I keep naming them.

My third cookbook, while laid out, did not get done, and while I planted in April, the garden didn't make it either. (Kinda requires someone to work it. That my goats and pups were loved and cared for while I was away with my brother was more than I could've asked for. There'll be another year for a garden. I simply had to learn to let things slide with this one..."Release Karlen. Learn to release.")

When life calls, you answer. The good news is, what I lack in revenues, I made up for in priceless life lessons. My year took on new depths of meaning and soul searching the likes of which I'll  probably be writing about for the rest of my days on the planet.

But I did complete one task...

I completed my ministerial studies, more convinced by the experiences of this past year that whatever happens, I was probably not going to change, my wiring being "Help first. Figure it out later." Not so great for business, but it's where life found me this year.

So with "resume the blog" now playing daily in my inner intercom,  I share this as my attempt to get back in the zone...(Sometimes it helps just saying it out loud --or writing it--even if to total strangers.) Something about committing openly has a way of kicking things into real go-gear...
(At least it does for me.)

I share with you an article I was asked to write shortly after my ordination.

The request?

Could you write a column about those in ministering professions who forget to minister to themselves? (Because obviously I am so darned good at it...That was a little joke.)  Question is: who heals the healers? Who supports the supporters? These types (and I am nowhere to compare to those who work in healing professions day in and day out) they can often lose themselves in their service roles, seldom stopping to think about the practicalities of what it means to keep giving at all costs...

It's a topic near and dear to my heart, having seen many a good-hearted care-giver, give to the point of exhaustion over this past year...

So rather than re-invent a wheel here...Here's the article I wrote for a ministerial newsletter, but it applies to many other professions and some not even in the business of tending to others, but wired that way. No matter your background or your training, if you are inclined to put others first no matter the cost (which must be DNA for Southern females) ...or even if you're just ramping up for yet another burnout holiday season, knowing before you start you'll be depleted before it ends, well...truth is truth, and this truth may apply to you, so if the shoe fits...

Tomorrow, I'll get back to farm topics....after all, we've got goat babies coming out our ears and if anything makes you want to reflect on the good stuff in life, goat babies will do it.

More important, I have missed writing. Period. Daily.  I need it. All writers must do this. It's writer's law. Even if others 'out there' don't have time or desire to read it, it's therapy, so I  continue...

Meanwhile one last request: #PrayforOurSmokyMountains

My heart breaks along with all the rest of you at the devastation that's happened to our beautiful Smoky Mountains...To those healers on the ground, in the trenches, in those hospital corridors and hectic fire halls up in East Tennessee, this article may be timely for you as well.

Here's praying for healing...
Here's wishing us all a tender Tennessee Christmas~


(Reprinted from DSMA Newsletter Fall 2016; Divine Science International)

    "Don't forget to take care of yourself ... "

     If I heard it once I heard it 1,000 times. But let these words come from your doctor and this notion of healing the healer takes on quite the literal challenge.

     Like many, I was taught that caring for others is Christ-like, thus caring to the point of exhaustion, must be more Christ-like, right? I personally prided myself on being good at this sport. (Some say it's bred into Southern females.) But sadly, somewhere along the way I had confused care-taking, for who I was as a person, as opposed to caretaking as one (of a limited number of things) this body can do.      

     And like so many living lives of ministry, I have yet to master doing for myself what I' ll intrinsically do for others without so much as thinking about it.

     When told to love our neighbors as ourselves, it's assumed there was a healthy dose of self love going in, but who in life teaches us self love? It is not self love (heck it's not even kind) to keep giving to the point of exhaustion. And

nowhere in scripture does it say love your neighbor at the expense of yourself. 

     While we know and acknowledge that we are creations made by a perfect Creator, how is it we so easily we forget that no one creation is more or less important than another, after all, we are all one.

     For me, it wasn't even that others were asking so much as it was ME on auto-pilot, making myself unrealistically available out of sheer habit.

     To begin breaking this pattern for the sake of my physical health if nothing else, I had to first remove myself mentally from the me I thought I was. By this I mean, I pictured my inner child outwardly, as a physical child, placed in my stead to protect and nurture. 

     With this image firmly planted, it

soon became clear the effects of my poor choices on an innocent life.

     I pictured myself holding her little hand, her trusting eyes looking to me for support, and I came to realize that not only was I an unworthy mother, I was downright abusive. As I recognized I was allocating NOT the best of me, but

whatever dregs might be left over once I had care-taken the world I shuttered as it dawned on me "It's a miracle child services hasn't hauled me away!"

     That we are each expressions of Divine and endless love is 101 in our teachings, so why is it so difficult to remember that even endless supplies of love channel through earthen vessels, and these clay earthen vessels command respect if they are to be used properly. They require proper maintenance. 

     Recognizing that self-care is not a suggestion, but rather a decision one must recommit to each and every day, is perhaps the most difficult discipline of all, and yet one we cannot afford to let slide. Self love, self care, and doing-for yourself (at the very least} what you might do for another is not an Healing the Healersoptional proposition. It is as vital a lesson to incorporate into the day to day life of a minister as any lesson our teachings have to offer. 

Authored by Rev. Karlen Evins.

This summer Rev. Karlen was ordained by the Samaritan Institute. She is a writer, journalist, farmer, and goat herder. You may find out more about Rev. Karlen at www.Karlenevins.com.

How Much is Too Much?

           My mother loves to forward me things, often involving outrageous political happenings or things I might not have seen in the news for being so busy with dogs and goats and gardens. (Sadly I see more than she knows.)

Between ISIS beheadings and the Holly Bobo updates alone, I admit, tis week I turned off my TV…I confess...thinking on these things in detail puts me in fetal position, then again, to observe the news passively while microwaving a pizza feels even more wrong…So I replt to my mother with, “I’m sorry, no, I didn’t hear…I’m on a news sabbatical. My heart can’t take it anymore.”

            Her reply was something about an ostrich, which didn’t set well either. On the other hand, if a caller in my past life had said it, I’d have given it more thought…and so I did so here...for her...the woman who birthed me.

            In truth Mom, I am watching the news. (Like an addict, I feel I should confess this to someone.) What’s more, I am mindful of just how MUCH news I am consuming...How much we all are.  As it pertains to my own personal consumption—I find myself asking, how much is too much?  (Truth be told, I get so much more done creatively on non-TV days and I so admire my writer friends who don’t have a TV at all.) But for me, there’s still a gene that gets on a roll from time to time when wanting to catch up, but once I do…it doesn’t take long until I want to unplug all over again.

            I was in such mood when the ostrich note came through…which exacerbated my thinking all over again on the matter.

            I have found that my intake of news works in inverse proportion to my ability to write, think, create, or grow a garden. When my heart becomes too heavy for trying to imagine the horror some have endured (the Holly Bobo story alone I cannot fathom. I want to cry every time I hear the girl’s name and if I allow myself so much as a minute of imagining her fear, or the grief of her family's loss, I grow fearful myself, and after that, helpless, and after that, hopeless)…It leaves me so utterly derailed …I don’t know what to do.

            So the question becomes: What is the responsible approach to news? Where am I to file beheadings over which I have no control (save to become furious and more fearful)…Killings so brutal the details only add more hatred and anger in a world already too dark already?

            At one time I naively suggested: “Call your congressman…Express yourself. Be sure and vote!” But anymore, given how we feel about government, well that just adds more fuel to the flame…More frustration, anger and resentment…Great.  Now that I know this WILL be my reaction …Do I really want to go there?

            My own approach to this question has changed with time and with age. At one point I sincerely believed that focusing my attention and yours on the problems we all face, while debating both pros / cons and every alternative in between was the highest and best use of a journalist’s talents and time. But after about 20 years of seeing no real solutions, but instead a digression into an angrier, less civil audience, well,  I changed my tune. I no longer felt I was helping matters. Instead, I felt I was contributing more to the problem than any hope of a solution. I recall one boss asking if I could “save the world on someone else’s dime” and I remember thinking “He may have a point."  If anger is what you’re looking for, and anger is what I am NOT looking for, maybe it WAS my time to go.

            With that I did what I always do when troubled by something to my core. Moments like these, I stop. And I listen. By stop and listen, I mean I eventually unplug entirely, pull away from the maddening crowed, get silently alone and ask, “What possible good can I contribute, for which others may be served?” With this I usually go away somewhere (to a monastery; out of the country…or (as is the case today) maybe just TO the country)….In these sacred spaces, I can honestly say, I have always found my answers.

            To be clear, my own inner answers are not everyone’s answers. Right now, my mother’s voice prompts her to forward emails she feels we should all be aware of; she’s feeling very politically vocal right now, and if that’s what she’s being led to do, may I just say "You go for it Mom!"

            For me, I did that once. Who knows; I may be led again someday (can’t imagine that, but that’s the thing about the inner voice; it demands a day by day inventory).

            My answer as I shared it with my mom was this:

            Today's news is precisely why I farm. Whether worried over the war in Syria, or watching our president weigh strategies per the beheadings, or witnessing raging wild fires out West, my inner voice says, there may come a time when knowing how, will be all you can do...So today—this day, LEARN. Learn everything you can, for now, on your side of the street, life is peaceful, but there may come a time when it is not, and if that day comes, be prepared. Better yet, be ready to help. Make use of the wisdom, time and gifts you’re now being handed…The farmer who shows you how to plant; the course that’ll walk you through soil and crop rotation…Follow where you’re led and the rest will be provided.

            While we all face fearful times, I work not to dwell there. For if I dwell too long on any one news story my fear gene goes into overdrive and anger consumes the only energy I ever hoped to have. It’s not to become an ostrich. It is to become who I am...who each of us are...listening to what we are each led to do in whatever way, large or small, we are led to do it. 

           That, to me, is the counter to our news...

Rule #1 -- Stop Digging

Rule #1 – Stop Digging

So this one’s not a gardening tip. One can never dig enough in the garden…you can never dig enough weeds, but for the sake of all I'm blogging about...This one’s a life tip. When you recognize there might be a problem…Stop digging (for other problems...Stop whatever it is you're doing, and regroup.)

Remember my “Get more of what you subsidize” blog? Re-read it. Goes double for problems. Problems have a funny way of attracting other problems. Once one thing looks bad, seems the whole world looks bad. Time to stop the energy vortex that’s focusing on the bad…spiraling down to the worse. Stop digging.

For me, “Stop Digging” means stop funneling precious energy into the very thing I already KNOW is causing me problems…(In this case, exhaustion…over-extension….Overwhelm.) Ok. So I’m overwhelmed. Stop digging. Accept it.

As it pertains to the garden, I feel like C R A P that I let perfectly good okra grow to exponential proportions. (I call it my Oak Ridge Okra – It’s twice the size it should be, and no doubt toxic if you tried to eat it.) I absolutely HATE I didn’t pick it fast enough. (Guilt is about to come forth in a number of the next blogs, so buckle up...But while buckling...

Stop digging.

Rule #2 (Close Second to "Stop Digging") “Let it Go”

So I suck at timely okra picking.

At the end of the day, will the world judge me for this? (Some might, but who cares? Anyone taking the time needs a life….Seriously folks. It’s OKRA.)

So I’m 1 and 2 in for the count…

Time to make some changes around here.

Life is about to get interesting…