"Diving In" To Community

This Thursday from 7:15-9:15 we are hosting our first community event....the 1st Annual Fredericksburg Diving Championship.  When board member, Vel Anne Howell, suggested a diving championship as our first community fund raising event...she got a lot of strange looks!  But we quickly saw how perfect her idea was for many reasons.  First of all it's out of the box...where we want to be...and as far as we know it hasn't been done in Fredericksburg.  Second...it's fun!  We want to continue to offer fun, family oriented events where people can laugh and get to know their neighbors.  And third, the act of diving is very metaphorical, and since I was recently called the Queen of Metaphors, I feel moved to comment further on this topic.

As President of the Foundation for Community Wholeness I feel led to make the opening dive at this event, but there is only one problem...I don't know how to dive and I am terrified to dive!  I have always loved the water and swimming, but diving in head first is another story all together!  Maybe it has something to do with a swim teacher forcing me off the high board when I was 8 years old!  Anyway...I am 43 years old now and have never dived!  That is...until this past Saturday.  While visiting my friend, Janet in Austin, I was telling her and her friend, Candace, about our Diving Championship, and the humble fact that I didn't know how to dive.  Believe it or not...Candace looked at me and said, "I used to be a competition diver.  I can teach you how to dive today if you would like."  My shocked reply was something along the lines of "Are you kidding me?!"

So...2 hours later...I found myself at a community pool in Austin receiving diving lessons from competition diver, Candace.  Remember the river I talked about in earlier posts, and how when you are floating in it you just don't know where it will take you?  This was one of those moments.

Standing on the edge of the pool...preparing to make my first dive....I found myself standing in fear looking into the vast unknown of that body of water.  One of the life guards said "Don't think about it.  Just do it!"  So finally that is what I did...I quit thinking and just dove in....trusting the water.  It took  about 10 dives before I rally started to fully surrender and trust the water would accept me and allow me to come up to the top when  I was ready.  By the 30th dive I was exhausted, but enjoying the feel of plunging into the unknown with my whole self!

This act of being and surrendering is my dream for each of us!  To not just "live" in a community, but "be" in community.  It is what is meant for our lives.  It is our purpose!  To be our own unique selves, bringing our own unique traits, thoughts, dreams, and stories to the edge of the pool and diving in....surrendering to the water!  Like the water in the pool, I want our community to be loving and accepting, to be bouyant...allowing each of us to dive in, but also supporting us, and lifting us up when we need it! 

Come "dive in" to community with me on June 16!

I Am Nomad

I am Nomad

I have always seen the river, silver, twisting, spiraling deep and flattening out in an attempt to run it's course - always seeking - always yielding but never giving way to earth's boundaries - it feeds MAN - it gives MAN itself - in the sharing I see love as MAN gathers together at the river's center - it is the dance of life - and I cannot touch it -

I am Nomad

I have always been outside - watching through self imposed impossibilities - I have seen it's purpose but have denied myself, and as a consequence I cannot hear that drumbeat that draws those who seek communion -

I am Nomad

I have sought not accepted it's mother's breath - excluded by my own chains - seeing through rooted beings, I catch a glimpse of that life that draws ALL to it's source and that drumbeat echos faintly, floating gently over the river's heart -

I am Nomad

This faux spirit I have inhabited is weary and is a hollow vessel that cannot drink from this elixir of earth's living breath -

I am Nomad

Standing silent and coursing up and down it's length - I seek an opening --- in quiet acceptance the river's voice slows, and that drumbeat surges and surrounds me, and lifts me, and a song of the river's being enters this sad shell - voices of all those who are one with each other rise from the river's heart and embrace me - tears of love envelope me - I am washed clean - made whole - I enter the river and the drumbeat is my own heart -

I AM NOMAD NO MORE

I am one with the river's life and the life of ALL.


Mike Raymer

Are You in the River?

As one of our board members was seeking sponsorship for our first community fundraising event, one business owner handed back our mission statement and said "I can't support you.  I don't even know what this means!"  So in an attempt to make a little more clear our mission...I want to propose this thought....

Every day our children are laying their mission statements before us, and every day they are returned with "I can't support you.  I don't even know what this means!"

I want this to STOP!!!  I, myself, learned at a young age that I wasn't good enough just the way I was...that I must pretend to be something I wasn't to have friends and be accepted.  As a child I wanted to be accepted more than anything.  I wanted to be liked!  I knew I was loved very much by my family...but they were my family!  What was more important was that people that didn't know me would like me.  I have spent my whole life trying to fit in, be liked, be accepted...to the point of truly losing myself many times.  Until the point, while suffering through my son's illness, I was just a fragile shell of a person walking around through life.  It wasn't until recently when I finally had an awakening to this simple statement "It's okay to be me."  that I  found freedom.

My Will for Community

Community...something I always believed to be important, and easily accessible when I needed it.  I found community in my church, among my like minded friends, and at work.  Community served me well in these places...helping me feel accepted, validated and loved.  I would seek it only when I felt I needed that dose of love and validation.  Being a confident, independent, strong willed person, I found that I didn't need to seek community often.  I was able to achieve most of what I set my mind to just by working hard and setting my goals.  Being independent gave me great satisfaction.  It made me feel less vulnerable. It made me feel strong. 

Then in 2005 I gave birth to our son Will via an emergency c-section, and as he was air lifted to a children's hospital only minutes after he was born, with my husband following in the car, I found myself alone and vulnerable, trying to recover in the hospital with this question: Who woould be my community now?