Intentions Review for June 2019

My Star Word for this year is “Empathy”. The internet defines empathy as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Merriam-Webster says, “Empathy is similar to sympathy, but empathy usually suggests stronger, more instinctive feeling.”

Here are my intentions for 2019.

Physical Health

• Continue to eat real food, and, hopefully, lose about 20 more pounds this year. – I’ve lost 6.2 lbs this year so far.
• Continue to average 150 miles a month on my Fitbit. – Since I got my release from the surgeon, I’ve been averaging almost 14,000 steps per day. I’ve been working up to it by taking longer and longer walks. Yesterday, I walked through the woods and down the hill next door (complete with up the hill to get to the place where I could go down and back up to the house.)
• My post-op appointment was June 6, and I was released with no restrictions except a 15-lb limit on lifting anything and no core work. Those restrictions will be lifted July 5th.
• My personal trainer is working on a 360 Wellness trainer certification, and I’m being one of her Guinea pigs. It focuses on physical health, emotional health, intellectual health, spiritual health, and the balance in all those things. (I didn’t know it when I started this monthly blog series, but she must have been reading my mind.)

Emotional Health

• I AM trying to remember “empathy” in my interactions with people I meet.
• I still haven’t been billed for anything from my month with doctors and hospitals, but I have seen the statements sent to Tricare and Medicare. If I didn’t have this medical insurance I would have had to pay upwards of $50,000 for three emergency room visits and day surgery. I have more and more empathy for folks who have less than adequate health insurance.
• Early in the year I started posting Five Things that Made Me Happy Today every day on Facebook. Earlier this month I moved those posts to this blog because it’s hard to go back and find things on Facebook. I started doing it because I realized I was spending a lot of my time focused on the awful stuff (and there’s plenty of it) going on in this country and the world right now. By forcing myself to write about five good things every day, I have to 1. keep looking for them, and 2. remember them for several hours. If you are subscribed to this blog, you should have been getting them in your email. If not, go ahead and subscribe.

Intellectual Health

• Expand my leisure reading from fluff mysteries to more substantial novels. – Books read this year.
  • The Library Book by Susan Orleans – finished
  • Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens – finished
  • Becoming by Michelle Obama – finished
  • Womanish Midrash by Wil Gafney – finished
  • The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah – finished
  • The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter by Hazel Gaynor – finished
  • Entering the Passion of Jesus by Amy-Jill Levine – finished
  • Silent Night by Danielle Steele – finished
  • Autumn by Ali Smith – finished
  • Winter by Ali Smith – finished
  •  A Good Year by Peter Mayle – finished
  •  Magnolia Nights by Ashley Farley – finished
  • The Tale Teller by Anne Hillerman – finished
  •  Wife of Moon by Margaret Coel – finished
  •  Cleaning the Gold by Karen Slaughter and Lee Child – finished
  •  Beyond the Garden by Ashley Farley – finished
  • Everything is F*cked – a Book about Hope by Mark Manson – finished
  • The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd – finished
  • The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford – reading
• Continue to read the Washington Post and the New York Times for reasonably non-biased reporting. – I scan the headlines and read articles that interest me.
• I subscribe to Medium, and have read several articles of current interest.
• I also subscribe to The New Yorker magazine, digitally. I keep up with the east coast scene through it, as well as some pretty decent profiles of political figures.
• Continue to watch the Rachel Maddow Show to feed my angst and resolve. – Check
• The Poetry class is finished for this quarter. I finished my little book with illustrations, collages, and poetry this week. It was as much crafty as it was literary, but it was interesting.
• I don’t think I’ve mentioned that Big Al and I are members of a Great Decisions discussion group here at Franke Tobey Jones. We’ve been doing it for a couple of years now. The topic this month was Nationalism in Europe and I was the discussion leader. It’s sponsored and published by the Foreign Policy Association, and does a really balanced job of talking about hot topics in world affairs. The only problem is the workbooks and DVDs are done in the fall, and often, as was the case this month, events in the course have been superceded by actual events in the world today. Nevertheless, it’s interesting and enjoyable.

Spiritual Health

• Continue to participate in weekly Bible study, and weekly Worship. We’re finished with our 6-week break from Bible Study and will resume in July 2. I managed to attend worship every Sunday, including serving as Lay Leader for three Sundays, two of which were while the pastor was on a well-deserved vacation.
• Try to carve out time daily for intentional prayer and meditation. I’ve subscribed to several email “prompts” that arrive in my inbox every morning. The Upper Room has a couple of short reflections and/or devotionals every morning, and A Network for Gratefulness also gives me something to think about as I go about my day.
• I’m lobbying for my church to become an Earth Care Congregation with PC(USA). My current focus is with Plastic Free EcoChallenge as a member of the Presbyterians for Earth Care. Environmental action is near and dear to my heart, and I understand that we MUST solve these problems if we expect to leave a decent planet for our children and grandchildren.

Social Health

• Tend the relationships I have at Franke Tobey Jones. – I still regularly attend the Gazebo Group (the folks who meet on Monday evenings for Happy Hour.) I also participate in the Wellness Center activities like the Owen Beach walk most Fridays.
• Because most of the staff here at FTJ have holidays off leaving the residents with no family in the area with little to nothing to do except vegetate, every 4th of July I organize a potluck evening meal in the Gazebo. Anyone on campus who wants to come is invited. I don’t do much except arrange for extra chairs, an extra table and a big garbage can that the maintenance folks bring the day before and pick up the day after.
• Tend the relationships I have at Bethany Presbyterian Church. – I will return to Bible Study when it resumes in July. Coffee Hour is between the services, and it is held upstairs (adjacent to the Sanctuary), so I’ve been going pretty regularly.
• Tend the relationships I have on Social Media. I’m making an effort to avoid posting or reposting political articles, although I do still try to call out blatant racism, sexism, misogyny, etc. when it comes to my page.

Miscellaneous

• Participate in Town Halls and face-to-face meetings with elected officials.
• Attend GA Nominating Committee meetings, both face-to-face and virtually. Next meetings are scheduled for an on-line meeting in November and a face-to-face meeting in March.
• Support #BlackLiveMatter, #Me,Too, #ThePoorPeople’sCampaign, #ClimateAction, and other social justice movements. – I donate regularly to MoveOn, the ACLU, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. I attend rallies and marches if I’m available.