Waiting for the G-d Breeze

I have been a FlyLady fan (or FlyBaby) for many years - I can't even remember when I joined or who pointed me towards her website. She has been an incredible blessing to me, and I encourage all who struggle with ADHD, diagnosed or not, to explore her site and let her comforting, down-South voice replace all the negativity in their heads. While FlyLady's mission is ostensibly to help you declutter your home, she knows that it's the clutter between the ears that is the real issue. My home is still pretty cluttered, especially with the kids home for most of the summer, but I know that much of the strength to pull myself out of the holes of my own making has come from her support. FLYing means to Finally Love Yourself, and that is so hard for many people, especially those of us who have lived under the weight of huge expectations all of our lives. FlyLady doesn't use the concept of the Lizard Brain, but she knows all about hateful voices in our heads.

One of the tools that FlyLady uses to deprogram her FlyBabies from their defeatist attitude is a series of essays she sends out by email - as she has remarked, she was a blogger before blogging was invented. As a devout Christian, she attributes the inspiration for many of these essays to her Midnight Editor - dreams, snatches of song, any idea that comes to her, usually in the night. Her husband refers to these inspirations as G-d Breezes - put up your sails and go! I feel that this is a concept that anyone who believes in a higher power can accept, whether they call it Allah or the Life Force.

Lately, G-d Breezes have been blowing at me, too. I was running in the park yesterday and I saw a woman walking a dog. She was wearing a Manitoba Marathon shirt with the proud word FINISHER on the back. Yes! I need to be a finisher!

I have tried to become a runner so many times, but this time, I will succeed, because I set myself a clear goal and silenced the Lizard Brain. The Run for the Cure is taking me in a new direction. I am humbled by the over $500 my friends have pledged to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. I am excited by my ability to carry out the Couch to 5K program - yesterday I ran for 25 minutes without stopping, and yes, I can do this. I know I will be able to run the 5K. I don't expect any medals, but I will be a finisher, and that is all that matters. The G-d Breezes are carrying me there.

With the passing of Jack Layton, I have been feeling G-d Breezes pushing me to try and make the world a better place. So far the Lizard Brain has been finding objections to every plan, but I am pretty sure that I just need to find the right thing. When I do, I will feel a great swoosh in the back, just as I have with the running. I just have to keep looking for the goal that will get me moving.

Which way are your G-d Breezes blowing?

It's all about Jack

This week, Canada has been swept by a wave of grief for the untimely passing of Jack Layton, leader of the federal New Democratic Party and of L'Opposition Loyale de Sa Majesté. He passed away early Monday morning after a courageous fight with cancer, only a few months after leading his social democratic party to an unprecedented 103 seats in Parliament.

Reams have been written in the last two days about his illustrious career, beginning as a Toronto city councillor (sometimes serving as deputy mayor and acting mayor of Canada's largest city) and continuing as the Member of Parliament for Toronto-Danforth and leader of Canada's social democrats, crowned by his amazing near-sweep of Quebec (unfortunately, the Conservatives very nearly swept my own province of Manitoba. Maybe I should move). He was a musician, a gentleman whom his opponents are proud to honour this week, a father and a friend. But that is not why I am writing about him now.

I just want to talk about one paragraph, in one letter, and what it means to me.

Before he passed away, Jack (and I never knew him, but that is whom he has always been, to me and to thirty-three million other Canadians) wrote a letter to his party, his caucus, fellow cancer sufferers, to young Canadians, and to all of us. He concluded with the following paragraph:

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

In the last federal election, I voted for the Greens (mostly because I knew and liked their candidate, and had never even met the others - and I knew the Conservative candidate would win anyway, sigh). In the last provincial election, I voted for the NDP because I liked Gary Doer. Not very good reasons for choosing a party, one might say. I am an incorrigible social democrat, a feminist, a believer in the perfectibility of the world. The personal is always very political, to me.

But I do have a reason to be fired up, to want to change the world, to be loving, hopeful and optimistic. I never met Jack Layton, much to my regret. I think he's the best Prime Minister Canada never had, and now never will have. He was cut down with his work unfinished. The Mishna says the following in Pirkei Avot, a blueprint for an ethical life that we study on Shabbat afternoons:

Rabbi Tarfon taught: "It is not your responsibility to finish the work [of perfecting the world], but you are not free to desist from it either" (2:16).

I don't yet know what I can do to make the world a better place, but I do feel that it is incumbent upon me, and upon every person who is grieving Jack Layton's untimely passing, to do whatever we can to increase the light in the world, now that such a bright light has gone out.

How will you help make the world a better place?