Undeleted

I didn't know google had an undelete blog button when I deleted it last month. Pam, Craig, Shelly and Kandi have supported me and encouraged me so much. Why aren't 4 people who really care and love me and faithfully read it enough? You are! Thanks so so much for cheerleading. It just took me awhile to get it. The craving for the people closest to you to care never ends......

The 2 books that have totally humbled me, straightened out my thinking, infused me with new

encouragement and hope are: "The Pursuit of Elegance" by Matthew May and "Ignore Everybody" by Hugh Macleod, who is one of the most honest, real, naked, vulnerable, encouraging, straightforward, raw, unfiltered, tenacious, brave, broken, healed, whole, leading with a limp, truth telling author..... ever. He breathed new life into me somehow. It was good rx and just right like the baby bear's porridge.

Two things. An old friend, Tamoko Adachi once gave me a book which she had inscribed with wonderful Japanese characters. As she showed me what she had written, she explained that the characters represented my name. My name meant 'Elegant'. Those of you who know me know that I'm anything BUT elegant in the sense of how we hear and use the name. I'm messy, overweight, free flying, lazy, unkempt, unfashionable, unfiltered, introverted, handicapped on several fronts, etc. It wasn't until I read "In Pursuit of Elegance" that a glimmer of a light went on. With Matthew May's definition of elegance......OF COURSE.... I have lived life in the pursuit of elegance, wanting it - not always nailing it down.

Then, I started devouring Hugh MacLeod's 'gapingvoid.com' blog, going back and back and back into the dark recesses of his archives and found one of his now famous 'back of a business card cartoons' with the parable of the white pebble, referring to the verse in Revelations which talks about how God will give us a white pebble with our name that he has given to us written on the bottom. Only he and us know what it says. He tells of a monk who explained it to him. There's a name we get from other people, a name we give ourselves and then the name on the white pebble......

Here's the deal......I have the white pebble. God gave it to me. I know what it says. He named me. Why do I keep forgetting? When I do, does it make him cry?

I'm gonna keep on blogging till the cows come home or I go home, even if I have an audience of one. Him.

Do you know your name? Your white pebble name? Ask......