Whatever He Says

By Belinda If you never change your mind, why have one? Edward De Bono I did a quick search, looking for a good quote on "making up one's mind," for this post, and found that almost all of them implied that making up the mind was a good thing to do; indicating action, as in the opposite of indecision. But lately I've been trying to find my way out of that very thing, a bad habit of making up my mind about things! For the making up of the mind, I've discovered, can be unhelpful. I've come to think of it like making up a bed; all the corners tucked in tight, no room for too much movement there. I found this post a perfect excuse for using the photo of the lacy leaves at Scanlon Creek this weekend. They are as full of tiny holes as some of the stories I construct in my mind, when I am in the process of making it up. I don't think I'm alone in my tendency. We seem wired to try to make sense of the world around us by interpreting the data of...

By Belinda Genesis 15:12-14 (New International Version) 12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. 13 Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. I pondered this prophesy, given to Abraham, and fulfilled hundreds of years later, when the people of Israel were enslaved in Egypt. It brought home to me that there is a bigger story and we are all part of it. Writers learn that a really good story--one that rings true and captivates our interest--has twists and turns, ups and downs; conflict and tension and moments of high drama. When I understand my life as part of a bigger story, suddenly a lot of my perceptions shift. Once I grasp this, my importance diminishes in my own eyes. I am pa...

I stood in the line up at the grocery store, captivated by the display of magazines, trying to resist the urge to buy one promising all sorts of sure fire ways to "eliminate belly fat forever" --I already have an unread stack of magazines at home and I know I don't need one more--I must surely have the secret of blasting away the belly somewhere, if only I look. On the one hand were the magazines promising perfection of various sorts: How to be the perfect mother, cook, hostess, gardener, home-maker etc. and right beside them the tabloid magazines that glory in other people's misery--the break up of marriages, or the battles with anorexia. It struck me that the magazine stand is a metaphor for the way we tend to be when we aren't honest about our own lives. I used to look at others and think they had it much more together than I did. Oddly, they were looking at me and thinking the same thing. When we live our lives with such a sense of inadequacy, it can give us ...

This story took place on a dark November night a few years ago when I was driving alone into town for a party. A deep, bone numbing, glacial chill hung over our area. The snow that had arrived several days earlier showed no signs of leaving but had settled in like a house guest who was overstaying his welcome. It crunched and squeaked beneath our feet as we huddled deep into our coats and jackets with shoulders hunched and collars raised against the biting wind. As I approached the traffic light in the centre of town, I slowed to a stop as the light turned amber, but my teeth rattled in my head as there was a jolt and a thud. The car behind me, following too close and not expecting me to stop, had hit my bumper. We both got out and the other driver, who was very apologetic, checked my car, but there seemed to be no damage, so I didn't bother getting his name and number. The light changed and I drove on to my office where I had one or two things that I had to do before going on to t...