Every single morning and evening I have a routine of checking my social media such as facebook. One group/page in particular is always on mind and agenda. The FB prayer group for my friend Clint Miller. 

I met Clint and his vivacious wife, Angela, years ago when we were all living in Campus Housing at the University of Montana. They had the unfortunate privilege of living in the apartment below this family of nine. I constantly worried about the million and one sounds they must have endured on a daily basis, but Angela and Clint constantly reassured us "it's all good." We saw each other in passing, as our lives were very busy at that point in time and on occasion we would have a passing conversation or two. After we moved, we lost touch. The wonderful world of facebook reunited us once again. 

Shortly after adding Angela to my facebook, I discovered Clint was diagnosed with cancer. Damn cancer. Just when I think I sometimes carry the weight of the world on my shoulders and I want to lie down and whine and kick about what life is throwing my way, I think of them. I think of Angela facing the prospect of raising her children, two beautiful boys,  without her lover and friend by her side and it slaps my face with the reality there are truly bigger things in life than the struggles I currently handle. She has faced "this"  with grace, tenacity, and a fortitude which inspires me. Clint has faced it with hope, humor, and a fighters spirit.

This week Angela posted on the prayer board her thoughts on hospice. It reminded me that every person their lives have touched has been forever changed. Their struggle and this path they have walked has altered and enhanced who I am and how I view the world. It has opened my eyes to what it means to truly live. It has shown me the love, comfort, and support all of us in the family of mankind can and should grant to one another.   Even Lance Armstrong has extended letters of encouragement to Clint and I have read Clint would love nothing better to share a beer with Mr. Armstrong!

I struggled with which blog to post this under. I paused a moment and realized how much I have learned about faith through Clint. In the face of the unknown and unthinkable this beautiful couple has blessed so many.  Angela's words are posted here with her permission. I ask you to read them, pray for this beautiful family and those who love them. She is one of the most inspiring women I have ever had the privilege of knowing. I thank her for sharing her life in all its aspects with me. 

by: Angela Miller
Hospice is not about giving up. It is not about dying - it is about LIVING while you're dying. "Hospice" seems to be the four-letter word in the cancer jargon as if it to never leave our lips, cleansed from our vocabularies, and left to shrivel on the vine as some white flag of surrender. Is there a psychological hump that needs to be gotten over to say, "It's time for this?" Yes. I'm not going to lie that just like any other help in life, you have to acknowledge you need it before you can get it. 

But - let's face it - we're all dying. Every one of us. All 921 of us on this board are dying. We only have so many grains in the hourglass. Some more, some less, and the funny thing about life is we just don't know how many there are or how fast they are pouring out. Terminal cancer - or any terminal illness - doesn't make a mortal being. It simply magnifies mortality that we've all been had with us since conception. Life is truly a sexually transmitted affliction that nobody lives through. Anticipatory death - like pregnancy and birth being about anticipatory life - is a process. And, like pregnancy and birth, it isn't something that should be done alone and with anything less than the best supportive care, advice, medicine, emotional support, and love. 

As many of you may know, Clint Miller enrolled on hospice over a month ago and it has been the biggest blessing and one of the greatest unsung resources in modern medicine. It takes a special breed of person to be a hospice nurse and I'm pleased to say that we've hit the jackpot.

No, we never wanted it to be this way. This wasn't our "happily ever after." But, if it has to be this way, then I can lay my head on my pillow every night and know that we're doing this the right way and that we've risen to the occasion for "happily." The "ever after" is up to us . . .

One challenge facing me on a daily basis is how to balance the mundane with the spiritual aspects of who I am as a woman, mother and wife. In the midst of looking for my car keys, I am being hollered at by Lil’ Bit (my youngest). “Mommy have you seen basketball shorts? I can’t find them anywhere. They were on the end of my bed last night.”  I run to her room and tear apart the bedding to find them wedged between the wall and the mattress,  help another find their back pack, make sure coats are on, breakfast is put away, morning chores are attended to. Run back into the living room to check my emails only to realize I have not sent my children out the door with a morning blessing. Whew. Often times it would be so easy just to drop all the spiritual aspects and stick to getting my family out the door, but the spiritual is the fuel of our souls and keeps us inspired, creative and moving forward; not bogged down. On the days, or even weeks, that I throw these spiritual practices out the window for the sake of convenience, I can feel the difference in our energy and abilities to function as a collective.

I have found if I just organize my life, the best I can, let go of anything of non importance, such as folding socks, my life runs smoother. Do you know how much time I save in a week by just throwing all the socks into one laundry basket and not folding them? This leaves time for a walk in the woods with my son or an important talk with my daughter. All of which could have been lost, by folding socks.

In the normal course of the day there is plenty to do, as I head out the door to grab groceries for dinner,  regrettably faced with the return to cell service, as the cell phones don't work on the farm. Another ring and one of my children is struggling at school. A quick detour to help her navigate her way around a relationship problem that has been there since kindergarten, reminding her this life is fraught with issues and lessons and many things cannot be solved.   “Remain here, in the now" I tell her. "Be the bigger person, learn your lesson, practice forgiveness, pray for her, and move on. Let the other person worry about whether she will grow from this or not. You can only change you my daughter”

The car is clunking and the printer is on the fritz, and someone told me things are a struggle right now because mercury is in retrograde (what does that mean anyways?) and I should wait to have them fixed until it is over.Think I'll take my chances and have them fixed and trust all will be well.  Time to order seeds for our garden and shopping for prom outfits for the teens. Run my business; submit my billing, race to the store before it closes. Pick up the house while trying to remind myself that even these tasks are a spiritual practice; I am creating a peaceful environment. Suppers on, pick up the kids, get the homework done, eat, bath, bed, but not before everyone writes what they are thankful for in the gratitude journal.

Often times I read parenting books or books on spirituality and I wonder at how effortless it sounds to bring spiritual awareness into everyday moments. Life is messy, busy, and changes on a regular basis particularly when you have children. Sometimes it is just plain exhausting to have one more thing on your plate, however I have found that the more time I can spend nourishing my spiritual self, the smoother the rest of life flows, or at the very least, the better I am able to handle it. I take them time to attend church services and ladies group, though adding one more thing to my week seems impossible the realization is ever present: I cannot feed my family if my soul feels dry and withered.

A friend of mine recently said I was a mix between Bob the Builder and Martha Stuart with a little Mary Poppins thrown in. This morning my endeavor is to channel my "inner Martha", while drinking my morning coffee and attempt to bring some order to this place. Order in my world does not include walking into my living room, the sleep not yet out of my eyes and slipping on wet mud that one of my fellas tracked in only to slide into something I am not even sure is from this planet and then falling over their rubber barn boots which are not where they belong. Mopping before coffee was not on the to-do list this morning but the mess had to be laid to rest before I could even think of filling my house with the aroma of java and engaging in my devotions. I have to admit my I could feel my blood pressure rise and my thoughts were anything but loving and kind toward my children. For a brief moment I could understand why some species eat their young. Before you gasp in indignation at my thoughts you have to admit anyone who has ever had to deal with teenagers at one time or another has resonated with that statement.

Before I could even wrestle with the mess left behind I decided there was nothing like the present moment to be thankful for the gifts in my life. There is something about practicing thankfulness in the midst of chaos and frustration. It is easy to practice one's spiritual beliefs when all is well. I have to learn to practice my faith no matter what life brings me. We are told in the New Testament ( I Thess 5:18) "to give thanks in all things..."  Where does the spiritual aspect intertwine with the mundane? It is where the rubber meets the road: daily practice, daily mindfulness, daily focus.  In my world, the spiritual intertwines in every way. There is no way for me to separate out the spiritual from the mundane, as the practice of my spirituality shows it’s real shade of color on how well I can apply it in the everyday. Mountain top experiences are profound, and refreshing, but we cannot live everyday there. It is in the bringing back into our daily experience that we truly honor it and its meanings. When raising children, or managing our jobs and co workers,  and living out our daily lives, if we view the task as a spiritual experience, it can awaken and change us. We live more fully,  heal ourselves and experience profound changes in our own lives and the lives of those around us.

When Seth and I were first married we had no dishwasher and our washing machine would not shut off on its own. I had to turn the water on and off throughout the cycle or it would over flow. While I fancy myself an organized person, 7 kids ages seven and under quickly derailed much of my natural tendency toward organization. I had been begging, more accurately nagging,  Seth to purchase a dishwasher and fix the machine and his reply was "My mom used to boil water for dishes on the wood stove and wash clothes in the creek up the canyon, at least we have a washing machine." You can imagine how well that response went over. One day I overflowed the machine five times. The last time this occurred I bore no resemblance to a prim and proper southern girl practicing her spiritual beliefs in the mundane moments of life. I am pretty sure I felt on my face the looks I had seen, as a child, on my mother. My children fondly call it "the look of DEATH."  Instead of breaking out the mop and more towels, I  walked out to garage and retrieved Seth's drill from his tool box. I drilled three holes in the floor and allowed it to drain under the house. When Seth returned home I told him where he could take his stories of his childhood  and suggested sweetly, through clenched teeth, if he did not want our floor to look like swiss cheese, he had better address our washer issue.  So as I address the laundry monster and the tower of dishes today, I will be thankful. It may take a little extra fortitude but things could be worse. Today I posses a dish washer and a new washer and dryer!