Author: Jana Horton

Open the little tote I keep hidden in my soul. It is shoved to the back behind the important bill-paying, money-making, responsible-citizen tote. It is the tote with the colors of the galaxies splashed across its hidden but conspicuous lid.

Open the tote.

Crazy wants to come out and stay.

She wants to color the world with rhymes and rhythms and the depths of spectrum that she alone sees.

Open the tote. She has so much to say. Poetry and beauty; prose, and the loveliness in small things.

Incongruity. She sees incongruity and can not fathom the universe of humanity.

Crazy cannot come out of her tote.

At the core of who I am I hear her singing of her solitude and a tear escapes from my heart as she is confined to the very center of my soul. She listens to Pachelbel and she reminds me, of who I am in the universe. I am one who wants to appreciate the mysteries of God; to hear the rocks cry out and the trees clap their hands. I am one who wants the simplicity of a humble heart and a spirit of kindness. Crazy tells me this. I believe.

I must not listen to her. It is unacceptable.

She is lost to me.

I do however, keep her glorious tote hidden as proof that I have seen her, and I know her. We both cry at the refrain: “open the tote,” but it cannot be.

The unwritten joys will stay unwritten. The melancholy melodies must flow from another. I have banished her for the good of self and sanity.

I do still hear the flutter in my heart. The flutter of wind through a green glade. I am happy. I hear Her still.

I must push her back to her place of inconspicuousness. She does not mind, she has the Master of the Universe as her maker and King. It is to Him she weeps. He gathers the dreams in her dormant state and promises her wings and depth of understanding on the day the tote is presented to Him; on the day He opens the tote.

He will open the tote splashed with the colors of the galaxies. He will delight in the unorthodox way she sees and praises and lives. May He not question our strange union but bless us both with renewed vision, compassion, and hopeful hearts.

We are thankful for those who are labeled ‘a bit odd,’ those who seek unexpected experiences, in place of the mundane. We desire to encourage those who are unusual and unaccepted. The social castoffs, what if they have a tote!?

Perhaps we are different together? Perhaps we are souls who bear a special bond, a forever gift we offer each other. The knowledge of ‘Unique’ living in the center of our souls… a gift to our God…

our glorious tote containing our socially unacceptable selves.

Open the tote.

My great grandmother was Nancy Viola Pool. She was known as Ola.

Ola was born on February 8, 1896.

Yes. This was during the eighteenth century; just barely, but definitely. It was long, long ago.

My youth and adolescent years were lived in a house next door to Ola. My brothers and I called her Gran-Gran. My mother called her Mama. Ola was the only loving motherlike influence in my own mother’s life.

I always thought that Gran-Gran was my grandmother (not my great grandmother) and I loved her dearly.

I am now sixty years old and Gran-Gran has been gone for over forty-five years. Yet, there is a phrase that I inherited from her. Words of wisdom, or just an observation? Was it unique to her, or was it a quote of the times? I do not know.

During uncertain times, I hear it in my head, as if she is speaking. During times of dismay, or times when I am baffled by the actions of others, I hear it in my head.

It was repeated so often by my mother (and attributed properly to her “Mama”) that it is part of who I am. It is one of the core fibers of my being. It is a phrase that shaped my point of view.

Now that it has been properly contextualized, it may sound simplistic, disappointing or be misunderstood.

My Gran-Gran used to say, “Honey, it takes all kinds of people to make this world go around, and they are all here.”

Simple? Trite? Outdated?

No.

These are words that take me out of my egocentric point of view and catapult me into an understanding that I am not the center of the universe. The things that I think, may be as foreign to another, as their thoughts are foreign to me.

I am an observer. It is not right or wrong to be an observer, but it is who I am. I love “typing” people using the Myers Briggs test (in my head). I do it subconsciously, and almost instantaneously. As I come to know someone, I look back at my initial evaluation and judge myself; how right or wrong was I?

It is how I think.

We are in times (2020) where there are unfathomable, and unimaginable things happening.

As an observer; how do I act. What can be done by me?

Will I speak when the issues are not clearly defined, and are horribly blurred by hatred? Pivotal issues rage.

Murder. Racism. Rioting. Looting. Retaliatory Murder. Distrust. Ambivalence. Insecurity. Isolation. Terror. Fear.

Who am I? How could I possibly in my minute existence in Small Town Texas, effect anything at all? These issues are bigger than any one of us.

No one person can solve the deep unrest and horror that is brewing in our country and world.

So. Inevitable unrest? Hatred and distrust of others who think differently? Continued and escalating violence?

I choose trust.

“Honey, it takes all kinds of people to make this world go around, and they are all here.” -Ola Pool

I chose to believe. I believe that in the wisdom of GOD comes knowledge. Strangely even in these situations, I believe in an overcoming love.

I chose to believe that “it takes all kinds of people…and we are all here.”

Those who choose trust, seem weak.

Choosing love may seem to be blind ignorance; however, with my heart, my prayers, and my observations, I am consciously focused on understanding the unfathomable.

Am I protesting and demonstrating? No.

I am watching.

I am loving.

I am asking for a discerning heart.

I am seeking actionable kindness.

We are all solitary souls united around the clamor of fear.

I choose trust.

I choose faith.

“We are all here.”

Our existence is not chance.

I was asked to name my greatest achievement.

Looking at one’s own life, it is hard to pinpoint specific achievements if you refuse to use cultural standards.

I refuse to use my culture’s definition of great achievements. So? Greatest achievement?

Fame.

No. I will never be famous.

When I was in a high school theatre program and later went to college for Theatre Arts; I dreamed of fame. I didn’t care about the ‘fortune’ that accompanies fame. I wanted to be recognized for my ability to act. It was a gift that many people recognized, and one that college professors encouraged in me. I was in special classes to develop specific talents that I thrived on.

My gifts in this area brought me such joy and in the end unbearable tragedy.

The LORD rescued me from my GIFT. He rescued me from what I considered great achievements.

It was because of the unbearably hurtful things that I endured during these times in my young adulthood, that I ‘looked up.’

I was very mad at the world and mad at GOD for causing (or allowing) so much pain in the world; and more specifically, pain in me.

Strangely abandoned by friends and loved ones; I returned to what I knew.

I started attending the Methodist Church near my home in Austin, TX.

I wanted to give God a piece of my mind. I wanted Him to know how mad I was at Him. As I sat in the beautiful church with the intense saturated colors from stained glass windows, and the glorious sounds of the Bell Choir, I told God how unfair it was that He made people blind and deaf. Some people could not see the beauty or hear the music.

I vowed that day to start a deaf theatre troupe. I would learn sign language to communicate with the deaf culture. I would use deaf actors to communicate ‘unheard’ to the hearing world.

That week; I went to the School for the Deaf in Austin, and bought The Big Red Book. I started a journey to learn sign language.

I heard it was okay to be mad at God.

Good.

I was mad. I was furious, hurt and inconsolable.

A wise Methodist man told me that God made me with emotions, and that He was big enough to embrace my anger.

Making a vow that I have never fulfilled may be one of my great achievements.

Seeing inequality in life and struggling with difficult questions, started me on a path that questioned God, and everything I knew, or thought I knew about Him. The red book I bought, and the sign language I vowed to teach myself, led me to the earthly love of my life. More importantly; it led me to my Jesus.

I never achieved the fame I desired.

I achieved something I never expected. I gained the knowledge that the King of the Universe loves me more than life itself.

That knowledge is my most cherished achievement.

It is not an achievement I am able to claim. It was a precious gift.

Psalm 135:13 Your name Lord endures forever, your fame Lord, through all generations.

Achievements are a strange thing.

How does one reconcile in ones’ mind the disparity between the rich and the poor?

As I soak up the sun on the dock of a beautiful lake home, on a glorious day, my mind turns to those in abject poverty.

Each situation; that of those enjoying the beautiful lake, and that of those suffering from hunger and want are conditions that were perhaps out of the control of those finding themselves in these situations.

How does Heaven view the rich and the poor? Are temporal things; gorgeous Lake homes, verses mud huts in third world countries, viewed differently from the Throne of God?

Does one represent a blessing while one represents indifference by the Almighty?

The heart of the poor, who put their children to bed hungry each night, is it somehow different from the heart of the one whose child eats contentedly?

Disparate.

How is it that with my out-of-focus mind, I question inequity? I am not a believer in redistribution of wealth, but I am a questioner. Is what I call a blessing rather a distraction? Or should I take this lovely day and do nothing more important than give thanks for it.

I give thanks, while also pondering the hungry waif and the struggling parents who question their lives; and perhaps question my life.

Reconcile my mind to You Lord.

Show me.

In tangible ways I want to be one who is aware; one who takes action.

Send Hope to the hopeless.

Send Love to the unloved; may we see by the Spirit of wisdom the condition of our own hearts.

May we seek and may we find as we seek You without the temporal distractions of this world.

May my disparity be one of soul, where I recognize that this world is but a shadow.

I want to continue asking.

I want to know.

What do I think? What do I do?

Most importantly; what do YOU think?

Who do I LOVE? What do I give.

Oh! Where does my heart wander as I soak up this sun?

Little One, what do you see?

Your ecstatic smile lights your face.

Are there reflective thoughts that you alone think? Is there a Voice that you alone hear?

What is this joy that you soley observe?

Seeing as you see would delight my soul.

Joy often eludes the old.

Beauty in Nature becomes insignificant; trivial and expected. Mundane.

Common.

How did I let Nature’s beauty escape the grasp of my mind; the very essence of self?

Did I stop listening to the whisper of the breeze? Is the sparkle in the dust somehow lost on me? The rainbow in the puddle; where did it go?

Little One. Revive my wonder.

Smile, twinkle, revel. Teach me.

Remind my spirit of the simple Beauty in smallness.

Oh Little One, share with me.

What do you see?

You may never know your hero.

Who was that woman who stepped up to the cashier and swiped her debit card to pay for the groceries while I was panicking because my wallet wasn’t in my purse.

Who was the man who pulled over and changed my flat tire on the hot dusty road? He wouldn’t let me pay him.

There was a hero who had a chain and a pickup truck and rescued dozens of Texas drivers who slid into a ditch when a road was covered by unexpected and invisible ice.

Heroes wipe the tears of the heartbroken and offer tissues when life has become torrential-blinding-pain. When the world stops spinning and time stands still, the hero isn’t the myth flying around with a red cape, but the one offering a box of tissues, or a cool drink and a sandwich.

Some heroes have the gift of a smile that they offer freely and genuinely to the destitute, lonely and marginalized. They must possess some sort of X-ray vision allowing them to see society’s cast-offs.

Kindness and genuine concern seem to be their super power.

There are vocational heroes and there are volunteer heroes. There are heroes who do not think they are heroic. They walk and live and breathe in the midst of us. By their selfless actions we are encouraged. We hope.

You may never know your hero.

Strive though, to be heroic to one who needs to see hope in humanity.