Yesterday I started out the morning by going to a women's group -something I haven't done in many years even though I did for many years. I knew that part of the reason it was happening -beyond just trying to get the word out on the adventure park I do marketing for - is because of the positive, spiritual influence of the presence of women together. There's something unique about the calming, healing energy women extend to the world around them. I prayed a good portion of my time there over everyone and whatever God has planned for the greater work women networking can do.
The group met at Molly Brown's summer home. A woman there who had recently moved from Texas didn't know who Molly Brown was and another woman said, "She survived the Titanic and was featured in that movie with Leonardo DiCaprio..." That's sort of the stereotype/vague understanding of Molly. Margaret Brown is the reason there are juvenile prisons separate from adult prisons. She was in the suffrage movement. She helped widows and young women who lost everything after the Titanic sank by donating to them and making sure they were looked after. She was one of the first American women leaders.
It is incredible that you can pave the way, do so much, be remembered for so little, and yet even today have a space set aside for future generations of women to occupy to connect with others and make a positive difference.
It was beautiful. And there was this one girl named Theresa I particularly bonded with. It's amazing how souls do that. I couldn't find the entrance and felt off-center and uncertain and saw her coming and didn't know if she was a recurring member or a new one and said, "Do you know where the entrance is?" And she said, "No, I'm new" and somehow found the right door and we went in.
Her friend had gone to the adventure park I work at the previous weekend. Everyone else either didn't know the area it was in or got us confused with another park. And I could tell we kind of co-dependently looked to one another throughout the opening of the meeting where we were all greeting strangers. It's nice to have someone in your corner when your in someplace that's new.
And I know that God is leading me to bring more women to the park. Which sounds weird and was kind of a strange notion when I first realized that was what was spiritually occurring.
My first thought when the idea first started sinking in was, "Why are there only Corporate retreats and not Entrepreneurial ones? Why don't entrepreneurs do that, we have enough groups out there..."
I felt like Corporate/Big business had a slice of this fun, amazing time that entrepreneurs didn't get because it never occurred to them hey could have it.
But then I hesitated with Women's entrepreneurial groups. It's ziplining, and rafting, and via ferrata (safer-version-of-mountain-climbing) and Zorbing (giant hamster ball people roll down a hill in). But I did a back-flip on the bungee trampoline and all I know is it was a Human Experience that made me feel my Soul in an amazing way. It was FUN.
The adventure park industry (zipline/climbing/rafting) is catered to men. Women come. Families come. But it's catered from men to men. The CEO told me he wanted to change that. 60 -70% of the employees at the park are women. The guides who take you up the climbing wall, the concierge at the front desk, the park manager/overseer... Mostly Women.
And I thought, Colorado women, and most women in general, aren't afraid of adventure. So why not reach out to them? Hence my desire to reach out to women's groups. I also dedicated an entire week called "Women's Week" at the park where women's groups get 20% discount on adventure packages. Hence the reason for the women's group outreach.
After that I drove back through the mountains to the park. We were blessedly given the chance to work in the new Cantina/Bar since they were doing light construction out of the other office. It was beautiful out -colors I'm not used to seeing and haven't looked on for at least a couple years.
But I went right to work.
I contacted over 6 different radio stations this past week to try and get commercial spots to announce the park's grand opening. Didn't realize how expensive hat was, so after much negotiating and back-and-forth on packaged rates I've narrowed it down to 2 radio stations and am waiting back to confirm that the costs are fine. One of the stations is NPR. I think God is trying to heal the wound between me and that station.
Most of the people I know who listen to NPR have a passionate appreciation for its contributions to trying to inform people about important things. I had a long list of issues with it's attempt to do that as effectively as it could, but it is better than nothing. Thanks to NPR some of the politically deaf people that I know are fairly well-informed about different things they otherwise would have had either No understanding of or an ignorant misunderstanding of. That said, it still pains me to listen to that station. For me personally, I can't do it. I wish them well.
Then after all that and a bunch of other computer work, I decided to take a break and take a stroll for a good 15 minutes and wander around the woods. It was great reprieve.
I think we take our jobs too seriously at the park. I keep forgetting in all this business and marketing it's about FUN. It's about getting people out of their cubicles, and their heads, and the over-crowded city to come to a place they've rarely ventured into to experience the vast serene views only nature can provide and have some fun spinning around too fast in a gyrosphere.
People make things more complicated than they should be.
And now it's today and I'm useless. I have a million graphic design/marketing things to do for PHB and Jos and my brain is like, "NOPE." I worked from 6am to 6pm at the vertical farm on Monday. I had only been working there 3 days a week, but I'm drained. Hiring new people hasn't been working out for them, so at one point there was only 3 people on the line pulling, editing, and packaging hundreds of heads of lettuce as Part 2 of our 4 Part day. Normally we have 5 to 6 people.
Right now is delay. We're all moving on from the past, letting go of the old, and paving our way towards greater. But it isn't here entirely.
It reminds me of the last week of high school right before I graduated. Work didn't mean as much because I just wanted to be free and move forward with my life. I cared about the people around me and knew I would probably never see most of them again, but the slow pace of the days leading towards the inevitable break felt too loooonnnnggggggg.
And it's not just in my life, or work life, that this is happening.
The children should have been freed by now. It genuinely felt like a grasp had been made and a shift had finally occurred and people would intercede on the children's behalf and get them out of the camps and the senseless neglect and pain.
Then today they posted a picture of a father and a 3 year old daughter who had drowned and washed ashore on the Rio Grande after being denied sanctuary by this "Christian Nation". They had tried to swim to get across instead. They died.
And I didn't feel much. I feel numb. Like it's nothing new. Like it's 2 lives out of 1,000s more that have died in various ways without our knowledge -even though we KNOW. I knew it was something that would change nothing. And it hasn't.
Hell pulled back its grasp. Things are stalemated in a spiritual war that we're trying to bring peace to. The kids are still there -without basic necessities like toothpaste and soap.
But you can see this possibility for things to change when this new shift comes in the next week or so. When we finally break free of the old and achieve NEW. For the kids, this means a break for freedom as well. It has to. Too many people have prayed on this for too long -including the parents to be reunited with their abused and stolen children.
Some people have actually talked about breaking them out. Spilling tea into the Boston Harbor was fought over for less. You will see rebellion if there is no change in civility. You deny civility by being inhumane, people will create a civil divide that is less than civil.
Sometimes I think it will be more like a march on Washington. Sometimes I wonder why that hasn't happened already. They're kids. Some have died at this point. Other times I do think it might be something more historically significant. Some moment that seems almost random or strange that becomes defining of a movement. Like Rosa Parks and the bus. Or Kaepernick with the knee.
But it won't be a father and a daughter face down on the banks of the river.
We're delayed.
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