Gifted for something or do you have vision?

Steve Goodier tidbits on Life and Love:

GIFTED FOR SOMETHING?

I heard of a woman who operated a daycare for children from her home. As she transported children in her car one day, a fire truck zoomed by. The kids were thrilled to see a Dalmatian on the front seat, just like in the old-time stories.

They began a conversation about the duties of a “fire dog.” One child suggested that they use the dog to keep the crowds back. Another said the Dalmatian is just for good luck. But young Jamie brought the argument to an end when he said, “They use the dog to find the hydrant!”

He reminds us that we all have useful abilities, if sniffing out fire hydrants is a useful ability. Some of our skills are apparent. Some are hidden. Some probably haven’t even been discovered. Some can be improved with work — lots of mine fall into this category.

Madame Marie Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize (she won two), said this about giftedness: “Life is not easy for any of us, but what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.”

I like that. “We must believe that we are gifted for something.” Do you believe you are gifted for something? Do you know what that “something” is?

American football’s William Floyd probably thought his athletic ability was his greatest gift. But then he injured his knee halfway through his 1995 season with the San Francisco Forty-Niners. The talented athlete was out for the rest of the season. It was then that he found a gift he may not have known he possessed.

William Floyd still wanted to contribute and he did NOT want his self pity to spill over to the rest of the team. So he stood on the sidelines at every workout and in every game and encouraged his teammates on. He shouted and cajoled; he motivated and consoled; he became a dominating presence and a source of great inspiration for his team. He had a remarkable ability for bringing out the best in others.

At the end of the year, his teammates voted him the player “who best exemplifies inspirational and courageous play.” As much as they needed him on the field, they discovered how much they needed him on the sidelines, urging them to do and to be their best. I wonder if his newly-found life skill, his gift of positive motivation, could prove more useful than even his athletic ability?

What if we believed we were “gifted for something”? What difference would that make? And what if we believed we should do something about it? What difference would that make? What difference COULD that make? I think a lot of life is about finding that out.

Gene completely agrees!

HOW’S YOUR VISION?
One woman laughs about the time she took her 14-year-old daughter and her daughter’s best friend to a Peter, Paul and Mary concert. They were all fans of “oldies” music from the 60′s and 70′s and felt lucky to get front row seats. When they returned home, her daughter said, “During the show, we looked back and saw hundreds of little lights swaying to the music. At first we thought the people were holding up cigarette lighters. Then we realized that the lights were the reflections off all the eyeglasses in the audience.” (Thanks to “Reader’s Digest”)

My eyesight isn’t what it used to be, either. But as Helen Keller (who could neither hear nor see) said, “The greatest tragedy in life is people who have sight but no vision.” Maybe I should be more concerned with my vision than with my eyesight.

There are numerous stories of people who lacked vision. A Hollywood producer scrawled a curt rejection note on a manuscript that became “Gone With The Wind.” He had no vision for the success that movie would enjoy.

Orville and Wilbur Wright felt excited. On December 17, 1903, they had finally succeeded in keeping their homemade airplane in the air for 59 seconds. Immediately, they rushed a telegram to their sister in Dayton, Ohio, telling of this great accomplishment. The telegram read, “First sustained flight today fifty-nine seconds. Hope to be home by Christmas.”

Upon receiving the news of the successful flight, their sister was so excited that she rushed to the newspaper office and gave the telegram to the editor. The next morning the newspaper headed the story: “Popular Local Bicycle Merchants To Be Home For Holidays.” The hapless editor saw what was obvious, but missed the real story.

Vision is never about seeing the obvious. It’s about looking ahead; about seeing what is not there — YET. It’s often about seeing the potential behind the obvious.

Like the potential in people. Spotting the potential for success in a student who, as is obvious to everyone else, will likely fail.

Or recognizing the potential for something good to come from a situation others are writing off as lost.
If we want to see what is really going on, we will need to learn to spot what is not there, then act on it.

So… your eyesight may be perfect, but how’s your vision?

Now, then, as I am back in control of the keyboard, what do you think of that? Perfect eyesight but lack of vision. I wonder if it isn’t lack of vision that keeps us standing still or mired in the past, rather than looking forward, using the present moment we talked about in the previous entry to build toward a future of our own design. I don’t think any great artist started a project by simply splashing paint randomly on a canvas, then again – I don’t really get modern art, lol, or sat down to write without an idea of what to write about, or began a series of physics experiments aimlessly. No, I think for anything to have a chance of real success, we must first find that inner vision, then work to make our outer vision match the inner. If one does that, well, I think that one might be called a master, for he or she will have discovered that the path to happiness always goes through ones own heart, that the road to success, however one defines that term, goes through ones own thought process, originating within and perhaps ending there as well or being shared with the world at large. In any case, be it micro or macro, it begins with an inner vision – that vision may not be one of beauty, it may reflect a woeful life, but it also contains within it the seed to a life filled with love and purpose. The choice is always our, whether we believe that or not, and it begins with what we do with each precious moment of life we are granted, living in that moment and shaping it to our own will as determined by our inner vision. We are all but models in clay, what we become, what we do, what our finished product looks like when we reflect back on our lives, is and has always been, within our control, no matter where we live nor what we believe, this is a truth which is universal. Life IS what you make of it. The choice has always been yours. And mine. :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

A reflection on parenthood

Last week was my first birthday without either of my sons. One has been gone 14 1/2 years, frozen in time at 21; the other not quite a year. I took the week off, knew it would be difficult and it was. But it was more than that too. It was a week of reflection, rest and rejuvenation. I experienced every emotion we humans can, I think.

There are those who choose to remain childless and to them I say simply, you are right, there are no wrong choices here. But I have to say as well that through my sons I experienced a love I would never have dreamed existed. The bright flash of new romantic love is exciting and wonderful and flares brilliantly, like a newborn star, most of the time when that starlight burns out, as is the case with most stars in our universe, we are left with but an ember, not always a pleasant one, but when that first all-encompassing delight begins to dim, as it must, but gives way to an enduring companionable love, that too is wonderful.

But without the privilege my sons accorded me in allowing me to be their dad, even though for me, for far too little a time, I would never have known this other side of love at all. Parental love is like no other, there is nothing you would not do for your child, including the cliched “leaping in front of a car” for them. This love is completely without condition, it can’t be stopped by a misbehaving two year old, or a snarky 13 year old, or a troubled teen or an adult who sometimes made unwise choices. You simply do not understand that feeling, that love, from the other end, I didn’t. Oh, I knew my parents loved me but I didn’t know what that meant until I held my own children in my arms. Until I went through as much of life with them as I was accorded. It could never have been enough time for me, I loved them both that much and still do. But even with having lost them both, I came out of last week knowing I wouldn’t have forgone the experience for anything. They taught me far more than ever I taught them. I would be a lesser man, I know, had I not had them in my life at all. So, even with them both gone, I am still learning from them, and still loving them with all my heart. We’ll see each other again, I know that too. I came out of last week knowing, despite it all, I was blessed by their presence and will always be. What a great gift they gave me and I still AM a dad, I doubted that for a while, quite a while, but I don’t any longer. Blessed be, my sons. I shall see you soon in paradise. love, dad

If today brings even one choice your way,
choose to be a Bringer of the Light :^) gene

My taste in sports and with a bit of opinion on them.

I’ve recently updated my Facebook profile with some of my favorite things. They are all women’s things. No, not clothing. Sports. I have been an athlete all my life until two knee surgeries a few years back, but I have come to realize over the last ten years that I no longer enjoyed watching male athletes. There are many reasons, I cannot abide the spitting in baseball, they even have little leaguers doing it now, gross. They no longer all chew tobacco so why? Turns my stomach. Then comes virtually every other sport with the trash talking, obscene salaries and the sham of “student athletes”. What I did discover 10 years ago or so was that what I used to love about male sports is now only true of women’s sports. Teamwork, trust in each other, actually graduating from college, sportsmanship. And none of them spit anything.

Lindsay Whalen, as a young Minnesota Gopher, ignited my interest and I attended a basketball game for the first time in 20 years at the University of Minnesota, but my interest has since spread to so many other sports. Because I found the same thing there. No chest thumping, no whining, no horrible behavior at all, but women who give all they have to their sport, excel in the classroom, and give back to their communities, and in some sports, like women’s professional golf, to every community they visit. They acknowledge their fans, they don’t spit on them. They are role models any parent would be proud to have his/her children look up to and emulate.

One thing that does bug me about women’s sports though is male coaches. And I don’t care how successful they are, Geno Auriemma, for example. There are a trillion opportunities for men to coach men as it has always been. Women have been playing long enough now that there are more than enough to fill the coaching ranks, give THEM the opportunities. I don’t normally preach discrimination, well okay, never do I, but in this one particular area, men have no business.

My fervent hope is that people everywhere will realize that these young women bring the same dedication to their sport that men do and they play a wonderful game, if you don’t expect them to be men, but can admire their talent level for what it is. I have been a golfer all of my adult life, but I can’t identify at all with any PGA pro, we don’t play the same game (360 yard drives and 200 yard 7 irons), and besides they don’t talk to peons. But the LPGA pro’s not only play a game I can aspire to they are good people as well, they sign autographs till their fingers are about to fall off, they promote their sport, they are wonderful to their fans and so appreciative of the ability to do something for a living that they love. That, and them, I admire. Women’s fastpitch softball is an amazing game played by amazing athletes, women’s volleyball is not one set and thunderous slam, but true teamwork and incredibly more entertaining than the men’s game. I’d go on a bit, but my Lady Gophers, ranked number 12 in the preseason polls are about to begin playing their first match of the season at Penn State and without the coach who led them to great heights, the one exception I’ll concede in terms of male coaches in women’s sports, Mike Hebert. I am very much looking forward to it. :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way,
choose to be a Bringer of the Light :^) gene

The Keys – something only I could do

Well besides getting tricked into thinking today was going to be nice and turning off my air conditioning this morning, anyone could do that, (though as it turns out, I opened windows, but I didn’t turn off the air, sigh) it takes a special kind of nincompoop to manage what I did yesterday.

I have had a life long love-hate affair with keys. I love them, they get me into stuff, like my car and house, they hate me and run away as soon as I am not looking. I could probably have built my own car by now just out of the house and car keys I’ve lost. I had a little yellow Fiesta I bought in 1980 that I liked so much I kept it ten years, lost the keys to it so often, or locked them inside I used to do that a LOT too – twice in winter at the bus shelter I’ve done that WITH the engine running, before cell phones so I had to walk a half mile to a gas station and call the lease people to send someone out to get me back into that toasty warm little car where I had been patiently shivering for an hour – both times the tow truck guys thought it was hilarious. Anyway, I used to carry a screwdriver and a hanger in my bag, just so I could pry open the door of that little Fiesta enough to drop the hanger in and hook the door handle. I even bought one of those little magnetized tin key holders and stowed it under the wheel well, first time after that I locked myself out, it too had fled. I took to carrying two sets of keys in self-protection, that doesn’t help if you lock both sets in the car. I lease because I don’t put many miles on my cars a year and I thought those new electronic keys would be just the thing for me, the first set of them I had, I lost one set within a week. Never did replace it because they cost like a hundred dollars. But was VERY careful with that other one. THEN, they came up with the best idea of all, a lock that couldn’t be locked with a key in the ignition. I thought I was saved and for several years I have been, it has only been house keys I lose – when I moved into my current place 16 years, before I had a garage door opener yet, the very first run I went on, I locked myself out. That screen is still broken from when I had to pull it off so I could get back in. The odd thing is NONE of these keys I lose have ever turned back up. There must be 15 or 20 somewhere in my house, hiding in the dark and probably giggling. I should try a metal detector rental maybe.

Anyway, yesterday, as I now do almost always, I had both sets with me, took them out and put them in my desk, because these ergonomic chairs, if you have a bulky key chain (one of my other tricks, put so much stuff on there that they’d be too big to lose – that doesn’t work either) in your coat, it will catch and as you stand you’ll hear this ripping sound which is how a suit coat sounds when it is being ruined. Two coats later, I started putting them in my desk, except in winter when they’re in my winter coat. So, I was the 4:30 guy yesterday and was talking to Amy near then when we both realized it was past 4:30, so I hurriedly shut everything down and caught a bus. I realized when I got to the Foley park and ride and reached into my pocket what I had done and exactly where both sets were. So as I got up to the driver, I told him I would need to ride back downtown with him to get my keys, he said he was done and was headed to the Brooklyn Park garage, but another 850 bus was coming soon that would go back downtown – this isn’t the first time I’ve done that, three times I’ve driven in, forgotten I did, bused to the park and ride and wandered through it pressing the little alarm button before remembering my car was under the library, well, only twice did I wander, the third time I knew. Before the Northstar light rail, there was an 851 bus that ran to Riverdale, 5 miles from my place, Foley is a bit over 2, twice I got on the 851 and realized what I had done as we sailed past the Coon Rapids Blvd exit and I looked down at Highway 47 from an angle I’ve only seen twice. Long walk in a suit, July both times I did that. I did learn to LOOK at the number of the bus before getting on one after the second one. Though not perfectly, a couple months ago, I got on an 854N which goes to Northtown, not Foley, and if the driver had not announced last stop for the 854N while still on third street, I would have done it again, as it was I just panicked and pulled the stop cord and he did. I will still probably forget I’ve driven in some time again, I do that so infrequently and my little rituals are so ingrained, that I am half way home before I remember my car isn’t there. Although, the last time that happened, a couple months ago, as I was standing waiting for the 850, I was visualizing where my car was – Foley is a BIG place and I never am in the same spot two days in a row – when the library popped into my head as I was getting on the bus and got right back off. I might be learning. Maybe.

This story does have a happy ending though, because a young woman heard me talking to the bus driver and so when I got off and was deciding whether to just walk home or wait for the next bus and hope I could still get into this building (my 24/7 card isn’t anymore) she asked if she could give me a ride – turns out she used to work for us when we were on the fourth floor of the GC and remembered me. I wish I could say the same, so after deciding she probably wasn’t going to mug me, I said, yes, please. She took me home, waited to make sure my garage door opener battery wasn’t dead – I have NO idea when I replaced that last and wasn’t sure about the code either – and it did, and she even came back and took me to the bus this morning. There are angels every where if you keep your head up so you can see them, unlike with keys where it doesn’t matter what direction you are looking. :^)

 

If today brings even one choice your way,
choose to be a Bringer of the Light :^) gene

Jon

I woke up last night to the sound of laughing and realized I’d fallen asleep with the TV on. It was 3 AM and I knew it was Jon Stewart but I had to fumble around for my glasses to see who his guest was. Unbelievable! It was Jesus, in his robe and all. His nose was bigger than I thought, his skin a lot darker, but his eyes were more piercing than I’d ever imagined. It was like light came out instead of going into them.

Jon was making some joke about both of them being Jews and Jesus, after laughing harder than I thought he would, said quite seriously to Jon, “Yeah, that’s one of the weirdest things, isn’t it? How could they forget that?”

Jon was all over him with questions from the daily news. What was his take on the whole Mosque/Ground Zero fiasco? Jesus said he’d seen some newscasts on the story and couldn’t believe the drama and fear it was bringing up. “They want to build a public building for prayer, education and community gathering. That’s a good thing. A better thing perhaps, would be the construction of an interfaith building, There’s room for everyone, and it’s these distinctions between religions that’s causing all the problems in the first place.”

Jon looked incredulous. “An interfaith building??”

“Yes, a multi-tasking mosque, with a synagogue, chapel and meditation hall in it. A building where people of different faiths come together to make a better world together. That’s the point of religion right? It’s not about doctrine. It’s a plan for action, an opportunity to be a bigger force for good. Religion is just the map. Faith is the real adventure.”

“I don’t know….” said Stewart, making one of those funny mouth movements he does after hearing a strange idea.

Jesus pipes in, “What could be better in that spot than a building that represents, by its very structure, a coming together, a new vision that goes beyond religious borders? It’s like taking a good idea and making it great. The real prophets of the day know this. Where are their voices? Why aren’t you interviewing them?”

“Hmm, I thought I was,” says Stewart, tapping his pencil on the desk.

“You know why you have border issues here? Because you believe the borders are real, like they MEAN something. Muslin against Christian, Mexican against American, Republican against Democrat-all those borders are made up. You put up walls to defend your ideas-and not even your OWN, but ideas passed down to you from someone else-and then you make other people look like demons. It’s no wonder this country is in a state of collapse. You don’t even get it how connected you are. You’re like five fingers on a hand who think they’re separate and make up reasons why not to get along.”

Jon sat there with his mouth open.

“You’re like children playing war games. You spend all your time, all your energy attacking the “other side” instead of realizing you need to bridge the two sides in order to get across to a higher level of thinking. Even news shows are at war. Look at how you make fun of FOX. What light does that add to the world? All the time you could be giving to real visionaries, all the ways you could be role-modeling good behavior, showing the audience how it really WORKS to bring great and opposing minds together, and you sit there poking fun at another station. That’s really enlightened, isn’t it?”

This was the first time I’d ever seen Jon Stewart speechless. He looked like an embarrassed 6th grader. No pencil tapping now. More like a puppy with his tail between his legs.

“What in the world are you people doing? The ones who call themselves “religious” are often the most immature, the most judgmental and intolerant. What is THAT about? That’s exactly the opposite of what every religion teaches. And I mean EVERY religion,”

Jesus said, as he looked away from Stewart and spoke right to the camera.

“All the religions say two basic things,” he said, holding up his fingers in a peace sign.

“First, there is no distance between you and this one you call God. God is the creative force behind all things. It’s invisible, but you are the manifestation of it. I’m telling you, the Sistine Chapel should have been a mirror.”

The audience laughs, but Stewart stares into those deep eyes of the Nazarene.

He goes on, ” You are the eyes, the hands, the feet of that creative force. That energy is in you. It’s called your breath.” He holds up his index finger and taps on it a few times. “That’s the first thing. Don’t think there’s some man out there pulling strings. Grow up. This civilization-if you can call it that-is YOUR creation. This earth, it is not a bunch of resources to be exploited. It is not to be owned. It is your mother, the womb that you sprang from. You are its consciousness, its neural cells. The whole earth is the organism that you belong to. You did not come down to earth, you came up from earth, as I did. Its well-being is in your hands. Can you be proud of what you’re doing? Are you going to be the ones who kill it off, after all that talk about pro-life?”

Jesus was getting a little worked up, like that day he stormed through the temple turning over the merchants’ tables. Jon cut to a commercial, “And we’ll be right back to hear the 2nd basic thing from our guest tonight, ladies and gentlemen, the Jewish prophet Jesus of Nazareth. Stay tuned…”

They were laughing about something when they returned from the commercial, Jesus stretched out in his chair with his long lanky legs covered by his tunic, his sandaled feet hidden under the desk.

“OK,” Jon says, “You were saying there were two things. Let me see if I got this right. There’s no bearded guy up there on a cloud. That God we talk about and fight over is the creative force inside us and around us? It’s invisible and we’re like….(a long pause) its shadow?”

“Not exactly,” says Jesus. We’re like the physical form of the same energy. The ice cube version of water or steam. Same elements, different form. The sea and the iceberg. You’re all icebergs in the Sea of God,” he said, half-laughing at his own quaint metaphor. “But the problem is you don’t realize that underneath it all, you’re all connected. There’s just one big iceberg with a lot of tips. The truth is, you’re Creation continuing the co-creation of Itself.”

“Oh my,” says Stewart. “Let’s leave that discussion to Bill Moyers, What about number two? What’s the number two thing we’re supposed to know?”

Jesus holds up his two fingers again, tapping the tip of his middle finger. The camera zoomed in so closely on him I could see a scar on his forehead. “It’s not so much what you need to know-that’s part of the problem, all these peoples’ belief systems. That’s what gets you in trouble. No one has to believe in me to get to heaven. A…there is no heaven to get to and B, it’s not what you believe but how you act that matters. If anyone learned anything from reading that Bible they should have picked up that one. There’s 3000 references to helping the poor in there. But let me get back…”

“Yes,” says Stewart. “The second thing..”

“The second thing is this: forget everything you ever learned in any holy book and just treat everyone like a brother and a sister. I mean that literally. If it were your brother coming across the border…your sister with cancer and no health care….your child unable to get an education….your mother with no food in her house. And even further, your brother who was gay or hated gays, your sister who was a corrupt politician, your brother who bombed an abortion clinic, your sister who got an abortion. What does it look like to love unconditionally? To bridge differences, to come together over what we can agree on? Can you get through one day without thinking you’re better or less than another? That’s the thing to strive for. That is living faithfully.”

“But…but…” says Stewart. “What about the Tea Partyers, the terrorists, what about Fox News and hate crimes?”

“If you think they are so different from you, be the opposite of what you think they are and enact that powerfully in the world. Don’t focus on who’s wrong. Just be a greater force for good.”

“Not focus on who’s wrong? How could I do my show?”

“Exactly. Remember what Gandhi said? Be the change you want to see in the world?”

“Sure. I have that quotation on my refrigerator.”

“Well, it’s time to take it further. You’re evolving as a people. You’ve come through the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the wrongly named Period of Enlightenment. You’re now in the Information Age. You are growing your consciousness. In the physical world, you have Olympic marathon trainers who run 10 miles or more a day. They spend every waking hour in training, eating the right foods, researching the right clothing and equipment, working out, following a discipline. And in the metaphysical world, the spiritual world, you have people doing the same-they are your mystics and prophets-engaging in spiritual practice, accelerating their wisdom, expanding their consciousness, transcending judgment and radiating love into the world. You might be in that category.,.”

Stewart does one of his choking, ahem things, putting his hand over his mouth. “Out of the question,” he says frankly. “I thrive on judgment.”

“Good to know yourself. You’re all evolving at different rates. In the fall, when you look at a maple tree, you see leaves that are green, yellow, orange and red. They don’t all change at the same time. And that’s what makes life exciting. You all know different things. That’s why you need each other. Like that guy Ken Wilbur said, “You’re all right, only partly so.”

Stewart nods his head in agreement, tapping his pencil on the table again.

“But back to Gandhi. I agree with what he said, but I’ll say it a different way, just to shake things up a bit, which I love to do. By the way, it’d make a great bumper sticker:

Be the God you want to see in the world.”

“Oh-oh, sounds blasphemous to me,” says Stewart.

“You know as well as I do, every good idea starts out as a blasphemy.”

“OK, great, we’re out of time,” says Stewart, as the camera swings over for a shot of the audience. They’re all standing, some crying and laughing at the same time, the most incredible look of collective awe I’ve ever seen. And Jesus walks over like Jay Leno and starts shaking hands with them. What a night!”

So, parents and the loss of their children

I’ve had an experience now, twice, that no parent should ever have in their lifetime even once and it doesn’t get easier with repetition. In my opinion. I’ve written much here about my youngest son, Brandon, who suicided at 21, caught in the throes of meth. Both of my boys had asthma, severe, though Evan’s got worse as he got older. He, Evan, died on 10/14/10. Shortly after he went to sleep, still no word on the cause. He was still in excruciating pain every moment of every day, though his fight through that pain was worthy of admiration, and I did, the rest of what he’s done since his accident 18 months ago is grow stronger in every way.

His last several years were miserable for him, after he and his now ex-wife separated, he wasn’t able to see his kids so he drank, a LOT. April 23, 2009, he was in a horrible accident. He was very drunk but not driving. He underwent nearly 11 hours of surgery the first night, we were told he might not survive that because of his asthma. He did. He was in a coma for 6 weeks and he healed. He did every rehab assignment they gave him. He was still in tremendous pain which we were working on and which has to, after that much time, weaken one considerably. He had a lot of trouble with his asthma the last week. We were told last April that if he didn’t make some big changes his outlook wasn’t bright. 5 years one of them, doctor, said. He had to lose weight, stop smoking, and continue his rehab.

So, this event, since he’d made no real progress with his new regimen, wasn’t surprising completely because I’d been afraid of it since that diagnosis last spring. It was still a horrible shock and surprise because I thought we had him at least 5 more years and potentially a normal life span. Not being surprised is not the same thing as not being hurt. Apart from outings, I spent every Tuesday evening with him too while his mother worked, that week, as I left, I gave him a hug and told him I loved him. He said, I love you too, Dad. And made me promise to text him when I got home as he usually asked. Two days later he was gone. Those were his last words to me. I have to admit that has tears streaming down my face. He was my first-born, the most like me, and we got along in every way. We could, and did, always talk. He was the reasonable one, though some of that was just good acting, the good child, the easy baby, the easy toddler. I have a cell because he insisted. I would never have gotten one otherwise. He said I had to get into the 21 century, even if I had it just for emergencies. Then he proceeded to text me until I got a I text package too. He was wonderful to his last breath.

I think that is what these last 18 months gave him, not dying in that accident, was a chance to rebuild his life. And he did. He was so lonely a lot of the time and had to fight depression constantly, he felt and was so alone – stop drinking and your drinking “buddies” disappear. Which made me cry. But he kept going, he never gave up, though there were many times he wanted to. But in the past 18 months, he turned himself back into the son I’d fallen in love with a bit over 36 years ago when a nurse placed him in my arms a couple minutes after his birth. He was, despite his troubles, loving and cheerful for the most part. Willing to talk. Every other weekend (he started seeing his kids again in September – a HUGE milestone for him) since he got out of the hospital and was able to get out of the house, he and I would go see a movie and get a meal. I’d ask, text, and he’d always respond that sounds great dad. Which made me cry, I’ll tell you why. We’d go see a move, we saw lots of very good ones, eat and I drop him off and he’d be so glad we’d gone out. And so I’d cry all the way home again. This is why. For a man my age, 61, to have a best friend be so much younger isn’t unusual, particularly with parents, but it just broke my heart that he was so alone that he was happy to have my friendship and love. Someone his age should have been with friends, not their parent, and that is what made me cry.

It was a nice outdoor non-religious service. A LOT of people came, he only thought he was alone. And he may have had some portent as he had been getting in touch with people over the last couple months he hadn’t talked to in years. He WAS my best friend. I can’t imagine life without him in it anymore than when Brandon died. I, a month later, am still numb with shock. I feel like earth just after the asteroid that created the moon hit it. Off my game for sure. And I don’t think I’ll ever get it back. I think I am waiting for something that will never arrive. This time, the good news is that at 61 I won’t have as many years to miss him. God, I loved that boy. Both of them, but aching now for the one that stayed the longest with the hardest road to follow. I love you Evan, I always will.

If today brings even one choice your way,
choose to be a Bringer of the Light :^) gene

Is your ladder leaning against the right building?

Below is a wonderful story from one of the best people on this planet, Steve Goodier. Now you shouldn’t find that surprising since I so often use his articles here, sometimes alone, sometimes with commentary. This time with lots of commentary. Not all related to Steve’s article. As you’ll read below, it is hard to escape, or set aside, our nature. Or our natural self. And it is as hard to accept life on terms other than those we know to be true, or more clearly, to accept life as it is, not as we wish it were. I am one who falls into a category that Steve doesn’t list in his last paragraph. I believe I share this “condition” with others, including a most beloved friend, Sandra Seich, who has gone back into the light, and so knows who I am, and would be correcting my syntax as I type. Yes, one can be successful in life without making it to the top of your particular ladder. Sandra would agree though that it is vitally important to be certain you are leaning your ladder against the right building. And that can only happen through insight into oneself that is not commonly available.

SHE had the tool. What has happened to it, or what will happen to it, I do not know, but her magnus work, 3 SIDES OF YOU, was so far ahead of its time that I mourn not only her passing but also the loss of her creation as only SHE could interpret it. She was moving in commercial directions and I don’t blame her for that, but still, the effect her first effort had on me back in 1998 and the effect her tremendously expanded book had in later years was and is, enormous. Personally, I think the book should be made available to everyone on the planet and that every person seeking office of any kind, including those of the harmful clandestine kind, should have to take her test and make public their results. The planet would be a much better place were this true and the norm. I suppose one could lie, but Sandra was smarter than liars, who you ARE cannot be hidden. Nor should it be. Lest you find yourself leaning your ladder against the wrong building. I’ll come back to this because it is a subject I am immersed in at this time, my life is completely out of balance, I live and work in a world that is not of my design, nor my desire. How does one cope with that? That is the next topic. Unfortunately, it will be without the wonderful guidance of Steve Goodier. It’ll just be me. No worries, I’m not mean, much love, :^) gene

From Steve Goodier:

Rabbi Harold Kushner tells a wonderful story about a bright young man who was a sophomore Stanford pre-med student. To reward him for having done so well in school, his parents gave him a trip to the Asia for the summer.

While there he met a guru who said to him, “Don’t you see how you are poisoning your soul with this success-oriented way of life? Your idea of happiness is to stay up all night studying for an exam so you can get a better grade than your best friend. Your idea of a good marriage is not to find the woman who will make you whole, but to win the girl that everyone else wants.

“That’s not how people are supposed to live,” the sage admonished. “Give it up; come join us in an atmosphere where we all share and love each other.”

The young man had completed four years at a competitive high school to get into Stanford, plus two years of pre-med courses at the university. He was ripe for this sort of approach. He called his parents from Tokyo and told them he would not be coming home. He was dropping out of school to live in an ashram (a spiritual retreat).

Six months later, his parents got this letter from him:

“Dear Mom and Dad,
I know you weren’t happy with the decision I made last summer, but I want to tell you how happy it has made me. For the first time in my life, I am at peace. Here there is no competing, no hustling, no trying to get ahead of anyone else. Here we are all equal and we all share. This way of life is so much in harmony with the inner essence of my soul that in only six months I’ve become the number two disciple in the entire ashram, and I think I can be number one by June!”

You can take the boy out of the rat race, but can you take the rat race out of the boy?

I am concerned about some people’s narrow and dangerous ideas about success. Achieving more, getting more, becoming number one. Not that there is anything wrong with healthy achievement. It’s just that there is a difference between earning well and living well.

A successful life is not always a high-achieving life. Sometimes it is about accomplishing a worthwhile goal, even a private, personal victory. Sometimes it is about improving one’s character. Sometimes success is best defined by living into one’s own personal mission, or finding a meaningful purpose to organize one’s life around. And sometimes it is about learning how to live in peace, happiness, generosity and love.

Someone put it like this: “I spent my life frantically climbing the ladder of success. When I got to the top I realized it was leaning against the wrong building.” Even if she got to the top first, it made no difference. There is no merit in being first to arrive at the wrong place in life.

You CAN BE successful in ways that matter. And your life can be truly meaningful. If you’re leaning your ladder against the right building, it doesn’t even matter if you make it to the top. Any life spent going after things that count, will count as a life well spent.

– Steve Goodier

A change is coming

Which is a very good thing, in my opinion, for what is life with nothing new to look forward to? Every civilization in history has fallen when it became so content with itself that it became stagnant. That ennui will kill anything. Change is the only constant, I’ve heard, but I think I’d go a step further with that and say that change is necessary for the continued growth and success of the human species and spirit. Stagnant water isn’t safe to drink, I don’t think stagnant humans are much safer to be around. Change doesn’t have to be large, it just has to be THERE. When one stops to consider what changes have come in the last century, well, this world would be impossible to understand to a person of 50 standing on the doorway to the 20th century, don’t you think? Not all those changes have been positive, one could argue some have been harmful, but we learn from those mistakes too and continue to move forward, well, most of us do – there are those out there, after all, who would have us return to the 12th century as if that were the harbinger of human civilization. Fortunately they are, and will always be, in the minority, for it is the nature of humanity to reach – from an example in CWG, Book 1 that I particularly love, of a three year old girl reaching as high as she can to grasp a door knob and open a door as she has seen her big brother do to that of the people of our time looking into the night sky and wondering what else, who else, is out there and whether we will meet them in our life times here, or travel to them at some time in the future. Some changes meet with quick reversal, but on the whole, change is necessary, and exciting, and what makes living here in the relative universe so interesting. We live in a period in which the fastest series of change our planet has ever seen are happening every day as testified to in the wonderful little story from Steve Goodier below. It illustrates nicely what I believe. Change is coming, faster than we think, and that is a very good thing indeed. :^) gene

CHANGING WITH THE CHANGES

A clerk at a Philadelphia airline counter picked up the telephone and heard the caller ask, “How long does it take to go from Philadelphia to Phoenix?”

She was busy with another customer just then and intended to put the caller on hold.

“Just a minute,” she replied.

As she was about to press the hold button, the caller said, “Thank you,” and hung up.

We live in an age when it seems almost anything is possible. But a trip of a couple thousand miles in a few minutes?

Our time is one of unprecedented change. I understand that 2005 was the first year that there were more spam e-mails sent than cans of Spam sold. And if you wonder what a can of Spam is, then you see how much things have changed.

In a restaurant, a mother noticed her eleven-year-old daughter staring at a movie poster on the wall. The picture portrayed Superman standing in a phone booth. The girl’s mother whispered to her husband, “Doesn’t she know who Superman is?”

He told her it was worse than that. “She doesn’t know what a phone booth is.”

I heard someone mention that he believes most of the changes that will ever take place already have occurred. I am sure that isn’t so. Our new reality is one of constant and unending change.

Some changes can be good and some we may feel are not for the best. Most change is uncomfortable and awkward at first. But, of course, if we don’t occasionally feel awkward with what we’re doing, maybe we are not doing anything new. And unless we’d rather live in the past, we’ll be happiest learning to embrace this world of change and to change and adapt along with it.

The world can still be a wonderful and exciting place to live. Do you believe that? If so, change with the changes. Resist your resistance to changing. Your attitude toward change is one of the most important measures of determining whether you can be happy.

– Steve Goodier

If today brings even one choice your way,
choose to be a Bringer of the Light :^) gene

A VERY HUMAN THING TO DO

First, from Steve Goodier:

A VERY HUMAN THING TO DO

Someone made the statement: “To err is dysfunctional, to forgive co-dependent.” Sometimes I think I operate that way – afraid to err and slow to forgive.

Of course, we’ve all heard Alexander Pope’s famous assertion that to err is human, to forgive, divine. But I don’t agree. I think that to forgive is one of the most human things we can do.

A number of years ago, Hildegard Goss-Mayr of the “International Fellowship of Reconciliation” told this true story. In the midst of tragic fighting in Lebanon in the 1970s, a Christian seminary student was walking from one village to the next when he was ambushed by an armed Druze guerrilla fighter. The Druze ordered his captive down a mountain trail where he was to be shot.

But an amazing thing happened. The seminarian, who had received military training, was able to surprise his captor and disarm him. Now, the table was turned, and it was the Druze who was ordered down the trail.

As they walked, however, the student of theology began to reflect on what was happening. Recalling the words of his scripture, “Love your enemies,” “do good to those who hate you,” “turn the other cheek,” he found he could go no farther. He threw the gun into the bushes, told the Druze he was free to go and turned back up the hill.

Minutes later, he heard footsteps running behind him as he walked. “Is this the end after all?” he wondered. Perhaps the young man had retrieved his weapon and meant to finish him off. But he continued on, never glancing back, until his enemy reached him, only to grab him in an embrace and pour out thanks for sparing his life.

That was a very human thing he did – foregoing the impulse to strike back. It took a strong spirit. Yet every time we decide not to get back at somebody who hurts us, we exercise one of our greatest powers – the power to choose a better way.

Somebody else put it better than I can: “Life is too short for drama and petty things, so, kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly.” It’s one of the most powerful and human things to do.

– Steve Goodier

Then, from me. Isn’t that last part really the key to human survival. The ONLY way we overcome our baser instincts and, as a species, become a true civilization? Simply by exercising our power to choose a better, more loving, way? May we ALL find that become a necessity in our lives and soon. :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

In the Living Years

My dad’s been on my mind lately. It’ll be 26 years this summer since he passed, I’m just two years younger now than he was that year. This afternoon this song began running through my mind, no idea why, though I have every idea why. It made me cry the first time I heard it and it did again today when I went and found the lyrics and the video of Mike and the Mechanics, that fits, my dad could fix anything, except me. Enjoy both, and tell your loved ones that they are. Loved. Thanks.

In the Living Years

Every generation
Blames the one before
And all of their frustrations
Come beating on your door

I know that I’m a prisoner
To all my Father held so dear
I know that I’m a hostage
To all his hopes and fears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years

Crumpled bits of paper
Filled with imperfect thought
Stilted conversations
I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got

You say you just don’t see it
He says it’s perfect sense
You just can’t get agreement
In this present tense
We all talk a different language
Talking in defence

Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It’s too late when we die
To admit we don’t see eye to eye

So we open up a quarrel
Between the present and the past
We only sacrifice the future
It’s the bitterness that lasts

So Don’t yield to the fortunes
You sometimes see as fate
It may have a new perspective
On a different day
And if you don’t give up, and don’t give in
You may just be O.K.

Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It’s too late when we die
To admit we don’t see eye to eye

I wasn’t there that morning
When my Father passed away
I didn’t get to tell him
All the things I had to say

I think I caught his spirit
Later that same year
I’m sure I heard his echo
In my baby’s new born tears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years

Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It’s too late when we die
To admit we don’t see eye to eye

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Possession and the Time Traveler’s Wife

“What is it? My Dear?”

“Ah, how can we bear it?”

“Bear what?”

“This. For so short a time. How can we sleep this time away?”

“We can be quiet together, and pretend – since it is only the beginning – that we have all the time in the world.”

“And every day we shall have less. And then none.”

“Would you rather, therefore, have had nothing at all?”

“No. This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run. But now, my love, we are here, we are now, and those other times are running elsewhere.

–A. S. Byatt, Possession

I’ve been reading a novel lately, The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, written in 2003 and in 2009 released as a marvelous movie starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana. I wanted very much to see it when it was in theaters but somehow never got round to it. The quote above is from page 282 in her novel which marks the beginning of part II. I could not resist it since it is also the title of a song written by my favorite artist, Sarah McLachlan, and I believe I will go find it too.

I saw the movie first, I don’t normally like to do that, I am first and foremost a lover of reading, and I guess have often been disappointed when I have seen a movie and then read the book upon which it is based, at how much, so very much I find important to the story, was left out, or worse, changed in the film. I can’t say that with this duo. I love them both. The movie was, for me, as noted in my previous post, a half a kleenex box experience. I then went looking for the book and found both a Blu-ray Disc AND the book together for a mere $15. Needless to say, I bought both. I wanted first to savor the book and to this point, I have and am, very much, doing so. Had to stop reading the book on the bus though, people were giving me odd looks as I read with tears streaming down my face and nose running at full tilt. Not a pretty picture.

I left this in draft for a while, but now, I’ve finished the book and watched the movie again and was pleasantly amazed at how true to the story the movie was, but for the ending, I prefer the ending in the book very much, though the movie’s was sweet, the book’s ending was ever so much more poignant for me. It is a book I will read again, as I do often with favorites, and a movie I’ll watch again from time to time as well.

What comes to me from both is that we all share Henry’s condition in a way. Not that we skip back and forth through time, but that we are all first born outside of time, then descend into it, the relative universe to have our experience here as flesh-covered spirits. Now that is not quite the way CWG puts it, but it is the truth of us, from timelessness we come and to it we return. Not with the heartbreak Henry suffers as he moves through time because our beginning is in the light of the strongest love possible and it is to that love we return. No sad endings for us, no bittersweet memories, those are for this place, this universe our Creator gave us to experience life as we are not that we might love even more that which we truly are when we return from this brief stop in our soul’s life, for alive there we are, so much more than here. I “get” the attraction of what happens here and I understand its creation and purpose, but I’ve never felt comfortable in this shell, somehow I’ve always known this skin is not my own, that this place is not my home, even through the trials and tribulations and tears and love I’ve found and experienced here, I’ve no greater longing than for our true home. That may be unique to me as I know virtually all others will return, many times, and I know that I will not, this is a once only journey for me. Once is quite enough and I know that too. And, I remain perfectly okay with the choice of others to continue to come here, that won’t ever be taken away by our Creator, I am sure. But as much as I am homebody here, I am there too, in the place where we were born. Enjoy the journey, blessed be, much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way

choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

I didn’t know he was for me

I put this on the Rainbow Bridge website a bit ago. I’d been sent, again, a story about an old man who was walking along a road with a dog when he suddenly realized he was dead and so had been, for many years, the dog at his side. He approached a place with pearly gates that looked wonderful, there was a person sitting at the gate. He asked what the place was and was told it was Heaven. He asked if he could come in and get a drink, the person said sure, then he asked if his friend could come to, and the person said, sorry, we don’t allow pets in here. He decided to keep walking. After another long spell, he came upon another gate, no fence this time, and again there was someone sitting at the gate, he asked if he could get a drink, the person said, sure, then he asked if his friend could come in too, and the person said sure, there’s a bowl by the pump. He got himself a drink of cold water, filled the bowl for his dog, then walked back to the gate and asked what this place was. This is Heaven, he was told. He said he’d been told another place back down the road was Heaven, and the person said no, that’s Hell, and we thank them for weeding out the people who would leave their best friend behind.

That got me to thinking about my Cisco so I went back to the Rainbow Bridge site and posted this:

My youngest son, Brandon, wanted a dog for his 20th birthday so we went to the local Humane Society to get one. As we walked in, there was this one tiny little guy, out front in a huge cage all by himself, he yapped hello to us and the front counter people told us he was too young to be back with the others.

So my son and I went in the back and looked at all the marvelous dogs but he couldn’t really decide, there were two beautiful Shepherd mixes, brothers, but we couldn’t have two and I wouldn’t have wanted to be the one to separate them anyway. So we went back out front to look at that little guy again. I knelt down and stuck my finger in the cage and he bit me, then sat down and smirked. He was jet black, but for a splash of white across his hind toes and a little splash on his chest. He was half Lab, half Shepherd, they told us, though he looked like a Lab but with the long black hair of a Shepherd only thick as a Lab. No dog on earth has ever shed like Cisco!

He was 7 pounds, 7 ounces and 7 weeks old, and we decided to take him home. AFTER I signed the paperwork and wrote the check, they said we might notice he was a little noisy at night. A little? That first night he slept, well he didn’t sleep but he was IN a box by my son’s bed. He cried ALL night long, he’d cry till his little voice would give out in a squawk, he’d be quiet a couple minutes then start crying again. The next morning, my son told me, “Dad, I don’t think I can handle another night like that.” I told him I couldn’t either, from then on Cisco slept with my son, quietly and contentedly.

For just 13 months, then when Brandon took his life, Cisco became mine. For the next 13 years we shared everything together. They said he’d get to be about 65 pounds, he stopped growing at 120, not fat, tall and strong. We walked our suburb at all hours of the day and night, often very early so I could let him off leash, a dog that big needs room to run, and he loved running. He’d run with me with that perfectly efficient movement all dogs have for 5 miles, then I’d be done, and we’d stop at a park and he’d race around by himself for another half hour while I cooled down.

The first time he saw water, he was about 7 months old, he and I were walking through a park near us, a good-sized creek ran through it. About halfway through the creek had a big bend, on the other side a huge old tree hung out over the water and two boys, maybe 10 or 11, had a rope tied there and were swinging out and dropping into the water. Cisco and I were about 5 feet above the water on a ledge, he looked up at me his Lab instincts at full alert, somehow we were ALWAYS able to read each other’s mind, and I knew he was asking, “can I?”. I said, sure, buddy. Well, he took off running in the OTHER direction and I thought oh-oh, but 20 yards out he turned and circled back, and leapt off that ledge all the way out to where those boys were dropping in. He came up sputtering and looking at me like “WHAT did I just do?”, clambered up the bank and did it again. The two kids were as amazed as I was at what he did and were literally rolling on the ground laughing. We had many such experiences.

He wasn’t a typical anything, certainly not a Lab since he didn’t like to play fetch. Occasionally, he’d bring me a ball, I’d toss it for him, EVERY time he’d give me this look like “WHAT did you do THAT for?”, go get it, bring it back, I’d toss it, get the look, and after 3 or 4 tosses he was done with that. But he NEVER did that without giving me that “Are you crazy, I just GAVE you that, look.”

He had horrible separation anxiety his first three years as do many Labs. My internet research found that Labs will often chew when anxious for the first three years of their lives. The first year he only ate my son’s shoes and such, when Brandon would leave him alone while I was at work. But when my son died and we became each other’s, he turned to MY stuff, he ate furniture, woodwork, wallboard, a couch, lounge chair, how I have no idea. But I’d hear him as I left in the morning for work and got into the car in my garage, a heart breaking howl. On his 3rd birthday, I told him, okay, buddy, now you’re 3 and that chewing stops! He quit on his own terms the way he did everything about three months later.

If I had known when we got him that he was going to be mine alone in a year, I couldn’t have borne the thought. But when my son died, Cisco was the only reason I got out of bed many days, because he needed me. He was the best friend I’ve ever had for 13 blessed years. He passed in August, 2009, age and arthritis, tumors, he couldn’t always get to his feet by himself, couldn’t manage stairs anymore, would sometimes fall while outside and meet my eyes with what I KNEW was a “please help me” look. It was his time and now all I have left of the two of them are a small rock Brandon gave me when he was 5, an old piece of tar he brought in all excited to give me, it was multi colored and I asked what it was, and he said, its a beauty rock, Dad, for you. It’s been on my kitchen counter ever since and next to it now rests a clay paw print of our beloved Cisco. An angel sent to me straight from God to guide me through the grief and sorrow of the years following my son’s death, who ultimately meant more to me than any dog I’ve ever known. He better be waiting for me at the Rainbow Bridge, or some entity will be dealing with one very unhappy spirit, because no afterlife would be complete without him, as is my life now incomplete without him. Cisco, love of my life, the bestest puppy boy the world ever saw, who loved everyone he met after first scaring them witless with his size, and who gave me his whole being for so many blessed years. I didn’t know he was really meant for me, but I’m glad he was. I don’t know that I would have survived the blow of Brandon’s suicide but for him. He made my life mean something again, he gave all he had to me, every day and I only wanted to do the same for him. I really want to see him again, Brandon too, of course, but this piece is for Cisco, my rock and my best friend forever.

I still miss them both with all my heart. I live, but life is a bit emptier than it should be without them. If there were “A” thing I could change here in this wondrous universe, it would be to expand the life span of our fur babies. I realize that could be difficult, but for me? I’d still be surrounded by a small menagerie of wonderful friends from Bullet, who protected me, to King who raised me, to Cisco who saved me. That would be close enough to heaven for me. :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

A Character Defect – my little secret

Or at least that is what my son calls it. So, I confess, I like chick flicks. Not sure why. I don’t like, don’t read, romance novels and never have, no interest at all, and I don’t like the formula “love story” either. You know the one, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again. There is too much pain in those for me. So much unnecessary pain in them, maybe they are why so many of our relationships play out so badly. We expect more than we have a right to and we don’t dare bare enough of ourselves to allow ourselves to be seen. Oh, that kind of movie breaks my heart, many times over, but I prefer movies where the people treat each other right and where the ending IS right, even if tragic.

The greatest gift God ever gave us, He says so Himself in CWG, Book 1, is relationship, this relative universe. For only here can we find out who we are as we define ourselves by learning who we are not. We’re not doing so well on that score as a species, I’m afraid. We say forever, but we really mean until. Something changes, or we do, or we stray, or we tire, or we give up, give in, quit. There are good reasons for all of those things certainly. We aren’t at a place in our evolution where we CAN say forever, for we know not what that means. It sounds good, I’ll give it that. And there are some magical relationships among us as models, but far too often we fail. Maybe that’s why we get so many chances to get it right. Maybe in all of our incarnations at some point we DO get it right. That is worth waiting for. When God talked of relationship, He wasn’t speaking only of human relationships, but in truth was speaking of the relative universe as Einstein described it, where we know what one thing is because we know what its opposite is. Hot – Cold. Here – There. Like so.

But the particular version of relationship I am moved to make my first post of the year is about human relationships, I don’t care what kind, I mean, all relationships are holy, not just man-woman, but all. And it seems actually that in same gender relationships all of the miscues of opposite gender relationships occur as well, but with perhaps less frequency in long term committed relationships. Same gender, particularly male – male, are often only about the physical component, it is that which keeps the AIDS virus alive and moving, unsafe sex. And I’m not talking about that either, only noting what I have observed. No, tonight, I want to talk about what ails me. Chick flicks.

I go long periods avoiding them, though I have long left violent movies behind for the most part, there ARE some that make points worth seeing, hearing and feeling. There are things worth dying for and some very violent movies have made those points dramatically. Often, the thing worth dying for is love of country, while I understand this emotion, feel it, served in Viet Nam, though I opposed that war, it is drama heavy and I fear what leads young men to martyrdom. Land is not sacred, no one piece more than another, it is ALL sacred in that nothing that exists in this universe was not created from the body of God, there IS nothing else but Him and all of it is sacred in that sense. We define ourselves in how we relate to that. And very badly most of the time in recorded human history, much evil has been committed in the name of God, there can be no greater blasphemy than to kill in the name of the being who is nothing less than pure, unadulterated, eternal love. But we do. A lot. We need to change that. I think we will. One day. Not today.

Another thing worth dying for is in defense of another, this I find a noble end, though of course it is also death on sequels. Much better to live a love-filled life, in my opinion. And that is what I find in the sort of chick flick I love most. Oh, I’ve learned through the years, to not go unprepared, to make sure I’ve got kleenex with me, because I will cry. How can one not at something so beautiful as the best of humanity shining in relationship one to another? An example, last weekend I rented “The Time Traveler’s Wife”, I wanted to see it in the theater, but never got to it, maybe my jen protected me because I was a blubbering mess not far into it at all. Scenes, of incredibly strong emotion do that to me, not manly I suppose, but I think we have done men a disservice in denying them the right to FEEL and express those feelings. I wrote of sacred tears a while ago, I hold these in that category. I absolutely loved that movie, loved everything about it except perhaps its quixotic ending, but even that I found bittersweet. And would have written differently! But the love that couple had for each other was marvelous, Rachel McAdams, who I first saw in a very funny movie, The Hot Chick, was glorious, wonderful, perfect in her performance. And the tragedy that everyone knew was coming did and I cried through the whole damn thing. It was so beautiful, ridiculous premise – maybe, but love conquers everything in that movie, it even transcends death. Which it really does, though not quite in that way. Still, I loved it. Took it right back to Hollywood Video though, couldn’t put myself through that ringer again and I knew I would if I kept the remaining two days I had left.

Tonight, after work, I went to see another movie, I’d seen previews on tv, Dear John, I was misled by the previews, I was expecting more than I got, it was formula, a bit of a twist, and a too serendipitous ending. And I cried through half of it. Came home with a screaming headache, thinking about why we do such things to each other, why does it have to be so hard, why do we make it so hard. This young couple were perfect 9/11 intervened and she actually did Dear John him while he was in mortal peril. I have another confession, the same thing happened to me during the middle of my tour in Viet Nam, so I know what he felt – better than he, because I lived it, he acted it. That was one of the things the army did to us while they tried to turn us into automatons, necessarily mind you in a hostile situation you HAVE to be able to depend on the guy, or, now too, girl next to you to do what they are supposed to when they are supposed to do it, without thinking. Your lives depend on that. And so the Army breaks you down then builds you back up so that you really understand what team means, not some silly athletic gig, but life and death teamwork. You march in unison, you eat in unison, you exercise in unison, you clean in unison, and you run in unison. One of the ways our instructors, good men for the most part but for one sadist, kept us in unison while we marched or ran, was to sing a cadence, you’ve all heard some of them I’m sure, one that Dear John was about went like this, “Ain’t no use in looking down, Jodie’s got your girl and gone”. Try it, it’ll keep you marching right in time. And it was the truth of what happened to many of us, I can’t speak to the part that happened back here, where the betrayal began, the pain or fear or lust or whatever led to it, only to what it felt like on the other end, when you are counting on someone who promised you forever, but whose definition of forever turned out to be six months.

So, anyway, in the movie, years later he does something I would never myself have done, and in the end it all turns out swell. But from here to there and the distance between there was heartache. I don’t pretend to know how to fix that. Well, I actually I DO know how to fix it but I am not sure our species is evolved enough to handle that. No, that’s wrong, I AM sure our species is not evolved enough to say forever and mean it. Very few of us manage that and many that do aren’t happy doing it. That is what makes me cry at chick flicks. The pain we inflict on each other in the name of love, the way we make it so hard to be trusting and trustworthy. We’re better than that. Or we should be. I’m sure we can be and I believe we will be. But not until we learn one simple rule and live it every day in every way, love everyone you meet, no matter who, no matter where, no matter their race, gender, religion or lack thereof. The ONLY thing that has EVER been able to save us, to bring us into true relationship, is love. When we have re-membered THAT lesson, we will be ready to live in peace, join in humanity’s evolution back to where we began. We can make this universe, Eden. It IS already, but we’re so clouded in our vision we can’t see that. We lose ourselves in the small things, differences in skin color, geographical location, us versus them. When we learn to shed those small things and see the beauty of each soul for what it really is, a living representation of our living Creator, then we’ll begin to understand love and live in the Garden He built for us, forever and ever, amen. I think chick flicks lead us closer to that triumph than anything else. Not religion, religion divides us, not family, family creates us and them, not music, for most of it is of sad loss, that which is lucid anyway, the beauty of the music and voice lost in the darkness of the lyrics. Nope. It’s chick flicks. Good ones, like “The Time Traveler’s Wife”. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

When Someone Grieves

This is from Steve Goodier’s newsletter, with his permission. I have a word or two of my own following.

What do you say to someone who is grieving? (“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?” probably tops the list of the kinds of conversation starters that should be avoided.) And actually, there are a lot of ways we can go wrong here — saying something that isn’t appreciated by one who hurts. Even when we are trying to comfort.

But chances are, we have been, or will be, put in the position of trying to comfort someone who is experiencing a painful loss. That is an important role we all play from time to time. So, what do you say to someone who is grieving?

I often remember a story told by Joseph Bayly when I struggle to say the “right thing” to someone who is hurting. Mr. Bayly lost three children to death over the course of several years. He wrote a book called VIEW FROM A HEARSE, in which he talks about his grief. He says this about comforting those who grieve:

“I was sitting, torn by grief. Someone came and talked to me of God’s dealings, of why it happened, of hope beyond the grave. He said things I knew were true. I was unmoved, except to wish he would go away. He finally did. Someone else came and sat beside me. He didn’t talk. He didn’t ask leading questions. He just sat with me for an hour or more, listened when I said something, answered briefly, prayed simply, left. I was moved. I was comforted. I hated to see him go.”

I have found Joseph Bayly’s experience to be excruciatingly typical. Both men wanted to help. Both men cared. But only one truly comforted. The difference was that one tried to make him feel better, while the other just let him feel. One tried to say the right things. The other listened. One told him it would be all
right. The other shared his pain.

When put in the difficult position of comforting someone in emotional pain, sometimes what needs to be said can be said best with a soft touch or a listening ear. No words. And though at times the quieter approach has felt inadequate to me, I have come to realize that it can make a bigger difference than I may ever know.

– Steve Goodier

It seems I have known little but grief over the past 13 years beginning with the suicide of my youngest son in 1997 and the pain that never left, then nearly losing my oldest, only, son in April of this horrid year, and then losing the best friend I have ever had, Brandon’s dog, Cisco, this past August. I want to say the worst is behind me and I certainly hope it is, but I could have said that at the beginning of this year and been as horribly wrong as I actually was. I had such high hopes for 2009, not one of them came to pass. I almost feel I daren’t hope for better in 2010 for fear that even worse awaits. But Steve is right, as I know, I still have to answer questions when what I really want is for most of those people to just go away. I don’t want platitudes. I don’t need advice. Sit with me quietly, let me feel your love, nothing more is required. Blessed be. gene

A Loss

I’ve been informed that Sandra Seich, who authored the book, and test, that I talked about in the Top Strengths section on my main site, One People One World , passed away on Christmas Eve, 2009. I’ve been blessed by her friendship and love as the world has by her incredible talent, will and insight into what makes we humans who we are. I will cherish forever her memory, and read often the one post she made her, she had full editorial privileges but was, as was always true with her, consumed with her latest project, and, of course, her battle with cancer, she made it 20 months past what her doctors told her would be the end. I am not in the least surprised. She was a wonderful woman of great intellect and her passing leaves this world just a little emptier. I know she is in a place of incredible love now, but that doesn’t mean I won’t miss her every day I remain here. Much love Sandra, very much love to you and yours. gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Sacred Tears

I want to talk about tears tonight, first, yes, long time no post, but still, I intend to be here more often, it is only that life keeps getting in the way, some of that life part involves tears.

I know that men and women experience tears in very different ways, at least superficially.  As an example, I’ve never experienced tears of joy.  I have certainly had many joyful moments in my life, but in my own experience, have never cried at something joyful.  Perhaps that is a pleasure awaiting me, in some part of me, I truly believe it is, but that will be in the moment I return home, I think, I hope.  I love Ghost Whisperer, though it is essentially nonsense, it still moves me to tears in most shows, at various points.  Often at the end.  But I don’t feel that as joyful tears.  Maybe it is open to interpretation, as is all of life.  I dvr’d the last Hallmark Show, A Dog Named Christmas, and I swear it was at least a 12 kleenex movie for me when I watched it.  Overpowering emotions.

When I was a younger man, I didn’t feel things that way, I suppose upbringing, not manly to cry and all that, but in truth, I didn’t FEEL things in that way.  Maybe it was my youngest son’s suicide that broke a wellspring in me, I know it certainly broke other things, but since, in moving moments on television, or in life while talking about him, or others issues, that harsh, hot, stinging arises and my eyes well up.  THAT I know and understand.  I’d be interested in the female point of view on this as I know it is different from mine.

One thing I have noticed in the years since Brandon has been gone, that strong emotional moments in movies or television, bring tears to my eyes, especially when alone, I just let that happen.  Feel the honesty of the emotion I am experiencing.  There are things I won’t watch because I know they will make me cry, but generally those are things of horror, war, suicide bombings, shows that highlight the darkness in us all.  We are born of light but in this world of duality, everything has its opposite, and the darkness, for me, is unbearable.  I have wearied of it.  It is all over everything, and I think that fact breeds more of it.  We sensationalize the ugliness and ignore the goodness.

It used to feel, for a part of my life, that it was impossible to cry, though I clearly remember doing so as a child, I thought I’d lost that.  I know that crying, for women mostly, is or can be cathartic or cleansing emotionally, I have never experienced that either.  I am drained when I cry.  I don’t feel good when it is over, I don’t mostly care much for whatever it was that made me cry, because so often that is someone else in pain.  As cliched as it is, I can’t watch a woman cry, and I say woman only because rarely have I seen a man cry, without feeling this overwhelming urge to make it better, even if I can’t as is most often the case.  Perhaps men and women cry for different reasons.  But seeing tears, brings them to me, unbidden, sudden and surprising.  Other times are much the same, they come to me in an instant at something I see or remember, or talk about fully expecting NOT to cry, but suddenly finding myself in tears anyway.

So.  Last night I watched a show I normally don’t, or quit on after its first year, Criminal Minds, because EVERY freaking week they find another serial killer wreaking inhumane slaughter on other human beings.  I just don’t enjoy seeing that.  And it isn’t the truth of us either.  Stuff like that would make the news, believe me, the same press that are trying to trail a Tiger would be as sensationalized over anything resembling a serial killer, so in truth they are few and far between, which speaks to the ultimate goodness in we humans.  I am not talking about the misguided souls of Islam who think it honorable to kill any “infidel” who does not believe what they believe.  THAT kind has always been with us, and ultimately, as we always have, we will repudiate it, that needs begin with the followers of Islam who know the truth of their religion, that it is a religion of peace, tolerance and understanding, and who put down those who pervert their faith.  Christians have had many such over the centuries too.  It is just right now that Islamic radicals are holding sway.

Back to the show.  All I really want to say about it, is a quote that was spoken over the last scene.  This show generally opens with a quote over a scene and ends the same way.  Last night’s caught my attention.  And I forewarn you that I have not personally vetted it.  I may.  But I find it sufficient as it is, and completely true.

One of the characters said, “Washington Irving said:  There is a sacredness in tears.  They are not the mark of weakness but of power.  They are messengers of overwhelming grief and unspeakable love.”  I think I understand tears now, on the largest scale.  Though I have much to learn about the smaller scales as I mentioned above.  much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

The Greatest Gift of All

This is, again, from Steve Goodier, the Methodist minister with the newsletter I have been receiving by far the longest of the many things I get daily, these are no longer daily, but are always treasured. This one is most appropriate for my blog too. You’ll see why. :^) gene

THE GREATEST GIFT OF ALL

A little boy and girl were singing their favorite carol in church the Sunday before Christmas. The boy concluded “Silent Night” with the words, “Sleep in heavenly beans.”

“No,” his sister corrected, “not beans. Peas.”

The story reminds me of the wonderful and hectic holiday season many of us are approaching soon.

Dave Garroway was, for many years, the host of the TODAY show on NBC television. Someone once asked him about his understanding of Christmas. He replied: “I’ve noticed that when people are asked what they want for Christmas, nine times out of ten, they answer with something material. That used to be amusing to me, but it’s not amusing to me any longer. I happen to be one of those people who can afford anything he wants, but I find what I really want, I can’t buy at all. I want peace of mind, peace of soul; the kind of peace you have when you don’t really want anything.”

What do YOU want for Christmas? Or if you don’t celebrate Christmas, what do you want for your life. For your world?

For me, what I want cannot be bought or gift wrapped. What I want most can best be summed up in words like “faith” and “hope” and “love.”

For myself, I want faith. Faith enough to see light in even the bleakest of situations. Faith enough to believe that goodness will prevail in the end.

For my loved ones I want hope. Abundant hope. Hope in tomorrow. A hope that helps them believe that better times lay ahead so they can take that next step.

For my world I want love. And I believe that the solutions to most of our biggest problems will only be found when we decide that we are indeed one family. The problems of war, health care, crime in city streets, immigration and unemployment take on a different hue when I am talking about my brothers and sisters whom I love dearly. Do you also want things you can’t buy? What if we all decided to go after those things this year that truly matter? That could be the greatest gift of all.

– Steve Goodier

Steve, quite by accident, has stated the theme of my entire site, One People One World, which I invite you all to visit. We are one people, one world, one family, when we are talking about brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, cousins, aunts and uncles, there is no distance we would not go for them. When we broaden OUR horizons and become more inclusive, rather than more separatist, then will solve the problems our one world lays before us, together, always together. :^)

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

The Blue Bird of Happiness

This is all Steve Goodier, a wonderful story, and a little spin at the end, that would be me. :^)

BLUEBIRD OF HAPPINESS

A sign in a pet store read, “If anybody has seen the Bluebird of Happiness, would you please notify this pet store?”

Happiness seems to be in short supply for many people. If the results of recent surveys can be trusted, there is a general decline of happiness in today’s world. And people were not all that cheerful a few years back! It was Oliver Wendell Holmes who stated, “I might have been a minister for aught I know, if a certain clergyman had not looked and talked like an undertaker.” (I have to say, though, that some clergy and undertakers I’ve known could teach the rest of us something about joy.)

Joy and happiness are not always the same things. Happiness can be thought of as more of a temporary, emotional condition, often based on outside circumstances. Joy, on the other hand, is deeper. It is often contentment in spite of the unsettling present. We can be basically joyful, regardless of a particular unhappy situation that we may be enduring. It is sometimes just a matter of keeping perspective on our troubles, and especially when those troubles seem to be in long supply.

You may know the story of the man who had a marvelous way of keeping joy in his life. He was a carpenter. He followed the same ritual every day when he came home from the job. He stopped by a small tree in his front yard and placed his hand on a couple of branches. Then, when he walked into his home, it was as if a magical transformation had occurred. All of a sudden, the stress was lifted from him. He became energetic and joyful, able to fully interact with his children and his wife.

He explained it this way: “That tree is my trouble tree. When I come home I stop by the tree and, just like I leave my tools in the truck, I leave my troubles outside of my home. I hang them on that tree before greeting my family. Anything that does not have to come in my house stays outside. Anything that I do not have to deal with at home, I leave on that tree. And in the morning, I stop by the tree and pick up the troubles I left there in the evening.”

Then he adds, “It’s a funny thing, though. Every morning I always find fewer troubles remaining than I hung the night before.”

Here is a man who has no doubt seen the Bluebird of Happiness. Chances are, it is nesting in a tree just outside his home.

There is wisdom in knowing that some problems can wait until tomorrow. And more wisdom in knowing what to hang on the tree and what to bring in. Managing daily problems well is vital to maintaining joy.

– Steve Goodier

That is exactly what we struggle with every day. Understanding what is the little problem of the day and what is the big one. And understanding which is which. We all face so many issues and problems every daY that it is hard to tell which to tackle first. Steve points out a formula that we can all use every day while deciding what to do next. Always choose the thing that troubles you most. Work on that, feed on that, fix that, and the rest of your issues will fall into place, waiting their turn. Nothing can defeat you, but you. Never forget that. :^) gene

The Last Mimzy

This isn’t new, but rather a repeat, that will for reasons of your own become obvious as to why. Not the best thing I’ve written, but it makes me feel so much better about life. And today I need that. :^) gene

I don’t rent many movies, most genre’s that at one time appealed to me, do no longer. What I mean by that, is over the years I have lost interest in many things that at one time I had a lot of interest in. I think of that as growth, change certainly, but growth as well. For instance, I used to enjoy thriller-type movies, we all love, or many of us do given the success of such movies, the sensation of being safely scared out of our wits as with the “Jason” or “Michael Meyer” type movies. Actually I lost interest in those a long time ago, but I used to enjoy action movies too of the “Arnold” variety, the summer of 1997 found me unable to be in the presence of all that killing, the only one of that genre that I can still stomach, even enjoy, is the original Highlander – I so love the soundtrack, Queen, Freddy Mercury‘s heavenly voice, and the ultimate outcome which though arrived at violently, is ultimately about hope.

So, you can understand, that what is available now that I can enjoy is a rather limited selection. I have some favorites but they all tend to be now movies that demonstrate something good, even wonderful about us, we spirits here having this human experience. I just love the American President, Contact, Regarding Henry, the Kid with Bruce Willis in an interesting role, a handful of others, all movies that I find hope in, that I find what I consider to be the best part of us in. So, though there aren’t really all that many movies, I do find interest in these days, still sometimes, Jenna will take me to Hollywood Video and lead me through the place, I’ll look at lots of things, most of which I have no interest whatsoever in, but what will eventually happen is I’ll find myself standing in front of something which does, that she wants me to see. For instance, City of Angels, lol, which they have but one copy of and which is not new, but which she actually had me ask for by name a few months ago and which she has since asked me to watch once again – that is the movie in which I first heard Sarah McLachlan, by the way. I’ve come to some very out of the way movies this way as I am wandering and she just sort of stops me, or I stop somehow, right in front of what she wants me to say – not at all unlike the way Book 1 came to me.

This past week, I was up that way on another errand and she asked me to go in, so I did, this guidance works in what I’m sure some will think an odd way, she doesn’t tell me WHAT to do, but urges me toward something she wants me to do, or see. We do have very specific conversations, long ones sometimes, about a lot of things, but when it comes to choices, those are always mine and mine alone. Again, because this is my experience not hers, and there are no scripts. Free will here really does mean exactly that. So as I wandered the store, looking at the new things, nothing really struck my eye, until I came to the Last Mimzy, a kids movie really, or so I thought upon first glance. But she said, THIS, is what I’d like you to see, gene. So I picked it up. It is a sci-fi movie, really, and though I love sci-fi, I don’t watch a lot of those movies, because, well, again, they are too violent for my taste.

I want to tell a little story here about how that came to be. I think it was a gradual sort of weaning process that began in me long before Brandon died. I used to be just a voracious reader, we are talking many books a week growing, mostly mysteries as those were what my mother, the only other reader in my family, liked. I found a couple people at my work who shared that interest and we began exchanging Robert Ludlum and Dick Francis books, but sometime 15 years or so ago, my taste just began to change, I was troubled by the violence in fiction, I think I started to see our “fantasies” as affecting our lives. I know there are no studies that prove television, or movie, violence begets physical violence, but I think the more one sees that, the more one becomes inured to other people’s suffering, the more one comes to believe that the end justifies the means. And I don’t. Believe that. This was, of course, Jenna’s gentle influence in me that caused this gradual turn away from that genre of print and screen media. It is a rare show I will watch that has much violence in it. For instance, in its first season, I really liked Criminal Minds, because of the thoughtful, insightful way they were able to characterize human behavior, but they had to come up with a new serial killer, ever more horrible, every single week to keep the show going. And that is NOT what our world is, it is NOT what our country is. There are people here who do evil things, yes, (don’t worry we’ll talk about judging another time, what that means for us as human beings I mean) but we do not have new serial killers every week. They are, blessedly, rare, few and far between. So Criminal Minds lost me. I could not live with the horrors they dreamt up no matter how brilliantly acted and presented they were.

When the movie part of this first became obvious to me was the summer after Brandon died. I tried to go see a new “Arnold” movie, xxxxx, and I found myself so overcome by the violence in it, that I left after less than 15 minutes, I was literally panic-stricken by it, I felt like I could die right there in the theater and I just couldn’t stay. I thought maybe it was ALL movies, but it wasn’t, Contact came out that summer and I made my oldest, my remaining, son, go with me – just in case. But it was wondrous, not horrifying – I was already a Carl Sagan fan and had read his only novel, but still, I wasn’t sure if it was movies, the crowd, or the dark, or the genre that had terrified me so. I learned watching Contact that it wasn’t the theater, the crowd, it was the violence. The next summer, on the CWG list, people were extolling the virtues of Saving Private Ryan, what great lessons it taught. My question to the group was, given its subject matter, was, was it bloody and violent? Yes, was the answer, but the overarching lesson was not. I knew I could not see it, so I listened to the discussion and said that if I ever did see it, it would have to be when it came out on video, so I could watch it on a small screen, in a place where I could shut it off for periods and watch it in chunks if I needed too. I have seen it now. About a year ago. And, yes, the idea that drove it was a noble one, and I was able to deal with the violence of it – I’m stronger now than I was back then, but I am as horrified by movie violence as ever. Even more so by the real violence taking place all over our world, but so graphically depicted in what happens in the middle east every day. There is no greater blasphemy, in my opinion, than killing in the name of God.

Back to science fiction. :^). I said I loved it, but that isn’t completely true, I really have only read two authors, and all of their work, I own, most I have read so many times, I could write them from memory, lol. I don’t agree with all of what they wrote, by any means, but there is so much eternal truth in their work, and so much good, that for the most part, I can excuse any excesses I found. And I really only found those in Robert Heinlein‘s work, he has SO much right, so beautifully, but I cannot abide the way he has characters treat each, beginning with Stranger in a Strange Land, a wonderful book in many ways, his characters, grew ever more rude personally, sort of in the way people who know each other well are teasingly insulting to each other? I can’t stand that. It is passive-aggressive cruelty in my opinion. We ought be more loving to those closest to us than to anyone else, in my judgment, not less. A cruel comment is a cruel comment no matter how much you love the person to whom it is made. Those of you who have been to my main site, know this is what brought on, or accelerated my awakening, interpersonal communication of less than a polite nature. I have bought, read, and thrown away one of Robert’s books at least three times over this issue. His early work was directed toward teens and young adults, I still have those and I love them, this issue was there too just not to the degree that it appeared later. I just find that unfortunate, because he was SO far ahead of his time in SO many other ways. The other sci-fi author I read, though I came to him as an adult, was Isaac Asimov, I have nothing to criticize about him. I loved everything he wrote, I think it was prescient and compelling. And coming.

So, the last Mimzy, we come full circle, though a “young” movie, Jenna wanted me to see it. When she does this, wants me to see something in particular, whenever we get to that point in the movie, or book for that matter, she tells me clearly, THIS is what I brought you here to see, gene. And in this case, though the whole movie is wonderful, what she wanted me to see was at the very end. A little speech that, really, ends the movie. I paused and copied down what was said. “But Emma’s tears were the instruction’s for an awakening. Our precious quality of humanity had been turned off. And it spread like wild flowers. People shed their protective suits and over time humanity blossomed again.”.

In my opinion, humanity has YET to blossom. We have NEVER been all that we can be on this planet. THAT is what I think is coming, an age, not an era, but an age, where we will become a true civilization, one people – one world. Where will be able to lay down our weapons and build a little bit of heaven right here on this beautiful blue oasis of love given us by our Creator for this very purpose. That humanity is due for an awakening to the truth of ourselves, to remember who we really are, and to begin to live THAT experience here on Earth. And then, we may take ourselves to the stars, where experience of all manner can be had, where what has happened here may well be forgotten, until sometime in the millennia to come, Emma’s tears are remembered and humanity blossoms again wherever it has taken root. It requires will and strength and sometimes violence to gain a foothold on a planet, to become the dominant species on a planet, and in that doing, the truth of us can be lost as we become immersed in the experience of simply living. Robert talks about this beautifully in one of his very best books, Time Enough For Love (the story of darling dora), but the experience of forgetting who we are only to eventually re-member, is how we ourselves evolve, from creatures, back into the love we are. The last Mimzy is worth seeing, dear ones. much love, :^) gene

Man’s best friend, My bff, My Cisco

This week I lost the best friend I have ever had in this life. Cisco, born 11/14/1995, died 08/07/2009.

I want to just talk a little about this furry wonder who came into my life when he was 7 weeks old weighing 7 pounds, 7 ounces and full of spunk already. He was a Lab/Shepherd cross, though he looked all Lab but he held his ears like a Shepherd, which made a lot of people think he was a wolf, because he was so big, and jet black, but for the tips of his toes and a splash of white on his chest. But there was nothing wolf-like in his being, he was just a huge bundle of love.

I consider him to be my furry grandchild, my Cisco. He originally belonged to my youngest son, Brandon. All Brandon wanted for his 20th birthday was a dog. So we went to the local Humane Society, Anoka County, USA, and as we walked in, there was this little guy in a HUGE cage all by himself out front. They said he was too little to be back with the others. I don’t really understand that because all of the others were also in cages. I think it was so we would see him first. We looked at all of the beautiful animals they had back there and Brandon couldn’t make up his mind, so I said, let’s look at that little guy out front again. I stuck my finger in his cage to touch him and he bit me. Then sat down and smirked. I told Brandon I think he’ll be fine, he said okay, dad. After I wrote the check, they said you might notice he’s a little noisy. He was the last of a litter of 7, 7 pounds 7 ounces and 7 weeks old. What could go wrong?

That first night we had him in a big box next to Brandon’s bed, his room adjoined mine. Cisco cried all night long. He’d cry and cry until his voice got hoarse and would give out, he’d be quiet 30 seconds and start again. The next morning Brandon said, Dad, I don’t think I can handle another night like that. I said, I don’t think I can either. From that night on, Cisco slept with Brandon, that was all he wanted, companionship. They told us he’d get to be about 60 pounds, but he stopped growing at 7 months and 115 rock solid pounds, tall and strong as a bull.

Brandon got caught up in a horrible drug, crystal meth, over that next year and a month after his 21st birthday he committed suicide. He’d had Cisco for 13 months, though all but a few weeks of that time he was with me in my home. Cisco is how I got through that. There were so many days I didn’t want to get out of bed at all but I did because he needed me.

Labs have horrible separation anxiety. I thought it funny that when Brandon was out, Cisco would chew his shoes. But when Brandon died, he shifted his love to me. I’d leave for work and as I got in the car, I’d hear him cry as if the world was ending. And while I was gone, he’d chew. Walls, floors, furniture, woodwork, I couldn’t believe he could get his teeth into some of those things, but he did. They say dogs can’t remember what they’ve done wrong so they have to be corrected immediately, in the act, or they won’t know why they are being chastised. Bull.

I have two ways into my house, through the garage door and the front door. A couple of times I left through the front door to go across the street to a convenience store and came back in through the garage door. Cisco would be sitting at the front door watching it. So I’d say, what are you looking for? And he’d jump like I had scalded him, I only got away with that a couple of times, from then on and to this day, when I leave one door, he goes to a spot where he can see both doors and greets me from there.

For 11 years he did that every time I left and came back. Unless he’d done something he knew I wouldn’t like, if he had, he’d be on the other side of the dining room table, where he could still see both doors but be hidden, and I’d find him peering at me from under the table. Some times I never did find out what he’d done. Others were obvious and some as I looked around I found. But he could not help himself, he busted himself every time. So those who say dogs don’t remember are full of it. Cisco was living proof.

We were so fortunate he and I. Both had good health, he used to run with me until knee surgery stopped my running. But we explored the world together as much as we could. And then two years ago, he began to age. Since then there have been many good days but also many where we had to be content to just be together. And truthfully, that was enough for both of us. As I told him often, we were just two guys who lived together, loved each other and took care of each other. Believe me, I have had many moments where he alone has kept me grounded and sane, when I was lost and through his love, he found me and brought me back to life, through my grieving, through the travails of life, he always stood firm against anything that wasn’t pure love.

But a year ago he got arthritis in his hindquarters and had been on pain/anti inflammatory medication since, and we couldn’t take those long middle of the night walks anymore. He started coughing about two months ago, a month after his annual checkup, I thought it might be allergenic, those darn cottonwood seeds that float through the air. But it didn’t pass and I took him back to his doctor. It turned out he had an enormously enlarged heart and the larynx in dogs passes right over it, that pressure is what is caused his cough. He knows that disturbs me, because he sounded as if he was hacking up his lungs, and I’d ask him, are you okay buddy? So somehow, he managed to suppress that while I was downstairs with him, but when I go to bed, I’d hear him start and he not stop all night long.

He’d been falling, since this past winter. I have a screen door, with a lift-up glass pane for the winter, and when I’d take him out sometimes my hand would slip off the handle and the door didn’t open, it is full of dents from him hitting it at full speed, which is the way he has always exited our home. He suddenly couldn’t do that anymore. This past winter when he’d try, he’d slip and fall, never before did he do that, he always navigated the snow and ice as if they were nothing.

In the past month, he has begun falling in the grass outside, wasn’t always able to get up from the linoleum in front of the door, his preferred spot. I’ve had to lift him up and once on his feet he’s been okay. He lost 25 pounds over the last year, which still left him a very big dog at 90, but in the past two weeks he’d been increasingly unable to stay up at all. His doctor added two heart disease medications and another pain reliever over the past two weeks but none of them helped.

Two weeks ago one evening when I got home and took him out, he stumbled like a drunk, his head and legs moved one way and his hindquarters another. He had bone spurs throughout his hindquarters. Were that me, I wouldn’t even try to walk. But he did. He didn’t want me to know he hurt. But when he’d fall, and that particular day he fell 10 times, he looked at me with the clearest communication we’ve ever had. His eyes said “help me”. So I did. He’d squat and fall into his stool, so I wiped his butt and brought him back in telling him what a good boy he was.

When his doctor told me, last week, that there wasn’t anything more we could do for him, I knew I had to let him go. He was suffering, though he tried SO hard to hide that, I couldn’t let that just and so the day I’ve dreaded for years finally arrived. It is his time, I know, but somehow I always hoped he’d outlive me and yet in another part of me, I’ve had this vision for years of him passing quietly in my arms. And that’s what was. That little bundle of love who gave me reason to get out of bed each day when Brandon died because he needed me, well, I determined to give him the love and respect he deserves. He’s the background on my phone and the reason I’m still here – love that knows no bounds. If he can, I can. We all can. God made no mistake in creating dogs, and it is no coincidence the dog spelled the other way is God. We could learn so much from them, I have, unconditional love, unconditional forgiveness, no matter what you do to them or let be done to them, they love you without reservation anyway. We humans could take a lesson from that. If Cisco has a legacy, let that be it. I love you no matter what, no matter why, and forever. That’s his answer. And my own commitment to the dear ones in my life. I want to thank all who have been, and are, so important a part of my life. If you have need, call me. I WILL be there. Cisco taught me that.

I still, a day later, can’t believe we have had our last everything. Thursday afternoon I took the afternoon off and we visited places we used to go all the time, that was HARD, partly because he hasn’t the strength to get in the car and I have to lift him and he doesn’t like that and partly because it was the last time we’d ever be there together again. But we did it, we walked where we walked when he was a baby, we looked at the bank of the river that he flung himself into when he was 6 months old. I have to tell that story here, we were walking in a nearby wooded area through which runs a creek, I had him off leash so he could sniff as he pleased. We came upon two boys at a bend in the creek, they were on the other side swinging on a rope out over the creek and dropping into it. He looked me right in the eyes and as was so often the case, I could read his mind, he was asking, can I? I smiled and said go ahead, buddy. He started running AWAY from me but turned into a tight circle and headed for the bank. It was at least a six foot drop to the creek and he sailed out to the middle where he landed with a huge splash, the two boys on the other side shocked as all get out and laughing so hard I thought they’d fall over too, he came up sputtering, looked at me as if to say, WHAT did I just do, swam back, clambered back up the bank and did it again, at 6 months his Lab instincts were very much there. He loved water in any form, snow included. So on this past Thursday we walked slowly and he snoofed as much as he pleased, and then I cooked him a very rare steak. He can’t manage the stairs anymore, so Thursday night I slept on the couch downstairs near him, as for most of his life, he slept upstairs next to me, I didn’t mind the coughing, not at all.

I’ve seen several stories about this experience, one of my favorites is the one where a man dies and meets his dog and won’t enter any place that won’t allow his beloved friend in too. And as someone, maybe Will Rogers, said, if dogs aren’t allowed in heaven, then I want to go where they go. But the story I like best is the Rainbow Bridge. There one day I hope to re-unite with Cisco, and a few others of his loving kind who have been important too, in my life, though none more than he. Along with many humans who have been too. But this is not about them, it is about him.

I will never stop missing him, I will never stop loving him. I will be 60 in a few weeks and he is the last dog I will ever have and he wasn’t even mine. I’m his grandpa, not his dad, though as has been pointed out to me, he IS my dog. Which I do know. And I love him with all my heart still. 12 1/2 years alone together, and 13 1/2 years of life is not nearly enough. I am NOT done loving him and he is NOT done loving me. He has been my rock, strong when I’ve been weak. And had I the power I would have spared him this weakness. He has been a monster, strong as any truck all of his life, that he cannot be what he has always been was killing him. And me. I know it is his time, but I feel a Judas nonetheless. I pray he will forgive me for what I have done. I WILL never stop missing him. My furry grandchild, my beloved Cisco.

An update and a few words

For those of you following my son’s story on CaringBridge, you’ll know that is where I’ve done most of my writing the past, nearly three months now. His accident and his slow recovery, now beginning a long and painful rehabilitation process, has consumed my time and attention pretty much completely since April 23.

But he is recovering, his last surgery, we hope – there is some question yet as to whether he suffered an injury to his left shoulder that will need more than rehabilitation, was three weeks ago to perform plastic surgery, a skin graft, on his left foot and heel. That was successful and in another week he should be able to bear weight on that leg, for now they are just working his right leg, having him stand, last week that required assistance, this week, yesterday, he got up himself and stood on his right leg for a full minute. That doesn’t sound like much but considering he came within an eyelash of dying April 23rd, that it took 12 hours to stabilize him enough for surgery his doctors weren’t sure he’d survive, that coming out of that surgery they thought they would have to amputate his left foot about halfway up to the knee and that he then spent the next 5 weeks unconscious, tethered and sedated. Tethered because when he’d come up a bit out of the sedation, he’d buck like a bronco trying to get out of that bed, he did NOT like being tied at the wrists, though that was only to prevent him pulling tubes out of himself, tubes that were keeping him alive, and sedated because when he wasn’t he’d buck like a bronco. Yes, circular, but the truth nonetheless.

There were periods during those five weeks I thought he was gone, his eyes would open look blankly at the ceiling, no light in them at all, no recognition of anything, then close again, but we were assured there had been no deprivation of oxygen so no anoxia and no brain damage, which in itself is a bit of a miracle. I’ve told him, we all have, that he definitely had an angel sitting on his shoulder that night, because in the interim, I’ve seen many stories (in the way that once you get a different car, you suddenly notice them everywhere, when before you hadn’t noticed them at all?) of people having the sort of accident he did and virtually none of those people lived. He has no memory of the accident at all, a blessing that.

But at 5 weeks he came back to us, got moved to a long term acute care facility, got pneumonia and went back to the original hospital, North Memorial, got that cured and went back to Bethesda where he is still. His real rehabilitation only began last week. He still has a lot of pain in his right thigh, understandable considering they cut a tunnel from mid calf up over his knee a few more inches to insert the rod into his femur, then cut another six inch slice in the side of that thigh so they could repair the femur and attach the rod. There’s a lot of scar tissue there, cut muscles take a long time to heal, I recall from a long time ago when I had my appendix out the old way when I was 15. But it has begun, it will be a full year before he is really back to normal again, or as close to it as he’ll ever get. No idea how long he’ll be in a facility, but his medical bills are over $120,000 as of 7/20, a small portion paid by his auto insurance, we are a no fault state and they can’t look to the driver because he lied about having insurance when in fact he had none.

And so many people think we do not need single payor national health care. I’d like to prescribe some medicine for every legislator, every lobbyist, every lawyer, every health insurance official myself and that would be to sit down and watch Michael Moore’s wonderful documentary, Sicko. We brag so much about our health care but our statistics are dismal compared to other countries in virtually every category. Oh, sure, the RICH have wonderful health care, but no one else, and many have none at all. Single payor works in every country Michael visited, CUBA has better health care than we do, Americans go THERE to have procedures done they can’t get done here and at virtually no cost. Yet we have this cowboy mentality that says if it is American it is the best. The real truth is: That ain’t true no more. Not by a long way. We need to get there sooner rather than later and if that means a few HMO exec’s stop making 7 figure salaries, well so be it. We could do this for a fraction of what we are spending in Iraq. Yet lobbyists are screaming as if the world would end should this wonderful thing come to be, the AMA, which represents about 20% of American doctors is dead set against it, we hear a LOT about them, but not the other 80%, many of whom DO support the idea as in the best interest of their patients. We could DO preventative health care rather than emergency medicine which is SO much more expensive. It WILL happen, even if in increments. Because it makes so much sense spiritually, humanly and fiscally, though all the arguments use those three things as a basis to deny this need to the American people. Lest anyone think, I became an aficionado of this idea after Evan’s accident, well dig through the archives a bit, lol. And believe me when I tell you I gave copies of Sicko away as Christmas gifts last year. It is an idea whose time has come, my son’s desperate situation notwithstanding. So anyone reading this, I’ll debate it with you, I’ll send you a copy of Sicko, and I’ll ask you to ask your Representative and Senators to support it. It is time, this is right, and we need act. I hope to be here more often, but time still is constrained, though it is in me that will not be so for much longer. We’ll see what happens then. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Dark night turned into a bright new day

I’ve not been here for a bit and while doing some housecleaning thought to check back in here and noticed my last post. I thought I’d best update things!

Evan spent a month in the Critical Care Unit of the ICU but last Thursday was moved to the “normal” ICU. He had us all very worried for much of the month and I’ve spent most of my non-working hours there with him. He was mostly comatose, kept that way, for three weeks. On the rare occasion his eyes would open, they were a blank, vacant stare. No sign of him at all. But last week, he suddenly began improving again.

They had begun weaning him off the respirator last weekend, until then he had been unable to sustain breathing on his own at all. I think the problem was, not only the severity of his asthma, but the smallness of the passenger seat compartment in the vehicle he was riding. He had severe bruising on both sides and I think his sides were hammered by the center console and the caving in of the passenger door multiple times during the accident, severely bruising his lungs. Once THEY healed, he was able to be weaned off the respirator, by the end of last weekend, he was breathing on his own entirely, and Monday night when I got there to visit him, the first thing I noticed was the room seemed empty – that was because the respirator had been removed. He was breathing entirely on his own, through the tracheotomy site, receiving slightly moistened air, but initiating breaths on his own. His improvement since then has been remarkable.

Friday evening when I arrived, they had installed an ingenious little device that allowed him to talk, on his own, hands still tethered, but when I came into the room, he looked at me and said, “hi, pop”. My son was back in his body, mind lucid, no memory of the accident but fully conscious and hardly able to believe he had missed a whole month. His wounds are healing well, he still has a lot of pain with the right leg and hip fracture and the left ankle is being kept going by another device, a wound vac, that is usually used with burn victims, which flushes the area 24/7 with fluids and nutrients. The sole of his foot was reattached with staples, which were removed this past week, as the reattachment “took” and there is healing going on there. It is still likely he will need a graft of some kind as he lost so much tissue, but he will keep his foot and a plastic surgeon will make it functional. He will be moving from the hospital to a care center in two to three weeks, where he will begin rehabilitation, to learn to walk all over again and regain the strength in his body. He has virtually none now, they removed the tethers from his wrists yesterday, but after over a month in one position, everything is sort of locked in one place and it is excruciating to move, even though vocational rehabilitation has already begun to help him regain range of motion and strength in his arms and shoulders. Anyone who had seen him bucking like a bronco as the medications would wear off over the past three weeks, trying to get out of bed, would find it hard to believe that he is now this week. Drugs are powerful fuel though and the enforced position has left him weak as a kitten. But the news is all good and he will again regain the strength of a lion, it will just take some time. And more time with him is what we have now, thanks to the angels of mercy, they call RN’s, who work 12 hour shifts with just two patients in the Critical Care Unit and whose professionalism, kindness, expertise and optimism kept our whole group of family and friends going these past four weeks. They are selfless and dedicated and marvelous human beings. And their ranks are being cut by 100 thanks to the skinflint we have as a Governor, Tim Pawlenty, Mr. No Taxes on the rich, who is preparing to end any sort of medical care for single adults, employed or not, able to care for themselves or not, so his rich friends aren’t inconvenienced in any way. For a party, Republican, that bills itself as Christian they seem to know little of how Christ treated the poor and infirm. That will be another post. This one I will end with a small prayer of gratitude to my Jenna and the angels who work with her for giving me back my only child. Thank you. Much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

What dark night is this?

So, my third post of the year. Why? Well, the year has been taken with concern for and dealing with my only remaining child. He has been dark and depressed for most of the past three years as he separated from his wife, I will not go into why here, that is his and hers, and this isn’t about fault, for none of us are perfect. Still, it has been a long and contentious process and they are not yet divorced. He has taken more than his share of that weight on his shoulders. Much more. He has hated himself and the world. He has lived only for his children. He has struggled with alcohol. He decided six weeks ago to cleanse himself of that addiction, found and entered a treatment program. But he was too smart for his own good. Those of you who have come here from my main site know that I lost my youngest son a bit over 12 years ago. I have cherished my remaining son, my eldest, in the years since, though he too, as well as his mother, has suffered from the loss of our littlest one. Each of us in our own have absorbed blame we did not, perhaps, deserve for Brandon’s final act. He chose for himself. I wrote at length about my own part in the post about complicated bereavement. Knowing what happened to me within has not changed how I feel within. My oldest is a very smart man, he’s got an IQ of 157 and is as smart a man as you will ever run across. But he has a demon following him, a demon that follows many and has strewn many of our family, on both sides, across the fields of life and death.

Evan decided to enter a treatment program, found one and did. He attended two and a half weeks. After his Tuesday session in the third week, when I picked him up, he talked all the way home about how the evening had gone. His group leader had made some statements, categorically, which Evan knew to be wrong. And he spoke up, proved the truth he knew, and changed the dynamic of the group. From that point on, people asked his advice on issues, his take on their situation, the group leader as she threw out new questions to the group would say, what do you think about that, Evan? In his fourth meeting, he was running the group. That was a huge mistake, not his, he was being himself, but the group leader who allowed it to happen. It isn’t a new thing, Evan has been a leader all his life, people are drawn to him, and they want to do what he wants to do. When I would take him out to play at 5, before that I kept him inside, and he’d meet with other children, within minutes whatever they were doing stopped and they were doing what he wanted to do. He never commanded, or threatened, or did anything but be himself, they just wanted to do what he wanted to do. This has not always served him well. For to be a true leader, one needs the wisdom that comes with age and experience, to lead without that, can have dire consequences. All his life he has led whatever group he associated with. He is a dynamic but not domineering presence. And he has great compassion. But his choices have not always been wise. They’ve been his and he’s been successful with them, he only ever got in trouble when he relied on others to do their part and they couldn’t be him. I worried that night and the next day over how that last session had gone. He was feeling his oats, cocky, and in control. But that is NOT the point of treatment. The point of treatment is to recognize that something has power over you that you cannot control, and to learn mechanism’s to take back that control. In this case, his demon was alcohol.

I went to bed Wednesday night at 10, he sat downstairs fighting the urge to drink, and lost the battle, he took a cab to a bar, met a young man who had been of legal age for 2 days, celebrated with him and let him take him home rather than taking a cab as usual. I don’t know all of this yet, though it happened on April 23rd. The reason I don’t know is that at 2:23 that morning, that young man, on a residential street with a speed limit of 30 mph, was driving 80 mph, 30 feet from a stop sign at an intersection that ended that street. There was a gentle curve leading to that intersection, he couldn’t navigate it, and they drove through the curve into a yard and hit a large mature tree head on. The driver was thrown through the windshield and was up making calls in a couple minutes. Evan was trapped in the passenger seat as the car wound around the tree, the engine flew into another yard, part of the firewall came back into the passenger compartment and sheared off the sole of Evan’s left foot, leaving a gaping wound 7 inches long exposing the bone and cartilage of his left foot. The passenger door caved in and broke his right femur, shattered his right hip, and the dash crashed into and cracked his sternum. His scalp was lacerated and had to be reattached. He obviously saw it coming because he threw his arms up in front of him and his arms looked like he’d been in a fight with a mountain lion, and lost. He has been unconscious, in critical condition, in the critical care unit of a level one trauma hospital since that night.

It took 7 1/2 hours of surgery that night to repair his right femur and hip. It took the rest of the morning and day to save his life, THEN the surgery. I wasn’t contacted until 12 hours after the accident. When the investigating detective went to the hospital that morning, she asked if the family had been contacted, the staff said no, they had been busy trying to keep him alive. They can be proud, they did. Angels of mercy are they, who work 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week, without regard to holidays, secular or religious, because lives depend on their care. They are modern day living angels.

So. He’s been unconscious most of the time since, under heavy sedation and pain medication. Only one night was he lucid enough to react to my talking to him. Currently only three people are allowed to see him, at his express wish that night he was semi-lucid. He doesn’t want anyone to see him as he is. I don’t blame him. That he has been unconscious is merciful. That machines can tell when he is in pain and relieve that pain is a modern miracle. That I cannot hold and hug and tell my son that everything is going to be alright and he’ll be whole again is hell on earth. Twice now this experience. Am I blessed or cursed?

At least this time, my son is breathing, albeit via respirator, but his left ankle is so badly damaged that if they can save his foot, and that is far from certain, it will be always deformed. Was there a divine purpose in this horror? Obviously the group he was in for treatment was NOT right for him, group members are there to learn, not control. Did he need a lesson to learn that? Did he need to be humbled so that despite his intellect he could finally understand that intelligence alone is not enough to survive in this world? That we need each other to do that? His angels. Those who care about him? Those who are devastated by what has happened to him. Will he emerge from this a stronger, better man? Will he survive at all? All questions I cannot answer. He has had various procedures done unto him these past days, each has caused its own trauma. His asthma is so severe that it complicates everything the medical people are doing, he goes into respiratory distress during procedures. Today his blood pressure went over 200 and his heart rate over 150 as they LOOKED at his ankle and performed a tracheotomy so the intubation tube could come out of his throat after 9 days. His eyes never even fluttered while I stood by him, though he grimaced with pain in his drugged slumber.

The sole of his foot MUST reattach, or he will lose it completely, it is a horrible wound. If the sole finds his soul and reunites, a skin graft can be done to cover the gaping hole left by the tissue torn away during the accident. He will always have a deformed foot, but he will be able to walk, if. It will be a 6 to 9 month rehabilitation process, 4-8 weeks in the hospital and then a care facility, at the moment the high end in the hospital is looking most likely because they are treating his trauma and his asthma is getting palliative care and THAT is what is causing his respiratory distress. He has has asthma since he was 5 I know what respiratory distress looks like and this is worse. I have twice given the trauma station people his asthma specialists name and number, they MUST coordinate care with him, because what they are doing now for his asthma is palliative and that isn’t enough. Two weeks ago he began a regimen of three injections every two weeks, each series costs $7000.00. He’s had one, the next is due on Monday 5/4, and he won’t get it.

I am dealing with his business, I’ve a list of 13 things that have to be done, people that need to know things, that have to be informed, insurance, police, agencies. There is an SSI appeal going on because we filed a claim last fall and though the specialist the SS administration sent him to, showed 17% lung function in the lower half of his lungs and 40% in the upper half, they denied his claim. Why? Because the fact that he had been able to work for 8 of the previous 10 years proved he could work. Completely ignoring the fact that because his asthma has gotten so bad the last 2 years he hasn’t been able to work at all. His lawyers are sure we’ll win that. So am I. But then there is also the divorce, the consequences of his alcohol induced errors, his car, his recovery and rehabilitation. And so much more. I’ve had a headache for 4 months, I find myself hoping it is a tumor because I will not seek nor accept treatment for it. I’ve not really slept since Brandon died and watching Evan in this state is even worse. Brandon was one night, Evan is so strong he is holding on and fighting, but I feel like Chief Joseph, I wish to lay down my weapons and fight no more forever.

For any who wish to verify, or visit, or see, or understand. I have a web page set up for him, he could use your prayers and good thoughts. http://www.caringbridge.com/visit/evanj731

The Beautiful You

From Steve Goodier’s wonderful newsletter:

We place great emphasis on a narrow idea of physical beauty.

In an American history discussion group, the professor was trying to explain how, throughout history, the concept of “beauty” changes with time. “For example,” he said, “take the 1921 Miss America. She stood
five-foot-one inch tall, weighed 108 pounds and sported a 30-inch bust, a 25-inch waist and 32-inch hips. How do you think she’d do in today’s version of the contest?”

The class fell silent for a moment. Then one student piped up, “Not very well.”

“Why is that?” asked the professor.

“For one thing,” the student pointed out, “she’d be way too old.”

Good point — she’d be way too old. But beauty is a peculiar thing, for it means something a little different to each of us. And it isn’t always about appearance. Sometimes beauty is a quality that softly shines from inner depths. And you may actually radiate more inner beauty than you realize.

An elderly woman noticed that her granddaughter felt embarrassed by her freckles. “I love your freckles,” she said, kneeling beside the girl and admiring her face.

“Not me,” the child replied.

“Well, when I was a little girl I always wanted freckles,” the grandmother said, tracing her finger across the child’s cheek. “Freckles are beautiful.”

The girl looked up. “Really?”

“Of course,” said her grandmother. “Why just name one thing that’s prettier than freckles.”

The little girl peered into the old woman’s smiling face, aglow with kindness and love. “Wrinkles,” she answered softly.

The physical beauty of youth will fade. But the beauty of a spirit, when nurtured, can grow forever.

– Steve Goodier

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

A God Too Small

From Steve Goodier:

A GOD TOO SMALL

I enjoy a story about baseball great Joe Garagiola. He once stepped to the plate when his turn came to bat. Before assuming his stance, however, fervent Roman Catholic Joe took his bat and made the sign of the cross in the dirt in front of home plate. Catcher Yogi Berra, also a devout Catholic, walked over and erased Garagiola’s cross. Turning to the astonished batter, Berra smiled and said, “Let’s let God watch this inning.”

If I were God (and thank goodness I’m not), I think I would have wanted to simply watch the inning.

I likewise appreciate the story about an old Quaker who stood during the church meeting and told his fellow Friends about a young man who was not a Quaker and who lived an undisciplined life. This young man invited a pious Quaker friend to go sailing one day. A sudden storm came up and the wild young man was drowned. Having made his point, the old Quaker sat down.

Silence returned to the meeting until the old man once again arose. This time he said, “Friends, for the honor of the truth, I think I ought to add that the Quaker also drowned.”

And if I were God (and again, thank goodness I’m not), I think I would have felt sadness for both losses. Neither was a greater tragedy than the other.

I know that religious piety can be a wondrous and beautiful thing. But it disturbs me the prominent role religions have historically played in wars and brutality over the ages. If I imagine a god so small as to favor those who think like me, worship like me and act like me, then I know very little of life and less of faith. I can’t help but think this world would be in better shape if the gods most of us believed in were a little bigger.

– Steve Goodier

I love these little synchrhonicities that pop up along the path. I was thinking about this very thing this weekend past. Wanting to bring the conversation here back to the books I started this blog with. And the thought that kept running through my mind, is how we humans have crafted God to be as small as we. Each side, no matter what the debate, claims to have the support of God. People, virtually always men, but increasingly, in the middle east anyway, women too, are willing kill innocents because they believe their particular book, or their interpretation of it, means they must either convert others to their brand of piety, or kill them.

We humans in our forever religious fervor try to make God as small as we feel. When the truth is so much greater than that. We may, or may not, have been created in His image, although that does seem to leave the female population out in the cold, so to speak, but what we have done with that idea over the centuries is use it to write books in which we condemn all who believe in other books to death and damnation eternal.

When I think along those lines, I always wonder how people can take them seriously. What sort of God would allow the creation of 6000 religions and then expect each of His or Her children to FIND that ONE true religion, even if born in a part of the world that has never heard of it, and then condemn to eternal torment all others? Well, I have an answer to that question! No sort of God would do that. No sort of parent would do that. Which brings me then to the idea that it isn’t God who wrote those books, nor came up with those ideas, it was men, for the purpose of exerting power over other men, and women and children too. How? By causing them to live in fear. Our creator is not fearful. Look to my main site for descriptions of what it feels like to be, even for a few seconds, in the presence of God, because that is what I believe I experienced, and why that site exists, to speak to that truth. God is love. Humans are fearful. And the last thing God wants is for us to fear Him/Her. Our creator is so much more than we puny humans with our never-ending bloodthirsty will to kill everything and everyone who dare have a different idea, or believe in a different book. I tell you all those books are lies, concocted by humans for human purposes, not divine. The closest words of truth that you will find about our Creator are contained in Conversations With God, Books 1 and 2, by Neale Donald Walsch. And in my next post, soon, I am going to talk about what God says there and the truth of those words. Until then, much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Breaking the Silence

Which will be welcome news to some. I think. I’m still not sure how much I will be writing, but I will again be writing. While on my hiatus from this blog, I’ve been fully engaged in life, struggles, issues, day to day things that have, and continue, to consume my time. However, one of the things I’ve done is consult with a family therapist, no, not related to the complicated bereavement issue I wrote about before, but, yes, in a way that was, is, part of it. It is shocking, really, how deeply the loss of a child affects an entire family. I don’t mean for a few moments or months, either, the echo’s of a suicide reverberate through time, it seems endlessly. While time itself makes the wound bearable, it leaves scar tissue that is exceedingly tender and which can be cut, again and again. Sometimes in completely unexpected ways, others in more predictable ways, but it isn’t just me who has been affected by Brandon’s choice to leave the earthly plane, but our entire family, in ways both obvious and not so much. It’s hard to decide what issues that have arisen since that horrible event are attributable or had their beginnings with that event and which did not.

So, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I have my remaining son living with me, since August, 2008, for the first time since he was 21. It has taken time to get to know each other again, for me to get used to having someone else in the house where I’ve lived alone, but for Cisco, for 12 years. There have been and are frictions, most not caused by our living together, but by issues in his own life that have caused him, justifiably, enormous pain and stress. Those issues continue, which is why I saw a family therapist, to try to find ways for me to cope with this situation. He has his own ways and needs, our interests don’t really coincide, except in a handful of areas, and that in and of itself causes friction, sometimes more. It has not and is not, easy. For either of us. I have faith though that we both will be okay. One of the ways I’ll be okay is to write again. That was the suggestion of my therapist, there were others but they aren’t relevant here as this is my blog, not True Confessions, lol. So, I am going to start making time for my own interests again, things I’ve ceded or given up entirely, this blog being one of those things.

I’m not going to begin by going back to the books, though that IS where I will be going, today, I just wanted to reintroduce myself, talk a little about why I’ve been gone, and then talk a bit about a discussion I had following President Obama’s inauguration. I was on a message board where someone said he was confused about why the world cared about this event, that the President is President of the United States adding somewhat ominously, yet, and that this one in particular was little more than an empty suit. So I responded with what I see as reasons for the world to join the American people in celebrating this event in the following way.

“I don’t doubt your confusion. But what the world sees in the ability of an overwhelmingly white country to elect a man of color, is hope. Hope that if we can set aside racial differences, trust our leadership to a man of color, that their own lives might be bettered. Perhaps that the rest of the world too might be able to achieve a peaceful transition of leadership every few years. But mostly I think they feel hope that a new America is emerging. An America that can lead the world to a place of peace and prosperity globally.

I share that faith and as a veteran of the Viet Nam conflict and a white male, I applaud what this country did last November. So does the rest of the world. President Obama is far from an empty suit, he will lead us through the challenges we face with courage, integrity and honor. The world is a better, safer place for what America has just done. And the world, though perhaps not you, recognizes that.”

What some Americans fail to recognize is that although our nation is overwhelming white, the rest of the world is not. That a man whose father, as he said in his speech, would not be served in some restaurants, to say the least, 60 years ago, could rise from poverty to the highest office in our country, supported by millions of white voters, IS an event of global significance. There were parties and celebrations around the world as the inauguration took place. Every person of color in our own country can hold their head a bit higher today. It is no longer acceptable for persons of color to allow hopelessness to dominate their thinking, to believe that the way things were is the way they will always be. Every child of color in this country will grow up KNOWING there is no more glass ceiling, that cannot be used as an excuse for bad behavior, for lack of effort, for giving up before getting started. Hope is the one thing the world cannot live without.

Hope is what this election brings to the world. Hope for a new way to live, a new path to follow, a new experience to have, hope for an America interested in and committed to, the well-being of every citizen of this wonderful planet. I think that is a wonderful thing and as much as I believe we need a female head of state too, I believe we first needed to prove to the world that we are not a nation of racist cowboys, that we as a country, repudiate the events of the last 8 years, indeed also the events of the early years of country when we counted people of color as less than fully human and unworthy of freedom and a place at our table. I believe this election proves and demonstrates that we are committed to amending what wrongs we have done and that we will support the cause of freedom for all the people of our planet.

I think Barack Obama is the perfect choice at the perfect moment in history to lead this challenging country, indeed, the planet, though he is not, as the original writer pointed out, President of anything but America, it is still true that America leads the free world. I think a substantial percentage of the world will enjoy increasing freedom and prosperity through the efforts President Obama will undertake and, I believe, successfully bring into the light. He was right about one thing, more than any other, in his speech when he said: “And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.” It has long been my own position that the business of the public, if it cannot be conducted in the open, cannot withstand public scrutiny, probablly should not be conducted at all. Closed door meetings during which decisions are made, without the consent of the American people, are wrong. If you can’t say it in public, then you probably should not say it, let alone do it. I can’t begin to tell you the excitement and pride I feel at this new juncture in American history, indeed, Earth history. This President has my full confidence and abiding faith that he can bring the world to one table of thanksgiving. May it be so. Much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

A goodbye

I am shutting down writing for a while. This blog was never the main point of my buying a website name in the first place. My main site One People – One World was, and is, the reason. I’ve been told this should be about the light, well, there is very little of that in my life these days for many reasons. It is hard to see the light in the midst of a very dark tunnel and that is where I find myself of late. So, I’m going to just stop. For a while or forever, I don’t yet know. But for now certainly as I find myself afloat, a ship without an anchor, so I leave for some period of time, with this song:

Goodbye Stranger

It was an early morning yesterday
I was up before the dawn
And I really have enjoyed my stay
But I must be moving on

Like a king without a castle
Like a queen without a throne
I’m an early morning lover
And I must be moving on

Now I believe in what you say
Is the undisputed truth
But I have to have things my own way
To keep me in my youth

Like a ship without an anchor
Like a slave without a chain
Just the thought of those sweet ladies
Sends a shiver through my veins

And I will go on shining
Shining like brand new
I’ll never look behind me
My troubles will be few

Goodbye stranger it’s been nice
Hope you find your paradise
Tried to see your point of view
Hope your dreams will all come true

Goodbye mary, goodbye jane
Will we ever meet again
Feel no sorrow, feel no shame
Come tomorrow, feel no pain

Now some they do and some they don’t
And some you just can’t tell
And some they will and some they won’t
With some it’s just as well

You can laugh at my behavior
That’ll never bother me
Say the devil is my savior
But I don’t pay no heed

And I will go on shining
Shining like brand new
I’ll never look behind me
My troubles will be few

Chorus, repeat

Remember, please, if today brings even one choice your way choose to be a bringer of the light. Mayhaps, I’ll see it and we will share a cup of coffee and talk it through. :^) gene

Boogie

My youngest son’s nickname among his friends was Boogie, so this made me mist up a little, but it is a wonderful site, be sure to scroll down, there are wonderfully wise words that fit life perfectly and a nice little tune too. :^)

Boogie

Merry X’s to you my son. love, :^) dad

I’m not hearing sound there, but I know it is there. And it isn’t my speakers…

I think I have it

I finally have it, my purpose, why I came here, gawd, is this a relief!

I am here to teach the world how not to be. Not of the scale of a Hitler, but of a more personal nature. Hitler taught us how not to be on a global scale, I teach how not to be on a one to one scale. So, an example am I. I hope the world notices. Because what I’ve done, how I am, is important as an example of how not to be. We are learning as a species how to get along on a global basis, it is important, too, perhaps even more so, that we learn what not to do on an interpersonal basis. I can be, I am, the poster for that. Signing off, love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light: Heed him. ^) gene

We need each other

Okay, this starts with a Steve Goodier piece. Please read it. Then read me, sorry I took most all of that out, too dark. So it turns out I don’t have a lot to say about it. Though I don’t understand why, well, I do, but I don’t get why I can’t get it. Or can get it but with everyone except those closest to me. Somewhen, this part of life left me. And for the love of humanity and God, I cannot find the spot in the forest where last I saw it.

WE NEED EACH OTHER

Many living things need each other to survive. I have lived for most of my life near trees known as Colorado aspens. If you are familiar with this tree, you may have noticed that it does not grow alone.
Aspens are found in clusters, or groves. We’re told that the reason for this is because aspens can multiply from the roots. They send up lots of new shoots every year. These become saplings that grow quickly and make new baby aspens of their own. In some groves, all of the trees may actually be connected by their roots. It is as if they are one tree.

Another tree, the giant California redwood, may tower 300 feet into the sky. We’ve seen pictures of tunnels carved into massive trunks wide enough to drive an automobile through. It seems they would
require the deepest of roots to anchor them against strong winds. But instead their roots are actually shallow — they spread out wide in search of surface water. And they reach in all directions,
intertwining with roots of other red woods. Locked together in this way, all the trees support each other in wind and storms.

Aspens and redwoods never stand alone. They need one another to survive.

People, too, are connected by a system of roots. We grow up in families that nurture and guide us. We learn early to make friends who support us in different ways. We are not meant to survive long without
others. And like the giant redwoods, we do best when we hold onto one another and help each other to keep standing through life’s storms. We need others to hold us up, encourage us and to stand with us.

When I’m not doing well, it is often because I am going it alone. I don’t always let others in. I forget to ask for help; I keep my problems to myself. And though I may not see it, others around me might be doing the same thing.

It helps to remember how much like those trees we really are. It might be time to let someone else help hold you up for awhile. Or perhaps someone needs to hang on to you.

All I really wonder about at this point is why this seems not be true for me. I have yet to experience the joy of a healing touch, or presence. Would that I could. Much love, :^)gene

I add this, because I always do, though I no longer know what it means, it has just been within me forever. If today brings even one choice your way choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

A complicated life

Many people wish their lives were less complicated. They remember a carefree time and dream of returning to a simpler day. They yearn for more freedom. Less worry and more laughter. If only they could trade some of today’s complexity for yesterday’s simplicity.

American essayist and novelist Charles Dudley Warner said, “Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.”

Rudyard Kipling yearned for less when he said, “Teach us to delight in simple things.”

Author Augustus Hare observed that “the greatest truths are the simplest — and so are the greatest men.”

Maybe it’s time to make a decision for greatness; a decision for simplicity. Maybe it’s time to let go of that which weighs you downand walk with a lighter step. Maybe it’s time to love life again.

Now even if you don’t play golf, the analogies below hold true. Truer than one might think. I think. :^)

PRECIOUS MOMENTS

I probably golf about as well as a slug wages war…. In fact, out of consideration for my friends (I embarrass them), I quit playing with anybody I know. It was too hard for them to watch. But I can still appreciate what a golf enthusiast said about the game.

He listed three mental techniques to improve one’s golf game. And the great part is this: these techniques not only help to improve a game, they can help all of us live better lives. They are mental attitudes that can help you and me live more in the moment and less in the past or the future. Here they are… golf tips for better living.

1. Resist the urge to add up your score as you go along. If you anticipate your score, you’ll be distracted from the task at hand.

In other words, live more in the present. Clear your mind of past mistakes and even past successes, and try to think only about the here and now.

2. Focus. Concentrate on hitting great shots rather than worrying about bad ones or what others will think if you miss. Visualize the ball going to your target.

This is a terrific technique for daily living. Focus. Concentrate on doing the present task well rather than worrying about what others will think if you should “mess up.” And get a picture in your mind’s eye of succeeding at the thing you are doing right now.

3. Keep your mind on the hole you’re playing. Don’t think about how you are going to play the last hole.
This is about resisting the urge to think ahead. If we pay close attention to the present, the future will take care of itself. Our present moment is full of power and wonder. It deserves our full attention.

Writer H.G. Wells once noted, “Man must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind him to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and a mystery.” Anybody can get more out of life who concentrates on and cherishes the here and now – and we’re not talking about golf.

The present is too important not to pay attention to it. One doctor said, “I have learned from speaking to many cancer survivor groups that (when you have cancer) the watch on your hand no longer says, ‘Tick, tick, tick.’ It now says, ‘Precious, precious, precious.’” When the present moment is precious, everything else takes care of itself.

Gene asks: Now, did you notice what all of these tips have in common? They are not about understanding the past or setting goals for the future. They are simply about living in the present moment.

And then I note: That may be easier said, or written, than done, but it is wonderful advice anyway. I try to look at life as if this moment were the only ever. Because in all truth, it is. We are present only in each moment, the past is gone and unchangeable, the future yet to arrive and despite our best intentions and plans, we have no real idea what the next moment will bring. Anyone who has ever been surprised by the next moment, be it a call of warning or news, good or bad, or the spilling of that coffee cup on your keyboard, we simply are not constituted to “know” what the next moment will bring. Therefore the only moment we have, the only one we can affect, or make completely what we wish it to be is the present moment. And it is there that we live. Decide to make each of those current moments precious and see what sort of tapestry you build. Think of each moment as a brick in a road you are building that constitutes the path your life takes, or a brush stroke on the canvas that depicts your history as well as your future. See what happens when you worry only about enjoying the moment you are in, because, truthfully, there is no other moment at all. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

What message does the 11/4 election send to the world?

I’d like to think that what America did last night was not only unique but momentous, one of those moments that changes history forever. I know the world was paying close attention to this election. I hope that the message the world “gets” from it, is the same one I see.

Yes, in America, we still manage a peaceful transition of political power every four years. We do not need nor countenance armed revolution to effect change in our society.

Yes, in America a black man CAN be elected President, we are an open society in which anyone who meets our constitutional qualifications can wage a campaign to lead this nation. For the first time in our history, that will not be a white male. It will be a highly educated black man with an enormous agenda, the drive and determination to see it through, and the patience to work through our political process to achieve goals that will benefit not only Americans but the world.

I hope the world sees that we Americans are NOT all cowboys, able and willing to settle every disagreement with bombs and warships. I hope that some of our former allies will once again come to sit at our table and that many who thought this nation was composed of nothing but war wanting confrontationalists, will now see that our open society demonstrates that freedom is not to be feared but cherished. I hope President-elect Obama will bring his unique style of oration to the world and offer our resources to not only help the world at large but heal it as well.

I hope and believe that he will end the fiasco in Iraq and finish the only fight we should have started in the first place, with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, find him and put him on trial for the world to see. I would have been willing to fight Afghanistan long ago simply for what they did to women, the Taliban, those religious icons whose only foreign export is drugs. They are not religious icons, they are drug lords and deserve no better treatment than any drug dealer the world over might expect.

I know the world was watching and I hope everyone everywhere in the world sleeps a little more soundly tonight for the bells of change are ringing clearly and we would invite you to walk this path with us. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way choose to be a bringer of the light. :^) gene

What role is racism playing in the 2008 election?

In keeping with the completely non-political theme of my blog, giggle, I submit today an email I got this week. Just read it. You’ll get the point. :^)

Democracy is not average people selecting average leaders.

It is average people with the wisdom to select the best prepared.

Facts are powerful!!

Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin, what if things were switched around?…..think about it.

Would the country’s collective point of view be different?

Could racism be the culprit?

*Ponder the following*

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage,including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to hisstandards?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama couldn’t read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama’s family had made their money from beer distribution?

What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

*Educational Background*
*Barack Obama* Columbia University – B.A. Political Science with a specialization in International Relations, Harvard – Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

*Joseph Biden* University of Delaware – B.A. in History and BA. in Political Science, Syracuse University College of Law – Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain*

United States Naval Academy – Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin* Hawaii Pacific University – 1 semester, North Idaho College – 2 semesters – General Study, University of Idaho – 2 semesters – Journalism, Matanuska-Susitna College – 1 semester,
University of Idaho – 3 semesters – B.A. in Journalism

Education isn’t everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world.

You make the call !!!!!!!

If today brings even one choice your way choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

That Ol’ Jet Airliner

Listening to the radio the past few weeks, I’ve been hearing a song from my younger days that has had me turned inward a bit. It’s an old Steve Miller band song called Jet Airliner. The part that keeps running through my head is the first verse, “Leavin’ home, out on the road, I’ve been down before, Ridin’ along in this big ol’ jet plane, I’ve been thinking about my home, But my love light seems so far away, And I feel like it’s all been done, Somebody’s tryin’ to make me stay, You know I’ve got to be movin’ on.”

That pretty much sums up where I’ve been the past couple months. I feel like its all been done, yet I feel I have a part yet to do. The somebody keeping me here, is of course, Jenna. It is she who is my lovelight and she who tells me I have much left to do here, even if I feel its all been done, she says no one has done what I will, nor in the way I will. So though I feel my “home” is calling me, it is here that I have to stay. Which puts me in a sort of push-pull situation of the kind I really don’t like. Part of me is pushing and part of me is pulling and it is hard for me to know which part to let win. The stasis is Jenna, it is she who swings the balance here for me, she is the reason I keep on keeping on – which is also in that song. Part of my feeling within, is how long must I. Steve sings that you’ve got through hell before you get to heaven. And I believe there is no such place as hell. Rather I believe that life on earth is what hell is. Because here we do not know who we are nor where we come from, nor remember our life there, our Creator. For me, hell is having forgotten these things – and a bit more than a little of having to listen to the world fight about exactly that. It matters not what reason the parties involved give for the fight, whether that be countries at war or two guys at a bar, or for that matter, two guys or two girls in a ring engaged in “sanctioned” brutality – I do not consider any event in which the sole purpose is to do harm to another, sport, which lets you know how I feel about boxing and ultimate fighting, etc. – fighting, with fists or with words, to me, is an always wrong thing to me. And while I do not believe in mythical hell nor a mythical Satan, I DO believe that when are separate from the knowledge of our home and our creator, when we are uncertain about what to do or believe or that there is any place but this one for us, that we have indeed descended into Hell. Unfortunately for us, our experience does not last but three days only, it lasts the entire course of our lifetime.

Why? Why do I believe this? Because I’ve seen the light of home, I’ve felt the peace and love that go with those lights, that exists in the presence of those lights, and though they were but seconds long experiences, nothing that has happened in my entire life here on earth can compare at all. The highest level of joy I’ve experienced here was the birth of my sons. And with one, it did not end well, and I’m not sure it will with the other either. No other experience approaches the joy I felt in the presence of the light globes. Not even close. I guess then, that the length of our stay here, is also the length of our stay in hell. Though certainly not all of the time we are here can be called hellish, because it isn’t. There are many wonderful moments and days and weeks and years in which we are quite happy and content. Real hell is when we lose our connection with the love that made us. And we do that in many ways, personally and generally, as people and nations, as members of one religion or another which vie with each other for converts and believers, particularly those religions which are willing to kill to prove themselves “right”. I’ve said before that I think anything which divides us is not of divine origin but human alone and I include in that statement every religion that exists or has ever existed. I do believe that at a point in time yet to come, we will overcome those divisions and understand that we are in all truth, one. At that time, religion will cease to exist, it will be replaced by love. And we will not be a civilization until we reach that understanding and our faith in it is such that nothing can shake us loose from it, nor from each other.

None of which makes living this life any the easier, I know. I am living proof of that as are many, if not all, of you. In a way I can both understand and accept that. The road to heaven passes through hell. The rational give in CWG is, well, rational. You can’t know what one thing is if you have never experienced anything else. Here OR in heaven. We can’t know what hot is unless we know what cold is, we find such things out here in the relative universe, along with a lot of other less pleasant dualities. And, we can’t know what love is, until we have an experience involving a lesson about what love is not – and there are many of those to be had here too. War, divorce, alienation, mental illness, physical disabilities, death. Since we come from a place where love is all there is, it makes sense to me that our creator would give us an opportunity to know how wonderful THAT place is by allowing us to experince what it is like being in a place that is not like our home. So I get that. But I don’t have to like it, because the experiences I have called to myself have been so difficult, I’d like to think I could have realized how wonderful home is with a good bit less difficulty than I have through what I have lived through, seen and done. Jenna says though that all of it was necessary, that I could not possibly be the man I am without the life I’ve lived. She says that is important. I can’t argue, but I don’t have to like it. Just accept it. Which part is easy enough because I can’t change the past, only remember it. Nor can I see the future, other than in the way we all do, if I do this, then that will likely happen, we can see the future consequences of our actions, but we cannot see behind the curtain. Death is the only way we can do that. God says in CWG that death is the most wonderful moment of our life here because in that instant we are again home, where love is all there is. And I gotta say, even here, I have been a homebody, and I am very much looking forward to being one in my original home.

When waiting is filled and my time here complete, I will be both grateful and ready. I’ve learned a lot here, about who I am and who I am not, about what happens when we forget the highest part of ourselves, and, of course, what can happen when we have NO IDEA at all about who we are, where we came from, who our creator is, and where we are going when we leave this existence. When we forget those things, and the vast majority of people living on this planet have, thoroughly and completely, forgotten any memory of home, which is what allows us to be so barbaric to each other everywhere across this planet, from the caves of Afghanistan to the corporate boardrooms to the spirit crushing rule of dictatorship to the selfish rule of freedom as in my own home country, where the prevailing attitude is “I got mine, screw you”. Love is not known in these circumstances and conditions. I guess so that when we return to our real home at the end of our lives here, we will appreciate home even more than we did to begin with, because having lived in conditions in which love was not present, we will understand and feel more clearly appreciation for our creator and for our life there. But I gotta tell you, it seems an awfully long road to that final destination. It may all have been necessary as Jenna says, but if I were doing the designing, well, there are parts I would have left out. Since Jen says it was all necessary, then it must be so, she is not capable of lying, nor dissembling, nor even misleading me. Still, I yearn for the love and peace I left behind when I came here. And truth is, I don’t ever want to leave that again. She says I won’t either, that this is my first and last trip to relativity. And what I say to that is thank God! Once was more than enough for me. There is more, much more, and she says, as God does in CWG, that everyone has an opportunity to have every experience, to be the audience and to be the actor. Poet, pauper, piper and king. We all have the chance to have each of those experiences and a virtual infinite variety of others. And most of us will choose to do so. I will not. So she says. And, I feel deep within the truth of that. And, woo hoo, is all I have to say about it. There is good in choice. May you all have that which YOU choose. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

So, let’s talk a bit about politics.

You’re right, this isn’t normally a political blog, nor is it my intent to turn it into one now. But it is not possible to be alive in this world now and be unaware of the connections between our spiritual and political lives. I suppose one might also need economic lives at this point given the current state of the American and world economic conditions.

It seems that many in America are deeply influenced in their political lives by their particular spiritual traditions. We have in our constitution protections for spiritual liberty, the idea being that each of us should be allowed to practice whatever faith tradition, including none, we have without interference from our government. That is a far cry from, for instance, Islamic countries, where Sharia, or Islamic Law, IS the government and none other is tolerated. There are gradations, of course, but ours is a secular society and was designed to be so by those who wrote and established our constitutional form of government.

So where am I going with this? Well, let me tell you. Various groups in this country, including the Republican and Democratic parties, claim to have kidnapped Jesus and have exclusive knowledge of His will for us. And they will use His words, or His Father’s, selectively to “prove” their point. There are those who would have us believe that were He here now, He’d be driving a big old truck with a gun rack and watching Nascar. There are those who would have us believe He’d be marching in the streets with those demanding things like universal health care and secure retirements for all citizens. Truth be told, my own inclination, and my Jenna, have me squarely in the second camp.
But, and this is a huge caveat, since He is NOT here among us physically, NONE of us has the right to speak for him, nor tell others what to do on His behalf. If you wish a certain outcome, be man, or woman, enough to say so on your own without trying to sway your listeners by also claiming to have His backing. Because you don’t. When He wishes to make known what He wants, other than what he is quoted as saying, sometimes in documents written more than a hundred years after He returned to where we all come from, He will. Until then, use the persuasive power of your own intellect to move others toward the reason of your position, not invoke someone who is not actually running in this, or any other, election.

That said, I want to comment a bit on the current presidential campaign. I am not an “undecided” voter, by the way, I will vote for Obama on November 3rd without doubt unless evidence comes to light between now and then that convinces me he is a serial killer or something. There are several reasons for my certainty that he is the candidate I want elected.

First, 8 years ago we had a budget surplus and a 5 trillion dollar national debt AND a plan to have it reduced to virtually nothing by now. Now we have a half trillion budget deficit annually and a 10 trillion dollar national debt. That tells me that something we did in the last 8 years did NOT work. And that something is the SAME thing John McCain proposes to continue doing. He has taken to blaming Congressional Democrats for our difficulties, but it must be noted that the Republican party controlled both Houses of Congress from 1994 to 2006. He is part of that history. One of my favorite movies is the Coen brothers, Oh Brother Where Art Thou, for a lot of reasons, beautiful, varied music, wonderful writing, superlative acting and a fun story line. One of the things I remember from that movie was the incumbent governor’s campaign staff suggesting he run as a reform candidate. He reacted by throwing his hat at him and saying, you can’t run as a reform candidate when you are the incumbent. Someone should suggest John McCain see that movie. He can’t run as a reformist, he IS the incumbent in this election or his party is. THEY got us to where we are today.

Second, Sarah Palin. I simply cannot accept the idea of that woman being a heartbeat from the presidency. She may be a qualified governor, but I don’t think she’s been in office long enough to even know that much about her. What I do know is that she has no experience in any area of national government and what I know of her views I completely disagree with. I understand John met her twice before naming her to his ticket. Can you imagine what THAT says to the rest of his party? I have looked high and low throughout the land and the next best Republican, to me, of course, qualified to be president, is NOT one of you in the lower 48 with substantial governmental experience but rather this woman I met in Alaska who likes shooting wolves from airplanes. Sorry. I don’t buy that argument and frankly do not understand how the rest of the Republican party has either.

Third, after 911 we had the largest outpouring of support for our country we have ever had, the largest amount of good will aimed at us, felt for us, and we have squandered it completely with our arrogant and unilateral approach to global affairs. I believe Obama will be a bridge-builder, not a bridge destroyer and I believe THAT is what our country, this planet, needs right now in an American president. No one can deny the influence our economy has on the rest of the world as markets in other countries fell just as ours did earlier this week. Some countries are so aware of this effect that they feel they ought have a way to vote in our presidential elections because what happens here affects the world so much. I’m not sure I’d go that far. Today. But it is undeniable that we have become one world, if not yet one people, and that what happens in one sector of the world DOES affect what happens in others. That is as true economically as it is ecologically and meteorology. We humans inhabit this world, we don’t own it. We just think we do. It was here before us and will be when we are gone, however that comes about and there are a number of scenarios to that as well. We need a president who can reach out to other countries and be accepted as a man of peace and honor. I believe the fresh approach of Barack Obama will be better received around the world than the continuation of the failed Bush policies that McCain intends to push forward with.

Fourth, no one wants to talk about race, but it is a factor in this election. It is TIME this country had a president of color and it is time we have a female president too. That will come. It WILL come. Obama’s election will do more to raise the hopes of our citizens of color than anything that has come before it. Suddenly young men and women of color will have a role model who is not an athlete but a world leader. He will give them hope, something so many in our inner cities lack completely. The hope of a tomorrow that is not what today is. Generations of Americans of color have been raised to believe that what they have is all they can ever have, that every business, every institution, including our political institutions, had “glass” ceilings beyond which they could not go. Obama’s election will demonstrate to them, the disenfranchised, that in all truth, anyone can become President of the United States. I think that will do more for the hopes of young Americans of color than any number of professional athletes ever have. I think it will help them believe that they too can do anything with education and hard work. He will be good for America in so many ways, I find it virtually impossible to believe he won’t be our next President. And if my vote counts, he will be. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

People, Ideas and evolution.

Wow! I bet you are wondering where the H this is going, huh? :^) So do I. As I’ve mentioned, my own personal life has been in turmoil and change for the past couple months as my son has moved back home. After living alone for almost 12 years it takes a good bit of time to get used to having another person in the house. Particularly one who does not share your own perspective on things. He and I agree on most things on a global/political scale, but when we move from macro to the micro, well, that just isn’t the case. I’m not a neat freak, a look around my place would soon prove that, but he has absolutely no sense of neatness whatsoever. He has problems and issues, lots and lots of them. I won’t violate his privacy by going into any of that here. But I gotta tell you it drives me nuts being his maid. He never picks up, rinses off or puts anything away. Putting an item in the sink, to me, does not mean you are through with it, it needs be rinsed and put in the dishwasher. He doesn’t get that part. Floor are not closets which doesn’t seem to be the way he thinks either. It isn’t that we haven’t talked about these things, in fact, I’m pretty sure, he thinks they are all I talk about. I’d quit talking about them, if he’d begin doing them. He doesn’t make that connection either. There are a lot of compromises that need be made in living with another human being. Just how many I’d forgotten after so many years of it being just Cisco and I. We’ll get through it, but it is not easy.

Which explains my absence here. Well that and another knee surgery in mid-September. I had a torn meniscus in my right knee three years ago and had that arthroscopically repaired. That one was a piece of cake, I was okay from day one, could take care of myself and Cisco, recovery was swift and easy. This one was not like that one. That tear was on the inside of my knee, this one was at the back of the meniscus and it was very hard to find so the surgeon was in there twice as long as the first time. When I woke, the nurse really encouraged me to take crutches. I thought, piffle, I didn’t need them before why would I now? Still she insisted, so I took them. Good thing too, because for that first week I could do nothing but take pain meds and lie on the couch with my leg in the air and an ice bag on it. The extra time in surgery and having to trim away a lot tissue and poke and prod just to find the tear caused a lot more swelling and pain than the first surgery did. It’s been a month now and I am still quite sore. The week I took off last time for recovery, this time turned into two full weeks and a third of half days. I suppose it doesn’t help that I keep crashing into things either, lol. The day before I was to come back to work, expecting full time, I took a tumble down the stairs. I thought I could come down normally but as my left leg took my full body weight it buckled and down I went. Nice thick carpet though. Still, my knee blew up on me and that familiar fire under the patella – which had just disappeard on the Friday before came back. I saw the surgeon the next day and he said no damage he thought, I just “stirred” things up in there a bit. And my right knee looked worse than the left from the rug burns, lol.
So recuperation is still ongoing. And the time I used for writing here is not all mine anymore. When I was living alone it didn’t matter what time I ate, or if even, but with two of us we need more regularity than that. Hard getting used to. Jenna says not for long will it be like this. Gene says good and thanks. I love my son with all my heart but living with him ended 15 years ago and at some point I will need my life back because there are things I have to do, want to do, that Jen and I have been talking about for years. And I WILL, if ever I am able. She says I will be and I say good. But still in this moment, this is what is.

What brought about the topic idea in the subject line was a discussion I had with my son about inconsistency. He thinks I am inconsistent in my approach to life. He is sure that is whim, when I want one thing, I am okay with it, at other times I am not. I am supposed to be on a restricted fat/cholesterol diet, but it is his observation that only sometimes do I follow that, for instance. At first, I thought, no, I AM consistent, just in my own way. Later though as I thought about it, I could see his point more clearly. But what he was seeing as inconsistencies were actually “exceptions” I made when with him. He assumed that was how I ate all the time, when in truth it was not, but I do see how he’d get that impression. The same holds true for other things. There are things I may do on an individual basis that I do not believe would be good for the population at large. For instance, I think that compassion, forgiveness, love for all of life are critical components of a true civilization, but am I those things at all times at a personal level. No. I’m not a perfect person. I am a work in process, in the midst of my own evolution. A process I think will continue until my last day. I would like very much for my largest ideas to fit perfectly into and be mirrored precisely in my private life as well. But they are not. Yet. That is a goal, an objective, not a truth. It is my desire that I grow closer to that larger truth by the day, yet I can see from without, that others may see things I do not, or interpret things I do as not consistent with my avowed truths. So that is where evolution comes in. We are each a work in progress, we evolve each day, some of us perhaps devolve on some days, in fact I am quite sure of THAT too. But even baby steps ARE steps. And as long as there more of them taken forward than backward, I find that to be progress. A setback, of whatever nature, does not eliminate all that went before and does not mean one starts all over again. It is like falling down the stairs in a way. You land and lie there a moment checking to see what works and what doesn’t, then you pick yourself up and continue on. Life is just like that. Don’t you think? much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Moments to Remember

Steve Goodier has a nice piece in his newsletter this week.  He’s talking about the way we remember things.  We don’t remember whole days or weeks or years, we remember moments in time.  At least, I do.  Fleeting moments, that never really leave, that are evoked from time to time through a memory trigger of one sort or another.  So look over his words, I’ve a few of my own, and a song, following.  :^) gene

MOMENTS TO REMEMBER
Have you ever noticed that you do not remember days, you remember moments?

A strange story about immortalizing moments comes from the book SPIRITUAL LITERACY (Touchstone Books) by authors Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat. It is about a Brooklyn cigar store manager named Oggie Rand. Oggie has an unusual habit — at precisely eight o’clock each morning, he photographs the front of the store. Always at exactly the same time and from exactly the same spot. Every morning. Oggie collects his daily snapshots in photograph albums, each labeled by date. He calls his project his “life’s work.”

One day Oggie showed his albums to a friend. He had not told his friend about his unusual hobby. Flipping the pages of the albums, the man noticed in amazement that the pictures were all the same.
Oggie watched him skim through the pictures and finally replied, “You’ll never get it if you don’t slow down, my friend. The pictures are all of the same spot, but each one is different from every other one. The differences are in the detail. In the way people’s clothes change according to season and weather. In the way the light hits the street. Some days the corner is almost empty. Other times it is filled with people, bikes, cars and trucks. It’s just one little part of the world, but things take place there, too,
just like everywhere else.”

This time Oggie’s friend looked more carefully at each picture. No two were alike. Every picture was unique, just as every moment is unique. Through a series of photographs, he became conscious of one of life’s great truths — that each minute that passes is special, even sacred.

I’m reminded of something writer Henry Miller said, “The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”  And those are the moments we’ll remember; the ones for which we stopped everything else long enough to pay close attention.

The advice for me is this: to pay as close attention to each moment as I can, as if I were carefully observing a series of snapshots. I would like to take time to study the moments. If I look closely enough, I know I’ll see that each is unique. Each is sacred. And each holds a special place in time.  I suspect it will be these moments — not whole days, weeks, months or years — that I will finally remember. And much of the happiness and joy I will find in life will be because I took care of the moments.

– Steve Goodier

What I take from Steve’s story reminded me of John Lennon’s song, In My Life,

<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8nz5clDx4g” target=”blank”>In My Life</a>

There are places I’ll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends, I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I’ve loved them all
But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life, I’ll love you more
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life, I’ll love you more

And this I know to be true, in my life, I’ll love you more, each and every moment.  :^) gene
<p style=”color: navy; font-weight: normal”>If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

A Law of Successful Living

I’m not so sure I’d call this a law, it is more a recipe, I think.  I am not a believer in Karma, but I am a believer in doing unto others what we would have done unto us.

A LAW OF SUCCESSFUL LIVING

I am impressed by an incident that happened during Ignacy Paderewski’s (November 18, 1860 – June 29, 1941) career. The famous Polish pianist agreed to play a concert organized by two Stanford University students working their way through school. Paderewski’s manager said they would have to guarantee the artist a fee of $2,000. The boys agreed and eventually the concert was held.

Though the two student promoters worked hard, they took in only $1,600. Discouraged, they told Paderewski of their efforts and handed him the $1,600 with a note promising to pay him the balance of $400. But the artist tore up the note and gave them back the $1,600. “Take your expenses out of this,” he said, “give yourselves each 10% of what’s left for your work, and let me have the rest.”

Years later, Paderewski was faced with feeding the people of his war-ravaged Poland. Amazingly, even before a request was made, thousands of tons of food were sent to Poland by the United States.

Paderewski later traveled to Paris to thank Herbert Hoover, who headed up the US relief effort. “That’s all right, Mr. Paderewski,” said Hoover, “I knew that the need was great. And besides, though you
may not remember it, I was one of two college students whom you generously helped when I was in need.”

The story illustrates a law of successful living: sooner or later we will reap what we sow. Paderewski reaped a harvest of kindness he had sown years before. Those who sow love will eventually reap love.
Those who sow goodness will reap even more. Those who sow fear and mistrust will reap an unwanted harvest later.

It’s a basic law of successful living. And powerful enough to change a life.

– Steve Goodier

And, in my mind, this is how we should all be all the time, remembering those who have loved and helped us and passing that forward with each day.  :^) gene

<p style=”color: blue; font-weight: normal”> If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene</p>

Preparing for Tomorrow

This from Steve is a piece I can identify with and can endorse wholeheartedly.  What else is tomorrow for?

GETTING READY FOR TOMORROW

You heard about the sign posted on a rancher’s fence? On the other side of the fence resides the biggest, meanest looking bull you can imagine. The sign is intended to strike fear into the hearts of
would-be trespassers. It reads: “Don’t attempt to cross this field unless you can do it in 9.9 seconds. The bull can do it in 10 flat!”

Don’t try to cross that field unless you are prepared! And isn’t that the way it is in life? We have to be ready when the opportunity arises or else we will have little chance of success.

Sixth-grade schoolteacher Ms. Shelton believed in readiness. Students remember how she walked in on the first day of class and began writing words of an eighth-grade caliber on the chalkboard. They quickly
protested that the words were not on their level and they couldn’t learn them.

Their teacher insisted that the students could and would learn these words. She said that she would never teach down to them. Ms. Shelton ended by saying that one of the students in that classroom could go on to greatness, maybe even be president some day, and she wanted to prepare them for that day.

Ms. Shelton spoke those words many years ago. Little did she know that someday one of her students – Jesse Jackson – would take them seriously (“Leadership, ” Summer 1992). She believed that if they were
well prepared, they could achieve high goals.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “People only see what they are prepared to see.” If that’s true, then it is also true that they only become what they are prepared to become. And a lot of life is just about
getting ready.

“I want to be doing something more significant with my life than what I am doing now,” a young man once said to me. He felt like what he was doing was just not that important. Other people have said things to me such as, “I only wish I had a meaningful relationship. ” And, “I’d really like to get a better job, but I just don’t see how.”

You fill in the blanks. What is it you would like to happen that isn’t happening? Perhaps the answer is that you are not yet ready. Maybe you need more time to prepare before you are truly ready for that which you desire.

Think of today as another chance to prepare yourself for that exciting future you are looking for. Today is not wasted. If you desire more from life, then you can use today as training. For you will experience only what you are prepared to experience. Something wonderful can happen. And you can use today to get ready for tomorrow.

– Steve Goodier

Today is a day that will never come again.  If time is on a line, each second is a dot on that line, each one unique, each one precious and each one here for that moment and that moment alone, never to be seen again.  When you think of your time and your preparation and your life, if you think of it in those terms, you will often find yourselves wondering if what you are doing in any given moment is what you really want to be doing.  Need to be doing?  No such thing.  Want to be doing is the ONLY reason for doing anything.  Do you want to?  :^) gene

<p style=”color: blue; font-weight: normal”> If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene</p>

If Life Were Not So Bitter

I’ve barely written at all this month, I know. And it isn’t because I’ve been reading, I’ve not been doing that either. It is that life itself has intervened. Many things, many of those momentous, have gone on this month, I’ll not be airing dirty laundry, or laundry of any kind, here, but I do want to let you all know I am still here. And I don’t like this story. I’ll tell you why at its end.

IF LIFE WERE NOT SO BITTER…

File this story under the heading: “If life were not so bitter, revenge would not be sweet.”

After seventeen years of marriage, a man dumped his wife for a younger woman. The downtown luxury apartment was in his name and he wanted to remain there with his new love, so he asked his wife to move out and said he would buy her another place. The wife agreed to this, but asked that she be given three days.

The first day she packed her personal belongings into boxes and crates and suitcases. On the second day, she had the movers come and collect her things. On the third day, she sat down for the last time at their candlelit dining table, soft music playing in the background, and feasted alone on shrimp and a bottle of Chardonnay.

When she had finished, she went into each room and deposited shrimp leftovers into the hollow of her curtain rods. She then cleaned up the kitchen and left.

Her husband returned with his new girl, and all was bliss for the first few days. Then it started; slowly but surely. Clueless, the man could not explain why the place smelled as it did.

They tried everything. First they cleaned and mopped and aired the place out. That didn’t work. Then they checked vents for dead rodents. Still no luck. They steam cleaned the carpets and hung air fresheners. That didn’t solve the problem. They hired exterminators; still no good. They ripped out the carpets and replaced them. But the smell lingered.

Finally, they could take it no more and decided to move. The moving company packed everything and moved it all to their new place. Everything. Even the curtain rods.

I like the story because of the humor. But revenge is always a poor option if we want to be healthy and happy.

The problem is… we can’t carry a grudge and carry love in our hearts at the same time. We have to give one of them up. It’s a choice we make.

Some resentments are large; they’ve built up over a long time and will not be easy to part with. Some have been fed by years of pain and anger. But all the more reason to give them up.

When we’re tired of the anger and resentment and bitterness, we can choose a better way. We can be forever unhappy, or we can be healthy. We’re just not made to carry a big grudge and a heart filled with
love at the same time.

But I still chuckle at the story.

– Steve Goodier

Now then, the reason I don’t like this story is not its ultimate point, but its mean-spiritedness. Was the scorned wife right to be upset at how she had been treated? Of course. But did what she did make her the victor somehow? Did what she did make the world itself a better place by adding to it a bit of light? Or did we all become just a little darker at our core? I don’t chuckle at the story. I regret it. I regret that for far too many of us, getting even is more important than being right, regardless at whose expense that sense of victory comes. We should all be better than that. Perhaps one day we will be.

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

The Way We See it and Getting it Right

Two wonderful little essays, with a touch of my own thoughts on them. :^)

THE WAY WE SEE IT

The eye doctor instructed her patient to read a chart on the wall. He looked at it and read, “A, B, F, N, L and G.”

The doctor turned the light back on and wrote in her notebook.

“How’d I do, Doc?” the patient wondered.

She replied, “Let’s put it this way — they’re numbers.”

“But Doc,” he argued, “this is the way I see it!”

Much of my happiness or unhappiness is a result of my perception. “This is the way I see it,” I tell myself.

I see some problems as challenges that energize me to action and others as obstacles that stop further progress. It’s just the way I see it.

And sometimes I see new situations as fun, and other times I see them as fearful.

The busyness of my life can be OK if I see it that way, or it can be a major source of stress. And an unexpected intrusion in my schedule can be an irritant or, if I see it that way, possibly the most
important thing I could do that day.

Even an embarrassing mistake can be the beginning of a new learning or an occasion to berate myself. It’s in the way I see it.

One of the greatest blocks to my happiness is forgetting that it is not always about what is happening to me — it’s more about the way I see it.

Like Marcel Proust said, “The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” It’s in the way we see it.

– Steve Goodier

It is, you know. Really. Life is as much perception as it is reality. Those who say we are what we think we are, are not far off, for even if we are not something when we begin thinking we are, we may well create that very thing, for good or ill, if it becomes our focus and we come to believe it so. So maybe the lesson here is be careful what you wish for, giggle, or be certain when you do. much love, :^) gene

GETTING IT RIGHT

A young boy was sitting in the back seat of the car eating an apple. He poked his father in the front seat and asked, “Daddy, why does my apple turn brown?” His father answered, “When the skin is removed from the apple, air reaches the flesh of the apple and causes oxidation. This changes the apple’s molecular structure and results in a brownish color.

After a long pause, a small voice from the back seat asked, “Daddy, are you talking to me?”

I know how that boy feels. Sometimes I want answers to some of those confusing problems we all run up against. I want someone to explain how to get through difficult times or tell me what to do in a tough situation. I just want to get it right.

But I think I identify a bit more with the father whose daughter asked him if he would help her with some homework.

“I’m sorry,” he replied. “It wouldn’t be right.”

“Well,” she said, “at least you could try.”

Problem is, I don’t always have the answers I need. And nobody else seems too, either. So I blunder ahead worried that I’ll never get it “right.”

But I’m beginning to learn something about not knowing what to do and making a poor choice. That is — I don’t HAVE TO always get it right. I don’t have to always know what to do all the time. All I really
need to do is try my best, learn from the mistakes and go on.

The affable Dr. Leo Buscaglia once said, “No one gets out of this world alive, so the time to live, learn, care, share, celebrate, and love is now.” Which is pretty hard to do when you’re waiting for the
answers first.

So you got it wrong. You made a mistake. So what? Forgive yourself and try again. Even if you don’t get out of this world alive, you can get plenty of life out of this world if you’re not too worried about
always getting it right.

– Steve Goodier

And there again, is the truth of it. We are all going to make mistakes, it is one of those things that are inevitable, the solution is almost always going to come down to realizing what we have done, making amends if necessary, and then forgiving ourselves and moving on. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Something to pray for

In this piece, Steve shares a wisdom deeper even than he knows I think.

WHAT I PRAY FOR

Many years ago I found a short story about Mahatma Gandhi that I have gone back to several times. It has given me hope and courage. Even if you are not one to pray, I think you will discover that it is useful.

We remember Gandhi as a leader in India’s struggle for independence. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that he brought the British Empire to its knees without firing a shot. He was a small man of great courage. His non-violent resistance was fraught with danger and the cause eventually claimed his life.

Gandhi once spoke about the source of his courage. He related a story about an incident that occurred in South Africa. There was a law directed expressly against Indians in South Africa that he had gone
there to oppose. His ship was met by a hostile mob that had come with the announced intention of lynching him. Gandhi was advised to stay on board for his own physical safety. But he went ashore nevertheless.

When later asked why he made such a dangerous decision, he explained, “I was stoned and kicked and beaten a good deal; but I had not prayed for safety, but for the courage to face the mob, and that courage came and did not fail me.”

I believe he went after the right thing.

Like you, I know what it is to be afraid. I’m afraid of accidental injury, dismemberment or death. I’ve been afraid of a pending medical diagnosis. There must be a million different faces to the fears of
life.

I’m tempted at these times to hope for, and pray for, a way to avoid the danger ahead. I want to be safe, secure and healthy. But none of us is always safe, secure or healthy. So, like Gandhi, I think the
best prayer is for courage to face whatever life may bring. And I am convinced that the courage will come and not fail me.

– Steve Goodier

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Everything Counts

EVERYTHING COUNTS

Early 20th Century African-American poet Countee Cullen spent the summer of his eighth year in Baltimore, Maryland. Shortly after he arrived he noticed a little white boy staring at him. Countee smiled,
but the little boy did not smile back. Instead, he stuck out his tongue and called him a hurtful, racial slur.

Cullen later wrote a poem that included his recollection of the summer when he was eight. In it, he says this:

“I saw the whole of Baltimore
from May until September.
Of everything that happened there
that’s all I can remember.”

The white child likely soon forgot the episode. And he probably never was aware of the pain he inflicted on the young stranger. But the truth is… everything counts. EVERYTHING. Everything we do and everything we say. Everything helps or hurts; everything adds to or takes away from someone else.

Educator and writer Leo Buscaglia put it like this: “The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no tickertape parades for us, no monuments created
in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our encouragement, who will need our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. It’s overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love
felt.”

How truly amazing life can be when we know that… EVERYTHING COUNTS.

– Steve Goodier

And, the truth of it is, that it does. Though not in the way most of might think. There is no cosmic scorekeeper, only the truth of our own hearts.

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

The Real You – Let Yourself Shine

Another of Steve’s masterpieces, about the truth of us, our essence, and the light we all are within.

THE REAL YOU

One woman describes herself as “Five feet, three inches tall and pleasingly plump.” After she had a minor accident, her mother accompanied her to the hospital emergency room. The admitting nurse asked for her height and weight, and she blurted out, “Five-foot- eight, 125 pounds.”

The nurse pondered over this information and looked over the patient. Then the woman’s mother leaned over to her and gently chided, “Sweetheart, this is not the Internet.”

If you could change your appearance in life as easily as you can make one up on the Internet, would you remake yourself? It’s tempting to think so. We live in an age when most of us are increasingly dissatisfied with our bodies. We want liposuction, face lifts, tummy tucks, silicon implants and cosmetic surgery – too often for no other reason than to look like someone else!

And don’t think I am only talking about women. Men too place great emphasis on their bodies. Studies show that in 1972, one in six men didn’t like their appearance; today, almost 50% of men surveyed
reported being unhappy with their looks.

Of course, our bodies keep changing. I have less hair on top than twenty years ago. An older man who happens to be bald looked at my head recently and said, “It looks like you go to the same barber as I
do.”

According to the book THE ADONIS COMPLEX (The Free Press, 2000), more and more men are feeling insecure about their appearance. In 1996, over 700,000 men had some cosmetic surgery – often in an unhealthy attempt to fix a perceived flaw that nobody else noticed. Eating disorders and steroid abuse are common among males.

The book’s authors Harrison Pope, Katharine Phillips, and Robert Olivardia did an experiment in which men were asked to take a computer image of an ordinary man and add muscle mass to him until he was the size these men wanted to be. On average, the men packed about 28 more pounds of muscle mass on the computer image; women, on the other hand, only added a negligible amount of muscles to the image to create their ideal guy.

Poet Khalil Gibran said, “Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.” When you and I choose to believe that our most attractive qualities lie within, we can let go of those unrealistic expectations of our bodies.

Let’s care for our bodies; we’ll keep them for the rest of our lives. Let’s be thankful for them and treat them well.

But remember, the real you, the essence of you, cannot be improved by a bottle or a pill or a salon. It is a beautiful and glorious light shining from your heart to the heart of the world. Cherish the real you – it’s pretty terrific. And let it shine

– Steve Goodier

May you all shine forever, much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

I know it has been awhile. :^)

And I can’t exactly promise that it will be better soon, or more frequent I should say. I AM still reading but that isn’t the reason I’ve not been writing. I’m putting two or three of Steve Goodier’s newsletters in here today, for a reason. Each speaks to something that has been in my ear, my heart and my mind for the past several weeks. I’ve had a major life change. I’ve been living alone, but for Cisco who is not really all that demanding a life partner, until this past weekend when my son, Evan, moved in with me. His two children will be with us some good part of the time as well. We are still sorting things out and will be for a while. I don’t know how long he will be here and neither does he. As far as that goes he is welcome wherever I am as long as I live, that isn’t the issue here, but it is the truth. So look over this first piece from Steve, I’ll be along following it. :^)

SOLVING OUR GREATEST PROBLEMS

We have great problems. Insurmountable problems! But we can solve even our most difficult problems if we work together.

Some of the greatest problems we face today are concerned with the gradual destruction of our environment through over-use and abuse of our resources. Unsightly brown clouds; wildlife extinctions; water that can’t be consumed; the disappearance of ancient glaciers. these problems all seem so huge.

So my family does what we can. We take cloth bags to the grocery store instead of using paper or plastic grocery sacks. We buy organic foods when possible. We walk where we don’t have to drive. Our home, like many of yours, is filled with compact fluorescent bulbs and we use water saving faucets.

But does it do any good? When I am the only one in line at the grocery store with cloth bags, am I doing any good? Does my walking to the store or shivering under the drizzle of my anemic shower head
make any real difference to the world?

I recently learned something about flamingos – which probably behave like many migrating birds. These exquisite birds flock in huge groups of a thousand or more. Every year, when the time comes for migration, a few flamingos start the process by taking off from the lake. But none of the others seem to notice, so the tiny group returns.

However, the next day they try again. This time a few more struggle along with them, but the vast majority still pay no attention, so these pioneers come back.

The trend continues for several more days. Every time a few more birds join in but, since the thousands of others still take no notice, the great migration plan is once more aborted.

Then one day something changes. The same small group of birds once again takes wing and a tiny number more join in, just as before. And this time their total number, though still quite small, is enough to
tip the balance. As one, the whole flock takes flight and the migration begins. What a spectacular sight it must be – thousands of flamingos taking to the sky at once!

A few CAN make a difference. It’s true that all of the great problems of the world have been solved because of the persistent efforts of a few.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead put it like this: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

If you believe in a cause, don’t give up! Others will someday take notice and together we will solve even our greatest problems.

– Steve Goodier

One of the things Jenna has had me listening to in the last month is a very old CD I bought by a young child named Billy Gillman who was 11 when he recorded it. Yes, 11. One Voice. This song has a line in it that says “One dream can change the world, so keep believing until you find your way.” I’ve had a little trouble with that in my life, the dream is always there, but it doesn’t always seem within reach. I’m working on that and I have help, of course, she who sings to me every day. The point Steve makes above is relevant to all of us, every day. If you believe in something, or someone, don’t give up, don’t EVER give up, because in the end, we will solve our greatest problems and overcome our greatest fears. That is a dream worth holding onto, don’t you think? much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Against the Wind

I’m still reading. But, at least, at last, I know why. I’m building something, creating something in a way, jen’s shown me what and why and eventually I’ll talk here about all that. That is for then, for now, I’m still just running against the wind, but loving it completely. So two songs I’d like to share with you tonight, the first is self-explanatory, lol. And I’ll explain the second. :^)

Against the Wind

This second song is one I heard for the first time last week. It had a profound effect on me. It has many levels and it is perfectly beautiful. It is by an acoustic group named Dala, they have it on their My Space page, Dalagirls, I think if you listen to it you will as enthralled as I am. And I hope see the possibilities that spring from within it.

Fortress
I will watch you disappear
From my fortress over here
And I will never understand
Every heart’s a foreign land

CHORUS
And I’m so afraid to
So afraid to
Love you

I have turned my eyes away
From the harsh light of your day
And I have slept through pouring rain
It was all that kept me sane

chorus

I can’t help where I’ve come from
I can’t help that I’m so numb
I’m dying for my city lights
You’re dying from your country life

chorus

I have drawn lines in the sand
To remind us where we stand
And I’ll build castles while you thirst
They’ll fall down but you’ll fall first

We are each a foreign land, each brave soul who has taken the step from behind the veil into this wonderland of the relative universe. We all draw our lines in the sand and build our castles well. What we need learn and have not yet is that when the wind blows away the lines and knocks down our castles of sand, is when we need each most. To have and to hold, each other, forever and ever, amen. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Bette Davis Eyes

Okay so someone out there needs to tell me what the hell this means. I am going to tell you a slightly weird story and I know someone out there has the answer, just not who. All day today, I have had this phrase, I didn’t know it was a song, running through my head.

Bette Davis Eyes

And I don’t know what it means. Someone does. Tell me. It is important. Why? Well that I cannot tell you, unless you have the key. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Limbo

I’m a little crabby about this. That might show through. First though, some context, Michael Moore’s, Sicko. That is where I start. The rest of the world can do this, why can’t we?

This is intensely personal. I might even use bad language. So watch yourselves. :^). If you have been to my main site, if you got here from there, you will know I had two sons. Evan, born 7/31/74, 7 lbs, 14 ounces, and Brandon, born 1/7/76 7 lbs, 12 1/2 ounces. 10:16 pm for Evan and 8:02 for Brandon. Evan is still with me. Brandon committed suicide February 11, 1997 just after 2 pm. I know this because although when I got to the hospital, he was hooked up to machinery, and looked perfectly normal, but for the bandage around his head, the next morning when his mother insisted someone TELL her when her son died, a rather unfeeling practitioner said, the moment he put the gun to his head. No one bothered to tell us that, that night. No one said he was gone. There were these buzzing people who kept talking to us about organ donation, but NO ONE said he was dead, gone. And, I wanted those people to go away. They had no heart, no soul, they were gardeners, tending a harvest. Not people mourning our son. I know they had a noble purpose, but they disgusted me.

We, our two families and Brandon’s friends, spent that night in a place I have too often found myself and do, in a way, again.

Wiki defines it as: “In Roman Catholic theology, In Roman Catholic theology, Limbo (Latin limbus, edge or boundary, referring to the “edge” of Hell) is a hypothetical afterlife condition of those who die in original sin without being assigned to the Hell of the damned (gehenna). Limbo is not an official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church or any other. Medieval theologians described the underworld (“hell”, “hades”, “infernum”) as divided into four distinct underworlds: hell of the damned (which some call gehenna), purgatory, limbo of the fathers, and limbo of infants. Limbo (Latin limbus, edge or boundary, referring to the “edge” of Hell) is a hypothetical afterlife condition of those who die in original sin without being assigned to the Hell of the damned (gehenna). Limbo is not an official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church or any other. Medieval theologians described the underworld (“hell”, “hades”, “infernum”) as divided into four distinct underworlds: hell of the damned (which some call gehenna), purgatory, limbo of the fathers, and limbo of infants.”

I’m not Roman Catholic, but Neale Walsch was raised in that tradition. My own was simpler, you went to Heaven or you went to hell. But limbo is where I find myself, where I spent that night 11 plus years ago and where I’ve spent most nights ever since. Wandering, wondering, thinking. It occurs to me that all conditions possible from Heaven to Hell and whatever other number of postulates one might put between them can, and probably do, exist right here on Earth, in simultaneity with each other, depending on the state and condition of ones life. I’m a little tired of limbo. Jen says it won’t last much longer and that really isn’t where I am anyway, but it IS what it feels like to me. It most certainly isn’t what I felt in the presence of the light globes, THAT condition I consider Heaven, or as close to it as I’ll ever come, I find it hard to even imagine a feeling better than that. And it isn’t one I’ve ever been able to duplicate here on earth. I suppose that may be by design. But if it is? I don’t like that part of the design because it occurs to me that this might be a very much nicer place if everyone had the taste of truth I’ve had. So, the question then becomes, why haven’t they? And the answer eludes me, thus limbo. Of which, as I mentioned, I’m very tired. It is what has been keeping me quiet these past weeks, this question, pondering it. No progress to report. Still here in limbo. And after a bit more pondering, a bit more reading, three things I am working on now, I’ll come back to this and the political season which is upon us once more. Soon, I hope. I’m quite a fast reader, it is the understanding of what I read that I wrestle with, try to put in some shape that makes sense to me. I’m finding that difficult but have hopes what I’m reading at the moment will help with that, that if I pour enough words into the threshing machine that is my mind, eventually a bale of knowledge will pop out. That’s usually what happens anyway. This time, well, I’ll wait see. Until then, much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Okay then

Now that I’ve gotten those out of me, or out of my way, though that doesn’t sound quite right, Steve Goodier is never someone to get out of your way, he is someone to cherish, I do have a couple things to rant about tonight.

There is an old saying, “there is something rotten in Denmark.” I have no idea how it originated and haven’t enough interest to go googling to find out. This is going to be, well, a prelude, though it may not always sound that way, to THE TRUTH of us. And, fair warning, that isn’t always going to be pretty. For what I appear to be, a relatively mellow guy, sort of the guy next door, I have strong opinions and I’m going to share them here. We’re coming back to the books (CWG, 1&2), lol, but we’re going beyond them as well. I have to chuckle here. Because as much as I admire Neale Donald Walsch, in book 1, he said there would be three. 3. Three. And I believed him. You may notice that HERE, I only talk about books one and two. There is a reason. I admire Neale, he spoke the truth, although through his own filter, and he brought God to life for a lot of people. People who were left out of “traditional religion”, excluded from “traditional religion”, as if they didn’t exist. In those first two books, Neale brought ALL of us back to God. He brought us back to the truth of us. The truth we “forget” as we slip into the physical realm God created for us.

Now that isn’t surprising, or as surprising as one might think. God makes it quite clear in the beginning of book 1. If there is nothing else BUT God, how does God know he/she exists? If there is nothing but love, how does God know that? Well, the method God chose to find out is ingenious, and why shouldn’t it be? How can one know oneself as one thing without knowing anything else? And so He created the physical realm, in which we are presently ensconced. Here, it is easy to know what we are and what we are not. We can SEE and FEEL and TOUCH. I am not hot, because I know what hot is, giggle. And I’m not that. No, that is NOT where I’m going. Dirty minds. giggle. But that’s okay too. This story is about my 7th birthday. I’d never had a birthday party before. I started school at 5, first grade, the rule was September first but I was so close, the 7th, that they let me in. How I don’t know. But what that meant was that I was always the youngest and smallest of my class. I mean it worked out fine, I was intellectually ready, giggle, if that can be said about a first grader. It wasn’t then, like it is now, when children are expected to know things, like the alphabet, before starting school. It was just take ‘em as you get ‘em.

My school was a two room, 8 grade school, grades 1-4 in the “little” room and 5-8 in the “big” room. My class was 5 kids. Three girls, another boy and me. We got out 5 minutes early for recess and I spent those 5 minutes hiding from the other kids. I was terrified. All I knew were adults. And I found our “lessons” tedious, whatever we were told, I remembered. I didn’t realize I was different, really, though I had suspicions, until November when we began practicing our christmas presentation, which was a bunch of songs and several plays. We first graders weren’t expected to do much, just a few lines to memorize and then recite. That was when I first really understood I WAS different. We were standing in line to recite our lines, our first run-through, and I already knew mine. The kid next to me was SO nervous, he had NO idea what to say or do, and I thought, how could you not? And I made my first enemy, there’ll be more, giggle, cuz I am not nearly through, but I laughed, out loud, yep, a lol, because it was so easy. I read them, I knew them. I didn’t know it wasn’t like that for everyone else. And I thought he was making fun, but he wasn’t. That is a story that goes on a while and is not the purpose of this evening’s post. It was difficult, I don’t say it wasn’t, cuz he was bigger and stronger and made my life hell for a lot of years. But it still isn’t the point for tonight.

The point of this post, and I hope Neale doesn’t take this badly, because I don’t mean it that way, but he didn’t keep his bargain with God. Three books. And Jen told me to stop reading after two. Which I mostly did. I’ve read Book 3, and own a couple others, but, as she told me and in my experience after book two, they became more about Neale than God. And I am only interested in God. I have no idea how many there are now but someone showed me a book the other day, by Neale, called Happier Than God. He turned a miracle into a traveling sideshow.

Not alone, mind you. There are quite a few of what people would call “new age” writers. They all speak the same language. They all have the same message. And they have made quite a nice career out of endorsing each others books and seminars. If you pay attention, and I do, you will see that on the jacket of each new book, there will be lauding quotes from other authors, about how this particular book breaks new ground, etc. But if you pay attention, and I do, you will see that these people who are so enamored of this new work are all the same people. They recommend each others books and seminars. I do not cast aspersions here because each of these people have contributed to the global consciousness in important ways, nor do I castigate them for having made a career out of that. Whatever floats your boat. Yes, Mike, if ever you find this and read it, that is for you, giggle.

So we have this group of New Age authors, all with essentially the same message (okay this is THE weirdest thing, I feel like I am wearing a hat, giggle, it is jen, pressing hard on my crown chakra, and yes indeed the chakra system exists – it is one of those things that hold here and there, here and there, without which here and there could not exist, they’d be squooshed into one space) we are all really one. And that is the literal, physical truth, there IS only one of us, we are all born of the same parent, and as such, we are all one. Home isn’t like this place. Where a thing is here and another thing is there. Home is a place where love is all there is. And I have been blessed to see it. That is on my main sight. Gawd, given the amount of words you find here, you’d think this is it, and I wouldn’t blame you, but it isn’t. The truth of me is on the main site, so if you haven’t gone there, do. If you don’t mind. :^). Okay. Not done. But this is large. And so many other things happening. One of the most wonderful person I have ever met is going to give birth this weekend, Friday, I think. My remaining son, and if that makes him sound lesser, then you are reading this wrong, has enormous problems. We’ll talk about that stuff next. Cuz that will be health care, or lack of it. Coming soon to this location, lol, much love, :^) gene

Beauty

LOOKING FOR BEAUTY

Many people like me feel slightly passed over in a world that seems to place a high value on beauty. But a short poem by Anthony Ewell reminds us that physical attractiveness can be over-rated. He writes:

“As a beauty I am not a great star,
There are others more handsome by far.
But my face, I don’t mind it,
For I am behind it,
It’s the people in front who get the jar!”

Physically, maybe I’m not the stuff dreams are made of. And maybe, as the poem suggests, it doesn’t matter. Because I believe there is another kind of beauty in all of us that can be experienced by anybody who digs a little deeper.

Several times I have visited a natural wonder that is one of the largest and most spectacular of its kind in the world. Carlsbad Caverns is an immense series of limestone caves extending under much of southern New Mexico (USA). Native Americans took refuge in the gaping hole that is the main entrance, but they did not venture far. A hundred years ago settlers in the area were attracted to the opening by the awesome sight of hundreds of thousands of bats swarming from the hole every summer evening. Though a bat guano mining operation was set up, nobody explored much beyond the bat’s dwelling places.

Eventually, a cowboy name Jim White explored deeper. He returned with fantastic stories of gigantic subterranean chambers, spectacular cave formations and unbelievably stupendous sights. Even in 1915, after black and white photographs were taken of the caverns, many did not believe. The government sent skeptic Robert Holley to investigate in 1923. He wrote in his final report, “I am wholly conscious of the feebleness of my efforts to convey in words the deep conflicting emotions, the feeling of fear and awe, and the desire for an inspired understanding of the Divine Creator’s work which presents to the human eye such a complex aggregate of natural wonders.”

A whole new world – majestic, wondrous and awe-inspiring – lay hidden from view. Its unimagined beauty can only be experienced by exploring beneath the surface.

And so it is with people. I have found in people a unique inner beauty that can be discovered by exploring beneath the surface. They may not believe it is there themselves, but that does not mean it doesn’t exist.

Those outward looks we’re usually so self-conscious about don’t matter much. Who people really are may be hidden beneath the outer landscape like a magnificent subterranean palace. And when you care to scratch the surface a bit, you can discover what others have missed.

And you will be rewarded beyond measure.

– Steve Goodier

I gotta say, hmmm, to this one. Cuz I’m no beauty rock. :^). Gotta tell you this story, it fits. When my youngest son, Brandon, was six or so, one night he’d been out with his brother and the others in their age group, we lived in a really unique, and safe place for kids, then. Plus I could see them out my balcony window, lol. I was cooking supper when Brandon came in all breathless, unfortunately asthma, which I am going to talk about in the next post, has that affect, and said, “Dad! I have something for you!” I asked him what it was, hands behind his back and all, giggle, and he gave me this big smile and this rock. It’s, oh maybe 3 inches long and 2 deep. It looks like a piece of tar with little white marshmallows in it. I said, well, thank you, what is it? And he said, “its a beauty rock, dad, and I found it for you.” It has sat on a kitchen counter ever since. Though, at the moment, it is sitting on my computer desk. He’s been dead 11 years and four months. I’ve had this beauty rock for at least 36 years. I want it cremated with me. It’s been part of me forever, why shouldn’t it stay that way? Unless his brother wants it. His brother figures in my next post. I guess I’ve been saving them up and tonight they are spilling out. So, though I am myself no beauty, well, at least I’ve got a beauty rock! much love, :^) gene

A little more Steve

REAL LIBERATION

I had a remarkable conversation with a woman about physical limitations. Nancy was a sufferer of M.S. She could no longer walk and spent her waking hours in a wheelchair.

“I’m not ‘confined’ to the wheelchair,” she insisted one day. “It doesn’t confine me. It sets me free.”

I had never thought of it that way. And I have never referred to someone in a wheelchair since as being “confined.”

She asked me, “Do you want to know my reason for living?” It seemed like an abrupt change of subject, but I went with it.

“What is it?”

“To liberate people. To set them free.”

She must have studied my face and figured I needed more help. “It’s like me…before I got my wheelchair, I had trouble getting around,” she explained. “Now I can go places. But other people may be trapped in different ways. So however I can free people, I want to do it.”

“People speak of being ‘shut in,’” she continued. “People who have difficulty leaving a room or a house or a bed are not ‘shut in.’ They’re ‘shut out’ — shut out of activities and shut out of people’s lives. So I try to help people find some freedom, however I can.”

I wonder how she’d handle my limitations, though. I can get around all right, but I hold myself back by my thinking. I say, “We’ll never do that!” or “I just don’t believe that is possible” and later find that
somebody proved me wrong. It’s my beliefs and attitudes that cause some of my biggest problems. They are as limiting to me as Nancy’s disease is to her.

“Almost everybody walks around with a vast burden of imaginary limitations inside his head,” says author J. H. Brennan. “While the burden remains, personal success is as difficult to achieve as the conquest of Everest with a sack of rocks tied to your back.”

It IS a burden, isn’t it? Like a sack of rocks. Some people carry the burden that they will never be able to pursue a passion or achieve a cherished dream. And some tote around the idea that other people can
experience good things of life, or simply be happy, but they never will. Our thinking itself can be as much a burden as climbing a mountain with a sack of rocks tied to our backs.

When I feel “confined” by my thinking, I sometimes ponder these words from Darwin P. Kingsley, past president of New York Life Insurance Company:

“You have powers you never dreamed of.
You can do things you never thought you could do.
There are no limitations in what you can do except
the limitations of your own mind.”

Now THAT sets me free! Free to live. Free to risk. Free to move
forward. Free to be…me.

It’s real liberation.

– Steve Goodier

It is, isn’t it? That last little bit? We all have powers we’ve never dreamed of and so never use, it never even occurs to us to try. Well, some of us are going to be in for a shock, giggle. One of these fine days. much love :^) gene

Hello, its been a while

It has been a while and I have a lot to say. Not sure I’ll say it all tonight but over the next few days, a few things are going to come out. :^) So, as I sat down, jen started singing me a song. This is not how I’d planned to open, but she’s never wrong and I’m rarely right, so we’ll do this her way. :^) Bet this is on YouTube, brb, Hello, its been a while. If you’d like to listen to an oldie, but a goodie, click the link. :^)

Yeah, it’s been a while
Not much, how about you
I’m not sure why I called
I guess I really just wanted to talk to you

And I was thinkin’ maybe later on
We could get together for a while
It’s been such a long time
And I really do miss your smile

I’m not talking about movin’ in
And I don’t want to change your life
But there’s a warm wind blowin’ the stars around
And I’d really love to see you tonight

We could go walkin’ through a windy park
Take a drive along the beach
Or stay at home and watch TV
You see it really doesn’t matter much to me

I’m not talking about movin’ in
And I don’t want to change your life
But there’s a warm wind blowin’ the stars around
And I’d really love to see you tonight

I won’t ask for promises
So you don’t have to lie
We’ve both played that game before
Say I love you then say goodbye

I’m not talking about movin’ in
And I don’t want to change your life
But there’s a warm wind blowin’ the stars around
And I’d really love to see you tonight

I’m not talking about movin’ in
And I don’t want to change your life
But there’s a warm wind blowin’ the stars around
And I’d really love to see you tonight

And so we shall. I’ve a lot to say. But before I do, I want to share a couple things from Steve Goodier, who has been often featured, with permission, here.

A MONSTER TO HUG

One couple spent a holiday driving in the mountains. “Every time you race around one of those narrow curves,” exclaimed the wife, “I just get terrified.”

“Then do what I do,” suggested her husband. “Close your eyes!”

We are all afraid at times, but closing our eyes may not be the best way through fear. I’ve found it better to open my eyes and try to experience those fears.

You’ve heard of facing your fears; how about embracing them?

I think one man’s experience with fear can help.

In 1972 David Miln Smith had such an opportunity. Smith, an adventurer, author and professional speaker, decided to spend a night alone in the famous St. Michael’s Cave on the island of Gibraltar as a test of courage. In his book HUG THAT MONSTER (Andrews and McMeel, 1996), he tells of hearing strange sounds all around him as he lay there in the pitch-black, damp, deserted cave. Most frightening was
the fact that he came to believe he was not alone!

Fear became panic and he was afraid he was losing his mind. Then suddenly, as he was approaching his psychological breaking point, Smith thought to himself, “Whatever the monster looks like, I will hug it.” That simple, almost silly thought brought great relief to his restless mind. He soon fell into a deep and peaceful sleep until morning. He learned that embracing his fear, literally or figuratively, allowed him to subdue it.

We each have our nights of fear, don’t we? We all encounter monsters of some sort. We may fear spiders or insects, heights or crowds, abandonment or loneliness, the future or death. And most of us are occasionally visited by shadows of these monsters in the dark of night.

The next time you’re afraid, try “hugging the monster.” Face it and embrace it. It’s hard to feel afraid of something you’re hugging! And you just might be surprised at how quickly it slips away and at how
confident you begin to feel.

That beautiful spirit Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face.” But after looking it in the face, how about embracing it? Just imagine yourself putting your arms around whatever is keeping you awake in the night. Make it your friend. because it is! Whatever you fear, once faced and embraced, will actually make you a better person.

Now. do you have a monster to hug?

– Steve Goodier

I’m not sure about you but I do. But this is enough for one post, after all, the rule is keep them short, giggle. I’m not very good with rules. Never have been. And that isn’t going to improve, I’m afraid. No, that isn’t true, I’m not afraid in the least, I’ll just hug my monster. much love, :^) gene

The Dog, The Cat and The Rat

I know I’ve been quiet. I’ve been, I am, both within and reading, for me one goes with the other and it isn’t possible to do one without the other, not really. So I’ll be bursting out here one of these days soon, but I got something in the mail today that really caught my eye. Take a look at this.
The Dog, The Cat and The Rat

Now this from Steve Goodier:

GOD LOVES VARIETY
I like the story about three ministers and a priest who played golf
together every week. They decided to visit each other’s churches. So
the following day, the three ministers showed up at an early morning
mass at their friend’s church. There were no empty pews, so they
stood in the back.

When the priest saw them, he whispered to the little acolyte, “Get
three chairs for the Protestants! ” The boy looked stunned and sat
down.

The priest pointed in the back to where the clergymen were standing
and repeated, “Get three chairs for the Protestants. ” The confused
boy still stared back blankly.

Exasperated, the priest said emphatically, “Please! Get three chairs
for the Protestants! “

The dismayed acolyte stood before the congregation and announced,
“Ladies and gentlemen. This is the first time this has ever been done
in a Catholic church, but let’s all stand and give three cheers for
the Protestants! “

Perhaps it’s time to give three cheers to those of another faith. And
while we’re at it, let’s applaud those of other cultures and races,
too! What a beautiful world it is when all are truly part of one
glorious family! And after all, if God doesn’t love variety, why is
there so much of it?

– Steve Goodier

And now this from me. If THEY can do it, why can’t we all? I mean all of us of all species, of all faiths and traditions. Who will be the first lamb to lie down with the lion? I volunteer. :^) And one of these fine days, I’ll show you what I mean, giggle. much love, :^) gene

Father’s Day

Your Horoscope for JUNE 15, 2008

You have a spiritual side that you don’t often get to express, GENE. But today you could find yourself moved to pray or give thanks for something. The energy of the day is gentle and sweet, encouraging you to open your heart and feel your emotions fully. In doing so, you could realize something about yourself that has been hidden until now. Don’t be afraid of this discovery, as it could lead you forward in positive directions.

Well, they got the first line right anyway. It is true enough that though only part of me I am interested in, really, is the spiritual side, but on that side I feel as frustrated, as stymied, as I do on every other side. This should be, has been, a day of real joy for me in years gone by, losing Brandon, took a lot of the joy out of this day. Worrying about my remaining son seems to have taken the rest of it. He is, has been, going through some very hard times with his health and other things, and worry about him has me on the verge of losing myself. That shouldn’t be as difficult to understand as it sounds, but on this day I feel on the verge of tears, not smiles. I am more than a little worried that this may be my last father’s day with Cisco. There is no part of my life that is not under siege at this time, not what I had hoped for at this age. In a lot of ways, I already feel, as did my maternal grandfather who did not pass until he was 95, that I’ve already seen and done what I came here for and am ready to go back home. I’ve seen enough of what love is not, to appreciate fully a place where love is all there is. This is not that place.

I’ve always admired Tim Russert, who died at my age on Friday past, though I had no idea we were the same age. It seems odd that one who still had so much to give is gone and I who have nothing left but an emptiness inside I cannot shake, remain. The constant question I have of why me? Brings neither answers, nor comfort. I live within and like not what I see there. Life is such a conundrum. Or at least life here is. I think I’ll take Cisco for a walk, though even that I need be careful with, at 12 1/2 he still thinks he can do everything and tries. And I can’t carry him back home, so we won’t wander far. Perhaps a long bike ride this afternoon will clear my mind, feed my soul and restore some balance. Because at the moment I feel I am on a teeter totter and there is no one on the other end. I am hoping most fathers are have a better day.

This from Holiday Mathis whom I see every day. Perhaps some unimagining is in order. That I should be good at…

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). The final count is in. Your stars are claiming that your obstacles are 90 percent imagined. All you have to do is un-imagine them and you’re free to move forward. More good news: that’s as easy as it sounds.

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Tim Russert

Today, I grieve. I didn’t know Tim Russert, we share the same age, and in some ways I would gladly change places with him, because I think he had a lot left to say. And I don’t. Not of the import and meaning with which he conducted every interview, imbued into every statement. A man of consciousness is gone. And I will miss him. Blessed be, Tim. much love, :^) gene

What do you dream of?

This comes from Steve Goodier, as so often, one of my posts seems to begin, lol. I so admire him though one might think we would have little in common, he being a minister of the Christian faith, and me, well, something, someone, outside of that tradition at this point in my life though I was raised in it. Steve has the wonderful knack of finding stories that cut across religions, traditions, philosophies and present timeless truths. That’s why I enjoy him so much. And I should here say, I am not new to him. I have been receiving his newsletter since its inception, or very nearly, 10 plus years, way back when it was a daily thing. He needed to cut back several years ago and now publishes 1 to 3 times a week at most. I treasured his wisdom and stories then and I do still. We are fellow souls though we follow different paths, our destinations are the same. So enjoy this little piece, it is amusing and true. I’ll be back after it for a minute or two. :^)

DREAM SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

A mother of a vivacious five-year-old just returned from a meeting of
the National Organization for Women. Stirred by exciting dreams for
the possibilities of womanhood, she asked her daughter what she wanted
to be when she grew up. Little Lisa quickly answered, “A nurse.”

There was a time when nursing was thought of as a woman’s profession
and the answer somehow seemed not to satisfy. She had, after all, just
returned from a NOW conference.

“You can be anything you want to be,” she reminded her daughter. “You
can be a lawyer, a surgeon, a banker, president of the country – you
can be anything.”

“Anything?” Lisa asked.

“Anything!” her mother smiled.

“I know,” Lisa said. “I want to be a horse!”

Lisa’s dream may need some refinement, but there is plenty of time for
that. When do we quit dreaming about the future? When do we resign
ourselves to simply replaying dreams from the past?

Maybe her dream needs to mature a bit, but would you rather have the
optimism of a five-year-old girl who wants to be a horse, or the
pessimism of an adult who says in despair, “I can’t be anything at
all”?

Teddy Roosevelt said, “Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on
the ground.” I believe that is the way to make those dreams come true.
It begins with looking up and dreaming something beautiful.

– Steve Goodier

I would most certainly rather have the optimism of a five-year-old girl who wants to be a horse that the pessimism of an adult who has lost the ability to believe in him/herself. If ever there comes a time in my life when I find myself simply replaying dreams from the past, I will be ready to go home. For me, it is Jenna who keeps me on track and focused, who does not let me slip into, what would be easy for me, the trap of thinking my life is over and there is nothing yet to achieve or learn that I have any interest in. She does this for me. I cannot do it for myself. Left to my own devices, I slide backward, but she never lets me slide far. In all honesty, I could not live this life without her. She smiles within me, YES, I can feel that, and says thank you, honey, but it really is not me, it is you. Uh huh. One of us knows better. Giggle. I do so trust her though. I’m going to tell here a little story which I shared with my son the other day. As an example of how things work with jen and I.

I have been paying bills for a lot of years, I guess close to 40 now. They always want you to include their little tear off statement, that hasn’t changed over the years, and they provide a window envelope in which to put your check and the statement. On the back of each envelope is advice, I sort of always took them as commands, which means I ignored them, I quit taking orders the day I was discharged from the Army, lol. And, since there was a statement which had my account number on it IN the envelope, I saw no reason to write my account number on my check too, though they always suggested I do so. I also NEVER bothered to fill in my address on the front of their envelope, it was a WINDOW, THEIR address was plain as day, why should I spend time writing on the envelope what was already inside? So I didn’t do that either. One thing I did do, was when I dropped my stack of envelopes in the mail slot, I checked each one to be sure I had a stamp on it. Just a long-standing habit. This system, for me, has worked perfectly for 40 years.

However, three years ago, things began to change a bit. Creditors began offering deals. Six months with no interest, but if you missed a payment, they’d add ALL of the interest, at some ridiculous rate, on and would NOT take it off. I know that most people will mess up at least once and that is how those companies make their money – no one is in business to give money away. The first of those things I did was three years, forget now what it was, but I made all the payments on time. Then the next month I had used the card for a meal or something and missed the payment date by a DAY. And they charged me this huge late fee. Annoyed me, that did. Yes, that is Yoda speaking, giggle. So I canceled that account immediately. And determined to NEVER make that mistake again. But I was STILL going to do it on my own terms. Not going to write account numbers on my check that were already on the piece of paper enclosed with it. Not going to write my name and address outside when they were all over inside.

Then. Giggle. I saw this offer for an HDTV, which I knew I wanted and would eventually need, and my existing tv was 11 years old, from Circuit City. I guess it is okay to mention them here, I’ve bought many things from them and have never been disappointed. I HAVE been disappointed with my purchases from time to time – once I bought a computer, didn’t like it took it back, got another, no trouble, didn’t like THAT one either, took it back, and got another, all cheerfully on their part. I mean, hell, I found me annoying but they never did. :^). To my face. Which IS what counts. To me. :^). Anyway, this offer was two years, no interest, BUT if you messed up, all of the interest and fees would be added back on, 22%. Which made me shudder. Because interest rates that high just seem usurious to me and unfair, and just plain wrong. But I was determined. I divided up the price and sent them 1/24th of it faithfully, always at least two weeks early – not fooling ME twice, giggle. And I paid it off. That tv was wonderful and it sits now downstairs, covered in a foam blanket because I am giving it, have given it to my son, once he finds a place to call his own. I’ve purchased computers, printers and furniture on these same terms. Some of them are no payment, no interest for 12 months, but if you haven’t paid it off by then, interest and fees are added on back to the beginning. I am able to manage these payments, I know many people are not.

We live in a paycheck to paycheck world, most of us. The super rich, the ceo’s, the executives, the oil barons, THOSE people do not. They fly their friends to Paris for their wife’s birthday party. THAT is not the world I live in. Nor is it the world I came here to touch. (oops, but that stays, that was jen, not me) I wish she would WARN me when she is going to do that, just take over my fingers, lol, but in all truth, I think my fingers have always been hers. And I’m okay with that. Words appear on the screen, or on paper when I was younger, and I had no idea where they came from, that I knew those things, or knew them so well. She’s never not been with me. My faith now is hers, she says she will never not be with me. And I’m glad of that. Because truth be told, I’m not really all that good with life here. A lot of it pisses me off. Poverty does, starvation does, AIDS does, CEO’s do. A lot. Were it not for her, I might be a terrorist, only in the Lone Ranger style, giggle. Because THAT is what I grew up with. Good fights evil and no matter the struggle, in the end, good wins. That doesn’t seem as certain anymore. Though jen says it is. And I believe her.

So. This last set of bills I wrote out last week. I did everything as I have been doing for 40 years. Sat down with what was due and what I had and wrote checks, put them in envelopes (OH, once this interest free thing began I did make a change, I started writing my account number in the info line on checks – just so they couldn’t say I made a mistake), put a stamp on each envelope, checked the bill off my list. But THIS night, she insisted I write my address on each envelope. I resisted. I was NOT going to do that. But the first time she said it, I’d only done like four bills, so I thought, chit, and just did it. But then there were like 9 more envelopes and I didn’t want to do that and she just said, honey, please? Yes, she uses appellations, which is nice because no one else in my life does, lol, and i just didn’t resist, just did it. The next morning I took them with me, dropped them in a mail slot in the building next to the one I work in, looked at EVERY envelope to be sure it had a stamp on it and went on my way. And on Tuesday, I got back in the mail, an envelope, with a little red post office stamp on it that said, the post office will not deliver mail without appropriate postage. I missed one. Somehow I missed one. I have never missed one before and never written my address on the outside of the envelope before either. This time I did because she said please and I missed stamping an envelope. And because I had written my return address on it, it got back to me in time for me to go online and pay it without incurring a late fee. I could not have remailed it and been sure it would have gotten there on time. And I already know credit companies give no one a break, not even if you’ve been a good customer for many years. Wait, there IS one FMC, but that is the only one, in my experience. And my experience is all I have, all any of us have. Last fall, September, my birth month, I missed scheduling my car payment. I get email notices every month and when I get it, I go there and schedule the payment. I have been doing that for almost 20 years, somehow I missed this one. It might have gone into spam, and I do look at that stuff before I delete it, just to be sure nothing real got caught in there, and THAT does happen, but I missed that. Well, FMC is Ford Motor Credit – I buy only Fords, American made and completely reliable vehicles, except for the first new car I EVER bought which was a piece of junk that wouldn’t start if the temperature dropped below 30 degrees, which, here, in Minnesota, happens occasionally, I have always driven Fords. I still do. Anyway, I got a call from FMC late in September, I had already scheduled the October payment from the email, and a polite young woman asked if there was a problem. I said no, why? Well, she said, she could see I had scheduled October’s payment, but I didn’t pay for September and was there a problem? I said WHAT? Remember, I am NOT the calm one, giggle. Said, wait a minute let me get on my computer. Came up here and looked and sure enough, September was empty. I said I can’t imagine how I missed that, I make the scheduled payment the day I get the email, I thought I had already done that. She was SO nice and so understanding. Had my history right there in front of her, saw that I had never missed one before, suggested the spam idea – which had not occurred to me until then, and said she would waive the late fee so that wouldn’t affect my credit, and I just made both payments THEN. So, there are people out there with hearts, and the authority to exercise, but to my knowledge, they only work for Ford, lol.

Now, there, if you’ve read my main site, and I hope you have and encourage you to do so if you have not, is an example of how jenna works within me. This is the part that many of you will struggle with. ALL of you have a “jenna” within you. NO one comes here alone. No one. EVER. When we are home we are a complete person, male/female combined, it is only when we come into relativity to experience what we may here, that we separate parts of ourselves. We do NOT come here as the trinity that we are as children of God. We come into duality thinking we are three, not knowing we are not. We think we are three because that is what religion has taught us, and in that religion has it right, partly, and to its own advantage. We think we are mind, body, and soul. But not one of us has EVER seen our soul. We think of it as the essence, the spark, that makes us alive, and in a small way that is true, but all we experience here is mind and body. Period. We “think” “assume” we have a “soul” because having this part of us that we cannot see and cannot touch, allows others, men mostly, to exercise power over us by persuading us that only THEY can touch our soul, speak for our soul, intercede with our creator. And in exchange we give them recognition, fame, and lots and lots of money.

One of the things I am here to tell you, through who I am, through what I have seen and jen says through what I will do (and here i giggle, cuz i am nothing special at all) is that you do not need an intercessor. Your connection to your creator is wireless, giggle. And you are never in a spot that is blacked out, or inaccessible. It is that you have been conditioned to believe you need an intercessor. But, please, think, we’ll use earthly terms because earth is what we know. WHAT parent will only talk to ONE of his/her children? What parent will only help his/her children, IF they ask appropriately, through another of those children? That is ridiculous. Patently ridiculous. THAT idea is of human creation, not divine. I have SEEN the other side, FELT the other side, that is all on my main site, and I tell you because jen tells me, there is NO divine creator that is unavailable to you. You simply need make contact. I can help you with that. I didn’t do it easily, but I did do it. And so can every one of you. NONE of you came here alone. You ALL know jenna. Not as her, but, in the same way. You each have another “half” of you, with you, watching you (not in a creepy way, I’ve already worked that out with jen, giggle – i mean there are things i do that i don’t want anyone to see, giggle, and she says everyone sees, but at home no one judges, period, not like we humans do, not in any way at all, what happens, happens, there is no seductive twist, or judgment as to how we do ANYTHING), loving you. And waiting for you to ask him/her what name he/she would like to be called by. THAT may well surprise you, giggle. I “knew” jenna’s name forever, if my oldest son had been a girl, he would have been named jenna, my ex and I agreed on that. That was HER reaching out to me THEN. It was another 27 years before the shouting into the night thing ended with her telling me who she was. I am telling YOU right here, right now. You have a guide. Our creator did not send us, let us, come here alone. You are not alone and have never been, will never be.

So how did we get from “i wanna be a horse” to here? Look closer. There IS a path. much love, :^) gene

Tonight? Deepskyblue:

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Who Owns The Backyard?

Today, just a little piece from Steve Goodier. It takes a moment to think through what he is saying here, but the time is worth it. I’ll be back after it, for a moment.

Vicki Huffman, in PLUS LIVING (Harold Shaw Publishers, 1989),
tells about a man who loved to hunt and bought two pedigreed
setters that he trained to be fine bird dogs. He kept them in a
large, fenced pen in his backyard.

One morning he observed a little bulldog trotting down the alley
behind his home. It saw the two dogs and squeezed under the
fence. The man thought he should perhaps lock up the setters so
they wouldn’t hurt the little dog, but changed his mind. Maybe
they would “teach that bulldog a lesson,” he reasoned.

As he predicted, fur began to fly, and all of it was bulldog fur.
The feisty intruder soon had enough and squeezed back under the
fence to get away.

To the man’s surprise, the visitor returned again the next
morning. He crawled under the fence and once again took on the
tag-team of setters. And like the day before, he soon quit and
squeezed out of the pen.

The incident was repeated the following day, with the same
results.

The man left early the next morning on a business trip
and returned after several weeks. He asked his wife what finally
became of the bulldog.

“You won’t believe it,” she replied. “At the same time every day
that little dog came to the backyard and fought with our setters.
He never missed a day! It has come to the point now that when our
setters simply hear him snorting down the alley, they start
whining and run down into the basement. Then the little bulldog
struts around our backyard as if he owns it.”

That bulldog inspires me when it comes to managing problems. Not that
think I have to fight and impose my will on whatever is in my way. But
I appreciate that little dog’s perseverance. He persisted with his
problem until it disappeared.

Dale Carnegie made this observation: “Most of the important
things in the world have been accomplished by people who have
kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” In the
end, it’s the persistent bulldog that will own the backyard.

– Steve Goodier

Perseverance is way under-rated. Without, I don’t think I’d be here today. I don’t consider that I own this backyard, but I certainly own a piece of it. Me. I’ve been working on a book that I mentioned a couple weeks ago, The Political Teachings of Jesus, by a man named Tod Lindberg, and an interesting little book it is indeed. Eminently practical, and quite surprising. I’m going to talk about that book soon, but right smack in the middle of it, I got sidetracked with life, or a bit of it, and when I came back to that book, I found jen had other plans, and if you want to know about perseverance, you just need try resisting her when she sets her mind to some thing, giggle. It isn’t that she makes me, or CAN, do anything, it is more in the relentlessness nature of the gentle prodding, through images and words, that eventually causes me to “get” her point. Things have order in this universe, the universe itself could not exist without that order, and to get to where we want to go, wherever that might be, we too, must follow an orderly path, or the next thing we know we find ourselves right back where we started. If you’ve ever been lost in a woods, you will immediately understand what I mean. :^). So, though, I still do sometimes try to ignore those inner pushes, I’ve found over time, it is usually best to at least listen to what she has to say. So, she sent me off to another book, that she thought I needed to have in mind, as I read Tod Lindberg’s book. Because there is an agenda, she says, and to put things together “right”, and that can be very different for each of us, we need to first understand what it is we are about, THEN build the plan to get from here to there. All this is, really, is a handful of ideas she wants me to have in mind as I read these other ideas, she says it will help me put the new in perspective with what I already know. I get that. It isn’t normally a good idea to start with calculus, basic arithmetic needs come first, giggle. I’ve skipped that basic part many times in my life and I’m not sure that has ever actually been to my advantage, I at some point HAD to go back to the source, to the beginning, to really understand what it was I was building, creating, SEEING. So that part is about over I think and I’m ready to come back into Mr. Lindberg’s work but from a very different perspective than I had been reading it. I’ll explain all that some day. Maybe. Until then though, I hope you have enjoyed the little bulldog story and that the wait for me to catch up with jen, will have been worthwhile. And there is WAY more in that subject up there than one might think, fair warning. much love, :^) gene

Dreams

This will probably not be what you are expecting. Then again, maybe so. I have had this “dream” in my head for a very long time. I’m not sure I wrote about it on my main site even, though I may have, it is how my site got its name really, though it isn’t the name I wanted, lol. I’m not going to bother putting these two sketches I made many years ago into this document, nor am I going to put them on the main site. Why? My actual drawing skills, well, the average five year old is a better artist, my skills do not lie in that sort of talent. There is a reason for that, of course, a reason why my skills, though considerable in many areas, are not at a level that would give me cause to pursue THEM rather than the dream that is within me. If I were a great artist, and I would love to be, I’d do THAT and little other than that. I am not sure I’ve written of this part either, I know I’ve told some of you this, and I sometimes, like now, get a bit of a smudge between what I’ve said to one and what I’ve said to all. I still mean to get back to the main site and edit each page, I’ve done about a third – in the last 8 months, giggle.

See the thing is, when something grips me, an idea, when I was younger a video game, or a programming problem in dbase say, or a way to create a .bat file to make all 200 computers I was responsible for maintaining and keeping in sync, do something in particular, it would consume me. It could be a book I’d discover, an author I’d come across, somewhere in the middle of his, or her, work, love and then go make a list of everything he or she ever wrote, buy them and work my way through all of them systematically and thoroughly. Some things are like that but not to that degree. Many programming issues consumed me until I knew I was at a point where I “got” it and would then lose interest and move on to the next thing. That is how I created my main website last summer, and this blog, which, for the first time in print, I will say is mirrored elsewhere, not only as a backup but as a way to reach an entirely different audience. I read everything I could find on html, I read websites for dummies – which I found dumb, sorry, I found THE source of the internet, the W3 consortium, giggle, which sets the standards for how the internet works and the languages it uses AND which has hands on, 1-2-3 methods of learning programming languages necessary to creating and maintaining websites. Okay, now it wouldn’t be nice, if I did not give them their due. So I am going to put their url in here, but recognize that to JOIN this organization costs many thousands of dollars and many very prestigious institutions are part of it. You can find all that yourself if you’re interested. But if you are just interested in basic things, like how to create a web page, or how to make text do this, talk boldly in italics, then this is THE place to begin. Oh, and I was. But I didn’t get here first. I’ll tell you about that as we move along tonight. :^) W3 Schools

That is just the most marvelous site and if any of you ARE interested in building a website, I recommend you start there. I didn’t. And I wish I had. I took a more circuitous route which delayed my entrance to the WWW by a couple months at least, because I already KNEW what my main site had to look like and I needed a way to create THAT. When I say I knew. I mean I had a vision within of how it should look. I had that same vision when I found “pinkie” to create the graphics that are on my main page. I told her, a young Indian programmer doing freelance work for another company I am going to plug here for two reasons, one, they did exactly what I needed done, and two, they are headquartered in my ancestral homeland, Sweden, another NOT coincidence, they are
Get a Free Lancer.

I scrambled my brain trying to find someone to create the graphics that would show what I was trying to describe, to demonstrate what I had seen. I googled everything you can think of and looked through tons of useless sites, until jen gave me the idea and I googled free lance. The rest is history as they say, giggle. I found them, submitted a bid describing what I wanted, got a bunch of proposals, and chose the first responder, Pinkie, because she had already done like 2000 jobs for them and had a four or five star, forget which was the highest rating, from her customers. I read some reviews. They all loved her work and said they’d hire her again. So will I. Darn. I tried like heck to type would there and I got like finger lock, jen insisted on will, not would. I have no idea. Oh, wait, maybe I do, maybe the dream. Hmm. She never stops surprising me.

Okay, enough about html, xhtml, xml, php and all the sundry things that can go into building a website, or working for one. I’m cheap. Okay not cheap, but why pay for something you can get free. Is my current philosophy. I used to be a little more liberal than that with that notion, but have mended my ways. Why? Because a truly civilized place is one in which no one will have something that came at a cost to another. I didn’t use to think like that. I do now.

So, one off-shoot of this philosophy is that I support things that come at no cost to anyone, in computer terms that means open source programs. Open Office is a far better, more adaptable and more useful Office Suite that MS Office, which I also own but rarely use, Open Office is free. Built by a community of collaborating programmers for the public good. I use, virtually exclusively, Firefox as my browser. Why? Internet Explorer IS free and comes with every computer. Well, Firefox is also free but is built by a community of collaborating programmers (note: you do not have to be a programmer to contribute, you can test and report bugs, which programmers fix, and contribute in other ways) and is 90% less susceptible to attacks that cripple, or worse, Microsoft programs. Plus IE has like three add ons none of which are useful in any real way, whereas Firefox has zillions of ‘em, all of them useful, some VERY useful, like one which allows you to look inside ANY message or website link, before you ever go there, and see firsthand, right away, if it is useful, harmful or what you are looking for. So Open Source is good. It IS one people one world in action. So, I did a google on open source web building programs and immediately found NVU, which I will also plug here since it has been so good to me, NVU.

It is a What You See Is What You Get, wysiwyg, web site builder, wysiwyg, means exactly that. What you type on the screen is what will appear in your presentation, page, whatever. The term comes from, well, okay, probably no one cares, but I do, :^), Lotus 123 the original spreadsheet program. One used to have to enter esoteric commands and then run a program and see what turned up, if it wasn’t what you wanted, you went back to the code, made changes, and tried again. Tedious work. Wysiwyg changed all that. What you saw on screen as you typed or programmed is what you saw in the end product. NVU is that and a lot more. Point is, jen led me to the perfect program and it, too, is open source. But I couldn’t figure out how to make MY vision show on the page, I had trouble with frames, and I needed three. I SAW what I wanted on the screen long before I could make it appear onscreen. So I did another google search, this one I’m not sure what I typed, my memory is unusually blank, but the very first link Google produced, “looked” exactly as what I saw in my mind. A completely different thing, of course, but the framework was identical. No coincidences. And, the author of the page, had a comment that said something to the effect that he was willing to help people with building web pages. I contacted him, and he, though he would NOT tell me HOW to do something, would give me clues, maddening clues, about how to do what I was trying to do. I apologized many times for taking so much of his time and he, once, wrote back, to stop apologizing, he was learning to communicate, so we were trading talents. Finally, after several weeks, I was JUST about there, and I simply could NOT get the last little bit of code to work. So I did what I have often done, and what jen told me to do then, walk away, leave it alone, do something else entirely. And I did, I decided I was an abject failure and that I would never get it, and turned to something else. And after a few days, suddenly, the solution to my problem just burst open in my mind, full and complete, every detail. And at work. I could NOT wait to get home to try it and it worked perfectly. And still does. That is my main site, giggle. Okay, you have to know, it had to do with clicking on a story and being able to get back to the reading window. Tricky, but not impossible.

Which is like a lot of things actually. So lets come back to my dream. The name I first searched on, and this is detailed elsewhere, was One World. But that was already taken. I was taken too, aback. Because, many years ago, I sketched out a drawing of a place called One World. I have two sketches actually which have been shown to exactly one person. This part is a little complicated, and ridiculous too, but there was a point at which I was told I would one day be working in a circular building. I giggled at that then because I couldn’t imagine working beyond where I have, but almost instantly, I SAW that building. These two sketches are of it. One is a home site, sort of. The other is a place of study. I sketched them while wide awake and greatly bored. Yes, a meeting. But they are alive to me. I still have the originals, giggle. And, as I said, I have never shown them to anyone but one person and that turned out to be a mistake. But, the dream.

This morning as I woke, I had one of those waking dreams (i don’t remember dreams, i used to but i stopped, don’t remember if i said that before either here, but still true, because i didn’t LIKE them, but in the last two years have changed my mind about that and decided to let them come to me again) and in THIS dream, those two sketches came to LIFE. So odd. Because as I was moving through the dream, my alarm went off and I remember thinking NO, I’m not done yet, so I hit the 15 minute snooze, knowing you cannot go back into a dream you’ve wakened from, and went back in anyway. I SAW it all. How those buildings come to be, what we do there, what the curriculum is, how it comes to be that way – yes, the three r’s are included, but it is SO much more, it is the Waldorf method taken to the nth degree. Because nothing I teach, or that is taught in my name, can be taught without a spiritual component. So these are charter schools of a kind. But not conservative Republican, lol. The spiritual component is that we are all one. That what is done to one of us, is done to all of us. We ARE one people-one world. More than we know. More than I knew, I was searching for the wrong name, jenna brought me to the right name. The thing about THIS dream though that was SO different, is that I’ve had the pictures of it in my head for SO long, but I COULD feel this, I could SMELL it, the building was alive. Children learned in arboretums, they didn’t just HEAR about what they were being taught, they SAW it, FELT it, SMELLED it, could touch it. I am doing such a poor job of explaining this, but the dream I’ve had in my head as those silly sketches for so long, came ALIVE in this “waking” dream. And I suddenly know how it can all happen. How, if I have the opportunity, I can “create” that waking dream for many. There is nothing I want more. There is nothing I will ever want more.

much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Human Rights

This will not be what you think it is. Or may not be. I am writing this post, this day, in support of the joint effort of Amnesty International and the BlogCatalog, the latter of which I am a happy member. I don’t know why I’m not a member of Amnesty International because I fully support each and every one of their goals, objectives, precepts. So, hold on a minute while I go look at their website and bring back a link, :^). Amnesty International Home I did one better, I found their home, I brought back their link and I joined their organization. It turns out we have much in common, giggle. This below I am going to italicize as it comes directly from them. I’ll be back after that for a couple, or three, words.

Who We Are

Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights for all.

Our supporters are outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by hope for a better world – so we work to improve human rights through campaigning and international solidarity.

We have more than 2.2 million members and subscribers in more than 150 countries and regions and we coordinate this support to act for justice on a wide range of issues.

You can help make a real difference by becoming a member or supporter of Amnesty International.
About Amnesty International
Learn more about our organization, the work we do and how we’re working hard to change people’s lives. More about Amnesty International
Amnesty International in your country
We have offices in more than 80 countries around the world and campaign for human rights for all in many more. More about Amnesty International in your country
Our history
Ever since we started campaigning in 1961, we’ve worked around the globe to stop the abuse of human rights. More about Amnesty International’s history
Our People
Learn more about the people who provide leadership and stewardship for the Amnesty International movement. More about our people
FAQ
Everything you need to know about Amnesty International, including:

* How do I join Amnesty International?
* Is Amnesty International effective?
* How does Amnesty International carry out its work?
* More FAQs

So – you can go there to learn about them and the work they do. Are they effective? That’s their second bullet point, I think it ought be first. Because what good are words without actions? Now Paul, yes, Paul from Acts on through the rest of the New Testament, says that acts are not necessary, we are saved by grace. He is right. But that is a given. It isn’t a revelation, giggle, and yes that is a bit of a play upon the last book of the “New Testament”. What I mean by it, is that we are all here engaged in an activity in which there are no losers. How can that be? Because what is written in the bible is not true. Largely. I am not saying it is a book of lies written by a pack of fools, though, in a sense, that is perfectly true. It IS a book written by MEN in order to exercise control over other men. When it was written, women were chattels, non-persons for all intents and purposes. Ask yourself, honestly, how much has that changed? Yes, we have had a few female heads of state, yes, there are now a relative handful of women in offices of power and influence, but, and this is a capital BUT, women are still chattels, they are, in a world which has repudiated slavery, still bought and sold. They are trafficked across state lines, AND national boundaries and forced into the world’s oldest profession.

Isn’t that interesting all by itself? That prostitution can be called the world’s oldest profession, yet its practitioners treated as property, not professionals, no CEO’s among them, just broken, beaten and abused children of the Heavenly Father. Sorry, as I wrote that I heard a hymn from my childhood in my head and that is it. Why is it then, that some children of this Heavenly Father are so poorly treated, the most gentle and loving of His children, while the most brutal and ugly of His children are lauded and given stock options?

Amnesty International and BlogCatalog have joined forces on this date, May 15, 2008, that members of both organizations might in a coordinated way, exercise, where we are able, our right to free speech, to speak for those whom have no voices. I am proud and happy to be part of that effort. The point is to call attention to the atrocities occurring across our beloved planet in terms of simple human suffering and the ongoing effort to relieve, alleviate, END it. How can a tragedy such as has struck Myanmar be allowed to happen? Well, the world, our planet, does what it will, it too is alive, if not sentient, in that it is constantly renewing itself, and that renewal can wreak havoc upon we lesser creatures who live on its skin, much as a zillion fleas might die as a dog vigorously scratches its ass. :^). Do you think we are so much more to the planet than those fleas are to our dogs? I tell you we are less.

I have seen where we come from and where we are all going to return, when our time on this planet ends. That stuff is on my main site, you’re welcome to look. For years, I’ve looked for another with those experiences, believing that somehow we could come together and DO something about that which we can plainly SEE is wrong about our world. I have been wrong. Not the first time, lol. And jen says it isn’t wrong either, there is NO wrong, she never told me not to look, only that I wouldn’t find that which I sought. She’s now told me that only one other will ever see what I have seen, what I am here to do is testify to what I have seen, talk about it, write about it, and demonstrate a few things about it, though that part is not yet quite on me. The point has always been to bring what has happened to me via the light INTO the light. That will be important on a day that isn’t today. :^) Yeah, mystery, don’t we all love that? Well I don’t. So there’s me. The rest of you can make up your own mind.

The point, the real point, and this is the main point from the CWG books that are behind so much of what I write, this is not a win or lose proposition. Men would have us believe so, because it is in THEIR best interest, it keeps us subject to them, yes, there are now female “ministers” in virtually all but the Catholic religion, but those are women in men’s clothing, who have sold their souls for a place at that particular table. Now, one can NOT sell one’s soul, that is a figurative phrase. But, to gain acceptance, to have a place at the table, they have come to believe (I HOPE they believe) that what the religions of the world teach is truth. But I tell you here and now, not one living person on this earth has heard the voice of God issuing a call to anything. Not one. That they feel a call, yes, there are guides, we ALL have a guide, but that is a whisper, not a conversation, a leaning, not a directive. And religion at its core is to keep the masses docile. The opiate of the masses it has been called. And so it has been used over the centuries. It persuades the ordinary person that no one might presume to speak TO God, but officials of the church, and that God will certainly NEVER speak directly to anyone so lowly as you. Or me. Or any of those lying desolately in dark cells, or brutally taken from their homes and transported to a place they know nothing of other than that periodically men come in to their rooms and do unspeakable things to them.

This is the world religion has created. And the godless, you say? What of the godless heathens? Do you imagine THEY are any different. Those who follow no religion but brute force? The junta that controls Myanmar? Or the council that subjugates the great Chinese people? There is no difference, it is still men, exercising control over all others, for their own purposes, and profit. We need remember that profit is always part of the equation. During the darkest days of the former Soviet Union, the leaders of the party had marvelous accommodations, while their subjects fought just to stay alive.

Human rights? We all have human rights. The question really is, WHEN are we going to exercise them? Amnesty International is an organization that is dedicated solely to that purpose, as is the accursed ACLU. One of my favorite movies of all time, The American President, starring Michael Douglas and Annette Benning, has one of the greatest speeches of all time written into it, near its end. The sitting President facing re-election and all the silliness that entails, is Michael Douglas, and he is relentlessly attacked by his opponent for being a “card carrying member of the ACLU”. As if that is somehow anti-American. I do admit the ACLU has taken on some odd opponents in its time, but always from the same angle. People are born as free as Elsa. And anything that infringes on those freedoms, specifically those freedoms written in the American Constitution, is WRONG, regardless who profits. And there’s the rub, giggle. So, Michael Douglas, during this climatic speech asks a simple question, but one which resonated through my soul and which I have never forgotten and IS THE POINT OF THIS EXERCISE in freedom of speech today. He asks, the question should not be, why am I a card carrying member of the ACLU, Bob, but why aren’t YOU? This is after all an organization dedicated solely to protecting ALL of the rights guaranteed us by our constitution. mmmm. It is almost an erotic experience, giggle, and in fact does become one in a few minutes, but here we’ll stay focused on the point.

Anyone who opposes Human Rights is not acting as a proper human. Period. Anyone who denies another human their basic dignity, their freedom, is not acting as a proper human. What I have seen causes me to believe, okay, not only what I have seen, but what my jenna has explained to me, that there is no way to lose this “game” of life. We are here to discover who we really are, as Neale Donald Walsch says so often in the CWG series, by understanding who we are not. If one is in a place, THE place I have seen, where love is all there is, how does one know that? Until you know what love is not, you do not know what love is.

Now that is expressed in human terms, but I am a human and those are the only terms I KNOW. And I know it is NOT love to deny ANYONE freedom, dignity, and the opportunity to improve their circumstances. The circumstances into which they were born. THAT means, to me, that EVERY soul on this planet deserves some very basic things. I have talked about this in other posts but not about the how, only the that. :^). Those things, food, shelter, clothing. Whether they work or not, whether they are capable of work or not. We could do this. We COULD do this. The argument immediately arises – but so many would do nothing, if they had those things, and the answer is, so what? Look around you. Do you think most people would be content with mere existence? Would that be enough for them? And the answer is no. Most people would still want to be productive, be unhappy unless they were, most people would continue to do just what they do now, work to improve themselves and their circumstances and that would still be possible. How would this be paid for? Easily, war no more. We are one people on one world. We recognize that, we accept that, we establish a oneworld organization, with each country having representation, and a way to ensure that the small are not dominated by the large, by having one of the legislative bodies by like the US Senate, two representatives from each nation, and no law becomes law, without the concurrence of both legislative bodies. I didn’t forget the pay for it part. If you search my site, you will find a table that shows the total defense spending of the world. We, the US, are so far above the norm that it is ridiculous, the freest nation on earth is the most fearful – what does THAT say about us, giggle?

But if there were one world government, with one world “army” or “police” force, with individual states retaining the autonomy they have now so as to retain their culture, language, etc., ceding only control and enforcement of law to the national body, the savings from eliminating those defense budgets would pay for everything I have advocated here. And, all of the things God advocates through Neale in Book 2. And the most important part? The question of human rights and who deserves them would be laid to rest for ever. Because the truth is, we ALL deserve them. And the only honorable thing for ANY of us to do is ensure we ALL have them. It IS that simple. And then, when we have learned to love each other, we reach for the stars, because they are next. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

It seems

that my real life keeps getting in the way of my “real” life. And I do not like that much, which is not to say there is anything I can, or would if I could, do about that. Those people who are in my real life matter to me. A lot. There is more to say there and I probably will but not now, not in the midst of whatever this is that is happening. But eventually, yes.

For the moment I want to mention briefly a new love, a new book, that jenna brought me to, not unlike the way Book 1 in the CWG series came into my hands. This one is The Political Teachings of Jesus, by a man named Tod Lindberg. I have yet to delve deeply into it, but what I know so far is that is a scholarly attempt to separate out the purely political teachings of Jesus, as we know them or think we do, from those which are purely religious in nature. I think it might be an interesting exercise to undertake. Because for me, the two have always been sort of mixed up into one thing for me. I’ve never thought of His religious teachings as religion, religion bearing His name came about long after His death, He taught, in my opinion, universal truths, as He understood them. I certainly SEE the difference between render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and Blessed are the poor, but I’ve not compartmentalized them, and it is time to do so. Here is duality, we must have polarity, and what could be at the opposite end of the line stretching straight out from religion but politics, lol. Some would say they are one and the same and at times in our history they have tried to be, never successfully, neither ever trusting the other fully, and more often at war, than in brotherhood or sisterhood, until now it has been the brothers who have dominated, with as I have mentioned more than once, less than spectacular results. I’ve said this before, though I’m not sure if I’ve said it in this blog or on the main spot, but one of things I am here to do is betray my fellows. :^). Assist in a transition from male centric political, spiritual and religious truths to a female centric position. In other words, the boys have had their turn and it is time the girls got their time in the sun, so to speak. Yes, an aging white male, about to betray his brethren. But it isn’t betrayal at all of course, it is a natural change in leadership, a swinging of the pendulum so to speak and this world will not be at full peace until that pendulum rests still. So there is a bit yet to come. Part of that is going to come to me from this book. jen says there is nothing in it new to me, just presented in different ways, so I’m going to take some time to get familiar with it.

It is divided into three parts, and as we already know, three is the number of divinity. First, The Sermon on the Mount, which is about my favorite story of all, then, Parables Scenes and Sayings, and las, the Jesusian (a brand NEW word, giggle) Teaching and the Present Moment. Which I am going to go out on a limb and suggest contains an application of His teaching to the world we live in today. Which is good, because, truth be told, we need some help as young Billy Gilman sang, down here on earth. Maybe this is it. Or not. In any event a new journey awaits and I’ll be back shortly to share bits and pieces of it with you. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Hold On Tight

to your dream. This song is a current advertisement for something, a Ford vehicle I think, I’ve been driving Fords since 1972. Why its here now is that it keeps popping up just when I need it. Just at the moment the dark threatens to envelope me, I hear this, either on the television or in my head. So maybe that means something. I hope. Then a piece from Steve Goodier which could not have come at a better time either. much love, :^) gene

Hold On Tight To Your Dream

Hold on tight to your dream
Hold on tight to your dream
When you see your ship go sailing
When you feel your heart is breaking
Hold on tight to your dream.

It’s a long time to be gone
Time just rolls on and on
When you need a shoulder to cry on
When you get so sick of trying
Just hold tight to your dream

CHORUS:
When you get so down that you can’t get up
And you want so much but you’re all out of luck
When you’re so downhearted and misunderstood
Just over and over and over you could

REPEAT CHORUS:

Hold on tight to your dream
Hold on tight to your dream
When you see the shadows falling
When you hear that cold wind calling
Hold on tight to your dream.

Oh, yeah
Hold on tight to your dream
Yeah, hold on tight…
To your dream.

A MORSEL OF HOPE

Jean Kerr said, “Hope is the feeling you have, that the feeling you
have, isn’t permanent.” It is what we have when we know that we WILL
eventually survive the night and bask in sunshine once again. It does
not deny the present darkness, but it reminds us that dawn is coming.

Brigadier General Robinson Risner (“Robbie”) spent seven years as a
POW at the “Hanoi Hilton,” as prisoners of war called their North Viet
Nam compound. There he discovered the power of hope. He spent four and
a half years of that time in isolation. He endured ten months of total
darkness. Those months were the longest of his life. When they boarded
up his little seven-by-seven foot cell, shutting out the light, he
wondered if he was going to make it. He had already been under intense
physical and mental duress after years of confinement. And now, not a
glimmer of light shone into his cell — or into his soul.

Robbie spent hours a day exercising and praying. But at times he felt
he could nothing but scream. Not wanting to give his captors the
satisfaction of knowing they’d broken him, he stuffed clothing into
his mouth to muffle the noise as he screamed at the top of his lungs.

One day Robbie got down on the floor and crawled under his bunk. He
located a vent that let in outside air. As he pressed against the
vent, he saw a faint glimmer of light reflected on the inside wall of
the opening. Robbie put his eye next to the cement wall and discovered
a minute crack in the construction. It allowed him to glimpse outside,
but was so small that all he could see was one blade of grass. A
single blade of grass and a faint ray of light. But when he stared at
the sight, he felt a surge of joy, excitement and gratitude like he
hadn’t known in years. “It represented life, growth, and freedom,” he
later said, “and I knew God had not forgotten me.” It was that tiny
glimmer of hope that sustained Robbie through an unbearable ordeal.

I am amazed at the strength of the human spirit. It seems to run
forever on nothing but a morsel of hope. But it still must be fed.

I find myself busy keeping my body going – but I know it is just as
important to feed my spirit. Even if all I have is a morsel of hope,
for today that just may be enough. (emphasis mine)

– Steve Goodier

Real Beauty and just real

It has been a very odd week. I’ll come to that after this piece by Steve Goodier. His is the real beauty, me, later, is the just real, and that won’t be as beautiful. I have questions this week and wonderings, not beautiful, except that there is nothing here, no thing, no idea, that is not, in its own way, beautiful, even if darkly so.

REAL BEAUTY

When a first-time father cuddled his newborn son, he immediately
noticed the baby’s ears conspicuously standing out from his head. He
expressed his concern to the nurse that some children might taunt his
child, calling him names like “Dumbo.” A doctor examined the baby and
reassured the new dad that his son was healthy – the ears presented
only a minor cosmetic problem.

But the nervous father persisted. He wondered if the child might
suffer psychological effects of ridicule, or if they should consider
plastic surgery.

The nurse assured him that it was really no problem, and he should
just wait to see if the boy grows into his ears.

The father finally felt more optimistic about his child, but now he
worried about his wife’s reaction to those large, protruding ears. She
had delivered by cesarean section, and had not yet seen the child.

“She doesn’t take things as easily as I do,” he said to the nurse.

By this time, the new mother was settled in the recovery room and
ready to meet her new baby. The nurse went along with the dad to lend
some support in case this inexperienced mother became upset about her
baby’s large ears.

The infant was swaddled in a receiving blanket with his head covered
for the short trip through the chilly air-conditioned corridor. The
baby was placed in his mother’s arms, who eased the blanket back so
that she could gaze upon her child for the first time.

She took one look at her baby’s face and looked to her husband and
gasped, “Oh, Honey! Look! He has your ears!”

No problem with Mom. She married those ears…and she loves the man to
whom they are attached.

The poet Khalil Gibran said, “Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a
light in the heart.” It’s hard to see the ears when you’re looking
into the light.

– Steve Goodier

So – that is sweet, isn’t it? All that worry for nothing. Which is not to say that his fears, which I take from his fear to have come from personal experience, though he didn’t recognize or remember it as such apparently, aren’t real. The trick is to see the beauty in everything, God says that, in the books Neale Donald Walsch wrote. Judge nothing, love everything. Always and all ways. They are wonderful books, I still recommend books one and two with all of my heart, all of my mind and all of my soul. But.

There always has to be one, right? So here comes the just real part. Everything here is true. Everything, every word, I’ve written. None of them are falsehoods, they all come from my memory and from within me. I may have, here, created an impression of a person who lives in the light only. And that, if it has been read or felt or experienced in that way, is not true. I DO try to be positive here. I’m not sure that is always the best course. My name is not Pollyanna, it is gene. When I spoke on my main site of the CWG list that I was on for about half of 1998, I said I wrote there about a lot of things, that I learned there I could speak what was in me without driving anyone else insane, or alienating them forever, or just making them think I was completely crazy (and I apologize to those who are offended by THAT word but it is necessary here tonight) and having them run away screaming. It was a safe environment, an accepting environment, I felt enveloped by those wonderful souls who were on that list. I said that there were many more ON the list than there were who actively participated. I think at its largest it was upwards of 600 people, maybe 60 of us participated regularly, a few more occasionally, the others we called “loving lurkers”, those who read but did not write. Back then I was in the beginning of my no sleeping phase, that hasn’t actually ended yet, I can get drugged up enough to get four hours of silence, but still I begin waking then, and can usually can get back to sleep because of the drugs – legally prescribed, I add.

Then, though, I didn’t sleep. I fell asleep as I had all of my life, virtually instantly when I lay down, but I would wake after 3 hours and be unable to get back to sleep. So I’d get up come out here, to this very place, and write to the list, for hours, until I had to go to work, then I’d come home, come back up here and write till 10, sleep 3 hours and start again. I did that from early February 1998 through October that year. I always felt, I still do, when I am writing that I am talking to someone, just a conversation. And I wrote about everything in me, to begin with, I wrote about the pain of losing Brandon, this list, I joined it almost exactly 12 months after his suicide. I wrote about growing up on the farm, I wrote about how out of place I felt. I wrote about raising my sons, I wrote about my mistakes, I responded to things others wrote. I spoke from my heart, and many of those posts were written with tears streaming down my face. I got responses from those who posted regularly, but I also got many private emails from our “loving lurkers”, thanking me for saying things they felt but couldn’t express, telling me that they felt as I did, but did not have the ability or will or wish to express whatever that might have been publicly, but thanking me for saying for them, what they could not say themselves. I SO appreciated those letters. Which does not mean I didn’t appreciate those with whom I corresponded openly ON the list, I did, I do still. As I said, I think, on my main site – I need to get back there and do some editing, I tend to write stream of consciousness and that is not always grammatical or without typo’s, lol. And I have intended to “fix” that but haven’t yet. Anyway, we talked about the books, what we thought about them, what we reacted to, what we felt about them. I didn’t always agree with everything in them. And that felt a little, sacrilegious, because the list was formed because of those books – the only rule was play nice, and even that we couldn’t always do. For one thing, there is this story in book 1, of the Little Soul and the Sun. EVERYONE loved it. Neale loved it so much that he made into a completely separate little book. And I hated it. It filled me with horror as I read it.

The essence of it is that we “agree” to come here together to experience who we are not. And that we, in advance, forgive, although that isn’t quite right because we still love each other, what we do here to each other as we help each other experience what we are not, that we might truly know what we are, which is children of God, of love. So, we forgive our rapist, our murderer, our torturer, our Hitlers and our Stalins, in advance for what they will help us see here. We will finally understand what we ARE by experiencing here, what we are not. The books have a lot about this – duality, you can’t know hot if cold doesn’t exist, etc. I am sorry, but that very idea did, and does, disgust me. The argument is that if you are in a place where love is all there is and there is nothing else, how do you know what love is? Well, I KNOW the answer to that question and I am still amazed that Neale, and apparently God, as well as many of my list mates, didn’t. So while people were raving for a week or so about this magnificent interpretation, I was seething inside. And, finally one night, or rather early morning around 3 AM, I wrote out what I thought about that story and why. It started an enormous argument on the list amongst those who posted, but I got SO many emails from people who didn’t post, who thanked me for expressing what they did not dare or feel able to express. And there were more than a few active posters, who had been quiet while the lauding was going on who, once I expressed my own viewpoint, then joined in and thanked me for freeing them to express their own displeasure with that particular story.

I want to say clearly, it is THAT story, I am disagreeing with, not CWG. There are parts of the books that are not “right” to me, Jenna has explained that to me in this way, the books came through Neale’s filter, from God, but Neale wrote them down and edited them. There HAS to be parts of Neale IN them, he did not, though he felt as if he was, take dictation. He did, and he didn’t. jen says it in this way, if you are at a lecture and you are taking notes, unless you can write shorthand or record what you are hearing, your notes will NOT match perfectly what whomever was speaking said. It happens too fast, you will fill in the blanks yourself. And you will not always be 100% accurate. And there’s the rub. The books came through Neale, through his filter, his experience, his life and so fast that even he did not always capture exactly what God was telling him. I’ve gotta giggle here, sorry. I am not criticizing Neale. I love him. I appreciate him, I have written him – way back then, without response, he was already then into being NEALE DONALD WALSCH, as book 1 had made him quite famous, setting some sort of record for the NY Times best seller list – it WAS a book the world was waiting for, absolutely no doubt or question about that have I. And, of course, I’ve never met him, nor gone to any of his seminars, nor have I seen his movie, nor will I except under one particular circumstance. This Jenna has told me. The parts of the books I felt uncomfortable with, she explained to me. I need to tell you this. My first copy of book 1, was SO highlighted, in coats of many colors, so written over and around, with things that jen told me as I read it, that it was practically illegible, giggle. And then I left it on the bus.

I thought, well, maybe I should call the MTC and see if anyone turned it in. Jen told me no, someone needs it AND your notes, honey. So I bought another copy, and proceeded to make that nearly illegible too. Those notes are for me, not public consumption. But there ARE things in the books that are not quite “right” and I know what those parts are and why, why they were written as they were. jen’s gone through this with MANY times, is with me now as I write this. And desperately trying to distract me. She says I am going to say things that it isn’t time to say yet. And I am going to let her have her way and move off this track. Honest to God, she said, within me, thank you honey. How can you not love someone like that? She is the only entity on this planet that can move me off something I am on. The only entity EVER. In all my quiet, shy, little life, I have NEVER let anyone else do that. I have said yes, but not meant it. A zillion times. With her, it is different. And i let her have her way – she says, sometimes. And I guess I have to agree with that too, because there are plenty of times I have steamrolled right past her advice, never a good idea, but then I’ve not necessarily always been an angel. THAT is another story, the angel reader, for another time.

For this time, well, this could be taken as macabre, and I don’t mean it that way, so am saying upfront, if you feel that? Cut it out. Cuz I don’t mean any of this that way. First, I am unafraid of death. I KNOW where we came from and where we are going when we leave here. I have SEEN it, I have FELT it, in the presence of those two light globes. THAT feeling is what home is. What we feel THERE all the time. Why we leave that to come here is beyond me, lol. Except for the part of not knowing how wonderful THAT is, if we never know anything else. Now it seems to me that should be enough. It seems to me that would BE enough. If you feel perfectly wonderful ALL the time, why would you worry about that? Why would you want to worry about that? Well, God explains that too, but not to my satisfaction. Hey, I can say that. If She doesn’t like it, I’m not hiding, the thunderbolt can find me easily enough. So I don’t quite get that. BUT, I also have no fear of death because I KNOW when I leave here, I go THERE. And I can’t believe I ever left there.

So this life has been a little much for me. A little hard to grasp. A little hard to understand. All is not sweetness and light here and I don’t understand why. yes, yes, i know, all that crap about not knowing what good is if evil doesn’t exist. On a theoretical level, I get that. On a personal level, it pisses me off. Sorry, but there is no other word that fits. I have but one child remaining on this planet. One chose suicide, which doesn’t exactly speak well of my parenting skills, one is smart as the day is long, but couldn’t catch a break to save his life. Evan is loving, wonderful, not a good husband, I SAW that and left it alone because, well, he wouldn’t have listened to me, and it wasn’t my place to tell him how to be, he has to create his own life. He didn’t find the perfect match for him. She is not a bad person. None of us are, we are all flawed. So, he’s been separated for almost two years, soon to be divorced. All his fault? No. Not at all. He met and married a flawed person. Just like most of us do. I guess in order to see what we are not. Pthhhh.

Anyway, he lost his job last August for a couple reasons, he was getting divorced and needed to take time to go hearings, and they were sharing custody and when a 5 year old or a 7 year old get sick, SOMEONE has to go get them, if it was his day, he did. Then he got sick himself. He has, as I said, severe asthma. So they offered him a deal. You resign quietly, we give you 6 weeks severance and don’t contest unemployment. Except that resigning disqualifies you for unemployment. They didn’t mention that and he didn’t find out until he applied for it. Several ugly months pass, he gets the job of a lifetime, the day after New Years, they understand his situation and accept it, then he gets sick, the fucking asthma, sorry for the language but that is how I feel about that disease – because the ONLY reason it exists in THIS country to the degree it does today is GREED, we have poisoned our air and water for 70 years, and now more than half our kids have asthma, allergies, ADD, autism, and we still don’t see that we did it to ourselves. Dollars are still more important than people, particularly little people who can’t speak for themselves, children. So this week it happens again. And he spends several days in the hospital and his company? “They have a business to run.” Not fired yet, but on the edge.

So now we come to the macabre. Remember I started with that word? How can I help this human being whom I love more than any other on the face of this planet? My first born child, who is so like me, in many ways, better than me in many others. I’ve never had asthma or allergies, that comes from his mom’s side, I understand it, I went through his childhood with him, but I don’t have it. I’ve had the ability to maintain a steady income and work life, which is not to say I don’t have my issues, I do, but we aren’t going to talk about those here and now. That’ll be another dissertation, lol. Maybe. But I am scared to death for my child. He has had two years of pure hell and as much as I’d like to promise him it is going to get better? It isn’t, not yet, not for a bit yet. And I know. She knows and she tells me. So I wonder. I have longevity in my family on both sides, I mean real longevity, three of my grandparents went past 87, both grandma’s, though I really only knew one, and my maternal grandpa, who I look just like, went to 95 – though he did not want to. Grandma there, went into a nursing home permanently at about 84, he went to visit her every day, saw there many people he’d grown up with, worked with, and when she died, he was so alone. He spent his last three years with this far away look in his eyes and he’d often say, why do i have to live so long? He finally fell, in his kitchen, on the 4th of July, 1997, 5 months after Brandon died, I remember the day because Evan and I had driven up to the farm to see him that day and when we arrived, he was lying on the floor and the paramedics had just arrived. His eyes met mine and I saw the connection between us in them. I saw him virtually every day of my life until I got to be a teen and a pain in the ass and avoided everyone until I joined the Army. I knew his soul, I knew his heart, I knew him – he raised me as much as my own parents, he and grandma. He broke his hip. Spent a couple days in the hospital, then they transferred him to grandma’s nursing home for rehabilitation and he died in his sleep the first night. I got that. There was no reason, he still had his mind, but he was ready and he wanted to go home. He and grandma had 66 years, not all great years, he was a bit of a hellion in his early years too, but ALL I saw were the good ones, and some things I didn’t understand at the time but did later. They were each others life. I know what a great marriage looks like. I witnessed it. My parents were much the same, though dad died too young, or so I thought then, but they were perfect for each other, to each other.

So where is the macabre? Some of you are asking, I know. You googled the word and were brought here, lol. There are NO coincidences in this life. There IS something for you here, what you will have to figure out for yourself. But I’ll give you a little macabre now. My dad died at 62 from his first, and obviously last, heart attack. He’d been in WWII, seabee’s, they dropped those guys onto islands with their heavy machinery and they made air strips, so we could land planes and troops and hop scotch our way up to Japan. On one of those islands, they came under sniper fire, and they drove their caterpillars into a cave, the sniper fired into the cave, the bullet ricocheted around and hit dad in his lower back, turns out there is a small t-shaped bone there, not unlike the hyoid bone in our throats that killers always break when they strangle us. That bullet broke that bone, it was little and healed quickly, got him a purple heart, but not sent home. A few weeks later he was in Japan, driving the big cats that cleared the rubble after the bombs. Well, 25 years later, 1979, he developed an extremely rare form of cancer exactly on the spot where that bone broke. Interesting, the VA flew people in here to Minneapolis to look at it, it was so rare. He went through chemo and pills and, as we all know, if you make it five years past a cancer event, isn’t that funny, event, you are clear, cured. Dad made 4 years 10 months.

Back to the VA, who I have to tell you are not rocket scientists. I have many stories about THAT system, almost none of them dealing with what happened to my dad. Anyway, it recurred. I have tremendous guilt about this. I’m not sentimental in the way most people are. I don’t care about holidays, made up or any other kind, for the most part, I just wish they’d go the fuck away and leave me alone. I know this is at odds with ME. Because I love everyone, I absolutely truly do. There is no person alive, or from history, that I don’t think I could sit down and talk to and love on a personal basis. I am not kidding. One to one, I DO love everyone. Who is alive, who has ever been alive. I honestly think I could have talked sense to Hitler. No, that is not megalomania. It is gene. And maybe Will Rogers who said, he never met a man he didn’t like. I feel that. I LIVE that. I do not hate anyone in person. I have SEEN evil in its purest form IN a human being, only once, and while I would not want to be alone in a room with that, I still feel I could love it and heal it, with time and intention. Okay, maybe that IS megalomania, lol. Still, it is true, in most ways, I am not like other humans. And that year, for whatever stupid reason, I didn’t send dad a fathers day card. I just, well, the little things of being human get by me sometimes, okay a lot of the time, I’m just not good at, or care about the small things. Though they ARE important to others, and I DO try, I still fuck up. Example. For our first Valentine’s day together, three weeks about after our marriage, I gave my wife a card that said “To My Darling Husband”. I mean, she opened it and started laughing, and I thought, what the hell? And then she showed it to me. Gawd. Anyway, that year I just never got around to actually buying the card, I thought about it, many times, but never did it, and sort of just let it go. I spent the day with my own sons who were then 8, Brandon, and 9, Evan. In early July, I got a letter from my mom, asking if they had done something to hurt me and what was that, because dad had been so hurt by not getting even a card from me for Father’s day. Gawd. I didn’t mean anything by that, I wasn’t sending a message, it was just me not really behaving the way a human is supposed to. By the way? If you’ve gotten this far, and I suspect only I have, giggle, that is still me. Remind me about Dexter okay? That’s for jen and for another time. she will. Anyway, I wrote back, NO, I wasn’t upset, I was just thoughtless and busy and loved them both and why didn’t they come down and we’d barbecue and celebrate Dad’s birthday (7/11) and Evan’s (7/31) at the same time on Saturday the 27th?

Dad was doing his chemo, because the cancer had just come back,and he was so tired, but they came down, we had a wonderful picnic, we played uno, Brandon and my dad just got along so good, they were sitting next to each other while we played and it was a glorious day. And the last time we saw him, he died on Evan’s birthday, 7/31/84. I was 33. Won’t ever forget the phone call from mom. But, here’s where we move into the macabre, I loved my dad, we were never close, not the way I was with Brandon or Evan, but I loved him. I was not ready to be the oldest male in my family at 33. It seemed weird. All that longevity all around us but my dad dies at 62, not the cancer. A heart attack. Three of his four coronary arteries were 90% blocked. The symptoms he had and that his doctors attributed to reactions to the chemo were classic heart symptoms, but it never occurred to them to look at his heart.

So. Dad had nothing to leave me, he had a living wife, but it made me think, what would I leave my sons. I mean I’ve got insurance and a stable job. But here Evan is going to be 34 on 7/31 this year. And I remember thinking when dad died at 62, HIS dad died at 63 from lung cancer, apart from those two in my immediate blood line, there is longevity but not them, and I am now 58, will be 59 in September, that 62 was not enough, that he should have had more time. Then I watched my grandpa grow to 95 and ask over and over, why do I have to live so long? And in the middle of all that, I found CWG when my suicided. So here I am. Stuck in the middle with you. giggle, that’s a song. I have no idea who sang it. just in my head. 62 too soon, 95 too long. 21 barely started. What does all that mean? And then there are the lights. i KNOW there is nothing to fear after this, nothing, I will be going HOME. And if I didn’t? If it was just nothing? Well, gawd, I haven’t had a good nights sleep in 11 years, I’d take that too. But I believe in the feeling I had as I saw those lights. I am sure THAT is where I will be, THAT is what I will feel. And that doesn’t scare me. What I WANT to do is help my son. He who keeps getting fired because he has a dread disease, not because of his capabilities, because we humans have lost the capacity to FEEL empathy toward each other. This is where this was going to start, giggle, and here it is at the end, or at least the end of this post. I’ll come back to it. And we value dollars over people. We value IDEAS over people, particularly religious ideas, we will KILL each other for believing the “wrong” thing, or in some countries for wearing the wrong thing. This is one fucked up world. And we silly humans have made it. “Lesser” creatures have more empathy for their own than do we. If it costs a buck, fuck you and die. Does that sound harsh? I won’t say I’m sorry. I won’t ever apologize for having said that. Because it is the truth of how we treat each other. And THAT is HERE in the land of the free and the home of the brave. In other countries, we’ll just cut your head off and give it to the dogs. Or put it on a pole. Yeah, we suck. Go us. Away.

If the point was to teach us what we are NOT? Its been made. OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. How is it we have not learned the lesson, why is it we have to continue experiencing it? The books don’t give a neat answer to that. I have one. But I don’t like it.

So, coming back to the macabre, where I left it was, 62 too young, 95 too old, 58 and wondering. And what I’ve come to is, 62 isn’t too young, nor is 95 too old. When you’ve had enough, you can say when. My favorite movie, Regarding Henry. :^). And, you know? I have. I honestly have. At my age, there is nothing left that I need do. What I thought I might be has faded into what I actually am. Dreams are for younger men – sorry another song and sexist to boot, but still true. I’m not going to do anything from here, I don’t share the values of this society, I peter-principled out many years ago. So what holds me here? Does my son still need me? Fuck no. I’ve given him every piece of “wisdom” I have, most of which he rejects, as is proper, children need always find their own path. But I want to leave him something tangible. I WANT him to get my insurance, damn it, I’ve been paying for it all of my life and I want him to have it. But if I jump off a building or find a gun and just stop my existence, the insurance won’t pay. Hmmmm. I thought, well, maybe, I could write out a little 3X5 card, pin it to my shirt, jump off a building, and it would say, ooops, i KNEW I shouldn’t have gone up there. I’m not sure that’ll pass muster with the lawyers. As I think about it, I am where my grandpa was at 95. I’ve seen it all, I’ve done what I want to, I’m tired and I want to go home.

My son? Would be fine, he’s the age I was when my dad died and I survived that and he has skills I did not. Not necessarily the sense, he sometimes overrates things but still. I’m done. I’m ready. I saw the light(s). And apparently that meant nothing. I have searched, literally, the world over, and I have found no reason whatsoever those things should have appeared to me. I have no special powers. I have nothing to give. Sarah McLachlan has it perfectly in this song: Fear

And there is the truth of it, despite these oddities that have occurred in my life, I have nothing to give. I don’t fear that, I see it. And maybe that is the key to all of this, seeing through the illusion. But it still leaves me wondering how to fix this, how to end this. Step in front of a bus? I’m not really a bold guy when it comes to stuff like that. I don’t get why I can’t just THINK the end and have it BE the end. While I have no fear of what comes after, and I am so sorry for those who have been taught that is the worst of all fears, while I KNOW from my own visions that is NOT true, I have still this fear of the process of dying. Now that is a conundrum. I have means. I have the will. But it has to be an accident. Fucking insurance companies. :^).

So, if anyone has made it this far? What ideas might you have for me? We can make it a web exclusive if that pleases you. I don’t care if you are a mini-hitler or just a helpful soul. Why can’t I say when and have it mean when? Why should that apply to a cup of coffee and nothing else? See? This is another thing I do NOT like about this setup. When I THINK it should be over, it should BE over. grrrr. So let’s ponder that. email addy is up there. ideas welcome, much love, :^) gene

Tonight? Midnight blue, fits, don’t you think?

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Joy along the way

From my dear friend Steve Goodier’s newsletter. Worth a look, I’ll be back after.

JOY ALONG THE WAY

A senator once took Will Rogers to the White House to meet President
Coolidge. He warned the humorist that Coolidge never smiled. Rogers
replied, “I’ll make him smile.” Inside the Oval Office, the senator
introduced the two men.

“Will Rogers,” he said, “I’d like you to meet President Coolidge.”

Deadpan, Rogers quipped, “I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch the name.”

Coolidge smiled.

A sense of humor is a marvelous gift to have. It is one of the most
important means we possess to face the difficulties of life. And
sometimes life can be difficult.

I deal professionally with issues which are critical: relationships
breaking apart, people losing jobs, people facing serious illness or
agonizing with someone close who is suffering, addictions, grief and
heartache. Without a sense of humor about my own life, I don’t know if
I could survive! I take what I do seriously, but I try not to take
myself too seriously. Like the New York City cab driver who said,
“It’s not the work that I enjoy so much, but the people I run into!”

Here is an experiment: look for and find as much joy as possible for
one full day. Try to enjoy the people you run into, the work you do,
your leisure time and your relationships. Don’t forget to enjoy
yourself – and take enough time to enjoy God. I believe that if you
try this experiment for one full day, by evening you will bask in the
glow of a rekindled spirit.

It just takes a day to find joy along the way.

Steve Goodier

In my working life I deal with many of those same issues, not from a ministerial vantage point, as does Steve, but real issues, filled with real pain, nonetheless. Some times, some days, it takes a little longer to find the joy. This is one of them, but I know its out there waiting for me to find it. That certainty brings comfort. And the best thing is, it is free for all of us, free for the taking, requires no payment of any kind, it is built into the very fabric of this wonderful universe our Creator gave us in which to live and ponder such things – while we pay bills, wipe runny noises, and butts, giggle. And look each day for the joy along the way. That is the important thing, no matter how bleak the landscape, look for the joy, it IS there, I promise. much love, :^) gene

Still in love with CornflowerBlue, :^)

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Anne Frank

I was led, in the oddest way today, TWICE, to the same place, both times quite by accident, to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. It is a place well worth looking at. Especially since it seems a good portion of the world is involved in the creation of a new Holocaust, not yet reaching the level of that which devastated Europe and European Jews in century previous, but it seems we are striving mightily to revisit that time in our own new and terrible ways. I decided that there must be a reason I’ve been brought to this site twice today. So I’m sharing it here with you too.

The story of Anne Frank is well known, here, at this site, you may learn much more of her, and you can hear some of her most poignant writings for yourself. I will be here much of this evening.

US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Anne Frank

Would that more people of that time had chosen to be bringers of the light, than of the darkness that swept the world in those days, and threatens to do so again. Would that more people of THIS time, would choose so too. much love, gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Lets talk billions and sense

As opposed to dollars and cents. Because I’ve been holding on to a couple of articles for a few days now, just thinking about them. And they make no sense to me. We all know the foreclosure rate across the country is just decimating the middle class of America. Actually I think our middle class has three classes within it, that we are a five class society now, maybe six. This is not good as in a five star hotel. If that IS good, I wouldn’t actually know that either, having never been in one, let alone stayed at one. Probably still have bedbugs. :^)

Okay, the first article was in last Friday’s Minneapolis StarTribune, yes, they like it like that, one word, it is an affectation they picked up when they merged the morning and afternoon papers many years ago, which were, of course, the Minneapolis Tribune and Minneapolis Star. That was to assure we readers that the new paper would retain the best of both, which it actually did for a few minutes. :^). So now it is just the Strib to most of us. Anyway, this article was by a man named David Cho and the article was from the Washington Post originally. It says the subprime mortgage crisis hasn’t been all bad news. Three men, managers of what are called hedge funds, managed to do a bit more than all right. John Paulson earned 3.7 Billion dollars last year betting the subprime market would collapse. Yes, billion. George Soros made a tidy 2.9 billion and James Simons a mere 2.8 billion. Dollars. Each. Individually.

2002 was the first year hedge fund compensation was tracked, the top 25 managers earned 2.8 billion combined. Mr. Paulson started 2007 managing a fund that was itself worth “only” 6 billion dollars. Over the course of the year, one of his funds earned a 590 per cent return, and 353 per cent. The total value by the end of the year was $28 billion dollars. The way this works is by something called “short sales”. An investor borrows securities, in this instance, subprime mortgages owned by bank, brokerages and other investors, then sells them later to another buyer. Later the investor must buy those securities back and return them to the original lender. As the subprime market collapsed, the value of the securities fell, and Mr. Paulson was able to pocket the difference.

Hedge funds themselves are composed of pools of private money, largely made up of funds from wealthy individuals, pension funds, endowments, etc., and used for a wide variety of investments. Normally 80% of gains are distributed to the investors and the manager of the fund retains 20%, plus an annual fee. You see the math here? :^) Congress last year really tried to jump on these guys. Several bills were introduced that would raise the tax rate, 15%, that fund managers pay on their gains. Not one of those bills became law.

So, the subprime market, which this same Strib has been spotlighting the past week only in the terms of individual woes, people who were scammed, led to believe things that were not true, induced into illegal activities and just plain hoodwinked, while being disastrous for individuals, banks, etc., and the country as a whole hasn’t been all bad. At least for a few.

Remember a bit ago when I said we are a five class society now? I take it back. We’re a nine class society, if indeed some of us can be said to have any class whatsoever. The dirt poor, the poor, the just above poor but a paycheck missed away from disaster, the lower middle class which is just a notch above the just above poor, the middle middle class, those with some savings but a medical bill away from financial disaster, the upper middle class, who are doing well, but are largely two income families who can be brought to disaster by one ill-timed medical crisis, one ill-timed layoff or merger, or any serious accident – which can bring any of these six groups to their knees, and put most of them onto one form of assistance or another. Then we have three variations of the upper class, the wealthy small business owners, those flirting with real money for the first time, highly paid employees, but employees just the same. Then the middle group, secure business owners in secure industries, the upper echelon of legal and medical workers, the highest paid people in the country. Then our top 1%, the uber wealthy, with so much money they couldn’t spend it in many life times. I think we’d put Mr’s. Paulson, Soros, and Simons in this group, along with, around the world, a relative handful of such in each country, even the poorest of countries.

Am I saying they didn’t earn it? No. I am saying it is inequitable and arguably immoral that the gap between the poorest and the richest has grown to be as large as it is. How I can make that statement we’ll talk about in another post. And, yes, it is because God said so, giggle. Well, He didn’t actually say that, He said, such situations demonstrate what humanity thinks of itself and what it really values in the way it treats its people. This is more than a red state blue state issue and we’ll talk about why in that post. It is what has been building in the stillness of the past month.

But before we get to that, before I leave this, I want to mention something else I saw in the Strib. This is how our tax dollars are spent so I’m going to make it a nice little list. :^)

42.2 cents to the Military
22.1 cents to Health Care
10.2 cents to Nonmilitary interests – foreign aid? Not sure.
8.7 cents to anti-poverty efforts
4.4 cents to education
3.9 cents to government and law enforcement
3.3 cents to housing and community development
2.6 cents to environment, energy and science
1.5 cents to transportation, commerce and agriculture
1 cent to internal affairs

So what do those numbers say about what we care about? What our national priorities are? Are we REALLY that afraid? Need we be? What would the world look like if we made a few changes to those numbers, in concert with the rest of the world. We are, by the way, as one of my previous posts pointed out, far and away the largest spender on military items. Very much fear-based living, isn’t it? What if we chose again? What if we all chose again? What might we do then? THAT is the post we’ll come to shortly. God has quite a reasonable plan laid out in book 2. I’d like to see it become the driving force behind peace, environmental and political agendas the world over. We need change. The three men to whom I introduced you at the beginning of this post might disagree, but I think we out number them. :^). At some point, we have to ask ourselves, when is enough, enough? That is a reasonable question. And it is one reasonable people deserve an answer to. The solution does not lie in a 75% tax rate either – God actually proposes a tithe, a voluntary tithe at that. There, that’s the teaser to the end game in this little political diatribe. All is not lost and we don’t need to bring the mighty to the ground nor burn them, or anyone, at the stake. Love can do this all. And it will if enough of us want it to. I do. much love, :^) gene

Deepskyblue tonight, because this covers us all.

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Keep the motor idling

I’ve got another from Steve Goodier and it is just marvelous. Had it stuck in draft and forgotten about until tonight. Take a look at a neat story. I’ll be back after. :^)

KEEPING THE MOTOR IDLING

I relate well to the comment made by Barbara Johnson: “Patience
is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping
your gears.” I know that if I can keep the motor idling, it will
be ready to go when I need it.

A kindergarten teacher practiced keeping her motor idling. A
story has it that she was helping one of her students put his
snow boots on. He asked for help and she could see why. With her
pulling and him pushing, they finally succeeded and she had by
now worked up a sweat. She almost whimpered when the little boy
said, “They’re on the wrong feet.”

She looked and, sure enough, they were. It wasn’t any easier
pulling the boots off, and then she had to wrestle the stubborn
boots on again.

Just as she finished lacing them he announced, “These aren’t my
boots.” She bit her tongue to keep from screaming, “Why didn’t
you say so?”

Once again she struggled to pull off the ill-fitting boots. He
then calmly added, “They’re my brother’s boots. My mom made me
wear them.” She began to realize how close she was to stripping
her gears as she struggled with the boots yet again.

When they were finally laced, she said, “Now, where are your
mittens?”

“I stuffed them in the toes of my boots,” he said.

She may have been the same teacher who once commented about a
particularly difficult child in her class, “Not only is he my
worst behaved child this year, but he also has a perfect
attendance record.

A Dutch proverb observes, “A handful of patience is worth more
than a bushel of brains.” I may never have to worry about having
a bushel of brains, but I can sometimes muster a handful of
patience. And that should be enough.

– Steve Goodier

I think I could safely say that about me, lol. Not only am I my worst behaved child, but I also have a perfect attendance record. In the stillness, I have had flooding through me memories, of times and places long ago. I’ve been trying to make sense of some things, life, the why of the lights and the look into home I’ve been given. And I’ve had the oddest amalgamation of two songs running through my head for weeks. Parts of Answer, from the wonderful Sarah and a bit of Mad As Hell from the Dixie Chicks. I’ve talked about my admiration for Sarah many times here, as an artist and as a person. I feel the same sort of affection for the Dixie Chicks, who were not only unafraid to exercise their constitutional right to free speech but to unabashedly pay the price exacted for doing so. Part of Mad As Hell, not the part I’m interested in, says:

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

What is there to add to that? Those aren’t just words in a song, they are examples of how Americans reacted to the words of a young woman who dared criticize George W. Bush and his insane foreign policy, his futile hunt for weapons of mass destruction while reducing Iraq to rubble and creating a new generation of jihadists who will hate the great satan all of their days – unless somehow they see the light. And realize it isn’t a bomb. That’s my dream. :^) Always look on the sunny side of life, from an old movie. Not always easy but it isn’t impossible either. I think I’ve cried more tears in the 11 years since Brandon died than I did in the 47 that preceded it. Not always tears of sadness, in the early years, yes, but things have seemed to affect me so strongly emotionally since then, that the tears just come, unbidden, unhidden. I’ve learned to take kleenex to movies or have them handy while I watch tv or read because I just can’t tell when something is going to reach in and touch my heart so deeply that I am going to cry from joy or sadness, or both. I don’t mind at all. I caught the last half hour of Winn Dixie the other night and cried like a baby. That little girl, I have no idea her name, was SO perfect in that movie, for that role, Jeff Daniels was at his wonderful best and it all came together in a crescendo of love that sent me to bed damp but smiling at what we can be when we but try, just the littlest bit.

So this amalgamation I mentioned just above is pieces of two songs. They, too, come unbidden, jen just starts playing one or the other, sometimes mixing them in my head, so that I’m not sure which is from what but I always know what she means. Not the whole songs, just a couple verses. These four verses:

First, From Mad As Hell:

Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting

I’m through with doubt
There’s nothing left for me to figure out
I’ve paid a price
And I’ll keep paying

Then, from Answer:

I will be there for you while you take the time
In the burning of uncertainty
I will be your solid ground
I will hold the balance if you can’t look down

If it takes my whole life
I won’t break, I won’t bend
It’ll all be worth it
Worth it in the end

Over and over. All jumbled up and sometimes perfectly clear. The thing that has come to me in the stillness of the past month is my own truth. I am through with doubt, there is nothing left to figure out, and if it takes my whole life, I won’t break, I won’t bend, it’ll all be worth it, worth it in the end. I believe that. I know it. It IS my truth, I have figured it out, or she has with me, for me. We’ll talk about that too one day, but that day is a bit off, much between now and then. For the moment, much, love, :^) gene

I don’t know that anyone notices but I pick different colors for the salutation, often, because I love the names so, this one is cornflower blue. I’ve never seen one, but I believe in them. As I believe in these words.

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

All about choices.

This comes from Steve Goodier’s Life Support newsletter and it has a telling point. If you don’t make your choices sometimes they get made for you and you may not always be happy with the outcome. Life’s like that, isn’t it? I’ll be back after with a couple thoughts. :^)

MAKING CHOICES

Joseph Henry was an American scientist who served as the first
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He used to tell a rather
strange story about his childhood. His grandmother, who raised him,
once paid a cobbler to make him a pair of shoes.

The man measured his feet and told Joseph that he could choose between
two styles: a rounded toe or a square toe. Little Joseph couldn’t
decide. It seemed to be such a huge decision; after all, they would
become his only pair of shoes for a long time.

The cobbler allowed him to take a couple of days to make up his mind.
Day after day, Joseph went into the shop, sometimes three or four
times a day! Each time he looked over the cobbler’s shoes and tried to
decide. The round-toed shoes were more practical, but the square toes
looked more fashionable. He continued to procrastinate. He wanted to
make up his mind, but he just couldn’t decide!

Finally, one day he went into the shop and the cobbler handed him a
parcel wrapped in brown paper. His new shoes! He raced home. He tore
off the wrapping and found a beautiful pair of leather shoes – one
with a rounded toe and the other with a square toe.

I can learn a lesson here…a lesson about decisions: if I don’t make
decisions myself, others will probably make them for me. Better that
I make them myself.

And if I choose poorly from time to time, that’s okay, too. At least
I won’t have to wear shoes that don’t match. Besides, I’ll probably
do better the next time.

– Steve Goodier

Last week I watched the Idol Gives Back show, yes, still hopelessly addicted to American Idol or at least I have it on, I’m not much affected by anyone on the current season but last year, and I want to be sure to give Fox Broadcasting (not an outfit I am particularly enamored of as you might surmise) props for this idea. All television shows make money. Or they wouldn’t be on television, or aren’t long. I didn’t begin watching Idol until its fourth season – I have in internal bias against reality shows, I think they emphasize the worst in humanity rather than bring out the best, which I would like to see something as powerful, that reaches as many people as television does, do MORE of. Television, and the other branches of media, seem to believe that, for the most part, the only news that is fit to be seen, heard or printed is bad news. The question is what can they scare us with today? It often isn’t anything tangible so it is coached in “could” terms, such and such a thing COULD happen to YOU. Thank God, most of the time, those things never do, but when something dread does happen, there are they are like happy little vultures, the crows of the human world, only they don’t clean up messes like our little black-feather friends, this bunch just wants to stir the pot.

Now, I’ve mentioned this before so won’t go over all that again, at least not tonight, if you have interest you can find a post in which I wrote about one of my favorite movies, The American President, starring Michael Douglas and Annette Benning – he made one of the most stirring speeches I have ever heard in that movie. The part I’m talking about specifically tonight is when he said that the fear-mongers, and I include all forms of media in that phrase, aren’t the least bit interested in fixing problems, they only want to point them out, point out who is to blame for them and to keep you afraid, because your fear is their power.

Now, he didn’t say it quite that way, giggle, but he did say it, and God says it too in Book 1 when Neale asks him why the world is the way it is. We’ll come back to that, perhaps tomorrow night. I’ve other things on my mind tonight and to do yet. But I did want to do this first – so my fingers are flying and I am sure you, most of you, will forgive the typos and tense issues, giggle. We can all learn to relax a little bit, can’t we?

Anyway, I wanted to congratulate Fox Broadcasting, and specifically American Idol for something they started doing last year. The season I began watch, four, was the year Carrie Underwood one, and I had her picked as my favorite from her first audition. It was a compelling year, great competition, Bo Bice was the other finalist and I actually think if he had done his acapella song during the finale, he might have won the title. But he didn’t, Carrie was wonderful and has gone on to enormous success while retaining the humbleness of her roots and NEVER forgetting where she came from. She is still the same sweet girl now she was then, oh wiser in the ways of the world, no doubt, but she gives credit where it is due and shows up ON the show at least twice every year as payback. Given her schedule that is a hard thing to do, but she does it and she never stops thanking AI for giving her the break she needed. I admire that.

Now, as I said earlier, television shows are about making money. Lots of money in the entertainment industry, obscene amounts of money, and, well, we won’t go there at the moment, :^), but Fox and AI are the only ones who have chosen to give something back. Last year’s Idol Gives Back show had great music, compelling videos and raised more than $77 million dollars for charities here in America and in Africa. This year they are spotlighting 6 specific charities, all most deserving. And they donated two and a half hours of their air time to doing so again this year. The stories they showed were as compelling as last years, as sad, and the children and people every bit as much in need. I am proud to support that effort and would urge everyone to do so, it isn’t too late, Idol Gives Back has a place where you can still make a donation, if you are so inclined. What I like SO much about this, is that people really are giving of themselves, their time and talent, as well as their money. We are so blessed to have been born in this country. It is wonderful to see an industry that is about making money, lots and lots of it, give some back in such pleasant and compelling ways.

The first thing I think should be supported is any organization that says “first, war no more.” Since there aren’t many of those on the agenda, the six charities Idol chose are indeed worthy. And the statistics just as horrifying. Every 30 seconds a child in Africa dies of malaria (while I was in Viet Nam, I took a little white pill daily to avoid that disease, and used mosquito netting – which did not prevent friends from contracting it, but most of us managed to avoid it) the cost of one mosquito net is $10. And what DO we spend our money on? Bombs, weapons of mass destruction, guns, and ammunition, mines and machinery with which to deliver these tools of horror. Last week I talked about what our world might look like if every church in America was armed, with basements full of weapons, as seems to be the case in the Middle East, well, this week I ask a different question. What would our world look like if we pledged War No More, and turned our attention and defense budgets to bettering the human condition regardless the particular faith or lack thereof of any particular people? New Orleans could be rebuilt in nothing flat, safely, most dread diseases, including AIDS which kills thousands of African children daily, could be wiped out virtually over night.

Idol Gives Back is a beginning, not an end. I want to see that spirit carried forward until all that would harm these “least of His children” are no more. There are good people the world over, who care about each other, but our media feed us a never-ending stream of bad news. Let’s change that. Let’s make a new choice. Please. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

The Bi-Centennial Man, and others.

I’m not sure where that “others” part will take us and at the moment I’m not too concerned about that either. :^). Though there is a destination, I know not what it is. In my experience, in my mind’s eye, or through Jenna, I’ve been there, done that, seen that a thousand times and more, and have yet to “be” any of that, in my experience. How’s that for a conundrum?

Part of my being “still” has been anything but. Jenna has had me delving into some very old things, hell, I am a very old thing, but she’s taken me to places I’ve not visited since my long ago youth. One of the things she has had me do is pull out some old books, books I’ve not been in, in many years, she’s taken me through them to specific passages and explained what they mean. Why I was led to them in the first place. Not all of these, indeed many of these, are things I saw but did not see as I went through the material the first time. I’m a rapid reader, giggle. Not pages per second, but fast, and I remember what i read, not photographically exactly, but I DO remember where on a page a particular thing is, if not the page. This can be annoying. And useful. As I scan a book, I will only look at particular spots on the left hand or right hand page, until I find what I knew was there. I am usually able to begin “near” the page I want. Not always. She says I’ll get better at that with time, and I ask, what time? I’m 58 years old. Time to her is not a thing, but it is to me. She just says as I need to. And I sigh. Often, our conversations have that component somewhere in them.

So – this particular bi-centennial man, he of the title, is not who you think he is. He is, however, based upon who some of you might think he is, coming from the novel by Isaac Asimov. Dr. Asimov was an amazing man. He and his counterpart, Robert Heinlein, an equally amazing man, were contemporaries, rivals, and I hope friends, were an exceptionally prescient pair. Neale Donald Walsch in his acknowledgments section in book 1, pays homage to the novels of Robert Heinlein. And well he should, because Robert was not only a prolific writer but one of the leading “futurist” thinkers of our, or any, time. I loved his novels. I grew up on them really as I discovered him in my teens when he was still relatively newly writing novels – he began his career writing science fiction for something I don’t remember but dimly, magazines of a sort, the size of the former TV Guide, short stories really, the occasional novella, a sort of pulp fiction. When I found him, or better said, when Jen led me to him (long before I knew who she was let alone that she was in me) he was in the business of expanding many of those original short stories into novels, marketed primarily to teens, though his subject matter grew increasingly adult and left the teen market forever with Stranger in a Strange Land. I didn’t always agree with Robert. I just inhaled him.

I never felt a desire to delve any further into science fiction, my few attempts were rebuffed, by the writers whose work I found ridiculous. Hard to read a book you think is silly to start with. But, in the mid-1980′s, a friend more or less accidentally introduced me to Isaac Asimov – now I knew who he was – he had a little quiz thing in the daily paper, which I found quite amusing and intriguing, when he died, that continued but with no flair, no fun, and I left it then – he, my friend, saw me carrying a copy of a wonderful book, in fact, I think, THE treatise on revolution, democracy and government that EVERY politician ought commit to heart, and if they shed no tear while reading it be immediately and forever disqualified from holding public office. Oops, okay that was a digression, and I do know that annoys some of my readers, giggle. But I’m sorry, it IS how my mind works, and you will have to either put up with it (it is okay to point out my shortcomings however you like, I will not take that personally, probably, as some of you already do – but that guarantees only that I will have a discourse with you, not that I will change anything. I am not entirely in control of this ship) or move on by. So, this friend, asked if I had ever read the Asimov Foundation Trilogy. I said no. So he brought me a copy of it. I knew Asimov, as I said, from the paper, I knew he was a sci-fi writer, but until then I had no idea of his true talent, nor his prescience.

The trilogy was but the beginning. Robert was far ahead of the times in his thinking, Isaac was millennia ahead. The Foundation series describes a “settled” Milky Way Galaxy, as we know a “settled” earth. Humanity has sprung loose from Earth and expanded through the galaxy – it is an amazing, I keep saying that, but there is no better word for it, series. One of my traits, I tried to write faults and jen would not let me so I sneaked it in this way, giggle, is that when I stumble (there are NO coincidences in this world, or any other) upon an author I enjoy, I immediately research him, or her, and then go back to the beginning and read everything they wrote. And that is how I came upon the bicentennial man. The future, Isaac describes in the Foundation trilogy (an aside, he wrote those in the 50′s and for the next 30 years people tried to persuade him to continue the story on, he relented 30 years later and produced three more astoundingly accurate (as Jen tells me) books in that series) WILL come to be. Humanity cannot stay on Earth. This sun, our sun, will die. That is not the reason humanity leaves earth in either Isaac’s or Robert’s novels, but it is the reason humanity will leave Earth in truth, not fiction. The universe is not a stable system, it is a living system, and eventually our sun will die, and we with it, if we find no way to move on. Isaac describes a galaxy so settled that the “home world” is forgotten, thought to be myth, giggle. That could happen. I don’t care if it does. But humanity will spread through the galaxy, not as a virus, though some could honestly characterize it so because as is often the case with humanity, some of it will be ugly, we will not always be able to be at our best, there will be situations in which some of what has played out on this planet will be played out again. It sounds like an endless loop and maybe it is. But I don’t think so. That’s for another time. :^)

This time is about what happened when I researched Isaac, having discovered that I loved his writing and creativity (please remember ALL of this is long before I knew about jen) and sought out his other works. He is most famous for his Robot series, one of which was made into an unfortunate movie with Will Smith, called, I, Robot, which was the title of the movie and the last resemblance to the book. I do not normally like movies based on books if I have first read the book. Too much is left out for me. And the rascals create wormholes where once was solid story. This happened with Contact, a wonderful novel by Carl Sagan, his only novel, where they turned the story inside out, but that was with his blessing as he was actively involved with the film, dying near its filming end. Carl is another we’ll talk about but not today. :^).

So, the bicentennial man, a wonderful Asimov (what an intellect we lost when he passed), story became a movie starring Robin Williams. I had some trouble with that. Not that I don’t like Robin Williams, he is a funny man, but I didn’t find this a funny story. And, of course, it was mangled. Nonetheless, a few weeks ago, one night Jen had me sit down and start looking at the movie channels, I didn’t want to, I wanted to read and she just would not let me concentrate and I finally gave up and asked her what she wanted me to do and she said watch a movie. So I did, started flipping, and saw bicentennial man, she said THIS MOVIE, gene. I saw the connection but not the reason but arguing with her is like arguing with air, you just can’t win, you can’t get hold of her, you can’t stop her, you can’t even make her be quiet, well that last part isn’t entirely true, she will let me do that now, now that I know she’s there, but not forever, she will only agree to a period of quiet. I think I hear the people with nets knocking on my door, giggle. That actually used to worry me, in the earliest days of my having shared her with the “world”, but the world I shared her with believed me, believed her. I’ve never been more surprised in my life. I wanted SO much to tell them and was SO scared that all the love we’d built between us would vanish if I did, and she pushed and told me NO, it wouldn’t, and she was, as freaking always right. Sorry, digression again, giggle. Hey it is my blog and you don’t have to read. :^)

So, I stopped on that channel and started watching. It wasn’t the story I read. But Robin Williams was VERY good in the role. There was some humor, but there was so much more. The first hour was set up, back story, but beginning with the second half of the movie, I began crying and I cried for the next hour. Every moment was heart wrenching. I know about such moments. If this is your first reading in my blog, well, you will need to do as I have always done, if you’ve gotten this far, then you are interested in either what I am saying or how I am saying it, and you will need to go back to the beginning and start there. There is a beginning. And there is an ending. It is the stuff in the middle that constitutes a life. The bicentennial man began life as a household appliance, bound by the famous three laws of robotics that Isaac was so proud of, and rightly so. They are laws we would all do well to live by.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Now if you substituted human for robot in each of those three laws, tell me, would we still need TEN commandments?

He was purchased by a family, the details of that are not important, though they do set up the second half of the movie. He is an anomaly. The factory made, what they consider a mistake, in his positronic brain, and he becomes self-aware. Now THIS is a concept that runs through all of Isaac’s Robot novels, all of which are magnificent reading by the way, but never, okay that isn’t right; what I was going to say was never so poignantly as this, but that isn’t true, there is a situation in one of the robot novels in which a robot falls in love with a human being – that part was sort of stolen for this story, so there is an element of unrequited love here, at least for a while. Once he becomes self-aware, he becomes interested in other things of human invention, some that are not adequately, or even possibly described in words. He has emotions. Which in humans are simply chemical reactions, but as in all of science, action produces reaction. This movie becomes a profound story of the search for love and freedom. And it makes me cry. Literally. Kleenex, hmmm, well, whomever invented them, I owe a debt of gratitude to, because either my clothing would be horribly crusty or my laundry bill abhorrently high, or both. Probably both. This is why I am here, partially, to understand and experience this, because where I come from, where we all come from, it is not possible to know this feeling. So, what that makes me wonder, is perfection, imperfect? That we must have such a place to come to in order to know how glorious where we are is, because here we can see, feel, and experience what glory is not? Makes me crabby. giggle. Or in words from this movie, when Robin intervenes inappropriately, between a human and his robot, it chaps my ass. :^) I may not ever know the answer to that question here.

But thinking about it here IS important, because it informs who I am, who I will be, and my interactions with other souls every bit as solidly undercover as am I. None of us remember home. If we did, what would be the point? We come as we are, veiled, so that we may know what we are by virtue of here demonstrating what we are not. Is that reasonable? I think that is the question I came here to ponder. I don’t think there is any way to ponder it other than from here. I don’t think I could ponder it from home. The best I could do there is think about it. But at some point, thinking becomes pointless, and experience becomes necessary. That is what Neale’s books are about. :^) and me too. more to come…

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Be Still

This is from Steve Goodier – all I have to say at the moment, life has its way of enveloping us and I need myself be still a bit longer, a little more of that after Steve. :^)

BE STILL

I have noticed that the best way for me to get a few minutes of
solitude at the end of the day is to start washing the dishes! And a
few minutes of solitude is something I need frequently. A time to be
alone. A time to reflect.

I think there is a difference between aloneness and loneliness.
Aloneness is necessary for the soul to thrive – even to come alive.
Not loneliness.

German theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested and
eventually hanged for opposing Hitler. While in prison, he wrote
letters to his fiancée. The last letter she received was dated
Christmas 1944. Speaking of the war that separated them, Bonhoeffer
wrote this:

“These will be quiet days in our homes, but I have had the
experience over and over again that the quieter it is around me,
the clearer do I feel a connection to you. It is as though in
solitude the soul develops senses which we hardly know in everyday
life. Therefore I have not felt lonely or abandoned for one
moment.”

I can be alone without being lonely. In fact, those times of solitude
are necessary respite for a beleaguered soul, set upon by the
pressures of life. I need to take whatever moments I can to just be
still.

Only in quiet waters things mirror themselves undistorted, ” says Hans
Margolius. “Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.”

So I’ll find time to … be still.

– Steve Goodier

From Book 1, page 101:

Neale asks God if He could explain what God means by saying, “Passion is the love of turning being into action”?

God responds: “Beingness is the highest state of existence. It is the pure essence. It the “now-not now,” the “all-not all,” the “always – never” aspect of God.
Pure being is pure God-ing.
Yet it has never been enough for us to simply be.
We have always yearned to experience What We Are – and that requires a whole other aspect of Divinity, called doing.
Let us say that you are, at the core of your wonderful Self, that aspect of divinity called love. (This is, by the way, the Truth of you.)
Now it is one to be love – and quite another thing to do something loving. The soul longs todosomething about what it is, in order that it might know itself in its own experience. So it will seek to realize its highest idea through action.
This urge to do this is called passion. Kill passion and you kill God. Passion is God wanting to say “hi.”
But, you see, once God (or God-in-you) does that loving thing, God has realized itself, and needs nothing more.
Man, on the other hand, often feels he needs a return on his investment. If we’re going to love somebody, fine, but we’d better get some love back. That sort of thing.
This is not passion. This is expectation.
This is the greatest source of man’s unhappiness. It is what separates man from God.
The renunciate seeks to end this separation through the experience some Eastern mystics have called samadhi. That is, oneness and union with God; a melding with and melting into divinity.
The renunciate therefore renounces results – but never, ever renounces passion. Indeed, the Master knows intuitively that passion is the path. It is the way to Self realization.
Even in earthly terms it can be fairly said that if you have a passion for nothing, you have no life at all.

Now then, do you see the similarity between these two seemingly disparate treatises? In a way, what I have been about is what Steve said, “I can be alone without being lonely. In fact, those times of solitude are necessary respite for a beleaguered soul, set upon by the pressures of life. I need to take whatever moments I can to just be still.” And, in another way, I have been letting the fire of passion fill me. It is possible to do both at once. It has never been, will never be, enough for me to simply “be”. It was not at “home”, it is not here. I can be still and be filled with passion. I can do both without contradiction. Passion without action, is inert, not living, not being. But even when filled with the greatest desire to experience a thing, whatever that thing might be at any given moment, there needs be time to be still and know that I am God, or that part of Him, that lives in gene. Without that faith, life here can be very difficult, with it, nothing cannot be borne, experienced, loved for what it is. And what is that? Experiencing life in the realm of the flesh, the physical realm of relativity, what we came here to do, at least partially. To BE here, as well as to be here. It is how God can say as, He will later, there is no such as right or wrong. Because that is the truth. In the stillness within, we can know that.

I don’t mean meditation though some would call it that, giggle, particularly Eastern “masters” or followers of them who have brought that particular philosophy to the west, not purely, but with their own spin. I mean, listening to the stillness within, to the soft voice that lives there and holds the truth of you while you forget that truth and experience life here in the relative universe with all its bombast and with all its bombs. Even in the most difficult of times, it is possible to find peace within, it is then that we are least likely to think to do so however, because we think we ARE what we are doing and forget who we are being in the same moment. They cannot be separated, though eternally we try. There are those who think that wisdom comes only to those who sit in the lotus position on mountaintops and make pronouncements for others to follow. There are those who think wisdom comes only with living, with experience. And there are those who know the Truth, that we were born sufficient unto ourselves, incarnate and wailing as we enter this life. It is what we do with the passion we are born with that defines the experience we will have here. We’ll come back to this too – because, of course, the conditions that we are born into and the guardians we choose play a role as well, a role we’ll talk about in depth. There’s no entrance exam for this role as there is no final exam as we exit stage relativity, giggle. But there are no coincidences here either. So what, then, are we all on about? Discovery. Experience. Passion. And, always, though sometimes obliviously, love. More later, much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Just a couple thoughts

I’m not quite ready to cut loose. It isn’t that I’m stuck so much as it is I’m waiting. It is hard to explain but I know exactly what I mean so it is all okay. I’ve got some random thoughts I thought I’d drop on the universe tonight while I wait. It isn’t all waiting, exactly, there is some doing and some being and some just living mixed up in all this so maybe sorting is what is going on within. I have dumped in an incredible amount of new information, things new to me I mean, and that always mimics the biologic process of creation. First we ingest, then we break down and assimilate that which is needed, store that which is not or which is excess, and excrete that which is of no use to us. This, by the way, is not excretion, giggle. I think of it more in terms of determining which nutrient goes where only I also care, in this instance, why it goes there. So putting a lot of raw material into me requires internal digestion before I am ready to make use of it. That is what I’ve been engaged in over the past weeks. The end result of that, well, that is yet to be determined. We’ll see what comes of it later, or I will.

Anyway, I was thinking about the middle east. It really isn’t much different now than it was 6000 years ago, in fact, I think some of the revenge killings going on now go back that far, or nearly so. But as I think of it, and the NRA is going to hate me for this, but I can’t think of a better argument for gun control. Not just gun control. Weapons control.

When I was a child I was raised in the Lutheran faith. There was an internecine war of sorts and Lutheran’s split into two camps, the ELCA and the LCA. I “think” they have made peace, of sorts, but I also think they still use those acronyms. It was a liberal/conservative split as I recall. Not at all unlike that which came when Martin Luther translated the Bible into vernacular German, in order to make it available to the masses whilst the Catholic church preferred it remain in Latin and therefore unavailable to the unwashed masses. Nor when he nailed his 95 theses to the door of that Catholic church challenging the Papacy and more or less calling the Catholic church anti-Christ. His assertion that the Bible be the ultimate authority, not the pope, is what led to the rise of Protestantism. Which, let me tell, is not something I agree with, the Bible as ultimate, literal last word on life or anything else. It is far too “loose” to be taken, or used, literally. What brought this to mind, why I thought of it, was that I saw today, or maybe yesterday, in the paper that Muslims now outnumber Catholics in the world. So I got to thinking what that might mean.

When I think along those lines, I wonder what sort of people have stockpiles of automatic weapons, mortars, anti-tank and anti-aircraft armaments stored in their church basements. Or mosque basement. What would the United States look like, today, if under every church, there were caches of weapons, large caches of weapons, and every male member of each church an active member of that particular church’s militia? What would happen here if whenever the Lutheran’s down the street did something that annoyed the Presbyterians two blocks over, they began shooting at each other? Or, when our Congress passed a law or considered passing a law with which one of our myriad sects disagreed, they just took to the streets with automatic weapons, fighting our army and our national guard, bombing and killing our police? What sort of world would it be if the world mimicked what is happening this night in Basra?

What would our world look like if each of those Sunday Morning warriors for God on television, actively recruited not only for dollars, but weapons and men with the will to use them. What if the “Winner’s Way” was the way of the gun or the strap on bomb? Could our national forces fight all of us? Could the church across the street stand against the one on the other side? And when the police showed up because of the shooting and were themselves shot at by both sides, who would they fight? Both churches? Do you have ANY idea how many churches of various faiths we have in America? A quick google search says that this organization claims it can provide a list of 380,000 American Churches as sales leads. Other search attempts show that Wiki is actively seeking the answer and the few places that claim to know want me to pay them for the information, giggle. Unlikely, that. Virtually every town of any size has multiple churches, not to mention those like the one in which I was raised which is not in a town at all but out in farm country built by my family long ago and supported by the local populace. So, if there are 380,000 churches which can be purchased on a list as sales leads, I think we can safely say that is the low estimate. What if they were all armed? What kind of world would this be?

Is what is happening in Muslim countries acceptable to the world at large? Is it not a danger to the world at large to allow such things? When we leave Iraq, even if after John McCain’s unfortunate 100 years, and those mosques are all still there and still well-armed, what do you suppose will happen? How can the world be safe for any when we are so cavalier with weaponry? And there are those who would, seriously believe – and MANY of these are members in the American Congress – that what the world needs now is not love, sweet love, but more guns, bombs and planes to deliver them with. And this in a “Christian” nation. What of those nations without our sterling principles of freedom for all and equal treatment under the law? Might it not be even more dangerous there? Isn’t it now? We can still sit a sidewalk cafe and have a cup of coffee or a meal and feel pretty safe. It isn’t that way in many parts of our world. It certainly isn’t that way in the Middle East. Will it ever be?

I mean, do you suppose the people of the Middle East will EVER be able to sit at a sidewalk cafe and feel safe? BE safe? Or will that poison which is currently killing people all over the Muslim world spread like a cancer to the rest of the world, as they have overtaken the Catholics will they overtake us all? That seems to be their goal, convert us all infidels, even if that requires killing us. Is there an antidote? One that people will TAKE? Because right now, were there a cure for the urge to kill those who disagree with you, a lot of the people in this world would NOT take it. They would rather die than be love. I mean, that really is the choice isn’t it? We either decide to be love, and live and act it, or we decide to kill all those who believe anything else. Tolerance is not a friendly word in these times. Not even here in America. Listen to right wing radio, read the newspaper, listen to the speeches, and sermons, given around our country every day and tell me they are all speaking of nothing but loving each other and understanding that being different from them is not only okay it is a good thing.

There are still those who would kill the Dixie Chicks for having had the effrontery to criticize the President while on foreign soil. Those are not “crazy” people from the Middle East, they are average, ordinary, run of the mill, American citizens who do not understand the first thing about our own constitution nor what freedom of speech means. There are people HERE who would kill, gladly, over mere words. Sticks and stones, we sang as children, can break our bones, but words can never hurt us. Hmmm. What if those words so incite someone that they pick up a stick and bash another with it. Or what if, in their church basement, they had access to weapons that could blow those Dixie Chicks right off the stage permanently. What matter that a few thousand infidels who proved they needed killing too because they were there at that concert happened to be there because they bought tickets to that concert also died? Small price to pay, right, for wiping out three young women who dared speak their mind outside the shores of our land. Does ANYONE really think it would have mattered had Natalie Maines said what she did at a concert here? The big criticism is that she did it on foreign soil. Not that she spoke her truth. Where she spoke it. And for that horrible crime, well, listen to her “Mad as Hell” and hear what the average, run of the mill, ordinary American is capable of saying to her and to anyone who might criticize this present administration, no matter where. Only that.

What kind of world are we building people? What kind of life form are we? And, if what we are being, is humanity at its best, does it deserve God’s salvation? Mightn’t a loving God, who created our form in His own image, look at what we have wrought and think, chit, THAT did not turn out the way I hoped!

Perhaps those among us who so quickly kill each other over words and ideas and who are so threatened by any idea that is different from their own are the real danger. Perhaps a country with a “defense” budget, including all national security requests, of 802.9 BILLION dollars could be considered a threat to the rest of the world? Mightn’t a country willing to spend that much money on death and destruction, in the name of National Defense, a country which has fought but ONE foreign war on its own soil and that more than 230 years ago, make the rest of the world a little bit nervous? They make ME nervous and I was born here, I served in our Army, and currently, this administration scares the hell out of me. I really do think they are capable of starting a shooting war with Iran as their final legacy. I am sure there are some who want nothing more.

In the immortal words of Walt Kelly’s Pogo, the wisest opossum what ever lived, “we have met the enemy and he is us.” All of us.

It is time we sat down at a table together and broke bread, not necks, and figured out a way to make this world a safe place for all of us. That we came to a reasonable accommodation that guaranteed freedom of speech, thought, movement, religion and the right to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness to all. Not just to Americans. To all citizens of this one world we all live on? I think this is an idea whose time has come. I think this is an idea that must begin flooding the world. I think it is an idea that must spread like wildfire, like the best virus imaginable, that it must infect the very soul of every person on this planet, that it must make them all want the SAME THING, peace, love, freedom and prosperity for all, regardless of race, creed, color, national origin or anything else. It is time.

Just look around at the world we have made and you will know it is time we change. This is not an idea which can die, not one to be shunted aside in the name of religion, for it is religion that divides us, and spirituality which makes us one. We are one people on one world and it is time we began to act it. We’ll talk about how next. When I’ve done a bit more assimilating, giggle. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene