Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thanks Giving

The obligatory Thanksgiving blog?
Giving thanks is not obligatory, but it does make life better.
I feel bad for people who don’t believe in God.
They have no one to be thankful to.

It’s been said many times, and by many different ‘authorities’, that people are considerably happier when they have an attitude of gratitude. There have been studies done on the matter, but one doesn’t really need to consult a study to know if the conclusion is true. One only needs to put the matter into practice in one’s own life to test the validity of its claim.

Going to bed with a thankful heart is the pre-curser to waking up in the morning with one. Waking up in the morning with a thankful heart is the key to ‘having a good day’.
This is not difficult, or complicated, psychology, nor is it Eat-Pray-Love privileged pop indulgence. It is simply the way our human psyches work.
One does not need to search the world for what will make them happy.
Happiness in inherent in giving thanks.

The dictionary defines ‘Psyche’ as “the human spirit, or soul; the human mind as the center of thought and behavior”.

There are a myriad of things in one’s life, or throughout one’s day, to be thankful for.
Do yourself a favor, and choose one.

Choose a different one every day if you dare.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Seven Things I Think

1. If you never question your faith you’re not worthy of it.

2. If you don’t also have faith in yourself you will probably follow someone else.

3. If you follow someone else you undermine yourself.

4. If you can’t trust your own instincts you don’t really trust yourself.

5. If you follow the lead of someone else you sabotage your own instincts.
Unless, of course, your instincts are to follow someone else.
(See #2)

6. If your instincts lead you away from the core of your inner self you better develop some better instincts.

And finally. . . . . . . . .

7. If you trust a politician, any politician, you invalidate the meaning of the words ‘trust’, and ‘politician’. (Look them up).

Thursday, November 11, 2010

A Wire In The Way

There’s a telephone wire that borders the back of my property, just beyond the property line. It’s clearly visible from the deck, and from many of the windows.

A telephone pole is situated behind some trees, so it is not visible. There is beautiful lush forest continuing beyond the telephone line, displaying a variety of trees. Oak, Cedar, Madrone, Douglas Fir, and Pine. The mountains, ridges, and canyons, stretch for miles into the distance, encompassing many different elevations of topography, and lush blankets of growth. The colors are stunning, and the view is spectacular. The first snow of the year has recently settled upon the highest, and most distant, peak. It will probably be gone in a couple of days if we don’t get another storm passing through.

The telephone wire changes its appearance, and its prominence, depending on the light, and the time of day. Sometimes it is reflective of the light, and sometimes it disappears altogether.

When the wire is visible I often find myself looking at it, rather at the forested mountains beyond it. Sometimes I look out from my deck and the wire truly is the only thing I can see. I become fixated on it, if you will, and I cannot see anything else. There is all of this beauty above, below, around, and beyond the wire, and yet my eyes see nothing but the wire. There must be a name for that. Tunnel vision, near sightedness, myopia, or something like that.

Then, as I mentioned, there are times when I cannot even see the wire at all. This very moment is one of those times. I cannot tell that the wire is even there. The light disguises it as if it were sky. All I see is the beauty.

There was an astonishing rainbow the other day, brilliant as the depth and breadth of a child’s imagination. It bent across the sky like the stroke of a brush, or a Technicolor embrace by the arms of God. A Waterfall of color tumbling to the ground, in front of me, but beyond the wire.

I could not see the telephone wire, only the rainbow.

People are enhanced when we see their beauty,
rather than their faults.

Don’t let the wire get in your way.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Some Rise by Wrong

“Some rise by wrong,
and some by virtue fall.”

Those words were written by Bruce Hornsby.
I don’t know the name of the song.
Maybe you do.

I can’t get over this Lyric.
As a songwriter, I appreciate the difficulty of expressing a thought, a concept, an illumination, with the simple turn of a phrase.

“Some rise by wrong.”
These four short words point out perfectly the inequities in life.
As fallible, often shallow and insensitive people, we too often tend to view, as successful, those who have money, who have an impressive collection of possessions, and maybe a trophy wife to present as the ultimate evidence of that success.
And we are equally inclined to view the poor, the disenfranchised, the struggling, and painfully affected, who go without, as failures, as losers.

We don’t necessarily make the choice to view people that way, we just tend to exercise the insensitivity of our own human nature. And it is that nature that can skew even the most thoughtfully developed consciousness.

But, in truth, some, do, ‘rise by wrong’.
Fortunes have been made, popularity and ‘success’ has been achieved, quite often on the outcome of dishonorable, deceitful, immoral or unethical decisions, with the habitual practice of such choices. Nobody sees, or even cares about, the manner in which that supposed success has been achieved. We only see the results, and then consider the individual to be successful.

And then, conversely, some, do, ‘by virtue fall’.
The obvious example is the fallen Televangelist who preaches, but, ultimately, pretends at, virtue, as he gets caught up in the benefits that his virtue brings him.
And many others are not so terribly different.
Good people sometimes tend to trade upon their goodness to achieve their own ends.
The unfortunate outcome of that is that their goodness, their virtue, if you will, eventually leaks out of them like blood from a severed vein.

Some, in life, have chosen honorable, ethical, and moral positions that have, invariably, thwarted their own financial rise, and circumstantial well-being.
Far too often those positions, and people, are considered to be weak.
Some have lived by virtue from the beginning, and have never had access to easy money, power, or possessions because of it. And some have ascended to virtue later in life, after having found ‘success’, but have eventually fallen from that position, from their temporal security, with the ultimate embrace of an honorable existence.

And of course, those who have chosen to live a virtuous life often get caught up in the cycle of poverty, making the choice between wrong, and virtue, even more difficult for them, and more compelling.
God bless those whose strength and determination, whose efficacy, enables their own virtue to live.

“Some rise by wrong,
and some by virtue fall.”

Nothing we don’t really already know,
but a reminder for us to ‘SEE what we’re actually looking at’.
And to be the best people that we can.