It will take quite a while for most of us to process yesterday's terrible tragedy, the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. There's a lot of information and misinformation flying around the internet and there will be a lot of discussion as facts surface in the investigation as to what exactly happened and why, and what we can learn from it, and what can we do to prevent such things in the future.
I'm following the story and taking in the information as it comes out and trying to process it intellectually and emotionally. Frankly, it's really tough. It's an awful thing to read about and think about and feel about. It makes me cry at times and it makes me feel physically ill at times, imagining what happened and how all the innocent victims felt and thought in their last seconds.
I have no real answers as to what we can do to prevent future tragedies, but I do have a personal philosophy that gets stronger every year as to how we who care can make a difference: all we got is love. In the fight against evil and darkness on the earth, our most powerful weapon is love. If we can feel love for and act in a loving way toward those we encounter in our daily lives; if we can swallow our own self-importance enough to remember we have no idea what the other person is going through or feeling that makes them act the way they do and say the things they say and have compassion for those who are hurting so badly they lash out at others - while maintaining enough love for ourselves we don't remain in a situation that is damaging to us; if we can choose certain loving actions we can make a part of our routine, like volunteer work that helps others less fortunate than ourselves or regularly taking the time to check in with people we know who are on the fringes of society and may not have a good support system in place, then we are doing our part to prevent senseless tragedy. The power of our love can help feed the spark of caring and humanity in others we encounter and the resulting blaze will overcome the power of darkness in the end. And I know it can happen. After all, someone much wiser than me tells us in the Bible at Romans 12:21, "Do not let yourself be conquered by the evil, but keep conquering the evil with the good."
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Back Off, People!
If you knew a person who was in a terrible accident as a child and lost a limb as a result, would you badger them to work hard to attempt to grow that limb back? Even if you believed they're such a nice person they really deserve to have the use of all their appendages? Even if you were convinced there had to be some way if they would just try hard enough? Would you really presume you knew better than they how they should allot their resources and align their priorities in their life? ...I didn't think so.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Reconstruction?
I'm poking around this cavity
In moments of fun, and gravity
Examining all that's not here
Taking readings of the atmosphere
Carefully studying the empty space
Conjecturing what would fill its place
Tracing the shapes made in the air
So, finally, I can see the chair
Trying to define what I've never had
Watching the amputee slipping on scrim
Can you envision the missing limb?
Born deaf and still attempting to sing
Will anyone listen to such a thing?
The sightless artist painting the sky
What strokes does he make? and moreover, why?
Born with the capacity for faith and trust
How to rebuild what's crumbled to dust?
A person I would want to call "Dad"
In moments of fun, and gravity
Examining all that's not here
Taking readings of the atmosphere
Carefully studying the empty space
Conjecturing what would fill its place
Tracing the shapes made in the air
So, finally, I can see the chair
Trying to define what I've never had
Watching the amputee slipping on scrim
Can you envision the missing limb?
Born deaf and still attempting to sing
Will anyone listen to such a thing?
The sightless artist painting the sky
What strokes does he make? and moreover, why?
Born with the capacity for faith and trust
How to rebuild what's crumbled to dust?
A person I would want to call "Dad"
Thursday, November 22, 2012
self sabotage
strange how
a place can be
so familiar
and yet
so hard to recognize
each step of the journey
each time
you return
a place can be
so familiar
and yet
so hard to recognize
each step of the journey
each time
you return
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Overachieving
An interesting thing happened to me on my way to work this past summer. I was driving on a back road and I could see a couple of people and a dog walking down the road in my direction. The dog wasn't on a leash and it broke away from its people and started jogging toward me. It seemed that the people tried to call the dog back, but it was more interested in my car than whatever they were saying.
As the dog came closer, I slowed down so as not to run into it if it made an unexpected movement. It stopped right in the middle of the dirt road, so I also stopped, rolled down my window and told it that my car was much bigger than it and it could get hurt if it stayed there. At this point, the people accompanying the dog were probably no more than 30 yards away so I just sat and waited for them to come retrieve it. I wasn't having the greatest morning, was already late to work, and really didn't want to hit a dog, even at a very slow speed, to make my day even more stressful. I was feeling pretty good about how responsible and patient I was being despite their obvious delinquency as dog owners in not keeping their animal out of my path as I waited for the woman to reach her dog.
Imagine, then, my surprise when the woman (who looked a lot like a shorter version of Katherine Hepburn) approached my rolled down window and kindly but firmly said to me, "You need to learn something." She went on to tell me that when this dog, or any dog, was in the road, I needed to keep on driving. According to her, the dog had been encouraged in this bad habit by people like me who stopped to talk to him or even feed him treats when he was in the way of their cars and that's why he kept getting in the way. I was just reinforcing bad behavior by stopping my car. She seemed set to lecture all day (I found out later she was probably a retired teacher) so I did my best to draw the one-sided conversation to a quick conclusion by acting interested in what she had to say and then taking the first opportunity I got to thank her for the information and wish her a good day.
As I got to work and set up for the day, my mind kept returning to this incident. I could see the point in what the woman was saying but couldn't help but feel rather annoyed at the way she let her dog do whatever it wanted, then chastised me, a person who didn't know this particular dog and had been inconvenienced on my way to work by its actions, for my 'enabling' behavior! I couldn't quite decide whether to laugh it off or give her a piece of my mind if I ever ran into them again.
And then I realized what about the experience kept me mulling it over and what my attitude about it would gel into. I thought to myself: is it harder to train unwanted behavior out of one animal that you have contact with every day, feed, groom, take care of it it gets hurt or sick, and, presumably, inspire affection and a desire to please you in, or to undertake to train a wanted behavior into hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of previously unknown drivers you will encounter when you are walking said animal on the back roads of a small community over its lifetime? It absolutely boggled my mind to imagine the amount of determination and confidence that could cause a person to prefer to undertake the latter task! And I decided that that woman is the best definition of an overachiever I've run into in a long time.
As the dog came closer, I slowed down so as not to run into it if it made an unexpected movement. It stopped right in the middle of the dirt road, so I also stopped, rolled down my window and told it that my car was much bigger than it and it could get hurt if it stayed there. At this point, the people accompanying the dog were probably no more than 30 yards away so I just sat and waited for them to come retrieve it. I wasn't having the greatest morning, was already late to work, and really didn't want to hit a dog, even at a very slow speed, to make my day even more stressful. I was feeling pretty good about how responsible and patient I was being despite their obvious delinquency as dog owners in not keeping their animal out of my path as I waited for the woman to reach her dog.
Imagine, then, my surprise when the woman (who looked a lot like a shorter version of Katherine Hepburn) approached my rolled down window and kindly but firmly said to me, "You need to learn something." She went on to tell me that when this dog, or any dog, was in the road, I needed to keep on driving. According to her, the dog had been encouraged in this bad habit by people like me who stopped to talk to him or even feed him treats when he was in the way of their cars and that's why he kept getting in the way. I was just reinforcing bad behavior by stopping my car. She seemed set to lecture all day (I found out later she was probably a retired teacher) so I did my best to draw the one-sided conversation to a quick conclusion by acting interested in what she had to say and then taking the first opportunity I got to thank her for the information and wish her a good day.
As I got to work and set up for the day, my mind kept returning to this incident. I could see the point in what the woman was saying but couldn't help but feel rather annoyed at the way she let her dog do whatever it wanted, then chastised me, a person who didn't know this particular dog and had been inconvenienced on my way to work by its actions, for my 'enabling' behavior! I couldn't quite decide whether to laugh it off or give her a piece of my mind if I ever ran into them again.
And then I realized what about the experience kept me mulling it over and what my attitude about it would gel into. I thought to myself: is it harder to train unwanted behavior out of one animal that you have contact with every day, feed, groom, take care of it it gets hurt or sick, and, presumably, inspire affection and a desire to please you in, or to undertake to train a wanted behavior into hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of previously unknown drivers you will encounter when you are walking said animal on the back roads of a small community over its lifetime? It absolutely boggled my mind to imagine the amount of determination and confidence that could cause a person to prefer to undertake the latter task! And I decided that that woman is the best definition of an overachiever I've run into in a long time.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Monday, June 4, 2012
I Don't Know
Catch me when I fall
Answer when I call
Do you hear me? Do you care?
Let me know that I am real
That you know how much I feel
For something that's not even there
Did you think we would always be together?
That your loving could shelter me forever?
There's so much you don't know you don't know
Tell me you're still waiting
Still anticipating
It's not true we both know
Hold me as I cry
Look me in the eye
And say "hello", as you go
Did you think those mixed messages you're sending
Won't tell me we've lost our happy ending?
There's so much that I know you don't know
Now comes the part I feared as I tried to keep you near
We're all scared of what we can't see
I was clinging to that ledge as we teetered on the edge
If I fell now I might land right smack in me!
Catch me when I fall
Answer when I call
Who will hear me? Who will care?
I think that I'm still real. I know how much I feel
I will find me. I'll be there
Did I think I could hide away forever?
I just can't be that strong - or that clever!
There's so much that I know I don't know
There's so much that I know I don't know
Monday, April 30, 2012
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Ya Know?
There are different ways of knowing things. In thinking it over, I've identified three. First is an intellectual knowing of a thing you've read or heard about or observed (like a science experiment). This might be termed "head knowing". Next is a knowing in the gut, an intuition. This occurs when a person decides to change their plans because they just "know" something bad is going to happen. And sure enough, something does happen to their original flight or along their intended route, or what have you. People who believe they fell in love at first sight are also trusting in this "gut knowing". The third type of knowing is what I call "heart knowing". This likely takes some time and experience of a person or situation to develop. An example of this type of knowing is when it looks as if a man has committed a crime, but his wife (or mother...or friend...or child...) knows he's not the sort of person to do such a thing and maintains his innocence even after he is convicted. Then one day it becomes possible to use DNA evidence to prove his innocence and he is released. Sometimes heart knowledge doesn't agree with head knowledge, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. At times it may be in our best interest to believe in something that can't be proven.
Then I realized that if there are these different ways of knowing, there are different ways of being known, as well. Many grown people are most comfortable with being known primarily on an intellectual level. They like to talk and be listened to, because that gives them more control over what others think of them, or how others "know" them. Gut knowledge no one has much control over, though I suppose a person might do their best to look good, being clean and well-groomed and dressing neatly, in an effort to offset any negative impact we might unwittingly have on others' intuition. If we are very comfortable with the people we are with, we may be able to still our intellect enough to get to know them with our heart, to feel the essence of the person they are and let them see the unedited version of us, the one we're usually trying to put a spin on in our dealings with other people. Young children are still skilled at knowing and being known with the heart, probably because they have little experience with life and so don't feel scared yet to let others be close to them.
You likely know of other types of knowing I didn't think of, but these are the ones that I know make sense. I know all three of these kinds of knowledge are useful to us. We just need to know how to listen to and for each kind and to know which one is best to trust in in each instance. And that kind of knowledge probably comes from a blend of all three (or more) types of knowing. Do you know what I mean?
Then I realized that if there are these different ways of knowing, there are different ways of being known, as well. Many grown people are most comfortable with being known primarily on an intellectual level. They like to talk and be listened to, because that gives them more control over what others think of them, or how others "know" them. Gut knowledge no one has much control over, though I suppose a person might do their best to look good, being clean and well-groomed and dressing neatly, in an effort to offset any negative impact we might unwittingly have on others' intuition. If we are very comfortable with the people we are with, we may be able to still our intellect enough to get to know them with our heart, to feel the essence of the person they are and let them see the unedited version of us, the one we're usually trying to put a spin on in our dealings with other people. Young children are still skilled at knowing and being known with the heart, probably because they have little experience with life and so don't feel scared yet to let others be close to them.
You likely know of other types of knowing I didn't think of, but these are the ones that I know make sense. I know all three of these kinds of knowledge are useful to us. We just need to know how to listen to and for each kind and to know which one is best to trust in in each instance. And that kind of knowledge probably comes from a blend of all three (or more) types of knowing. Do you know what I mean?
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
The Grass Is Always On the Wrong Side of the Fence?
Some people seem to never be satisfied in life. Whatever they have, they wish they had something newer, bigger, faster, better. Wherever they are, they wish they were somewhere else. Whoever they're with, they wish they were with someone more perfect (like themselves, presumably). I could go on and on.
Of course, this attitude is encouraged by the advertising industry. We are inundated with messages (some subtle, some not-so) designed to make us feel like we need the newest, biggest, most complex, etc., of whatever is on the market. No matter how determined I am to enjoy the moment and be satisfied with what I have, it can be hard to resist all the alluring images of tropical vacations and shiny new electronics! And our cultural attitude that we deserve to be blissfully happy at all times makes it very hard to be patient with the flaws, real or perceived, of those around us. Not to mention how the increasing stress of being patient and polite with an ever-increasing circle of persons at work, at school, on the road, in stores, online, brings us home with less and less self-control with which to use those qualities on our nearest and dearest. Rather than realizing that the fault lies in our own thinking and behavior, we can easily begin to believe we would be happier with a different partner, parent, child, sibling, roommate, even pet! The promise of a quick fix for our dissatisfaction by jettisoning the old, with its known flaws, to make way for the intriguing new can be so enticing.
Unfortunately, once we get to know whatever new person, place or thing we thought would make us ecstatically joyful all the time, we see it also has its own set of imperfections. And we have to decide whether we need to make a switch again or find ways to be content with the circumstances we are in now.
Now, my philosophy tends to be, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" And I can make a pretty good case for the position that this is morally superior to continually needing/wanting something newer and better. But if I'm honest with myself I have to admit my attitude stems at least partly from a bit of laziness on my part. It takes work to make an informed choice when replacing a new item. It takes work to go looking for a new job. It takes work to move to a new area. And it takes a lot of work to get to know a new person in any sort of close relationship! So why not just stick with what you have and tell yourself it's because you are a "better" person than those who go job hopping around the continent or have to trade in whatever they have for the latest model each time it comes out?
Sadly (for my desire to remain in my comfort zone), I also am fairly committed to trying to be honest with myself. And sometimes a change is the best thing for ourselves and those around us. Sometimes we or the job have grown and/or changed to the point that we are no longer a good fit. Sometimes a person we meet is so worth our spending time and effort in getting to know them better. Sometimes we need to move out of our parents' basement before we're retired and sitting down there all day long! And sometimes that twenty-year-old car would be better off at the parts yard and we would be better off with a cute little Kia wagon and a small loan, establishing a credit history and spending less time waiting by the side of the road for a tow truck.
Of course, this attitude is encouraged by the advertising industry. We are inundated with messages (some subtle, some not-so) designed to make us feel like we need the newest, biggest, most complex, etc., of whatever is on the market. No matter how determined I am to enjoy the moment and be satisfied with what I have, it can be hard to resist all the alluring images of tropical vacations and shiny new electronics! And our cultural attitude that we deserve to be blissfully happy at all times makes it very hard to be patient with the flaws, real or perceived, of those around us. Not to mention how the increasing stress of being patient and polite with an ever-increasing circle of persons at work, at school, on the road, in stores, online, brings us home with less and less self-control with which to use those qualities on our nearest and dearest. Rather than realizing that the fault lies in our own thinking and behavior, we can easily begin to believe we would be happier with a different partner, parent, child, sibling, roommate, even pet! The promise of a quick fix for our dissatisfaction by jettisoning the old, with its known flaws, to make way for the intriguing new can be so enticing.
Unfortunately, once we get to know whatever new person, place or thing we thought would make us ecstatically joyful all the time, we see it also has its own set of imperfections. And we have to decide whether we need to make a switch again or find ways to be content with the circumstances we are in now.
Now, my philosophy tends to be, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" And I can make a pretty good case for the position that this is morally superior to continually needing/wanting something newer and better. But if I'm honest with myself I have to admit my attitude stems at least partly from a bit of laziness on my part. It takes work to make an informed choice when replacing a new item. It takes work to go looking for a new job. It takes work to move to a new area. And it takes a lot of work to get to know a new person in any sort of close relationship! So why not just stick with what you have and tell yourself it's because you are a "better" person than those who go job hopping around the continent or have to trade in whatever they have for the latest model each time it comes out?
Sadly (for my desire to remain in my comfort zone), I also am fairly committed to trying to be honest with myself. And sometimes a change is the best thing for ourselves and those around us. Sometimes we or the job have grown and/or changed to the point that we are no longer a good fit. Sometimes a person we meet is so worth our spending time and effort in getting to know them better. Sometimes we need to move out of our parents' basement before we're retired and sitting down there all day long! And sometimes that twenty-year-old car would be better off at the parts yard and we would be better off with a cute little Kia wagon and a small loan, establishing a credit history and spending less time waiting by the side of the road for a tow truck.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Makes Me Think Again
It's been kind of a tough winter for me this year, and I've been feeling rather sorry for myself at times! Then I found this:
Puts my problems in perspective! I hope it does the same for you :)
Puts my problems in perspective! I hope it does the same for you :)
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Chef Soup
In honor of the new Muppet movie, the youngest child's newly discovered soup-making skills, the middle one's vegetarian leanings, the eldest's work helping to prepare delicious-looking food at Lake Avenue Cafe... and reptiles, of course!
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