Child's Play...

  “…Memory! You have the key,

…Put your shoes at the door…prepare for life.”

- Eliot TS Rhapsody on a Windy Night

You know how it is the seemingly little things that add a certain richness to our lives?  The thoughts that bubble up into the stream of consciousness – lost somewhere in the reaches of our minds and memories.  Lost?  Well, in these moments, we appreciate they are not lost, maybe just tucked away somewhere waiting for an opportunity to touch us once again.

I dropped by the community center this week during my morning walk in the park near our home.  I was drawn to the gymnasium for a couple of reasons: One, I felt a minor urge for a brief metabolic break and knew there was a bathroom in the building, but more than that, the sound of young kids playing basketball caught my attention…basketball!

Suddenly, I was ten years old and just arriving in Fairmont, West Virginia – the son of a Baptist minister.   Our new church had a youth basketball team and Coach Bob, wanting me to feel welcome, invited me to join the team.

There was a small problem – I had never touched a basketball in my life.  The inexperience and enthusiasm of youth, however, is seldom deterred by such detail.

Let the games begin

In the arena of youth church basketball, in those days, kids didn’t practice…they played.  It was in the crucible of play one gained their experience. I found myself on a team, and in a shirt with the church name written in big letters across the chest…a chest, I might add that seemed just a little bigger for having my own shirt.  I was a small kid, with a yet unknown and quite unexpected growth spurt lying a year or two ahead. 

The gym at the Episcopal Church, was conveniently located just across the street from my dad’s church.  We had been in town about a week when that Saturday morning came, with a bright sun and the excitement of this new game - basketball.  Coach Bob was a real motivator and had the entire team excited about the game against those Methodists.  None of the kids had met me yet, so introductions were made and I was given that wary look – you know, the kind that says, “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

The game began and it was exciting - parents lined the wall in the tiny gym cheering for their children and teams.

Coach Bob, couldn’t exactly put me in as a starter, even if I was the preacher’s kid.  He waited until everyone else had played a little.

Preparation...what's the point?

Then came ‘the look’ and ‘the call’ – “Ted, go in for Billy!” I can’t remember being more excited in my life, nor as it turned out, could I have been less prepared.  The other team scored; a teammate took the ball out and tossed it to me.  Tucking the ball under my arm, I ran down the court.  It was clear sailing because everybody seemed to be standing still.  A whistle blew, but I was undeterred…approaching the basket I took the ball with both hands and threw it with all the enthusiasm I could find.

Two immediate problems and one circumstance resulted. 

The problems: one doesn’t tuck the ball under their arm and run down the court without dribbling, AND the idea is to put the ball in the basket – I missed the entire banking board!

The circumstance:  Coach Bob pulled me out of the game after that one ‘run and shoot,’ and I never played again the rest of the season.  Coach Bob was disappointed because he was hoping he had a new ball player, I was disheartened because it seemed there was no future in a game, for all my youthful enthusiasm, I didn’t understand.

It has been said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing POORLY…UNTIL you have enough experience to do it well!”

That is the good news!  There is a resiliency in youth – an unspoken “…hope springs eternal…” that keeps a child motivated.  You know, the standing and falling – the standing and falling that happens again and again UNTIL standing becomes second nature.  It is one of the greatly intimate experiences of life to watch a child succeed in its unrelenting desire to stand and walk.

It is the alphabet, not the novel that starts the game...

 You think seemingly small moments don’t mean anything? 

I would be 12 years old as a second/third string player on a junior high basketball team, before I would make my first shot in a game.  It was against St. Peters junior high and the guy guarding me was Mike Glendenning.  While that shot was the smallest of things to my team members or the outcome of that game – making that shot against that boy inspired me to continue to play a game I later learned to love. 

How meaningful was that shot?  I am 63 years old, at the moment, and still remember the name of the guy over whom I made those two points!  That shot – those two points were enough to carry me through subsequent years in a game that taught me the life lessons of self-discipline, fair play, the transience of defeat and great joys of success.  Those two points carried me through hours in the schoolyard shooting, shooting and shooting some more.   Those two points?  They were priceless!!

Lessons for old(er) folk...

There are those times, when from somewhere deep inside a voice comes that says, “…keep it up…this was a success…this moment has meaning…”  These are the quiet times…they don’t come in large and loud voices, but they are electric.  This is when the ‘still small voice’ reminds us we have worth and meaning.

When memories like this find their way to the surface of my consciousness, I try to take a few moments to immerse myself in them and feel gratitude, because they remind me that success comes from hard work; that truly one reaps what one sows.  As importantly, as we get older, there is a tendency to dwell on what we haven’t done or what we can’t do - the young are not plagued by this.  It is instructive to remember those success moments when they appear –

I am willing to bet each of you has a ‘Mike Glendenning’ moment(s) tucked away somewhere in the depths of your life experience that have come at just the right time and in just the right way – the moment that gave you confidence to continue to ‘…play the game…’ and the hope that tomorrow would be a better day.

These thoughts do not come by accident, nor should they be lightly dismissed.  They might be just the touch needed in the busy course of life – the ‘…two points…’ scored, as it were, to help carry through a difficult circumstance or event - the quiet touch for just a little more hope.

It is said we are creatures of spirit moving through life in physical bodies.  I believe this, because it is often the physical experiences in our lives that contribute to our spiritual well being.  I am guessing this working relationship (spirit/body), has a broader and purposeful meaning…

Thanks Mike…wherever you are.

- ted

How can these things be…

“I believe the universe is sort of like an unimaginably vast musical instrument with an infinite number of strings…every human being, every living thing, is a string on that instrument.

The decisions each of us makes and the acts that he commits are like vibrations passing through a guitar string.

Vibrations in one string set up soft, sympathetic vibrations in all the other strings, through the entire body of the instrument.

Sometimes these sympathetic vibrations are very apparent, but a lot of the time, they’re so subtle that you can hear them only if you’re unusually perceptive.

…[the murder of your wife is] a discord [and] can be heard, however faintly, all the way to the farthest end of the universe.

That discord sets up lots of other vibrations, some of which will return to you in ways you might expect – and some in ways you could never see coming.  Of the things you couldn’t have seen coming, I am the worst.”

- Detective Vanadium to the murderer Enoch

Koontz D, Out of the Corner of His Eye

She was 14 years of age and beaten to death.  An accusation was made of adultery, some say rape, but that is incidental.  She was 14 years of age and beaten to death.

While the story captured headlines and caught momentary world attention for its horrific and thoughtlessness, none of it would bring her back.  It would soon be forgotten in the moment and life goes on, BUT it would not be momentary nor forgotten in the life of her family – She was 14 years of age and beaten to death.

There is story in the eighth chapter of John of the Bible.  A woman is brought to the prophet Christ for his judgment.  She was caught in adultery – taken “…in the very act….”  The law was clear, adultery was punishable by death…death by stoning, a dreadful way to die.  Yet something different happened on this occasion.

Christ was asked by the men who brought her what should be done to this woman.  His answer?  “He who is without sin, among you, let him first cast a stone…’  The scripture says they were convicted by their conscience and left the scene, the eldest first until they were all gone.  Christ asked the woman, “Where are your accusers?”  There were none.  The hearts of these men were stung, because they all had had adulterous thoughts.  They knew, before God, they could not claim innocence from the very act for which they had accused this woman. 

The death of this young girl is tragic, but more so in that it is a metaphor for the kind of thing that is done to women and children victimized all over this world.  Murder, rape, humiliation of the weak and helpless is the fare of the more predatory and powerful.  One expects to find this in war – not in the name of ‘social order,’ ‘religious custom,’ ‘family honor,’ ‘cultural superiority/inferiority,’ or in this case ‘fatwa.’ 

Fatwa – an edict or religious opinion rendered concerning judgment and/or punishment inflicted in the name of God (what God? whose God?)…or at the very least representing an informal judgment of the ‘Shalish’ – an informal religious court.  Of course there is no ‘personal responsibility’ for the punishment and subsequent death of the child…her sentence, after all, was sanctioned.  An informal religious court – hmmm.  There are far less punitive measure that could have been taken in this matter – and by the way, what about the man, the perpetrator of the vile act that led to this judgment!  Reports indicate he was permitted to be disciplined by his family in private and subsequently ran away.  You see, she was 14 years of age and beaten to death

Our sensibilities are turned upside down by this kind of event.  How can this barbaric act be justified, let alone administered by human beings!  Were it only an isolated event, yet one is sickened by any number of atrocities that have been committed and justified for the most singularly selfish of reasons – just because!  One need only look to the history of racial discrimination in this country in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, to note this is not just the act of a 'barbaric' people - we are not guiltless...

There is no way to recompense for the loss of this child in Bangledesh; there is no way to punish the kind of depravity that led to this unspeakable, deliberate act.  What punishment could be meted out that would satisfy the sense of revenge or loss filling the hearts of the parents who lost their child? 

This, however, isn’t just about this little girl or the millions of others that have suffered degradation and oppression…it is about us, and the thoughts we have in our minds.  What things lurk in the darkness of our hearts that are nurtured and fed?  How angered and horrified are we, when contaminated thoughts bubble through our own minds?  While we are shocked by what ‘…those people did to this child…’ – are we shocked by the violence, avarice, envy and fear of our internal world.

It is clear there is no action we can personally take in this situation.  There is something we can do, however.   We can work to ensure within the sphere of our influence that we do not murder and kill with our thoughts and language.  We can work to ensure justice within the circle of our control. 

We cannot change the way others act and behave unless we are present to the deed, but we can make sure when we find ourselves in situations of judgment, we don’t rationalize our actions based on the excuse that it is somebody else’s accountability.  We are totally accountable for ourselves for the things over which we have control –  as the stoic philosopher Epictitus noted…principally in our own minds and thoughts.

She was only 14 years of age….

 

- ted

What he didn't say...

"Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by."

- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

He was standing in line with the tremors of Parkinson’s syndrome. His head was slightly bent forward, both arms trembling, his shoulders bobbing up and down in a rhythmic cyclic movement, a mask like expression hiding his humanity and the shuffled gait that, on a flat surface, so often requires deliberate thought – all a part of this debilitating disorder. 

Disorder - now there’s a word…”a physical condition in which there is a disturbance of normal functioning” – Webster…a disorder there for the entire world to see, expressing the sometimes public humiliation – the hallmark of the palsy.  I didn’t know this man, but in that moment, he was my father.

My dad was a minister, brought up in the post WWI years.  A time when there was little but hope and faith that tomorrow would be a better day.  He understood the brutality of a lower class life, the disappointments of hunger, and the humility of a youngster living on the edge of poverty.  Yet he aspired to more – much more.  

He did have help - the tenacious love of a mother, who had lost her father and most of her brothers to alcoholism.  Nonetheless, Martha instilled in her children the three most important things a parent can give – “…faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”  One doesn’t need the scripture, nor be very old to understand the importance of these life promoting and sustaining basics.

There is comfort in structure

My father’s family found comfort in those days, in their faith…the black and white texture of Pentecostal Fundamentalism.  Fortunately, dad had a quick and inquisitive mind; a gift and ear for learning musical instruments; a resonant speaking and singing voice, and the good looks of a film star.  The latter gifts – speaking, music, singing, and appearance – fit well into, and were nurtured by, his Pentecostal faith. 

Unfortunately, an inquisitive mind has little place in the structure of fundamental thought.  One might argue inquisitive minds have little place in those who find themselves entwined in rigid religious ideology.  Obedience – not questions, is the bread and butter of unyielding systems of belief. 

It is the refuge into which many retreat, partly because it provides a sanctuary of certainty in a world that seems so otherwise uncertain, and partly because it provides a sense of spiritual superiority in a culture where often success and meaning is deeply tied to external success.  It provides confident answers and a community of faith that keeps one safe in the womb of God’s eternal love and future reward. 

Sadly, it is also a place of stagnant solace; where doctrine is the only truth; where the apologist reigns supreme; where dogma most often trumps rational thought.  It is a place where, if one has a physical infirmity, it is because they had sinned before God – a place where significant illness is a curse.  While not openly discussed, it is the fodder for curiosity – ‘…what must this poor soul have done to be cursed in this manner…’

Don’t ask – can’t tell…

While this is where my father learned his alphabet of faith, it was not a place where he could remain, not so much by choice, but rather by his sincere interest in spiritual issues.  His welcome slipped away in direct proportion to the number of questions he asked his elders.  “Some day, you will have all your questions answered – when you get to Heaven, but not while you are in this life.”  This was simply not good enough for him.  A promised future reward couldn’t satisfy his restless soul.

It is at this juncture in one’s journey that they reach a crossroads.  Do they move to a life of the world, where anything goes and where they have little way to protect themselves from very different perspectives than they had been taught?  Do they reject faith all together, believing that if truth is not in the body from which they have come - is there truth at all?  Or do they continue to believe that God has something for them to do that will have a meaningful impact, both in their lives as well as the lives of those people with whom they come in contact.

Curses – fortunately not foiled!

Leaving the ‘culture of the church’ often carries with it significant penalty.  It can be as simple as mild ostracism or complete rejection with an expression of God’s curse on the apostate.   The latter is what happened to my father.

To his credit, he was resilient as well as a curious man.  He came to understand his true escape was through education, and so he fought and struggled to be the first in his family to graduate from university – an anathema to his former spiritual mentors. 

He went on not only to raise a family, but also spend tens of thousands of hours counseling the downtrodden, ministering to the ill and dying, studying some each day, and preparing thoughtful/provocative sermons on a weekly basis.  No canned sermons for him, it was all prayer and the arduous digging the ditch on a weekly basis to share his thought and inspiration with his flock.

If not always with the family, surely with others he lived by the construct of two loves in his life – ‘…God, and the person in front of him at any particular moment...’

What he didn’t do…

He also did NOT do maybe the most important thing a human being could NOT have done. 

·      He did NOT burden his children with the punishing guilt of fundamental Christian thought. 

·      He did NOT warn against the ways of the world, using the eternal damnation as the sting of sin.

·      He did NOT teach a ‘fire escape’ Creator who legislated punishment as a way of garnering love.

·      He did NOT teach his children they were inescapably sinful creatures wallowing through a lifetime of sin, only to be released at death.

The gift

This gift of omission is more than I can express in words.  Why?  Because - in spite of his education, spiritual hunger and curiosity for the creative universe, he never escaped the sense that the Parkinson’s was placed upon him for a sin committed in his early years.  It haunted him to the end of his life. 

His sacrifice was not just to those for whom he ministered faith, hope and love.  For, if any of us has a purpose in life, let it be that we work to instill these characteristics, not just in our children, but in all with whom we come in contact. 

What a true blessing…

My father’s greatest gift was

·      What he did NOT say

·      What he did NOT minister to his children – fear of the universal Creator

·      What he did NOT plant in our minds.

For he understood, what you plant in the mind of a child, often remains consciously or unconsciously for a lifetime. 

What he didn’t say allowed his children to Love God openly and fearlessly – an unspeakable gift!  You see, WORDS DO MATTER – even the ones you don’t speak!

- ted

And then there were two...

"You might think you want what you see,

but you may not get what you think..." 

- anonymous

We carry two bodies around all the time…

The physical body in which we live – programmed to live some 80 plus years –subject to illness, cold, injury and sometimes, unendurable agony.  There is the ‘us’ that lives within our bodies – sometimes referred to as the heart or soul subject also to pains and troubles of its own. 

On the other hand, they have the capacity, barring accident, with the proper maintenance, to be healthy and well.   Both clothe themselves – one with cotton, wool or some other fabric…the other with words, thoughts and ideas.  They can be healthy or ill depending upon the way we treat them.

The outside…

Our physical body is subject to certain natural laws, which keep it running as smoothly as possible.  Exercise lubricates and keeps the cobwebs out, making it able to meet most of the demands of the day.  Proper nutrition – carbohydrate, protein and fat – fuels the engines permitting the body to do the exercise that lubricates and keeps the cobwebs out.  Sleep provides maintenance checks and repairs necessary to use the nutrition that fuels the engines permitting exercise to...you get the picture.

The thing about the physical side of things is that it is extremely temporary.  If not maintained consistently, the system tends to break down.  Even when maintained to optimal levels, it slowly wastes away – that we know for certain.

The good news is the early warning systems that keep us apprised of the things that help us remain healthy.  If we try to do too much, rapid loss of muscle nutrition and insufficient of oxygen reduces our capacity, keeping us from overdoing it.  The sensory system tells us if something is too hot, cold, sharp, or too loud. When our fuel get low, hunger pangs remind us it is time to put some ‘gas in the tanks.’  If we don’t sleep properly we experience fatigue, cognition deficits, balance problems, susceptibility to illness, shortness of temper, and the list goes on.

The thing is, that while we describe these systems separately, they all work together like the music of a great symphony.  All are interdependent – each doing its part to create the most awesome of self-actuating systems.

The inside…

Our spiritual body is also subject to certain spiritual laws, which keep it running as smoothly as possible.  It must also be exercised to keep lubricated and the cobwebs out.  It exercises faith, hope, love, compassion, trust and many other attributes.  It is nourished through the hunger of curiosity and fed with knowledge and understanding.  Meditation and prayer provide the maintenance checks and ‘rest’ that permit renewal needed to exercise the spiritual body in an optimal way. 

Like its physical counterpart, these functions work interdependently to create, and manifest an even more awe inspiring self-actuating system.

Things aren’t exactly the same

There is, however, a difference between our physical and spiritual bodies.  One can be seen and one cannot – yet, both undeniably exist.  The fact that no one has ever seen a ‘soul,’ doesn’t mean it (we) doesn’t (don’t) exist.  Thomas Aquinas writes:

“A thing can be self-evident in either of two ways:

on the one hand, self-evident in itself, though not to us;

on the other, self-evident in itself, and to us.” - Summa Theologica

The former argument fits ‘us’ the soul and the latter, the physical body in which we reside. 

Our physical body is evident to itself, and to us, because we can see it; smell it, and touch it.  The soul, on the other hand, might be self-evident, but we have never see one – or ourselves for that matter.  Without seeing, smelling or touching the soul, it is not self-evident to us.  When we cannot grasp a proof of the existence of something – yet clearly see the effect of the unseen, it is accepted as a matter of faith.  Existence of the soul then is a matter of faith.

So what’s the point?

This is leading to the way we eat - our hunger and nutrition systems.  When we are physically hungry, it is important we eat a properly balanced diet.  Sometimes the foods we eat taste good, but are empty calories, meaning there is energy in the food, but not much nutrition – cotton candy is a great example.  Looks good, tastes sweet, but one is reminded of comments by Madame Thénardier in Les Miserable (musical) concerning her husband’s boasts of manly prowess – “…there’s not much there…” Pure carbohydrate in moderation is not a problem, but a steady diet creates difficulties for our metabolism.

The same thing happens spiritually.  It is important to eat a properly balanced diet – for example, faith, assurance, love, and compassion to name a few.  Sometimes the things we are attracted to seem good, but actually are not satisfactory to us.  Our curiosity may be filled with gossip, the news of the day, the tabloid problems of others, the fantasy of the latest film or television show.  Surely time occupying, and in moderation, not a problem but very often “…there’s not much there…”

It is frequently said, “We are what we eat…” but in fact, “We eat what we are.”  The things we eat are actually the elements our bodies are made from…sugars, proteins, fat, a few vitamins and a little water.  On the spiritual side for example, love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness and faith are what we the soul are made up of.

Making the choices

Keeping our physical body healthy is a choice.  How we exercise, what we eat, the amount of sleep we get, is on balance a choice.  The quality of activity, food and rest we choose results in the quality of health we have for the years of our journey on this planet.

Keeping our spiritual body – our soul – healthy is also a choice.  In this instance, we become exactly what we choose to be in our lives.  No one is responsible for the internal workings of our mind, but us.  What we expose ourselves to, what we read, what we watch, what we listen to, what we say, all grow our spiritual body.   

So - this day, as we rise to “…do the work of a human being…” let us do it with gratitude and choose to make this day a better day for both those bodies...

 

- ted

Onward and Upward

“The man may teach by doing, and not otherwise. If he can

communicate himself he can teach, but not by words. 

He teaches who gives and he learns who receives.”

-        Emerson

It was 5:00PM on Monday afternoon.  He had just topped off his day seeing patients by lifting weights, as was his custom.   He said, “I’m in Los Angeles seeing patients tomorrow and will be back by 4:30PM.  I’ll give you a call.”  This is the way it always was…We saw each other every day, for the most part knew each other’s schedule, but he would end the day by asking me what I had planned for the next day, and let me know what was on the schedule for him.

Just before we parted, we quietly reminded one another how much we appreciated finally working together.  We did this from time to time, the way it is important for friends to express how much they mean to one another, even though they know it in their hearts - words do have meaning. He slipped the strap of his bag over the left shoulder and gently limped to the door – a residual gait the result of a stroke he had almost completely recovered from eight months earlier.  He turned and said, with a twinkle in his eye, what he always said, “Onward and Upward!”

His name was Vert.  Vert Mooney – now there is a name.  Son of Voigt and Naomi originally from Pittsburgh….an orthopedist, the quietest of men, and hardest working person I had ever labored with.  While he was trained in the elite institutions of the Eastern establishment, if you didn’t know what he did for a living, it would be impossible to guess – his affect was that of the most common of folk.

He and I had known each other for better than 20 years, and had collaborated on any number of projects.  We often talked about actually working together, but somehow the stars didn’t align themselves until the spring of 2008.

Come West My Friend

I got a call in February of that year.  It was that familiar voice, you know the kind…the voice you have heard so many times you can’t count, but never tire of.  The voice accompanied so often by affirmation and character – when you hear it, it’s like putting on those favorite tennis shoes that fit like they had been custom made; the voice that expresses earned respect, love, meaning – the feeling almost always unrelated to the content of the conversation…yeah, you know ‘the voice.’

“Ted, this is Vert.” – as if he needed to take those few seconds to identify himself.  He had lost his research coordinator and asked if I might be interested in taking that position.  “Time’s slipping away from us, if we don’t do it now, we may not get it done at all.”  So in June, on the cusp of my sixty-first year, I moved to San Diego, California to be with my friend, my colleague and one of the great human beings I have known.

Habit and Character

If habit leads to character and character to destiny, that would define Vert.  When he was home, he was up every morning before five.  By five, it was a pot of tea by his side and newspaper in hand.  By six, he had devoured both and was off to the shower to get ready for the day.  At 6:25 it was breakfast with Ruth his wife; 6:40 in the car and at his desk by 7AM.  In his 78^th year, this was his routine day in and day out. 

 His workdays were filled with patients, independent case reviews and writing –Vert surely could write.  As a young man, he had taken to the written word.  It served him well in later years, and would make him one of the most prolific orthopedic surgeons that ever lived.  He published hundreds of scientific papers, wrote book chapters, edited textbooks and added an autobiography to the mix…Yes indeed, Vert could write… His writing would lead to speaking engagements and visiting professor invitations all over the planet.

Emerson said, “…do your work…” and dare to do what you can do best.  Doing what you do best…easy to say, but in a world where most of us are confronted with much distraction and the way we appear, rather than the quality of what we do, it is sometimes hard to find what it is that we do best…this was not a problem for my friend Vert.

While his work ethic was impressive, and what he wrote meaningful to the profession he had chosen, it was his example in life that drew me so strongly.  He had a willingness to listen to anything, whether he agreed with it or not; his ready mind to reflect what he did know with the forward possibilities of what yet lay ahead.

What we say or what we do?

There is a great Stephen Sondheim lyric in the Musical “Into the Woods”

Careful the things you say
Children will listen
Careful the things you do
Children will see and learn
Children may not obey, but children will listen
Children will look to you for which way to turn
To learn what to be
Careful before you say "Listen to me"

While these lines are true of children, they are equally true for adults.  We look for consistency; we look for examples of strength and faith, and it is here we are inspired to be better tomorrow than we have been today.

What we do is so much more informative than what we say, for it is in the doing we build faith, learn of character, understand perseverance, find our mentors, develop self-respect and in the end, slowly get a better understanding of who we are.  When what we say matches what we do, that's when it really counts.

Tuesday afternoon the call came…it was not the 4:30PM call I expected.  It was 1:30PM, and it wasn’t him calling to say he was home so we could once again arrange for the day that lay ahead, as was so often the case.   This call was not about tomorrow, but rather a notification of his unexpected death in a car crash, on his way home from seeing patients in Los Angeles.   

"Just before we parted, we quietly reminded one another how much we appreciated finally working together.  We did this from time to time, the way it is important for friends to express how much they mean to one another, even though they know it in their hearts - words do have meaning."  I was then and am now grateful for that gentle exchange - It would be our last....

It was the most common of ends, in this fast paced world, for the most uncommon of men.  He was absolutely right... “Time’s slipping away from us, if we don’t do it now, we may not get it done at all.”  Coming to California by faith, love and a deep respect – even at this time in life – made all the difference in the world.

Thanks my friend…

  

“Onward and upward!”

- ted

Every day begins again

“Begin at the beginning and go on till

you come to the end: then stop.”

King to the White Rabbit
Carrol, L.Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

It’s all about communication isn’t it?  Finding ways to share our world, that is the world (mind) in which we live, with the worlds of others.  Communication is the basis for expressing and receiving meaning in life.

Let’s begin with the alphabet.  It allows us to communicate by the written word.  In the English language it starts with the letter ‘a’ and ends 25 letters later with ‘z’.  Twenty-six individual letters leading to words…words to sentences…sentences to paragraphs…paragraphs to essays, stories, books, manuscripts and the list goes on.  

It is awe-inspiring to consider the sheer volume of written material based on these simple, seemingly meaningless letters.  Yet through the mixing and matching of them, commerce has developed, countries formed, hearts made to soar and minds to imagine the unimaginable.

For the teller of tales, there is the drive to express ideas, convey the story and communicate the notion.  The reader becomes, in a sense, the voyeur who slips deftly, both into the story as well as the mind (world) of the author.

There was a time when all that existed was in oral tradition. The spoken word carried the message to the ear of the hearer.  Stories of the valiant fell from the lips of the gifted tellers, to the ears of the fortunate who heard them.  These were passed from mind to mind, generation to generation, taking on new life, and enrichment as they traveled through the years.  Some say oral traditions have existed for 50 to 100 thousand years!

Around 6 thousand years ago, an area known as the Fertile Crescent in the region of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, (general area of Iraq today), pictures began to emerge…orderly pictures – or pictographs – that could be used consistently to express ideas without the presence of the originator of the words.  From these formative efforts, came written language(s).

Written language constructed of sentences typically has a subject and some action related to that subject.  Life is a little bit like this.

The sentence of life...

Each of us is a story of sorts, made up of a spiritual alphabet – for lack of a better term.  In the mixing pot of life, we all have a similar foundation from which we emerge.  Like letters of the alphabet, we have basic characteristics such as wisdom, peace, understanding, faith, curiosity, joy, anger, gentleness, envy, greed, and this list goes on.  This is the world in which we live.

To carry the metaphor… life is composed of nouns and verbs.  We are beings, the central focus in the sentence of our lives – the noun.   That, of course is not enough, for we – the noun – must have a verb, we must act, for there is little doubt that without action, there is not much life - life rewards action.

The unique mixing and matching of these spiritual elements, as it were, create the distinctive individual we are.  It is awe-inspiring to see the innumerable mixtures of personalities that emerge from the spiritual alphabet from which we are created.

What is the story?

We then become the teller of the tale – the tale of our lives.  We tell it every time we meet or interact with someone.  The great thing about it, however, is that we actually can consciously and deliberately write the tale the way we want it to be.

If we recognize and understand we have control over the sentences we write in our lives – that is to say the way we use the spiritual alphabet we have been given – the clearer and more focused our lives become. 

Cultivate our curiosity and it will be stronger, exercise our understanding and it will grow, nurture our kindness and it will excel.  We can also starve our anger and watch it dissipate; re-channel our frustration and watch it whither; change focus from our envy and watch it dissolve.  This doesn’t mean pretending these characteristics are not there, but actively choosing to engage something else in their place - where we put their heart, is what we will become...for better or worse.  It is in our control.

Choose this day!

We are all authors and storytellers.  The story of our lives is yet untold, every minute of every day we have the opportunity to choose the things we want to write in the book of our life.  What has been written in the past, may inform the present, but absolutely DOES NOT have to predict what the next event will be.  The next chapter will be determined by the choices we make right now, at this moment in time.

Setting a plan regarding the way we want the lives we live in our world (mind) is up to us and nobody else.  We do not have to simply be a bystander and or a victim of our thoughts and feelings. 

Go to the blackboard today and begin to write what you want that story to be.

 
- ted

Who is the Lucky One?

 But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular, 

A name that's peculiar, and more dignified, 

Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular, 

Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?  

- TS Eliot ‘The naming of Cats’

We call her Leah because she was lucky! 


You see in the Old Testament, there were a couple of sisters…Leah and Rachel.  Jacob was a fellow who loved Rachel, so he made a deal with Laban, her father, for her hand.  The deal? He would work seven years for Laban and in return get Rachel for his wife  - now that is love! 

The day finally came and the marriage occurred, unfortunately for Jacob, when he awoke in the morning he found it was Leah by his side, NOT Rachel who he loved.  When confronting Laban, he was told that Leah was the older sister and needed a husband.  Jacob ended up working another seven years for Rachel, but the point here is that Leah was lucky.  She was lucky to get a husband, lucky to have children, and by her luck, she became part of the matriarchy of the house of Israel.

I mentioned "We call her Leah, because she was lucky!"  This is because we have a Leah in our household too - that would be Leah the cat.  She too was lucky because she found us, or rather we found her.  Her mother was a female of questionable character and had a somewhat loose living arrangement with our next-door neighbors.  The mother was an outdoorser, a mouser with a generalized independent flair both in character and apparently her occasional choice in male cats, meaning in the words of Crosby, Nash, Stills and Young, “If you can’t be with the one you love…” well, you know the rest – okay, if you are under the age of 50 the line ends, “…love the one you’re with.”  

Leah was so tiny, when we got her; she fit in the palm of my hand – so tiny that she could hide either in or behind my shoes.  A calico, and as is often the case in kittens, her eyes were disproportionately large for her face and body.  This is almost 12 years ago by now, and she has grown to her full nine pounds.  

 

Three cats reside in our home, but there is only one who attends much to me.  That would be Leah.  Early in the mornings, she wakes me by climbing on me.  It doesn’t matter in what position I am lying, she waits until I roll over on to my back, dancing like one of those loggers who stay atop a spinning log in the water.  Once on my back, she settles down with a gentle purr.

This, of course in her world, is simply foreplay for breakfast, you know – the tease.  She has some clock in her head that says, “Okay that’s enough.  Now that I have your loving attention – let’s eat!”  Some people say a person has only so many heartbeats in their lifetime.  Leah seems to have a certain allotment of purring breaths before it’s time to woo me to get her breakfast. 

If I feed her and then head back to bed for a few moments – an infrequent event – she will return to my chest, lie down and purr some more, with a satisfied and relaxed posture that says, “Now isn’t this better on a full stomach?”

There is something primal and exceedingly satisfying about lying tummy-to-tummy, chest-to-chest, heart-to-heart and breath-to-breath in the darkened and early morning hours.  There is something comforting about lying there with a creature in who is no malice.  There is something energizing about sharing a moment without words that satisfies both creatures in whatever ways they individually imagine it.

This morning was one of those times.  As we quietly lay tummy to tummy – me reading, she digesting and purring – we found a moment of contentment that these words fail to adequately express, and I was taken by the warmest and gentlest of thoughts that I was the ‘lucky one.’

 
- ted