This article was written not long ago

And each word is true

But held unprinted because I did not want

To bring added sorrow to the  grieving family.

——————————————————- 

             The obituary was but a name, five lines, and twenty-nine carefully chosen words.  Such a small space to tell of a man who had been my friend, and I sorrowed that his bright personality was no more, and was surprised to realize it had been 15 or more years since we had  talked.

             It didn’t say how he died, and it didn’t matter, for to-day we all recognize those short, terse obits and cringe within for, when no cause of death is given,  almost always we ‘know’ that AIDS was the culprit. 

            And my heart ached for the sorrowing family because they had none of the consolation most people have of talking with others over the details of ‘how it happened’.

            We’ve all experienced deaths which have torn us apart, and I’ve been surprised to find how much healing comes from being able to talk about it with others.  How the very act of discussing the illness and death, does miracles in healing the broken heart.

            But getting back to those ‘twenty-nine words’.  I thought that time, and more knowledge about AIDS,  would change our attitude about it and HIV,  but the answer is still the same.  Death by this scourge  remains ‘different’, and met with silence. 

            No one wants to talk about it.  There is fear and those left behind not only have their grief, but the added sorrow of the silence that envelopes such deaths from others.  And also the sad knowledge that, of course, people know and speak to others about it.

              Attitudes, however, do change, for I remember one night as a child and  overheard my parents talking in low tones.  They thought we kids were asleep, but I wasn’t and overheard their words.

              Someone we knew had died of cancer, and hard to believe, but cancer was then a no-no disease, and  it was a good, freeing day when the words “died of cancer” first began appearing in obituaries.  For it showed people no longer had to suffer and die in fear and shame because of one more whispered disease.

              But AIDS remains this age’s ‘leprosy’.  Not to be spoken, and fear strikes our hearts if and when we find that someone we know has the disease, or is HIV positive.  We are torn between, “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know” and “For heaven’s sake, how could such a thing happen?”

             AIDS is a world-wide disease and near epidemic in some countries.  We’d better get our heads on straight, and the sooner the better, because, if you haven’t already been faced with the disease, and death, of someone you know well, from AIDS,  you will, for it’s bound to happen, and they need our love and hugs just the same as any grief stricken person.

             We’ve long known it’s  not just a Gay disease, and that it does happen to so-called ‘nice’ people.  In fact, it happens so often to just ‘every-day people’ that I never have a nurse, doctor or dentist put a needle into me without the fleeting thought of, “Is the needle clean?”  Too many diseases, and not only of AIDS, have been traced back to some mistake in a medical area.  Never maliciously, just one of those accidents that do happen.

             The obit I write about was for a wonderful person.  We once laughed together, exchanged ideas, and when our pathways went different ways, I wondered how life was going for him.

            Well, that obit told me.  AIDS had entered his life and once that happens there is no time or energy left for anyone or anything else.  Life becomes a cruel struggle for survival, and with today’s treatments, the  person lives longer, but the expense and suffering is terrible .  And  everyone knows what the end will be.  Sometimes sooner and sometimes later, but it matters not, for the end is chiseled in stone.

             I’d like whoever placed that obit to know, that I, too, loved and still remember that man and  thank them for publishing those few lines.  So small a token to mark the life of a lovely, intellectual, once happy man.   Yes, I know that this too, shall pass, but when?  For while we hear less and less about it, AIDS is not gone.  Just ‘pushed under the rug’ and continues its deadly way.

But what could be better?

I see ‘celebrity’ magazines with pix of people no one really knows, telling of the exciting lives they seem to live, and wonder why I have no envy for them.

You see, I have an ordinary life, ordinary house, ordinary neighborhood, and yet am so content and have such love for my life and the people surrounding me, that I wonder if something’s wrong with me.  

And so, Ethel being Ethel, I began thinking about my life and wonder what ordinary means, and the dictionary tells me its something so ‘common’, so ‘everyday’, that we take it for granted and give it no attention. 

Getting down to basics, my day begins with one ordinary event that would panic the world if it didn’t happen.  Yeah, the sun   rises and brings light and glorious colors, and in 12 hours, it goes down in another blaze of color, and the world is dark. So ordinary I seldom even look at its beauty, and yet if this happened just once every century, the entire world would awaken to watch. 

The seasons change on a 365 day schedule bringing the differences of rain, snow, warm or cold, and if those very ordinary things change, our planting, harvesting, and entire life style changes, and if severe enough, lots of people go hungry. Or die.

And before we smile in disbelief, look back to the 1930’s when the lack of rain to the mid-land of America was so severe the earth became so dry it was blown into the air and the area was labeled a Dust Bowl. The sun was obliterated, and it became so dark, night or day, that people seriously wondered if the End had come.

Going farther, children are daily (hourly?) conceived, and then are born, age and ultimately, we die.  Such commonplace events, but if death didn’t come, we’d have a world overpopulated and fighting for food, space, and air. Or, if conception stopped, within fifty or so years, the world would become uninhabited because no one was filling the empty places. 

Such ordinary happenings, and the more I searched, the more I found that it’s the ordinary, the loved, the taken-for-granted events, that makes my world worth living.

And what started all this?  Well, on a recent CNN program, a veteran journalist who had talked with the powerful people of the world. 

And when asked if there was one interview that stood out above all others, I expected him to tell of some President, General, Inventor or such, but after a pause and with an odd smile, the retired journalist shifted his body, cocked his head, nodded, and said, “Yes, I do. There was a man whose name is still well  known, and his answer remains with me as perhaps the most important words I’ve  heard.”

And he looked up and said, “It was Clark Gable, the movie star.” He nodded as he saw the interviewer’s surprise, but continued, “See, I had asked him pretty much the same question you are asking me, as to who he had met or what event was the most powerful to him.

 “And his answer struck me to the heart and I’ve wondered if his words, taken seriously by all of us, just might be the secret to solving  many of the world’s problems. Problems that outwardly change, but are ever the same. ”

Clark said, “When I finish my day’s work, and drive home, I know that on the other side of my own Front Door, there’s someone, though also busy with her day, waits for the sound of my key in our door and who eagerly and lovingly greets me as I step in.

“Sorry”, Gable almost apologized, “I’m sure that’s not the answer you expected, but, you see, I’m a very ordinary man. And knowing she is there, awaiting me, puts all else in its place as good, but not vital to my deep contentment.”

The journalist being interviewed, continued, “I’ve listened to many powerful and sincere people telling what should/shouldn’t be done to bring Peace to all, but Gable’s words stay with me,  and I’ve come to see that he had matured beyond ‘ideas’ and into the wiser man, and found the basic need to bring peace to us all. 

“He knew that no matter where he was in this world, people would hurry to ask what they could get him, but he had matured into a man who had learned that ‘all the rest’ dropped into its proper place, interesting and worthwhile, but of little real worth, because ‘on the other side of his own door’,  there was one who awaited the sound of his key in the door, and, together, their love made their entire  lives worth living.”

And I recall how about 2,000 years ago, The Great Teacher, also taught that Love is the answer to all.  And today?  The same words from a movie star? What a wonderful paradox.

The Old Order Hath Changed.

                 Wow!  How the old order hath changed, for with the first nippy air heralding the coming of winter, I realize again that people “don’t get ready for winter” anymore.

                  Not too many years ago (Come on, now, who’s counting?) but this area was  very rural, and, “Hello, are you ready for winter?” was the common greeting.  And, as a kid at home, it seems that one of Mom and Dad’s first considerations of late summer was “to get in the coal”.  How else did one cook and keep warm?

                  At one time we had a coal shed and it was piled clear to the rafters when “the coal came”.  Later on, with house reconstructions,  Pop had it slid into the basement coal room, but either way, with the first blast of winter, everyone wanted to have stored all the coal they’d need for the long months ahead.

                  Mom always bought flour for the year, too.  I still don’t see the wisdom of this, but the big 50 lb. sacks of flour would arrive (of course everyone baked their own bread) and my parents would carefully store the flour in the cool attic on a special framework Dad had made for them.  Maybe flour and coal were cheaper in the summer.  I don’t know and who is there now left to tell us???  I can only give hints.

                   Putting up fruit kept our mother in a turmoil of work for at least six weeks in the late summer and early fall and it was this child’s delight to step to the basement and see the long shelves filled with the glorious colors of the fruit, pickles, sauces and tomatoes she ‘bottled’.  To me it meant good eating in the months to come and I was always glad when it snowed, for until then, Mom wouldn’t let us start using that good stuff.  It was food for winter, not summer or fall.

                  Pop built outside Root Cellars, too, and they were common to this area then.  Long trenches were dug, lined deeply with fresh clean straw and then vegetables, winter pears and apples were stored.  More straw covered the raw food and a deep layer of soil went over the top.  “Chimneys’ were built to ventilate the warm, buried food.

                 The idea was to keep everything cool enough to stay crisp but warm enough not to freeze and the idea was great.  The trouble was, however, that in the dead of winter,  getting through a foot of snow, to that frozen over-lay of  soil, then through the stiff, frozen straw and finally to the goal of it all, the vegetables snugly buried safely underneath.

                 It was a good trick also, to go for carrots, delve down through the three layers of snow, soil and straw, into the depths for where you were positive the carrots were, and instead find you had ‘hit’ parsnips, apples or cabbage.  Somehow nothing looked the same once snow arrived and the markers put up so carefully in the fall had a different look in the middle of January.

                 Besides that, it was always so darn cold that no one (well, it was always Dad’s job) wanted to take time to really survey the place.  Just dig, grab, cover again in the right order and then get back into the warm house.  And, something no one spoke of, but by the time winter was over, everything ‘down there’ tasted and smelled like the protective straw.  Oh well.

                 Just the same, to the child that I was, listening to the adults talk, I felt winter was a terrible threat that was held in abeyance only by Dad and Mom’s preparation of getting “ready for winter”. 

                 Mom, with her chests full of clean quilts and blankets, basement shelves filled with fruit, and for heaven’s sake, I almost forgot, our winter long-arm and long-legged  underwear, dresses, jackets, coats, hats, pajamas, and mittens (not gloves), boots  and whatever else cold weather demanded.

                That phrase, ‘Getting ready for winter’,  was a safety buffer to me and I felt nothing could harm me when I’d hear Dad say,   “Yes, we’re ready,”  in reply  to some neighbor’s query.  Upon hearing those three simple words, some spot within me relaxed for with them I knew all was right and safe with my world. 

               When you’ve been raised that way, that question was hard to put aside, for without all that work, preparation and storing away, who and what was to protect one from that Demon called Winter??

                 And, today, I watch two of my neighbors (their tie to past is their own business, not mine)  but it’s satisfying and gives me a good feeling to know that there are those who, in their own way,  still follow the customs I once knew so well.

                 And by the way, “Are you ready for Winter”?  Or do you even give it a thought?  Much less a ‘second thought’.

And we’re doing it to ourselves.

We’re slow learners.  It’s only been for the last half-century that we’ve started to be concerned about what we are doing to Mother Earth, our air and the water, and yet in 1850, the U. S. government was trying to ‘buy’ land from the native Americans, these words were written by Chief Seattle. We didn’t ‘hear’ him, for after all, he was just a ‘wild’ savage, but how wrong we were.

“The President wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky, or water, or the land? The idea is strange. How can we sell the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water?  Every part of this earth is sacred and holy in the memory and experience of my people.

“We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The bear, the deer, the  great eagle, the rocky crests, the juices in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, as well as man, all belong to the same family.

“The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst, carry our canoes and feed our children. Give to the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.

“If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, and share its spirit with all of the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath, received his last sigh, and gives our children life. So if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.

“Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother, and that what befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth?

“This we know.  The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all, and man did not weave the web of life, but is merely a strand in it. And whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

“Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? And the wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the Eagle be? Gone!

“It will be the end of living and the beginning of survival.

“When the last Red Man has vanished with his wilderness and his memory is only a shadow, will the shores and forests still be here?

“We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it. Preserve it for all children and love it, as God loves us all.

“We are part of the land, as you, too, are part of it. This earth is precious to us, it must be precious to you. One thing we know: there is only one God, and no man, be he Red Man or White Man, can be apart. We are brothers after all.”

How wise, and far seeing Chief Seattle was. Without a thought we kill and spoil our  earth.  Thor Heyerdahl, with four others,  in 1947, spanned the Pacific on a raft, and he told how pure the ocean was.  Twenty-five years later he and others sailed the same course, and he told how there never was a foot of ocean that wasn’t fouled with our garbage.  Plastic sacks wherever they looked.  And now we are tossing our discards into Outer Space. The moon carries far more than Armstrong’s footprints, and now we’re beginning on Mars.

We continue to kill Mother Earth. And the fire which we have been told will destroy this earth, will be, it’s speculated, because the ozone layer which we are rapidly destroying  will allow killing rays to bombard us.

And as surely as our Earth is depleted of its virgin forests, clean water, and pure air, and now Space itself, we are creating our own destruction. And it won’t be God’s will, and it won’t be God’s punishment. God has nothing to do with it, for it is something we have done, and continue to do to ourselves.

And just as that wise Chief Seattle , that ‘crazy savage’, told us over 150 years ago, we find ourselves exactly where he told:  The end of living and the beginning of  survival.

Change the words, as I did, to fit yourself

I got out of bed
With strong legs
And an alert mind.
It might have been otherwise.

I ate cereal with fresh yogurt,
Juicy blueberries
And home-grown walnuts
It might have been otherwise.

I drove to the office
And did chores
Others could easily do,
But for now they are mine
And I did them.
It might have been otherwise.

I sat at my window
Seeing fields and mountains that
Generations of Bradfords have also seen.
It might  have been otherwise.

I spoke with and laughed
With Robert in Maine,
Emailed Ken in California
Bob in St. George
Dewey in Santa Monaco
Laurel in Mesa,
And chatted with LaRee
Just across the valley
It might have been otherwise.

I did my nightly yoga
Murmured words of praise,
Slept in a bed in a room
I’ve slept in for sixty-odd years,
And whose walls hold
Beloved paintings and words,
Fully aware that one of these days
It will be otherwise.

(This poem was written by Jane Kenyon.
To reflect MY life, I  have changed
Every single word except the last line Of each verse. )

Read it again and put your own
Actions where I ‘ve put mine.
Made me a bit more aware of
Just who and what I am.
Good luck.

Wait a few years, and you will find them precious!

Sometimes the days, hours or moments we ‘waste’ turn out to be the ones we remember for the rest of our lives.  We think of all the chores we could be doing and feel it’s ‘wrong’ to occasionally do nothing but look, relax and experience the joy of  life itself.

I remember just such a day.  Two small boys were going wild with the joy of the first really warm day of summer and were constantly calling me to, “Oh, Mommy, come and see”.  And smart enough to know that they wouldn’t always want me to ‘Come and See”,  I put aside my dust cloth, broom and cookpot and together the three of us roamed the fields and pasture. A fields not fenced off and the cow-pasture that is now the Mick Riley Golf Course.

I can re-live that day right now.  They showed me certain ‘special’ rocks they found, we peered into  bird nests, watched bees drone in the sun, found tiny hidden flowers and ate our lunch on the warm slope of the hill.

Ah, the chores I left unfinished that day are long ago forgotten and  whatever I fixed for that night’s dinner matters not,  but how the three of us spent that day has become one of my most precious memories. A ‘wasted’ day?  Don’t tell that to any parent who has taken the time to walk, listen and watch while their children still want them ‘to come and see what I’m doing’.

I remember another ‘wasted’ summer day long before that, when my own mother scolded me because she had looked for me and worried when I couldn’t be found.  I was far too young and unknowing to even try to explain, but just the same, I can still see where and how I spent that time. And no matter how many office buildings have been built in  that spot, I still have my memory.

Yes, I can still see the Cherry tree at the head of two rows of Currant Bushes.  The grass grew high (Well, it was high for a four or five year old) between the bushes, and I played the hours away in their seclusion.  The Cherry tree had a pungent odor I still would know, and my cheeks pucker even as I write these words and recall the sweet-tart taste of the ripe currants I stuffed into my mouth.

But how could a child tell her upset mother she was just taking her first real look at God’s world and finding it good?  The truth is, the child didn’t know what she was doing.  Just aware that the day had been satisfying beyond anything she had before known.

I also remember when, as a young bride, I ‘wasted’ a few minutes, made extra work for myself, but found unforgettable beauty.

I had hurried out to bring in the my laundry from the clothes line, as a rain storm was near.  With the frantically gathered linen in my arms I turned to hurry back into the house, when I noticed black billows of clouds tumbling and pouring down the ravines of Mt. Olympus, looking like big billows of black whipped cream being poured from some height, and I stopped in my tracks, dead still, and watched.

The wind whipped my hair and clothes and big rain drops came and wet me and the sheets and towels in my arms, but the violent beauty  of the eastern mountain became etched on my mind.  The work of once more drying the linen is forgotten, but the storm’s beauty is still mine.  ‘Wasted’ time?  You know better.

Oh, it’s easy to scold the young lad who has stopped in the middle of lawn cutting to stand and dream, with the warm sun on his back, and the cool lawn at his feet. But who knows?  He just might be seeing the world in a new way,  and that moment of seeming idleness, a moment he’ll treasure years from now when his whole world has changed, and he’d like nothing more than just to be that  boy again with nothing to do but mow the lawn.  And have dreams.

‘Wasted’ moments????  Ah, these aren’t the wasted ones.  I’ve forgotten forever the many tasks of  cleaning rooms and preparing thousands of meals, but the ‘wasted’ hours I spent amid Mama’s Currant bushes and the day with two little boys at play in the pasture that is also gone forever, will be with me to the end of my days.

If Orrin Hatch’s words were true in 1976, then they are still true in 2012

If you’ve felt buried by political ads now, what’s coming will be worse, but it’s also when we should seriously look at the records of those who seek to be our national voice.

I’m no puritan, but it actually does get down to who is telling the truth and who is not telling the truth.  The two are not copasetic, and truth, you remember, never changes.  Now Romney and his many words are beyond me, too full of ‘what I really meant to say’ and ‘you read me wrong’ but we have absolute records of what Orrin Hatch said as he sought his first Senate Seat, and what he’s saying today.

There is a difference, and if his words were true when he spoke them against his opponent, Frank E. Moss, then those same words must be true today.   I go  back.

Frank E. Moss, his opponent in 1976, was born Jan. 29, 1903, grew up in Holladay, the son of James E. Moss, an educator who was named ‘The father of Utah High school athletics’.  Frank grew up in a home filled with words and actions of law and education.

He graduated magna cum laude (UofU, 1933), and then served FDR at the NRA (National Recovery Administration), and other national federal groups to aid in National Recovery from the Great Depression, and then during WW2, (1942 to ’45), served  with the Army Air Corps in the Judge Advocates General Dept. in European Theatre of Operations.

Not a bad intro to his political life, both local and federal, and in 1958 was elected as Utah Senator against both Arthur Watkins and J. Bracken Lee, each mighty forces in Utah politics.

As Utah’s Senator in Washington, he added more National Parks within Utah; investigated and aided in eliminating  control of abuses to the elderly in Nursing and Retirement homes; Physicians’ abuses of the Medicaid program; and with Senator Church of Idaho sponsored first legislation to provide Federal funds for hospice programs.  That Bill did not pass Congress until 1982, but his ideas held and were included in Medicare benefits.

In his Third Term he sponsored detailed Warning Labels on cigarette packages; banned their advertisements on radio and TV; the Toy Safety Act; and was Chairman of the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences.

He was a hero to people of small towns and rural areas, for, in the beginning, and at first, television station signals were available only (if you can imagine) where there were major marketing areas, namely the highly populated places, with great consumer possibilities. Moss was instrumental in getting funding to make it possible for all small towns and rural areas with ‘few’ consumers, to receive the same TV transmissions.  He and his group helped found the great TV Translator system that provided television to the great rural areas of America.  It was a major battle in Washington, but he won it.
 
It was on his run for his Fourth Term in 1976 that Orrin Hatch opposed him, and Hatch’s strong points were how much Moss had accomplished, how much we owed him, but that he now was too old.  His mind no longer sharp and should be replaced, with thanks, by a younger man.  Himself.

Hatch won.  Now, as Orrin wishes to fill his fourth term, he does not mention age, born Mar. 22. 1934, so is 78 years of age, and 3 years older than Moss was at the same point in his career.  He refuses all requests for live TV debates, and dodges photos and off-the-cuff meetings with local or national press. Rumors in the gossip magazines (they’re not always wrong) tell that Hatch, Botox, and Senility have developed a close relationship.

He should recall his own words, spoken when he fought Moss, and admit that he is 3 years older than Moss then was.  An age he blatantly called too old to be a Senator.  Hatch no doubt also remembers what the live TV debate did to Nixon when he faced the nation against the young John Kennedy.  As they say, ‘he shot  himself in his own foot’.

If  Moss, dedicated and astute, but then 73 years old, was too old, then we’d better remember that Orrin is now 78, and for us to do exactly what he, Hatch, said then.  What do you call a Senator who’s served in office for 18 years? You call him home.”.  Yes, let’s give Orrin thanks for what he has accomplished, and then, (again his words), replace him with a man who is ‘younger, mind quicker, sharper and more in tune with this era of time”.

Orrin Hatch’s words were either true then, or true now.  He can’t have it both ways. One or the other is untrue.

If any of this rings true with you, please pass this along to others you know.

The mountains and the valleys of joy . . .

Thank heavens for the little joys of life.  Yes, we all have epiphanies when our world suddenly turns up-side down, but those moments are few and far between. And you say yours come often?  Come on, don’t kid me, for most of our lives are spent on ground level and life would be dull if it weren’t for the bright moments that I call God’s Little Extras. 

Little joys, coming often and lifting us over many a weary time.

It’s awesome that we have our Peaks but we shouldn’t underestimate the small joys that are mole-hills compared to the Mountains, but just the same, fill us with joy.  How about the unexpected shared laughter with some stranger, along with the unplanned meeting of your eyes, and for that moment, you are not strangers?  A letter from a dear one.  Crisp clean curtains framing shiny clean windows.   New fallen snow untouched by foot step, shovel, or plow. A smiling child running to you with open arms.

Oh, begin recalling your own, but I go on.  Seeing trees you planted, now stately, tall, and sheltering your home as you long ago dreamed they would.  And for the moment you’re one again with the loved one who helped you plant them.

Watching the moon cast its silver spell over a familiar landscape and recalling watching the same magic with a loved one who is no longer with you.  But the two of you saw that magic, while standing right in the very same spot where you stand. Tears come, but so does joy.

Sitting at the dinner table and suddenly really seeing each one and realizing how blessed a moment it is. A commonplace rite, but something to savor and treasure when they’re older with their own lives, and then bring their precious wives or husbands  with them, and added joy, the beloved grandchildren who follow.  All at your table, and the  decades of changes pass before you like a TV show, and you feel that loved ones who have died, are also with you again.

Life’s Little Extras.  Casually staying at the table long after the food is gone, listening to good talk tossed back and forth, and you see deeper into their lives than a million questions would reveal.  They open a door to their lives, and you know it’s a favor given, not a right to demand.  God’s Little Extra?  Yes, and to be remembered forever.

The joy, when, after short friendly chat with a stranger at the local coffee shop while waiting for your de-caf to get made, and when you get to the Pay Counter, find that he also paid for yours.

There are times when the world is dark and you think happiness will never again be yours.  But then, one day your eyes are opened and for the moment really see that the sun still rises and sets, and you, no longer ‘blinded’ by routine, as we sometimes are, again  really see it.  God’s Little Extras that pull us over the deep chasms that illness, distance, death, or divorce can bring to our lives.

You see that children still run to you.  That shared laughter is still precious, and letters, email and calls from loved ones still arrive and bring an inner rush of joy.  And you’re surprised to see that, as you age, new friends, new relationships, new ideas, new hobbies come, and each bring new joy to you. 

Thought God had forgotten you?  Well, don’t try to tell me such nonsense, for just as the Mountain Peaks are God’s Gifts, so are His Little Extras that shower us, but so often don’t even look for much less, really see.

For me, keeping my eyes and heart open for those Extras, makes such a difference.  Remembering that as we change, our Mountains also change, and just as we ‘know’ there are no more high Peaks for us, we glance up and there, dropping right into our lap, eyes and heart, we shiver as we experience another Mountain.  And large or small, they are all God’s gifts.  Just for me, and for you.

     Don’t Know What It is, But It Sure Works

        ESP is so commonplace that we don’t blink an eye about it, that is, until it happens to us. No one knows exactly what it means, except we all have those otherwise unexplainable happenings.
        We know it’s Extra Sensory Perception, the Sixth Sense, but it’s different from the other five, Taste, Hearing, Smell, Touch, Sight, and no explanation is needed.  But ESP?  Well, it’s been called Gut Instinct, Third Eye, Hunch, Telepathy, Clairvoyance, Precognition and ad infinitum, but that still doesn’t tell us what it is.
        However, when it hits, we need no explaining.  One time I answered my phone and it was Margaret, who lived in Seattle.  Our acquaintance was so casual that, though we talked for four or five  minutes I wondered why she’d called, but as she was getting ready to say goodbye, she asked if I knew where Florence could be reached.
        “No,” I answered, “I haven’t seen or heard from her for over a year.”  And she said, “Well, take down my phone number and address and if you happen to see her, tell her to give me a call.”
        Now, hearing from Florence was so unlikely that I almost didn’t write down the information, but I carelessly scribbled  it, while at the same time thinking the paper would be garbaged by the next day.
        However, before I even moved from the phone, it rang again, and I silently debated whether or not to answer it, but I did.
        Yes, and you have already guessed that, of all people, it was Florence.  She, too, had no real reason to call me, and it amazed us both when I told her what had just happened and she said, “Yes, I do need to talk to Margaret and had no idea how to do it, but, really, Ethel, I wasn’t thinking of her when I called you.”
        In a daze I sat there and felt as if I had been used by someone or something.  That I had been nothing but a Tool.  Because, with no conscious thought or even desire on my part, I had been the connecting link between two people who needed to reach each other and didn’t know how.  It has remains one of those things that puzzle me to  this day.
        Another ESP ‘thing’ that comes to me occasionally is one I’m ambivalent about, for I certainly didn’t ask for it.  It is the ‘knowing’ when someone is going to die.  It doesn’t happen all the time, and sometimes when someone close to me unexpectedly dies, I wonder why hadn’t I been ‘told’, but usually it’s just a casual acquaintance, and not a close friend. Don’t ask me why, but, just the same, it happens.
        I just ‘know’,  and over and over have been right.  I don’t speak of it for it isn’t what you’d call desired information.  But one does need to talk to someone about those oddities of the mind, and La Ree Pierson (remember her?) was a godsend to me, for she too, sensed uncanny things, and neither of us considered the other ‘funny’.
        ESP is hard to prove, that is, if it needs proving.  It isn’t scientific, but far, far more than that, and don’t ask me to tell you ‘how’, because I can’t.  I only know that it is.
        The stomach can be laid out, measured and proven.  The brain, too, can be weighed for size, heft and dissected, as can the heart, lungs, kidneys and on and on.  But the Mind?  It uses the Brain, but it is not the brain.  So vital to each moment of our day, and so vital that, no matter how good a body, or how much money one has, without the Mind we are just a body, nothing more. 
        Traveling the inward pathway to the Mind is the longest journey we’ll ever take, and who is to say what the ultimate goal will be when we get there, or where that ‘where’ will be.
        ESP?  You have it, I have it.  It uses me and it uses you and if you ever find out what ‘it’ is, tell me.  But in the meantime and whatever it is, isn’t it great?????

Socrates, Zen, Sufi, or Just Plain Ham . . .

Ham Radio Operators are members of a unique group.  Whether they operate by Morse Code (no longer a requirement), phone, or digital, they share an almost mystical companionship, and it doesn’t matter if they live just around the corner or in Timbuktu, the relationships hold.

AW (my husband) was a Ham and for several years after his sudden death I received QSL cards from around the world as other Hams heard of his death and wanted to tell me they cared.  Nice people.

It pleases me that one of my sons, WR, is also a Ham. It is a little known hobby, but before the Internet, when a large disaster occurred, it was the Hams who provided news and lifelines.

Usually they just gab back and forth, chinning away, but odd bits of stuff are often sent over the air waves. Today’s words come from, Mike of New Mexico.  My son, K7EA shared them with me, and because I like them I pass them  along to you.

RULES FOR BEING A HUMAN BEING

1. You will receive a body.  You may or may not like that body, but it will be yours for the entire period of this time round.

2. You  will learn lessons.  You are automatically enrolled in a full-time school called Life, and have the opportunity to learn those daily lessons.  You may like them or think them irrelevant and stupid  It doesn’t matter, they’re yours.

3.There are no mistakes or accidents.  Only lessons.  Growth is a process of trial, error and experience. The ‘failed’ experiments are as much a part of the process as the one that ‘work’.

4. A lesson is repeated over and over until it’s learned.  It will be presented in many forms until you have learned it, and only when you have learned it, will the next lesson arrive.

5. Learning never ends. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons, and if you’re alive, there are still lessons you need to learn.

6. ‘There’ and ‘When’ are no better than ‘Here’ and ‘Now’.  When your ‘there’ has become ‘here’, and your ‘when; is ‘now’, you will simply obtain another ‘there’ and ‘when’ which will, again look better than ‘here’ and ‘now’.

7. Other people in your life are merely mirrors of you.  You cannot love or hate something about another unless it reflects something you either love or hate within yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you.  You have all the tools and resources you need, however what you do with them is your choice, and no person or circumstance can change that.

9. All your answers lie right inside you.  Yes, the solutions to all life, are inside you, and all you need do is look, listen and trust.

10. You will forget all this.  No matter how often you read this, no matter how deeply you believe it, or how often you promise yourself to never forget even one part of it, within one minute, you will.  Oh, yes, you will.  But then you will remember again.

This page was signed Anonymous, but it has all the wisdom of Socrates, or some Zen or Sufi teacher.  I love it all, but even if only one small part speaks to you, love that part.  For actually, it’s wisdom of the ages, presented in words for our time.  Hope The Teacher gives you an A in every one of the lessons. I still struggle.