Ends of time

I have been aware of periods in my life when opportunities to do things, or be things are passing me by. Parenthood, something I have no strong feeling about except that it be done lovingly and mindfully is all but gone from my life's horizon. Many career choices are passed now, too.

Physically, time has put limits on me, too. I don't think I will ever pursue downhill skiing and I expect I only have--maybe--ten years left to do cross country skiing. I am done with distance running but I still love climbing the mountain overlooking our valley, and hiking. Becoming a serious writer, blocked my who life by a combination of laziness and intimidation, is still out there with the same obstacles as always. I have gone past mastery of many things.

Two types of snow shovelers

There are two types of snow shovelers. The ones who get up in the morning, or go out late at night as the snow falls, or has just stopped falling, and clear their walks, edge to edge, down to concrete.
And then there is everyone else.

"Edge to edge, down to concrete" was my father's standard. More often than I care to remember on a dark snowy morning I was awakened from teen-age slumber by him to get dressed, bundled up and sent out into the Montana winter to shovel the walks in front of our house and the walks of the church, a handsome building righteously occupying a corner lot. I would have rather slept warmly.

Today, I fiercely follow my fathers snow shoveling standard. A cleared walk in winter is a commitment to participate in both neighborhood and civilization. It is a fundamental way we take care of one another. It is how we say, "I know the going is tough through all this snow and ice, but here, where I live, I want you to have a clear, dry surface to ease your way." I have many failings but uncleared walks is not one of them.

Who or What Are You?

At times, especially during the high arc of election cycles, we are prompted by others to identify ourselves--are you a Republican or a Democrat? Conservative or Liberal? Tea Party or Person-trying-to-take-away-my-government-by-trying-to-do-something-about-the-nation's-problems? It is part of the explaining the world thing--if we think we can categorize others, we can cope with them, avoid offending them, anticipate them, understand them, control them. We can use labels to diminish, simplify, judge, demonize and destroy.

In lesser ways, we do this, too. What do you do for a living? Is this your boyfriend/girlfriend,husband/wife? What church do you go to? Did you go to college? These are all ways we attempt to gather information which allows us to categorize others.

That is probably the second best way to learn about someone. Instead of "what" why don't we ask the more pertinent question: Who are you? After all, isn't that what we want to know?

I can see asking the Who rather than the What creating difficulty in our social exchanges. We are so conditioned to guard our information, color impressions, etc. in order for the answer to the What question to help us, or at least not hurt us. Giving useful, honest answers to the Who question takes some thought and some practice, but I bet it would help us get along a little bit better.

Who are you?

Person to Person

There are two kinds of persons in the United States. The first kind, the biological kind, are born, have DNA, are able to feel pain and a huge range of emotions, think, decide, believe, vote, create, procreate and die. The second kind are creations of the first kind. Not a messy procreation like birth or in a laboratory like the Frankenstein monster, but something that occurs on paper and in documents filed with government officials. The second kind of person can acquire and own stuff, can sell stuff, and can promote stuff, laws and political candidates. It can even live forever. It can act in its interest and the interest of its stockholders [sort of--as if every stockholder's interest could be known to and accounted for in the decisions which are made], and a host of other things. It cannot do the things the first kind of person does unless one of the first kind of persons acts a an agent to do them. The second kind of person is a corporation. Who, other than the U.S. Supreme Court feels these two persons are the same thing deserving the same kind of protections, duties and obligations?

I get that corporations have some useful role in our society but they are created to do something that individuals or groups cannot do. Therefore, they are different. Pretty plain to see that distinction.

hup, trup, tree, fo'

Moving your body on the 1 and 3 are comfortable and familiar. Just watch white guys dance--that's where their comfort zone is widest. It's like marching--left foot on the 1 and 3. That said, if you can get to the 2 and 4, it's something altogether different. Something that moves the hips a little differently, something a little dirtier about the dancing.

I'm no dancer--I lost my dancing mojo one very tall girlfriend ago. She was a true athlete and everything physical with her was better. On the 2 and 4. Oh, yeah.

It's in a circle, though...

Is the yin a tear of joy and the yang a tear of sorrow, or is it the other way around?

Believe it or Not

I am struck by the range of belief that exists among believers--especially those who say they are "spiritual but not religious." Some believe the Bible or other so-called sacred texts are literally true. Some say they are figuratively true, or true in some sense, but not others. Some believe God is a Father who is jealous, loving, and Who needs to be prayed to. Others say that image isn't complete enough to describe God.

In any event, there seems to be a tent of belief of varying sizes that believers may or may not fit under depending who is judging whom. Evangelicals around the tent pole, but Catholics don't fit under it to them. Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians--not quite in or out for the Church of Rome. Mormons, Christian Scientists--definitely out for the main streamers, although they seem to be in to themselves. Quakers, anyone? Other religions or belief systems are no different. Why else would there be Orthodox, Conservative and Reformed Jews, to say nothing of the "Jews for Jesus" believers? Don't even get started on Sunni, Shi-ia, and Wahabi belief systems among the Muslims--and what about Black Muslims?

They may tolerate one another and even live as peaceful neighbors, but among believers of any stripe, there is something fundamentally flawed with those whose belief systems are at variance with their own; they are simply wrong and bound for some sort of hell anyway.

Most of the accounts used to form religious belief systems were written before we had any true sense of biology, neuroscience, cosmology, physics, etc. In light of our more complete understanding of the world and the Universe, would anyone write the Bible or religious text, or come up with a prophetic system about life and the afterlife today like the authors wrote thousands of years ago? If someone wrote such a text that flew in the face of what even a fourth grader knows to be true, who would believe it? Who would use belief in it as a litmus test for another's relative virtue, let alone worth?

Most of us will agree that if conscience is to mean anything, belief cannot be compelled. Compliance or agreement can be tortured, argued or deceived out of someone else, but if they don't really believe, they don't really believe. How many true believers would rather break bread with someone who lies and confesses a similar belief than be a loving neighbor to someone who honestly and in good conscience simply does not believe like they do? Where does that leave someone who believes in neither the miraculous or the supernatural?

We're All Dubious Idiots Blowing Here

"Now everything’s a little upside down,
as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped
What’s good is bad,
what’s bad is good,
you’ll find out when you reach the top
You’re on the bottom."

So sez Bob Dylan.

Like most of you

I am both smarter and dumber than I seem.

Lao Tzu

"The sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees. He lets go of that and chooses this."

Dubious Dylan

"I'm in love with a woman who don't even appeal to me." That's from Dylan's Grammy winning hit "Things Have Changed." Like a lot of Dylan's more subtle stuff, when I first heard that, I didn't get it. It seemed so simple and, yet, so impossible. Now, it seems so impossible and, yet, so simple. There you go.

Squash-ade???

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. OK, I get that. What do you do when life gives you zucchini squash? Lots of it?

Two kinds of fetching dogs

One kind runs after the ball and brings it back in doggy hope you will throw it again. The other kind runs after the ball and keeps it in doggy fear you will throw the ball again. Which would you rather throw for? Think carefully...

There are two kinds of settled personalities

Those who have figured out that none of it matters, and those who have figured out precisely what matters.

The Dualism from Calvin and Hobbes

Hobbes: Whatcha doin'?
Calvin: Looking for frogs.
Hobbes: How come?
Calvin: I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul.
Hobbes: Ah, but of course.
Calvin: My mandate also includes weird bugs.

There are two kinds of people...those who obey the inscrutable exhortations of their souls and those who do not.

And there is not nearly enough reference to Calvin and Hobbes.

There are two kinds of pained people

Those who suffer from clinical depression and those who have suffered a loss that comes from being human--a love, a relative, a job, a personal belonging. The first needs a shrink and the second needs to grieve. In the second person, the loss must be felt, must be plumbed, put in perspective, and ultimately the grace must be found to accept it. Absent that, the second person can become the first.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128874986

There are two kinds of friends

Those who will help you pack up your home and move to a new place, and those who won't. (The really good ones will stick around and help with the cleaning.).

There are two kinds of people...

Those who play to win, and those who play for the love of the game.

There are two kinds of people...

those who leave a love for more, and those who leave for better.

There are two kinds of people...

those who have enjoyed the transitions of Bob Dylan's voice over 50 years of making music, and those who haven't.

There are two kinds of people...

those who use screwdrivers as chisels, and those who don't.