M O M E N T S
In so many different ways we can literally live a lifetime in
JUST A MOMENT
and sometimes it can be really tasty. . .
When I had some time in between two graveside services
I ducked into a middle-of-the-day-busy bakery
and yes,
ON PURPOSE
I took this
JUST A MOMENT Video
knowing full well that it would be difficult
if not next to impossible to HEAR my commentary
but so very easy to
SEE
to
FEEL A TASTY MOMENT OF LIVING
hopefully so much so
that it more than tempts you to go out
JUST FOR A MOMENT
to have a slice of tasty living yourself. . .
GO AHEAD
it’s not a morning or an afternoon or a whole day
IT’S JUST A MOMENT
STEP UP
TAKE A NUMBER
ENJOY
J U S T
A
M O M E N T
JUST A MOMENT: STUMPED
It’s what we do the most, isn’t it:
JUST TO TAKE THINGS FOR FACE VALUE
without taking the time to
TAKE A LOOK. . .
Let’s face it, there’s so much more below our surface, under our skin than folks or even ourselves ever can see let alone look at. . BUT:
JUST A MOMENT: the next time you feel cut off at the knees or when you literally feel chopped up what’s left behind is so much NOT what REMAINS
Be a help-self Caring Catalyst enough to
dig a little deeper; not far below the surface at the root of things there’s still much that’s alive, that’s taking in nourishment and may not sprout in the ways that it once did (which may be the good news) but now ready to continue to grow that the surface won’t reveal but the at the root of it,
STILL VERY MUCH IS ALIVE
The next time you feel
S T U M P E D
you’re far from it
D I G
just a little deeper
a little longer
a little more lovingly
YOU ARE MORE
(so very much more)
MAPPING OUT A LIFE IN WORDS
READING A MAP
Maybe it’s a long forgotten art now that we have GPS systems and WAZE and GOOGLE MAPS but at times we don’t know our up from a down or a left from a right because. . .we’ve lost our direction. . .
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN
. . .this sense of DIRECTLESSNESS
so when I recently read a post from Neale Donald Walsch, his words rang my chimes in a way that I needed D I R E C T E D
“you cannot help another who will not
help him- or herself.
In the end, all souls must walk their path — and the
reason they are walking a particular path may not be
clear to us…or even to them at the level of ordinary
human consciousness.
Do what you can to help others, of course. Show
love and caring whenever and wherever you can.
But do not get caught up in someone else’s “story”
to the point where you start writing it.
Know what I mean?”
and as usual
Master RUMI
doesn’t disappoint:
PRAYER FOR CHANGE
I prayed for change,
so I changed my mind.
I prayed for guidance
and learned to trust myself.
I prayed for happiness
and realized I am not my ego.
I prayed for peace
and learned to accept others unconditionally.
I prayed for abundance
and realized my doubt kept it out.
I prayed for wealth
and realized it is my health.
I prayed for a miracle
and realized I am the miracle.
I prayed for a soul mate
and realized I am the One.
I prayed for love
and realized it is always knocking,
but I have to allow it in.
~ Rumi♡
Psssssssssssssssssssssssst:
The Pen in your hand
is for writing your story
and not Another’s
but at best
there’s a glorious collaboration
that forever sees our stories
telling each other’s
We travel on
in each other’s words
as they tell the stories
we are ever writing. . .
JUST A MOMENT: I F (I maginary F riends)
We took our seven-year-old granddaughter, Evey to see the movie that John Krasinski and Ryan Reynolds were in called IF (Imaginary Friends)
A great movie that just doesn’t pull back the curtain on what I don’t want you to see, it rips it from their rod so that I could really see, feel, experience what I’ve never really lost or even forgotten so much as embarrassingly remember, and now kind of horrifyingly admit: I’VE GOT THEM; Yes. . . I’ve got THEM; not so much imaginary friends, IF’S, but things that bring me exceedingly comfort, peace, happiness, contentment and unconditional love
Oh, that’s right and the real fun began afterwards when we went back to their house and grandma helped plant flowers while Evey assisted and every time she took up a worm or yes, even a grub, she talk to it, named them, treated it is if they were her new best friends. Before playing in a bucket of mud (of which I don’t think her mom especially liked)
reveling in joy and hopefully never forgetting what I have most often:
YOU ARE ALWAYS A KID!
E N J O Y
HAVE FUN
DON’T EVER STOP
Now. . .about that Emotional Support Pile of Books. . .
FIDDLE FARTING AROUND
I know, I know, it almost sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher, here, blah blah, blah blah blah, and I really do wish it was more of Kurt and less of the commentator. However, the quotes are real. The lessons are true, especially since they are so very, very simple, and I also include my own poem, which was somewhat inspired by Kurt a long time ago when I was so fortunate and grateful enough by taking a cold wintry afternoon off in January fiddle farting around to go see him down at Severance Hall. Case Western Reserve University put on a symposium that featured Mr. Vonnegut giving a lecture. They put me down in the second row so when they filmed it, it looked like it was a full audience. CLASSIC STUFFS that I’ll forever cherish, even all the way back then as I scribbled down these lines on an old left over orchestra program.
FIDDLE FARTING
Don’t fiddle fart around
they all said
grandparents, parents, teachers, friends
because it’ll all lead to NOTHING
they all said
Now your words won’t come out
and your thoughts won’t go away
as you lay in a hospice bed
where other Fiddle Farters have died
Your memories rattle much louder
than your wheezing-can’t-take-in-any-more-air-lungs
knowing that fiddle farting around
was much more than a NOTHING
and a flavorable dash more of SOMETHING
that’ll have you dying wishing
for a lot more of EVERYTHING
Thanks again, Kurt for an awesome fiddle farting afternoon and now, a lifetime of ongoing lessons, especially seeing the miraculous in the mundane. . .
JUST A MOMENT: UNLEARNING TO LEARN
What are some of the lessons that you learned, were taught, or even punished for not learning fast enough when you were a kid?
Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson to learn it in a new way that would benefit your life?
It’s not that we were taught things to harm us. We were always taught lessons to protect us from the world and yes, sometimes from ourselves.
Come on we, don’t wait for the rain so that we could go outside and play or barbecue or lay out. We don’t dance in mud puddles in our bare feet or worse, our brand new shoes. We know better because we were taught better and maybe, maybe we need to know a little bit more. Go ahead, take a walk in the rain, stomp in a mud puddle, even with people watching. Who knows, who knows, the exhilaration that kids have could just be what’s worth feeling for us, too.
S P L A S H
O N
FROM THE SOUL TO THE THROAT TO THE PAGE
Photo by Hannah Wright on Unsplash
My emptinesshas a fullnessthat is hard to carryIt’s a thick sludge in my veinsthat refuses to pumpthrough my soul’s heartwhile it oxygenates the darkestparts of me I wish dead
Consider these words from Richard Rohr, excerpted from his meditation on “The Sacred in the Concrete”:
Robert Frost said, “A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a home-sickness or a love-sickness.”¹ If a poem doesn’t give us a lump in the throat, is it really great poetry? My final theological conclusion is that there’s only one world and that it’s all sacred. However, we have to be prepared to know what we’re saying when we say that. If we say too glibly that the trees are sacred, along with our dog, a friend, and the roses, then we don’t really believe it. We first need to experience “a lump in the throat” to have encountered the sacred. The sacred is something that inspires awe and wonder, something that makes us cry, something that gives us the lump in the throat. We must first encounter the sacred in the concrete and kneel before it there, because we can’t start with the universal.
Poets . . . make the connection between the concrete and the universal. When we make that connection, there’s suddenly a great leap of meaning, an understanding that it’s one world. The very word “metaphor,” which comes from two Greek words, means to “carry across.” A good metaphor carries us across, and we don’t even know how it’s occurred.
. . . If we’re reading a poem too quickly, between two urgent meetings or other hurried spaces, we probably won’t get it, because we don’t have time to release ourselves. We need quiet, solitude, and open space to read poetry at greater depth. Then and only then do poems work their magic.
(My thanks to Fr. Richard Rohr, via the Center for Action and Contemplation
Robert Frost, “Some Definitions,” in Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays (New York: Library of America, 1995), 701.
It’s not that the Sun doesn’t gloriously melt through the clouds so much as we just don’t take time to NOTICE; which kind of means that the worst poem of all isn’t the one not yet written, just the one not recognized or read. . .p o n d e r e d
JUST A MOMENT: BEING IN PLACE
It’s one of the universal first lessons we’ve ever learned, and we learned it at a small age: IF YOU USE IT, PUT IT BACK! We all know there were consequences for not putting things back where we found them; maybe the lesson is there for us to learn again, especially when we feel like we literally have lost our place, where there’s no one that can find us, or maybe we’re hiding in such a spot where we don’t want to be found?
And then there’s the new mandate today of STAY IN YOUR LANE, which is a nice way to say, KNOW YOUR PLACE! But it’s true, if we just stayed in our places 100% of the time and we’re good little soldiers, new worlds as well as new adventures would never be had because sometimes the greatest thing we can ever do is being in the wrong place at the right time for somebody else.
Hey, JUST A MOMENT–notice where you’re at, where you want to be and who you’re there for in the place that you are right now. And when you’re not being utilized, put yourself safely away so that you could be available for the very next time!
FIND YOUR WAY TO BE WHERE YOU’RE NEEDED
WHEN YOU’RE NEEDED. . .
(even when it feels OUT OF PLACE)
DEEP PEACE
While in office one Christmas, President Reagan was asked what he wanted for Christmas and he stated without pause, “PEACE!” The reporter followed up with the question, what would you like for Christmas that comes in a box and again, without pause, President Reagan said, “If you can wrap it up in a box, I’ll take it!”
AND YOU. . .
What would you like, not so much for Christmas, but NOW. . .wrapped in a box of unbundantly untethered? WHAT DO YOU WANT?
“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you can hope for. The most you can do is live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides”
Barbara Kingsolver
Photography B. Berenika
Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
Whatever brings you
P E A C E
DO
I T
And then
let the warm rays of your
DEEP
P E A C E
shine about to others
T H I S. . .
EVEN HORIZONS HAVE HORIZONS
Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
Even our HORIZONS have HORIZONS
and that is the
GOOD NEWS
Now even though we shouldn’t have an eye to the
F U T U R E
what we often focus on in the
W H E N
a n d
T H E N
fuzzies up our
N O W ‘ S
making it much more tougher than it should
to not only reach our HORIZON
but all the ones that follow. . .
Glance behind
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com
LOOK AHEAD
But focus on your precious NOW
and just the very next step
and above all
R E M E M B E R
just because your
H O R I Z O N
may be hazy
doesn’t mean it isn’t
T H E R E. . .
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