Observations that dive deep into life and come up with treasures for all

Puja, our cat, came yowling into the foyer outside the bride’s dressing room, where Saturday’s bride was about ready to come out. Hanging from the corner of Puja’s mouth was a tail and I knew what was about to happen. Puja is a great mouse catcher, but she can’t close the deal. Rather than go crunch she opens her mouth and lets the mouse run for its life, only to let it get about two feet before she pounces and recaptures the hapless being in her jaws. This can go on untl either the mouse finally gets away or dies of exhaustion. But this was going to be no ordinary cat and mouse game. What would my bride do if she saw a mouse running for safety under her dress?

I didn’t want to find out. A bride is no ordinary woman. At home she might run down a mouse with a shovel; but with a mouse heading for her bridal gown and train where a mouse could get lost until the wedding, she was an unknown. Anything could happen. But my imagination didn’t have time to play. I could hear the bride coming. Fortunately, for both me and the bride, the mouse and cat were resting for a moment, each waiting for the other to move, when I hit the mouse with a dustpan. That ended it. Now I would never know what a bride and a mouse would do in a narrow foyer full of pictures and flower vases.

But the saga didn’t end there. The bride came out and I laughingly told her about her almost close encounter. She thought it was funny and said she wasn’t afraid of mice. Anyway, during her session Puja came out with three more mice, but these were already dead and defused of any potential for disaster. Apparently, Puja had learned how to checkmate and take all the fun out of the cat and mouse game.

Posted under General Observations, weddings

I was going to send the following piece to the Letter to the Editor in our local paper, but then had second thoughst, thanks to my daughter’s insightful observation. “You don’t crap where you live, Dad.” So I thought mybe my blog was the perfect place for this…

A Perfect Match

For as long as there has been science (we’ll start with the Greeks) and as long as there has been a Bible (we’ll start with the Hebrews) there has been a fight going on between reason and faith. And here we go again in the “thought provoking” age of today. Our media, or shall we say our cultural mind, has decided, like a fight promoter, that it’s a good time for a rematch of an oldie but goodie: Evolution vs Creative Design, which used to be billed as Creationism.

This would be a very entertaining contest if so many people didn’t take the bout so seriously. This has become a blood sport. So as a side line sitter who just walked into the arena, what is this fight all about? I’m sure you would like to know as much as I do. Can’t these two contenders live together, I wonder? Maybe we can just declare a draw and go home. Lets look.

Well, to start simple, we know from watching fighters that a fight is all about domination. And what is domination all about? One needs to dominate when you don’t feel safe in anothe’s presence. Have you noticed that the fight between Creative Design and Evolution is one between an aggressor and a defender. The scientists didn’t go into the church to put Darwin in the Bible. So why can’t both sides stay in their own classroom. The sign above each door saying enroll for Reason here, enroll for Faith here. Same school, two classrooms. Both trying to teach the truth.

Well, how can there be two truths, one might ask. As easy as there are two side to the same coin. Our minds are made up of these two sides. The cultural fight is really a movie from the projection booth inside out heads. We are really watching the film called “Fact vs Belief”. This is where we all live. We see facts and our belief (which comes from our conditioning) tells us what the facts mean. Nobody disputes the facts, its the meaning of the facts that creates the billing for this fight. In fact, that’s the cause of every fight. Two different conclusions about the same facts.

The only way out of this fight is to get out of the ring and get a side seat. Don’t bet on either fighter, just watch. From that seat one could conclude that there is a confusion over territory here. Science claims the territory of historical time. Such and such happened and here are the causes. Religion claims the territory of eternity. Such and such happened and here is how you get there.

It seems time is the dividing factor. Now religion will be the first to say that eternity is not in time, rather time is in eternity. So eternity is right now and always will be and always was. So God must not be back in time as a distant creator, like a cabinet maker, but sitting here now watching the bout.

He is probably a little miffed that people don’t appreciate the wonderful scheme he created where life could evolve on its own merits without Him having to intervene with magic tricks. That guy named Darwin discovered that trick, God must think (but I don’t think God thinks). But, of course, he didn’t get the whole story, God might think again. Thank God, (God might smile at this thought) religion is there to remember Me. But wait, God might say holding up His finger (as if God had a finger), I don’t want people to remember Me, I want them to know Me as I am now in this eternal moment, not in the past because I don’t live there. If only these people would look past the fight of natural selection, they would come upon the goal in My evolutionary plan…. Me. If anybody asked Me, God goes on, trying not to show His wounded pride (as if God could have pride) both sides only have half the truth, and no one will ever know the whole truth as long as they think they know it. God smiles to Himself here (as if He had a self), this is the final link in My evolutional plan for man. In order to evolve past this natural selection part, man has to stop thinking about himself and stop fighting over who is right. Here God breaks out laughing (as if God could laugh) because He remembers a TV show which said, “The truth is out there..” I should have written that “The truth is in there,” He thinks to Himself.

But, unfortunately, God might think sadly (as if God could be sad), no one notices Me here in the audience watching this bout. Perhaps these people haven’t evolved enough.

Writer’s note: This piece is not intended to praise or blame either side in this bout but merely to throw some water on a very heated battle. We all need to cool off because it is impossible to hear reason with the fight bell clanging.

Posted under General Observations

If I had one wish that would remove whatever I wanted from my life, it would be ASSUMPTIONS. Assumptions get me in more trouble. I assume I am not alone with this difficulty. Whenever I make a mistake I always find myself saying: “Oh, I assumed such and such.” If the world were a clear sky, an assumption would be a cloud. If the world were a light bulb, an assumtion would be a shade. If the world were a still pond, an assumption would be a ripple. I assume you are following me in this.

But, on second thought, if there were no assumptions, there would be no discovery. It is always behind our assumptions that our great finds are found. And without assumptions, there would be no self knowledge, because it is the cover of assumptions that that make us miss our natural selves.

So maybe I should be careful about what I wish for. I just assumed that assumptions are all bad.

Posted under General Observations

A mother brought her two year old daughter for a outside portrait yesterday. “I want something with flowers, grass, and barefeet,” she said, even though I reminded her that it was fall and there were few flowers. Seeing that she was determined, I suggested that we could use some potted plants on my porch to fill in what nature had abandoned. After a few tours of my backyard we found a spot that seemed perfect for what she wanted. But it wasn’t until this morning that I realized what she was truly after.

The number two would never come again in her daughter’s life, and in hers, for that matter. Now this number two for a child is the last time of innocence before the ego grows and separates the child from the mother. Two is the fresh spring flower of a child when everything is full of fragrance and love has the color of fresh roses. For a florist, and this is what her mother does, flowers are fresh for only a few days, then the wilt of time makes the petals wrinkles and droop. It is the business of a florist to have fresh flowers. And it is the business of a mother to recognize and appreciate the beauty of childhood and let it bloom uncut during its alloted time.

And, a photograph of that flower would be good too, something like a florist’s cool box..a place to keep , to love and to remember this last flower of summer.

Posted under General Observations

Puja ( our cat) caught a mouse last night and left it at the foot of the stairs. We know because her painful yeowl rolled through our sleeping house like something from the jungle night, and because I stepped on it in the morning. Now I know why cats catch mice, but why do they have to bring it to you with this painful cry. For a cat, killing a mouse must be as good as sex because the cry sounds about the same.

My wife said she was proud of her kill and wanted us to praise her. But that is giving our human ego to an animal who doesn’t have one and doesn’t want one. (We keep trying to give these egos away.) Since animals have behavior programed through evolution, there must be some natural reason for this behavior that doesn’t include humans, since we weren’t part or their original program.

Maybe cats bring their kill back to their lair and cry to let everyone know that the hunt was successful. (Heck, we humans do that.) So in Puja’s world she was just inviting us to dinner. And being a vegetarian herself, she just politely drops it untouched at our feet.

Posted under General Observations

The bride came to Southside Virginia to raise her daughter, met the groom, and yesterday they were married, or in the way of analogy, joined the crew of the good ship Joyner. The ship was launced 45 years ago when the John and Lillie cracked the champaign bottle and the attending crowd cheered and gave them a hearty bon voyage.

Over the years nine crew members were added and each of them brought new crew members on board. No one is sure where the ship is headed, but it is always into the sunset on a clear calm sea. No matter what stormy seas it encounters the crew works together to keep the ship afloat. You can always hear laughter from the decks, and occasionally someone gets tossed overboard, but always with a rope to pull them back on board.

As crew members leave the ship new captains and executive officers are commissioned, but always there will be laughter in its wake as the ship’s lights disappear into the night. My wife and I enjoyed being their ship’s photographers while they were in this port.

Posted under General Observations, weddings

After meditation in the morning, my wife and I have tea, and this morning because it was raining and too cold on the deck, we sat in the living room and watched the cat watch us. Out came the feather mouse on a tether and the game was on. Feather mouse would fly across the rug and cat would watch and wait with eyes and whole being focused, a spring coiled in perfect readiness. Her body would poise for the leap with only her tail moving, maybe to leak the excess anticipation. Then the release, claws and mouth open, the clutch, a few rips with the hind feet, then relaxaton as the mouse feather struggled in the claw trap. After the catch there was almost indifference to the mouse feather. Eyes would drop shut, maybe a lick at the fur, all the while the mouse feather would pull to get free from her extended claw.

In this hunt and kill on our living room floor, I didn’t have to watch a nature show to see the whole species of cat in this one kitty. Size or place didn’t matter, in her eyes was the tiger, in her attention on the prey was the lion. When she focused, thoughtlessly, silently, without a whisp of distraction, that mouse feather didn’t have a chance. She and the mouse feather were one. It moved, she moved, it was still, she was still, no separation, no distance between the two.

In this way a cat is like meditation. Ever watch a cat walk through a talk filled room? By really focusing on the cat, watching intently, almost hearing each paw touch the floor just so ever carefully, feeling the floor through the paw, there is only the cat moving through the room. All the talk fades, all the noise dissolves.

Cats know how to meditate….Maybe kitty will be my guru.

Posted under General Observations, meditation help

This was a letter I wrote to the local newspaper. I don’t have anything else to say today so I thought I would share this.

Watching the news for me has from childhood been like going to church. In the evening everything stopped at we gathered around the altar of one of the major networks. As news was ministered to us, we felt like good citizens.

After 911, CNN was on in my office all day. You can never tell when another plane might crash or a war might start. I was in the “news church” all day. This addiction to the news continued until this year, when like a ripe walnut falling from the tree, the whole thing just dropped off. I stopped watching the news cold turkey. No effort. No regrets.

Now I can look back and reflect as to what brought about this withdrawal. Here is what I have discovered, now that I am out of the “news cycle”. First, the news has evolved through television from a platform for objective facts and observations to a stage for cock fights. By giving equal time to both fighters in the ring of politics, the news has deluded itself into thinking it is objective, where in reality it has given up its power of detached observation for the monetary returns of a fight promoter. For me, while this can keep your mind “glued to the tube,” what the mind is getting for its devotional surrender of attention is a plate full of anger and violence. Instead of being informed, I was being violated.

With the absence of TV news I have found I’m returning to the print news, which is now on the internet in incredible amounts. Ten minutes in the morning and I know what the day is unfolding, and I don’t have to watch endless victims being dragged up to my table to spoon feed their pain and anger into my mind. Somehow, news gathering has become emotion gathering instead of fact gathering. Instead of appealing to reason, the news now appeals to the emotions. The result is that our informed citizenry, which is crucial for a democracy, responds to the political world emotionally instead of rationally. And as we all know, emotions are easily manipulated through advertising and propaganda. Isn’t that how Hitler came to power.

What gets reported on the television must have emotional content in order for it to make the screen. The dull and important gets bumped off for the exciting and meaningless. We think we have learned something if we feel something. When we feel “outrage” at something on TV. we feel that we are doing our patriotic duty. Nothing happens, of course, other than our body falling apart from the stress of externally induced news.

So I have come to the conclusion that TV news is dangerous to the health of my mind and body. Once we know something is poison, the rational course of action is to stop eating it.
But no news program will tell you that.

Posted under General Observations, meditation help, up lifting

Five australians from Queensland in the middle east coast of Australia were visiting in Blackstone for the past 3 days as part of an exchange with the Rotary Clubs here and there. One of the group, Amanda Tomlinson, a 27-year 0ld newspaper editor from Mackay, stayed at our house. It was a feast of sharing how the two continents differ in the way we each approach this cornucopia of experiences we call life.

While the two peoples have many similarities, mainly in language and cultural heritage, there is one striking difference. and it relates to the way we pose, not before the camera, but on the field of life. Travelers may be the wiser people we can encounter because they can see our national posing, while we can’t. Now the Australians, according to our visiter, live for the outdoors and sports. Life is a game to be well played, but not taken too seriously. They are laid back and accepting of differences in others. In otherwords, they don’t take their posing as important for their salvation. Their egos are not the center of the world.

Here–and we don’t need an Australian to point this out–we take our posing very seriously, to the point of converting, transforming or even, when all else fails, killing the poses of others. “If you can’t pose like us, get out,” the serious posers says. Or, we might invade another country whose pose threatens us.

“Why not just lay back, enjoy a good barbie, a beer, and an afternoon of cricket,” say the Australians. “It’s all just a game of posing.”

Now, according to the Aborigines of Australian, a hugh red rock in the center of the Australian outback is the center of the universe. But we disagree, of course, being rational and civilized…. We think our unique God given pose is.

Posted under General Observations

More about posing because with some like the senior that came in today, posing is no problem. A pose can have a life of its own if there is something inside the poser that breaks out like the sun on a cloudy day. No matter what shape the clouds are, you only see the sun when it breaks through. So what is this inner light that we all recognize as if it were the sun? Is it just plain happiness. I don’t think so because there is happiness that is the result of getting a desire fullfilled and their is happiness that just shines no matter what. We can tell the difference.

I guess some people just have fewer clouds to hide their sun of happiness. What is a cloud? You can see them on people’s faces. They are made of thought, unhappy thoughts, negative thoughts, fear, envy, doubt. Like bad weather they come across the mind and hide the sun.

This senior didn’t seem to have many clouds in his sky. I’ll have to ask him how he got this great weather.

Posted under General Observations