Aimless!!
A blog is unapologetically for oneself, isn’t it, self-expression, release. If one is uncommonly affected by something and needing to say so, a blog is Teddy Roosevelt’s bully pulpit for self.
From the far end of aging. Exciting to be the growing-up one, sobering to watch them growing, growing, gone. At a family birthday party recently a tiny boy dashing around a room reminded me of Ryan, exactly that age in May 2000 when first I encountered him moving so fast he was just a blur. 14 no longer wants or needs to run leap into Father Tom’s arms, nor does 20 or 25 or 28 or 41 or 52 or 55. Time sanctifies the observation, "a child is a person who moves through your life on the way to becoming an adult."
The adult is our destination, what we are meant to be. Our task is to help them grow up competent and responsible, and let them go. For birds and bears the letting go is natural. For human parents the letting go is the hardest! And the exclamation point, often the sign of a fool, is not because it's funny, it's because the exclamation point holds back tears better than the period or full stop!!! It's why on the first day of school at HNES we have the Crying Room for new kindergarteners -- not for the children, for the parents!!
The adult is our destination, what we are meant to be. Our task is to help them grow up competent and responsible, and let them go. For birds and bears the letting go is natural. For human parents the letting go is the hardest! And the exclamation point, often the sign of a fool, is not because it's funny, it's because the exclamation point holds back tears better than the period or full stop!!! It's why on the first day of school at HNES we have the Crying Room for new kindergarteners -- not for the children, for the parents!!
Unspeakably crushing. TV photo of brokenhearted Chinese parents learning their sweet sixteen girl was killed in the Flight 214 crash. Cannot bear to look at the picture. Nothing I can do about it except hurt, and it doesn’t help them and certainly not me for me to hurt this much this far away. Kyrie eleison.
In that vein, displaying photos of people in their desolating grief is in the realm of evil writing: morally, etymologically the word is pornography, evil writing.
In my generation the nuclear arms race was for obliterating cities, populations and ultimately humanity itself. Seeing Chinese, Korean, Russian parents love their daughters and sons just as I love mine keeps me mindful of the extreme evil of war such as we launched against Iraq and prosecuted in Vietnam. War kills children, war kills people's little children, and no child is my enemy. War is for politicians, not humans. There would be World Peace if politicians and their families were the only ones who could be conscripted and sent to the front -- although the new terrorism warfare changes everything. Someone said conventional army is the weapon of the strong and mighty, terrorism is the weapon of the helpless and desperate.
A lifting up! Sunday’s new weather welcomed boats to Shell Island for Baptism & Eucharist,
sheer delight and a perfect Sunday morning.
PCB Pirates at Number One, for a happy girl.
sheer delight and a perfect Sunday morning.
PCB Pirates at Number One, for a happy girl.
Simplifying. Lease is up on our red Buick. We will turn it in the end of this week and go back to one car as we last had fifty-five years ago. Our family being the same number now that it was then, this should be workable: two.
House has just been painted. Painted house and a new aluminum deck on the upstairs front screen porch. We're ready for another hundred years.
Among advisors I’m perceiving a tendency to give mirror advice. Mirror advice is not original advice but is a reflection of what the advisor thinks he hears and sees and will be well-received. Original advice would press the advisee to explore his mind and self. I’m not coming out of three spiritual retreats being called to retire to nothing, not going there. I mean to come out having explored and found something. My Summer of Silent Retreats is not an avenue to the porch swing, but a way to keep discovering.
Regret. With the new CaringBridge enhancement I cannot figure out how to post to my CB Journal; so I surrender and have stopped trying. Posting to my +Time blog will continue as long as it is fulfilling, helpful to me, and enjoyable.
Tom in +Time