Who Dad?!

Distilling

Recently, I found some faded scribbled thoughts in an old school notebook. I tossed the notebook with the lesson plans, but wanted to preserve this:

— It takes courage to learn, to admit shortcomings, and to model a better way of being.

— Trust a feeling, but don't believe it to be true without examining the facts. Simply put, heart before mind, but both on the same team working together.

— Heart, longs to live and work in joyful community, so join with others and: Be Friendly.

— Mind, understands the enormous commitment involved, so urges: Be Efficient.

— Conscience, where heart and mind meet, knows we are spiritual beings, so whispers: Be Fair.

During these uncertain days, I catch myself looking for omens or indicators for how to approach each day. There is always something I am avoiding and something else I am anxious about. Together, they provide the energy that propel me past procrastination into productivity as talisman.

There is a ratio between what I stress about and what actually happens that should have taught me something by now. I can be so dense and slow. In fairness though, whatever I seemed to have learned yesterday, doesn't always apply to both the body and the day I currently find myself in. It's like needing a new operator's manual each and every day, but it's already obsolete before it's finished being written.

I'm not complaining. In the grand scheme of things, and in the history of life on this planet, I have been exceedingly blessed.

I don't even pay attention to whatever make-believe wealth disappears in the market where daily betting on the future occurs.

Instead, I just trimmed some trees along a road I will never use, then patched cracks in neighbors' sidewalks and driveways. Does it matter? I don't know. I'm just betting on a future I'd like to participate in. What else can one do?

I am not advocating ignoring or denying our unfolding and terrifying reality, but neither do I think I can convince anyone of anything. So many have stepped into the quicksand beyond argument. I have no answers, only a trust in how time and evolution will sort out the sordid and insane. If only we have enough time . . .

Inevitability Meditation

Each era has had its share of brilliance realized, and of crazy despair.

Ours is no different. There are just so many more of us.

With constant connection, spreading whatever instantly,

every flaw is magnified, every error multiplied.

And,

the weight of our mistakes

is crushing

life

itself.

Even that severe pandemic diet barely slowed our heavy decline. Instead, it revealed the fault lines — placed pressure on what is weakest. Perhaps that is where any repair should begin, at the very bottom, where the need is greatest?

The height of any structure depends on the expanse and the strength of its foundation.

There will always be those on top, but without health below, there's nothing to support wealth to grow. From our architecture to our economies, from oceans to grasslands to forests — this holds true: Care begins at the core.

Attending to what is broken, ministering to those without, mending what we ourselves have torn, is not a rejection of aspiration, but rather the most fundamental and essential essence of a lasting civilization.

I've been thinking a lot about caring and care-taking and how one can't say the word "character" without saying "care" first. The "h" is there to hide the connection. One must discover how caring is a sign of character. I think I am starting to understand.

We instinctively believe growth to be a good thing. We relish how our children grow, or trees, or gardens, but there is a limit, right? Our care isn't for propagating endless growth but rather for development and maturation.

Some decisions, like seedlings, can't be identified until they've grown some.

Some remain dormant, underground, waiting for the right conditions.

I have moved with uncertainty while waiting for the clarity of direction.

Yet there is always something to care for . . .

I hear the arguments against abortion:

"Who knows who that seed will become?"

But with so many millions hungry and homeless . . . ?!

And who can explain the unrest, the rampant cruelty, the murderous rage?

Will more unwanted bodies resolve any of it?

What hope the seed

when those who need garden

have gone mad and loveless?

I blame no one.

Not even myself.

In a recent dream, I fought an epic battle for and against

everything and everyone I've ever known.

No one was killed.

I woke up understanding the difference

between a struggle and a war.

Madness would have been the simpler path:

it only requires the destruction or avoidance

of all not aligned.

Instead, I was granted a glimpse

of a more quarrelsome love,

one that only grows in the fields of cooperation.

Can we get there from here?

When will the conditions ever be ripe enough for that?

If we measure success by the number of our days, but not the sunrises or sunsets witnessed, how much might we have missed?

Should we care more about how much money we've made in this life or how we've used what has come our way?

And what about love? The more, the merrier? Or, is is something beyond how many were willing to try you as a partner and instead how much you let even one living being matter?

Certainly, eating well, enjoying these moveable sometimes musical bodies, seeing this amazing world, and being welcomed in foreign places have all meant much to me over the years.

I like to learn, figure things out, and create, but even more I like to laugh. That seems to me the unmistakable evidence of being right with life.

And yet, with so much unraveling, there seems little cause for laughter, but somehow, damnit, we must.

We must laugh, first at ourselves, our follies, our mistakes, our greed, our anger, our jealousy, our misguided notions of what is important, and then reach out to each other, laugh together until forgiveness comes, and then start, everything, all over again.