Hiatus

I have suspended posting while actively seeking employment.

Childhood's Lesson

You can’t be ‘here’ and ‘there’ at the same time, you cannot be in the present and the past now, and you cannot travel this life of time and be somewhere far behind.

It isn’t about control; control is for weakness, and the past cannot be controlled. It is about the childlike autonomy to stand and fall, again and again, until you can stand without falling. It is the childlike power to take a step, and fall, and get up and do it again and again, until you can walk several steps, and be excited and laugh because you did it.

The childlike take the successes of life and move on. The only baggage in life required to carry is the good and intelligence and abilities you have made and taken forward from your past. This is freedom.

A Poetic Reply

I received a letter. In its conclusion, I was asked, "What should I be?" I replied in a letter just one line, "Gold as strong as iron, iron as soft as gold, and in a sea of sand, a diamond light so bold."

Space is a Cradle

Light in the midst of darkness, something in the midst of nothing. Space is a cradle. The absence of something is ordered as well as what is there.

The Indivisible One

The purpose of God is indivisible.

No Robin Hoods

Those by nature selfish are thieves.

Don't Be Fooled

A whale doesn't swim in a puddle no matter how vast it is.

Breadth is not a measure of depth, no matter how frequently people behave as if it wasn't so.

A Lesson at Hand

The young man lamented his condition and declared in exasperation, "I have nothing in life!"
The old man replied, "Close your hand! Hold hard."
The young man, jolted by the command, closed his hand.
"Harder."
The young man's knuckles and fingers began to turn red.
"Open!"
He slowly opened his hand.
"Look. You still have nothing. Don't use your life for nothing again."

Possessed or Possession

To be possessed by a thought or to possess a thought - to be acted upon or to act. To be a master, i must first begin by submitting.

Fortune Knocks

Grumpy, you get out of bed on a Saturday morning, and all you want to do is have a cup of coffee.

Just getting to the kitchen, the doorbell rings. You hesitate. You don't want to answer. Your hair's a mess, your slippers don't match. You say, 'what the heck'.

You're greeted by a guy in a black suit with sunglasses, and a limousine with blacked out windows waiting on the street. He asks your name. Confused, you stammer and give it anyway. He hands you an envelop, and turns and walks away.

Too early to think, you shut the door and open the envelop. It's a receipt for a deposit to your bank account for 1,000,000 dollars.

What do you do?

In The Chilling Shade

I was asked, 'What is totalitarianism?' I replied, 'All the plants in the woods and fields living in the chilling shade of one big tree.'

Bankruptcy

I was asked, 'What is bankruptcy?' I replied, 'Love without respect.'

Worth Worship

Where anything evokes indelible awareness, preoccupation, regard, and response, great worth is found and worship performed.

Be Free and at Peace

The old man was asked, "How can I be at peace and free in this world?"
The old man answered, "When an object moves, does space move, too?"
"I see objects move."
"Do you see space move?"
"No."
"Be as space, and as space, what is there is not you. Be free and at peace."

Among The Trees

Kit was 11 at the time, and it was just before Dad's 60th birthday. We'd not been back long from Sunday service, when Dad asked Kit if he'd like to come for a walk with him through the woods bordering the lake. Kit said, 'Sure!' Dad smiled at us both and said, 'Well, bring the dog, too!' as he walked down the front steps.

When they returned, Kit talked about the frog he and Dad almost caught with their own hands, and about the small snake that slithered off the path as they approached the road back home.

Then, in a hushed voice, Kit added, 'You know Mom, I asked granddad, 'Why do you spend more time among the trees than you do among people?' And he said, 'Because they're firmly rooted and grow straight up to heaven.' Mom, What did he mean by that?'
. . . . .

Thinking Outside the Box

His chatter was increasingly annoying, and her patience was eroding fast. When Fred congratulated himself for 'thinking outside the box', she winced, and snapped, 'The only people that need to think outside the box are blockheads.'
. . . . .

Serving Time

Space doesn't exist in time, time exists in space.
The servant is the owner and host of the household.

the ruler and the saw

If you can't measure the wood, it doesn't matter how sharp the saw.

PostScript The tyranny of the ruler can put the saw to bad use; the tyranny of the saw can do a very bad job.

statement of powers

I was asked 'What is the difference between a government and a state?' I replied, 'By compact, a government serves and is answerable to me. In a state, I am its chattel, born into political ownership, and must do what it demands.'

pull out the weeds

A relationship is a garden mutually owned. If one or both finds weeds sprouting, it doesn't mean that the garden be abandoned and joint ownership dissolved. Help the garden which mutually benefits. Get down and pull out the weeds.

experience speaks

After being introduced by Professor Guerrero, the old journalist casually leaned back against the chalkboard with arms crossed and looked over the class of students like a hawk looking for prey. One student began to shift in his chair, two began to cough, then another.

Thinking to himself, "Son los míos", he stood up straight, took three steps forward, and spoke in a voice as strong as Stentor's, "Journalism isn't an art, and it isn't a science. It's a triumph."

The old journalist paused, reviewed the looks of astonishment with satisfaction, then proceeded at a more natural volume, "To any who think journalism is as easy as reading and paper the cost of good writing, I say this, journalism is quite simply chipping away at nothing and coming up with something that keeps the reader glued until the last period, and makes him glad he was. Now you do it."
. . . . .

Buford’s Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

I think the wellbein’ of any upright person is made from the sweat of the brow an' the time to enjoy life to boot. Look at me. I work hard at Sam’s warehouse from 6 in the mornin’, then play checkers with Jethro after work, follow' by'a watermelon seed spittin' contest for a pack of gum with Billy-Bob, then play the ocarina to my sweetheart Lilly, follow' by suppin' with ma an' pa, then go on this ol' hand-me-down ‘puter to scratch my head an' think of somethin' to do with it, then so tuckered out I go to bed an' sleep it all off. Y'all do the same, I reckon. Excep' play the ocarina to my sweetheart Lilly, acourse.

Then lately, I get to thinkin’ bout politics. These politicians, they promise alot, an’ make ya feel like ya rootin’ for a football team in the playoffs, but I know government ain’t a sport an' it sure ain't a legal business so the money for all these ideas would have to be comin’ from outa the wallets of folks like me an' my neighbors. Then I get steamin’.

Now there’s talk they want to take care bout folks’ health. I didn’t see that care after a storm came in an’ blowed granny’s house down like the big bad wolf. They can put a few men on the moon with the help of some of granny’s hard earned wages but won't help her with some wood and a few men to fix an ol’ house. Somethin' strangely unbalanced about politicians.

What does granny get instead? After church, gets to watch well paid politicians on Sunday morning TV at Martha’s trailer sassing each other with polite impoliteness an' some lookin’ to granny like they havin’ sissy fits.

I think I’d rather be free an' die young than to have Washington politicians take more of my life's labor in cash an’ manage my life at 'no cost' till the day I die. I don’t like their deal. They all made a mess of everything else they manage, anyway.

So, horsefeathers. I ain't their huckleberry.

Sincerely,
Buford

In Defense of Intelligence

You don't pull the apple tree out by its roots for critical examination to decide if you'll eat its fruit.

Rubrics of Happiness

I was asked, 'What can ensure my happiness?' I replied, 'Eliminate surprise; do not under-estimate the bad. Eliminate disappointment; do not over-estimate the good.'

Baka Kaže

[an impression written immediately after traveling to Slavonski Brod to visit a friend's 93 year old baka whose family life, to express it gently, was a disappointment to her. She died in October, four weeks later.]

Simplicity ~
in it no comfort,
none to find
in me its renown.

Stillness ~
in it no comfort,
so many to crush its door,
and then comes a light so dark.

Ah, but yet death's dawn,
its darkness so radient, calm and peaceful.