It is Over

The war - that one fought primarily in Iraq - is today 'officially over' and flags are packed away ceremoniously, troops flown home with quiet fanfare to be reunited with families - those who are fortunate enough to reclaim their loved ones from the yawning maw of hell and fury from the past decade.

So many thousands of this country's best and brightest sacrificed and many more maimed for the rest of their lives.  And 'life' -- as all others in their country know it -- goes on as usual.  As in past wars, these silent warriors will continue an even more subtle fight, largely absent support or notice from fellow citizens of the nation they served so nobly.

Resolve this day to think with uncommon awareness about the broad view of what is transpiring in the world at this moment in time.  Place some importance on giving consideration to the price paid by many thousands of human beings, most of whom will remain anonymous and faceless.  Remember that patriotic fervor, when not tested to the maximum stretching point, is largely insulated, thus radically different from facing death or dismemberment.

Opinions about validity, necessity, or advisability of any war, in the end, have little or nothing to do with compassion for those who have been required to fight it.

Gut check

Excision of long-growing, thriving malignancies leaves emptiness . . . thereby requiring healthy cells to grow and fill a warm and pulsing space, formerly occupied by relentless killers.  Even one undetected, hideously altered cell can stealthily enter and infect again all those healthy ones -- thwarting a drastic rescue mission.

So it is within space just vacated within the fertile, ever-mutating mind.  A deadly, tenacious idea, having grown to giant proportions, is abandoned . . . to be replaced with . . . more noble pursuits, or seven demons where one once resided?  Those small but potentially deadly modified cells of thought lie in patient wait.

Stay quiet, refuse to submit.  This humming, alert, moistly receptive batch of tissue, washed and dressed for proper presentment, is capable of survival.  Listen carefully, respond unfailingly.  One's own body cries out daily, for acknowledgment, for attention, for support, help.  Insert strength, purity, hope, alignment . . . with each pregnant moment, so very similar to small cells . . . those tiny, wholly able moment/cells the final answer to living -- believe this.

Make a Move

There's an old blues song about a bullfrog just sitting on a lily pad, not knowing which way to jump.  It describes most of us, this indecision, inactivity, inability to move on.  Schedules mercifully provide us socially acceptable reasons for being.  Following the plan can provide a measure of satisfaction.

Responsiblities discharged honorably, in a timely fashion, surround performers with approval.  It can be enough for a long while . . . even a lifetime occasionally.  Settling for an existence absent passion can serve well, if not fully.

Do not embrace or ever hold to your heart any life endeavor - work, people, leisure - which contains no excitement, feeling, intensity.  While it is difficult to trust these conditions of the mind, they are integral to optimal function.

Efficiency & excitement are not mutually exclusive . . .  never believe it, refuse to accept it.  Create peak experiences, weave deep ardor into the fabric of your life tapestry.  Love deeply and completely -- refuse to carefully step around your destiny.

Judgment

So . . . when does a simple opinion morph into a judgment?  Pronouncement? Levying? Heavy-handedness? Likely all of these and maybe more.  Lightening fast oblivion, from autonomic neuronal process - realization just -- flies out the window.  Sometimes it is sameness that motivates our ideas - often it is mood.  If not traditional, habitual, then bad.  Open minds grow little imaginary mold - clean, aware thinking usually creates clean slates on which to write anew.

Really look inside that busy mind . . . the 'chattering monkey' is constantly at work, ready to play old tapes, deliver edicts long-held to be irrevocable living law.  Amazingly, acquiring new material is great fun, creating freedom to grow, uplifting.  Try it.

Caregiving

Caregiving . . . encompasses and permeates personal territory.  Constant assessment of another's needs, relentless requirements for seeing, hearing, responding.  Draining, distracting, demanding.  When a person is no longer able to perform specific duties such as bathing, dressing or eliminating waste from their bodies sanitarily, suddenly it is incumbent on others to carry out/support these actions.

Exactly what is divinely inspired about changing an adult diaper?  Soiled linens, endless medication schedules, feeding necessities, physical exertion such as lifting, knowledge that there is no foreseeable end to all of it.  Can a daily expectation of this sort of life be fit appropriately into a loving, kind or selfless category?  People who spend their own healthy, capable lives in caring for the needs of others must find purpose, meaning in some realm of thought regarding what they do each moment.  The activity has to bring a form of satisfaction, either from tasks discharged once more and understood to be repeated endlessly, tirelessly, or from knowledge that it is a job completed, for a particular sum of money which will sustain the performer for a time.

Compassion and empathy are indispensable in caregiving situations, though such admirable qualities cannot possibly remain whole and present in one who is increasingly exhausted.  Fatigue plays tricks on even the strongest.

There are those who bring themselves willingly, grimly to the tasks, and those who understand that stepping away is necessary.  Caring for others is a truly thankless, deadly, mind-numbing experience for some -- yet fulfilling & enhancing for others.  It is not so simple to ascertain which of these categories we fall into.

Anger's Applications

Reading comments on facebook in response to MSN's question: was the end of the war in Iraq a success? Readers are incensed, from the look of their diatribes against the administration, against the war in general, against whatever their personal feelings told them was wrong. And no doubt a lot must be wrong in any war. Murder, pure and simple. Defense? That's usually the incentive. How is killing, no matter who commits it, NOT murder?

Not to say that fury won't incite one to mayhem. Quietly believe what you want, if a loved one has been killed in any manner whatsoever, anger will overcome reason at some point. The stages of grief, anger, acceptance . . . everyone has read them, none may know them until that time of moving through comes to us.

Life ends. Life begins. Cycles of birth and death have prevailed for human beings always. It seems that at some point, we might begin to accept the process, the inevitable moving toward that first and last. Attaching any personal feelings to either of these is accepted as normal, defined usually as 'love' . . . leading toward protection, possession, even illusory imaginings of control.

A person I know, whose superior intelligence is never in question in my mind, says: anger motivates. Propels, stimulates. Perhaps we use it for these purposes . . . avoiding complacency, boredom, tedium, mediocrity . . . those dreaded states of dead-eyed living.

Quiet acceptance at this moment is possible. Flaming fury may be next, depending on what is heard, believed, feared. Is it possible that a complete absence of anger denotes an enlightened being? One who has achieved the highest state of existence within the human condition? Or has that person simply, without fight, begun to merge with destiny?

If any of us could have the choice, an immutable sentence for life, to rid ourselves of anger altogether . . . it might be most intriguing . . . our decisions thus.

What are we hearing?

Noticing reactions to words can be difficult. Are we actually listening while hearing the bombardment of daily messages in our worlds? Collections of words designed to bend our minds in a certain direction, toward an opinion or idea espoused by someone else - or something else, such as an entity which requires our compliance with its tenets - can be decidedly dangerous. And may not be, at all, WHAT we believe that we are hearing.

How did the Holocaust really happen? Why would an entire population sit still while a few military appointees murdered so many people? For one thing, there were no weapons save those in the hands of the military. This condition was levied on the people of Germany with many words of reassurance . . . eloquently delivered by those whose objectives were, as we see, suppression and control.

When we allow ourselves to be influenced/convinced by anyone, with any message, we comply. Each time a product touted by a marketing effort is purchased, or we vote for any candidate, when we buy a certain vehicle, those endless electronic toys, a piece of clothing, a pair of shoes . . . we've been led -- cleverly led -- toward compliance, along with the powerful conviction that we have chosen all this on our own.

A bountiful smorgasbord of delicious, seemingly freely chosen delights. Created whole cloth, designed to allure, using superior linguistic ability and financial motive. Partake in this lovely pursuit and just flip out that credit card . . . it's all for you and your pleasure. Why not? Freedom . . . of choice, indulgence, happiness.

No doubt it would be prudent to empty our minds and FEEL what is important to our existence. It likely isn't that perfect jacket or piece of jewelry we currently lack. Surely it can't be a hunk of metal and plastic gadgets bought at great price sitting in a driveway, waiting to take us on short journeys toward the same places . . . being duly fed with expensive liquids along the way to ensure that we keep going until we return to these same places . . . liquids which are at our disposal at a great price to humanity.

Happiness and serenity, much less peace of mind, are not for sale. The seductive call of carefully crafted words promising pleasure can be understood as a deadly drain . . . achieving true lack of need, or human happiness, cannot include harming other living beings to obtain it. Perhaps we might try subjective reasoning . . . truly listening to that which we are hearing.