Power of Stupid Beliefs

Oh, the power of stupid beliefs, especially ones that feel part of the very warp & woof of our being, but which seem to be without any apparent origin.  When we can pinpoint origin, we have a better starting point for stepping past the folly of whatever beliefs are driving our lives into the ground.  When there is none, it's harder to know where to start giving it the old heave ho.

I have now bought two laptops that I've never learned how to use.  The first turned out to have a disfunctional mother board; since I never attempted to use it, didn't know that in time to exchange it for one that worked.  All that money, down the drain.  Now, am coming up on the final payment on my current QVC-purchased laptop - a honey of an HP - and have managed to turn it on.  And go no further.  It's Windows 8.1, which intimidates me, but my reluctance to USE what I've spent good money to purchase goes way beyond that excuse.  Something deep inside me, a belief about something that keeps me from doing the most natural thing in the world, puts an icy hand on my heart & screams STOP!  

Weird.

There are a lot of things in my life that clamor to be changed in order to let life work more effectively.  Praise be, have addressed a lot of them & continuing to make fabulous strides in others.  But my computer still sits in the hallway closet, a big, expensive paper weight.  Because something imparted a belief that I can't identify that keeps me from doing something I invested good money in being able to do.  

Which led me to the thought, in the wee small hours of this morning, about racism & prejudice & other stupid beliefs, some of which seem part of the warp & woof of our national being, often without apparent origin.  If it is HARD to get rid of the ones that keep me from doing the very things that would clearly benefit my life beyond imagination, how impossibly harder is it for people who don't really want to be parted from those beliefs to really get past them?  Yet, we like to think we - as a nation - have.

Some people, the blessed few, are graced with parents & families and/or important others who went past teaching them the fundamentals of a healthy, whole life ~ the power of focus, of hard word, of inspiration & creativity, of knowing the outcomes you do & don't want to get, of sticking with something until it's completed OR setting it aside if you realize it's not a good use of your time & energies ~ to showing them, by word  & deed, how to make those fundamentals part of their everyday life.  Many of the rest of us were graced with parents & families and/or important others who taught about those things, but didn't take the vital step of helping us make them part of our life, in most cases because they weren't really part of theirs.  And a sorry number were either never taught that those fundamentals exist or were taught they weren't cut out - for lots of different reasons - to master them.

It takes focus, hard work, inspiration & creative thinking, knowing what outcomes we find acceptable & which we don't, sticking with our efforts to completion or setting them aside if we realize they aren't worth the effort to get past stupid beliefs.  I've been working on it for decades & it is still HARD.  

People talk about getting past inbred racism & prejudice - and I'm talking on all sides - as if it is as simple as realizing it's harmful & just stopping.  Look around the USA today - it is a boiling pot of fear & distrust, just a few degrees short of boiling over.  It didn't get that way from a cold start - the pot was simmering, simmering for decades.  But it was easier, is still easier, to just think that as reasonable people we can put our rational above our emotional.  Look around.  Rationality doesn't have a very big part in what is happening right now.  Just as the heart will always lead the head, the power of our emotions will overcome our ability to reason every time.  

Even our leaders glorify it.  When he wasn't able to come across facts to support his suspicions, Congressman Darrell Issa dismissed the lack of evidence (reason) by saying he knew in his gut that people were lying.  While liberals howled with derision & disbelief, conservatives nodded in agreement.  Emotion won the day.  When the leaders of our nation make it okay to lead with our gut rather than our head, what chance is there of convincing the rest of the importance of putting the rational ahead of the emotional?

Yesterday, I was part of a current events discussion at a local senior residence.  We got onto the topic of the recently released report on the CIA's use & abuse of "enhanced interrogation techniques" since 9/11.  A man whose intelligence I highly admire acknowledged that torture is morally unacceptable, but when his castle is attacked, his family is in jeopardy, he is permitted - called to - use any means possible to defend them  & make them safe.  His heart, his emotions, completely overruled his reason.  When the people I love are at risk, I am allowed to use any means possible, however reprehensible, to keep them safe.  Wow.  

When someone as smart & worldly-wise & reasonable as that man is reduced to such an argument because what he loves is threatened, what chance is there of someone who really doesn't want to give up generations-long prejudices or expectations put reason over emotion & walk away from them?

 
People have argued to me that there are times that prejudice is reasonable.  Usually, I can talk them around by just pointing out that the word means to pre judge - to judge before hearing the facts - and it's really hard to imagine a situation where that is reasonable.  Prejudice is never reasonable.  It is anti-reason, appealing solely to the emotions.  Reasoning might bring us to a place where we can see the right - that Americans have always regarded torture utterly contrary to our national character - but emotion will assure us it's okay to do whatever is necessary to defend our loved ones, whether it's dropping the atom bomb to spare a million American lives or using torture to get information that might spare US soldiers or civilians.


It's HARD work to move past stupid beliefs - even ones that hamper & harm us, like my fear of my laptop.  It's even hard for the older friend who spoke up yesterday at current events, whose heart tells him that defending his loved ones from harm gives him a green light to do things he otherwise would consider horrific - and HE seems to embody focus, hard work, inspiration & creative thinking, knowing what outcomes he wants & which he doesn't, determination direction persistence!!

When I look around at a country that seems to be whacked out, where so many of the physical civil spiritual ills we worked to cure are resurfacing in frightening ways, when emotions seethe under our daily lives like the river of evil in Ghostbusters 2, when the power of one person's stupid belief slams up against that one's ...   well, I'll remember my fear of a laptop, think about my friend's willingness to toss what he believes to be MORALLY inexcusable when if & how his heart is at risk, and realize anew that (in ways I never imagined) Pascal was totally spot on ~ ~  the heart truly knows reasons that Reason does not know.  

My heart & head join in saying, "That's scary."  

Now, about that laptop...

a shower of tea cups

Once upon a time, long long ago, in a place not too far from where I am right now, a dashing fellow fell in love with a lovely maiden  & asked her to marry him.  In course of time, the friends in his small town rejoiced in giving the fair maiden a wedding shower.  She was all excitement & anticipation.  His friends had exquisite taste & most of them were well-off & many were downright wealthy.  

As the beautiful maiden entered the marvelous mansion where all her fiance's friends & family were gathered, spread out in the grand room before her, her eyes lit on a table filled to overflowing with lovingly wrapped presents.   She noticed, to her surprise, that none were very very big.  In fact, they looked to be surprisingly uniform in size.

And well they should have - her fiance's friends threw her their very favorite sort of bridal shower.  A tea cup shower.  Each woman gave her an exquisite tea cup.  They were so happy, thinking of all the tea parties she would use them at, that she'd think about all of them every time she brought them out to use.

And she did - every time she looked at that incredible collection of tea cups, the memory of that shower came back to her all over again.   Although not in the way they expected.

She'd expected the gifts to be grand & glorious in a different way - she expected, knowing the deep pockets of most of her beloved's friends, to get very expensive presents, with each person vying to be give the greatest & most glorious.  She learned that afternoon that wasn't how this particular small town rolled.  They didn't opt for the big & splashy, but the small & meaningful.

I thought of that story twice over the past few days.  Earlier this week, as I cleared out the china cabinet  & came across a half dozen of those very tea cups, with their great & glorious pedigrees emblazoned across the bottom of each bone china cup & saucer - among them Royal Albert, Doulton, Waterford, even Tiffany.  
  

 
They came into my possession on birthday, on Christmas (once, with the original gift tag still in the box!).  My only regret was not to have been given the whole stunning collection.  

The other time this story came to mind, why I'm writing this posting, was when I came across the list of my own wedding presents.  One of the very first presents received was from a very dear friend, an exceedingly wealthy woman who could have given, without blinking, the most expensive item on my wedding gift registry.  And who gave me my very own exquisite bone china tea cup & saucer.  Do I think of her every time I look at it?  Absolutely.  With all the tender thoughts & loving memory of her special friendship & mentoring over the years.  

When that dashing fellow & lovely maiden married, almost 50 years ago, my little hometown was famous for not throwing its money around, for priding itself on giving the small & meaningful rather than the big & flashy.  In many ways, they still were when I married 25 years ago.  In many ways, they still are.  It is the personal, not the extravagant, that touches their hearts, both in giving & receiving.

Am sorry that the lovely maiden was spitting mad at the paltry haul she made that lovely afternoon.  And happy that so many of those priceless tea cups came into my possession, that I see the shining, happy faces of the women who so carefully selected & lovingly presented them.   I treasure each of them almost as much as I treasure my own, from Emilie - a shower of tea cups reminding me of a long long ago embrace of love & friendship from so many women whose faces are forever in my heart.     

 

 

re: issue - spin span spun

As unreasonable as it might seem to others, it IS an issue to me when John asks if he has to shave.  And he has at least 1/4" of stubble on his face.  And he is going to an art show opening, where I would expect he would want to make his best impression.  And we discussed last night, when I said it was fine to go unshaved because we would be with a friend who's practically family BUT that he'd need to shave before heading to Artists Gallery on Saturday.  

John likes ME to make his decisions, even when it's clear what the best one is.

As unreasonable at it might seem to others, it IS an issue with me when John doesn't stop doing something that puts me at risk because it's more convenient for him to keep on doing it.  This happens a lot.  Sometimes in very dire situations.  Today, he ran the kitchen spigot for hot water, in spite of knowing I was working with chocolate in the same area & that chocolate does NOT like water. As soon as I realized what was happening, I asked him to turn off the water.  He did - after it got to the heat he wanted, not before.

Sorry to all those who say he's just being a guy & that it's unreasonable of me to expect him to think for himself & to be considerate even when it might be inconvenient - I expect better & do take it as a slight when he leaves it to me & puts me at risk.  

Didn't get upset, just canceled my plans to go out with him to lunch.  That WOULD have been foolish, feeling as I did.  I'd say maybe next time he'll realize the consequence of his thoughtlessness, but - alas - it's not likely.

Coolest dream ever?

Possibly! Very possibly!

Almost every time I've dreamt, the gist of it slips away between opening my eyes & swinging out of bed.  Not this one.

Background
It was impossible to sleep last night.  Well, not exactly true.  Twice, I'd fallen off & both times John woke me up getting out of bed, which is unusual as I typically could sleep through a massive storm paired with an earthquake.  Not this a.m. - eyes wide open.  Wasn't stressed or tense or over caffeinated.  Just AWAKE.  Gave in at 4:00 a.m., went downstairs & made myself useful.  Did some cleaning then made cupcakes for the Boys School Juniors (will deliver tomorrow) & my BACNC sweet ums (will pair with mini eclairs for the college, baking g-f choc chip cookies for the Theologs).  Finally headed back upstairs close to 8:00ish.

Which was when I had THE DREAM.

It was set present day, except John wasn't in it or mentioned.  Alan King requested a business meeting with me, which I found strange, even in the dream.  I asked the person relaying the message if he was sure Alan had said ME - yes, he definitely wanted to take a meeting with me.  

So, we met, both crisply businesslike but friendly.  He explained that the Junge family wanted me to be part of a weekend retreat they were having at a snappy hotel in New York City.  Again, I was pretty sure he had me confused with someone else.  No, he assured me - the family was hoping I could be part of their retreat.  I went.

What a blast!  ALL of the Jim Junge family was there - which, if you know the Junges, is pretty darn many - from newborns to Jim, who's tipped 90.  Events were planned for all ages, from itty bitties to ancients.  All focused around dream building - what is your dream? how can we, individually & as a group, help you catch it?  It was clear from everyone I met, especially the youngest, that I'd been included because they experienced my energies as supporting the weekend's mission.  

Everywhere I turned, there was a smiling face, happy to see me, happy that I was at that place, at that moment.  The hotel staff seemed blissed out - they'd played host to this annual gathering many times before & loved the experience, loved how it affected the staff for weeks afterwards.

There I was, feeling zowied over the sense of it all.  And I got what they meant about wanting me there.  I wasn't part of the family, but understood & shared a passion for collaborative dream building, whether a small project conjured up by an 8-year old or a massive building project blueprinted by the patriarch.  Different degrees, but common ZOW!  

It was a total fiction.  Yes, the Junges are a large, close-knit clan, but no business NYC retreats (that I know of), no cross-generation dream building/support sessions & shares in a snappy Manhattan hotel.  

A total fiction, but in my heart...  In my heart, it will always BE.  The sense of that place, that moment, those energies, from toddlers to a close-to-centarian, all focused on, "What's your dream?  How can I help make it real?"  Those energies, goals, best next steps are part & parcel with all I am. 

Coolest dream ever?  Very possible!

taking my own counsel

A grannie client dreads being bored, having nothing to do.  Unfortunately, she currently has trouble reading & has never been much of a crafter, so her way of staying energized is to be with people.  Monday is her most dreaded day - nothing to do at night, nowhere to go, no one with whom to chat.  

Recently, I helped her see Mondays in a different light, by talking about how our Creator commands us to set aside time when we can distance ourselves from the busy-ness of the world, be contemplative, still.  It's commanded because THAT is how we come to experience the Divine.  The only way.  Not through countless hours of reading & study, not though untold minutes discussing fine points of doctrine.  

Be still, and know that I am God.

Everything I shared with her is the gospel truth.  We are so commanded - and most of us, including me, don't.  Don't even come close.  Don't even set aside one night out of seven to pause reflect be.  Contemplating rather than considering, meditating instead of pondering.

Time for me to take my own counsel.  Time to honor my own sabbath, my own time of handing over the frou-frou of this world & open up to spirit.

Newsie post from Peter!

Actually, a posting from Whitney that he sent onto me.  Explains why she & Chad moved their family out of the USA, to Australia.  Interesting read, learning the background behind their move.

At first, I felt exhilarated - Peter contacted me!  Then, it sank in.  There are two, maybe three, times Peter has connected with me in the past.  1) if he had something to share about Whitney (strangely, never Reynolds - just Whitney, and later Campbell).  2) In December, his birthday & Christmas, when I guess the absence of family, even a semblance of family, is felt most keenly.  A letter about Whitney & Campbell (hooray - with a brief mention of Piper!), arriving December 1?  Yep, spot on.

Sounding sceptical about intentions?  Experience, longtime experience.  And I know he's totally unaware of it.  To him, it is genuine outreach.  To me, am all too aware that once the birthday is past & the holidays are over, the connection would vanish.  Not even cautious anymore  - just the sure knowledge it's not what it appears, not what my heart would love for it to be.  I've seen his eyes, felt his energies & know there's no there there when it comes to me being real to him.  

What feels wonderful is not soaring into a euphoria of "Wow!  He's reaching out!  Let's get together and (fill in with any one of a number of ecstatic hopes for relationship building)!" nor did I sink into the sorry quagmire of  beating myself over the head with Peter just being Peter.  


later...

Been a couple hours since reading Peter's letter.   

Still amazed at Peter's consistency.   Nary a whiff of personal comment - a posting from Whitney, a letter to him from Campbell.  His only comments were to buttress - in case I was too slow on the uptake to get it - how brilliant they both are, how gifted & amazing.  They both are - and I get it all by my little lonesome, without him having to qualify that she is mega smart (she referred to turning to God when she & Chad needed guidance), as is Campbell (yes, Peter, I did get that she was doing ADVANCED math problems - she called them that - not remedial).  

Reminds me of when I graduated from eighth grade.  That summer, Mom & Dad & I visited Peter out in Bloomington, IN.  The four of us went out to dinner with the totally WOW on every level Ann Crabtree.  I ordered filet mignon for dinner - and asked the waiter for ketchup.  Peter visibly blanched & made some jesting yet slighting comment.  I just looked at him in disbelief - "Peter, I ordered it for my french fries," to which the awesome Ann said, "Oh, I always have it with mine, too.  Can I snag a couple of yours?"  On the spot, I fell in love with that remarkable woman (from everything I hear, she still is) & realized that Peter pegged me on the same level as Walter Cunningham, who horrifed Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird by pouring syrup all over his meal.  "Walter poured syrup on his vegetables and meat with a generous hand. He would probably have poured it into his milk glass had I not asked what the sam hill he was doing."   

When Peter asked what the sam hill I was doing, asking for ketchup, my knowledge of his distain for his baby sister was underscored reinforced cemented.  At least I was left under no delusions.  Still not.  He is Peter.  Accept & love him as he is, not as I longed for him to be.   

John & close friends have known for years - long before Mom died, even before John came into my life - that I was under no misapprehension about Peter's feelings toward me.  He had none.  He gives me value when I can BE of value to him.  No value to him, then there's no ME.  Like today's letter.  Early December, nothing of personal connection.   


My heart says, "Stop by on his 12/15 birthday, bring take-out from Golden Dragon (his beloved chicken szechzuan), bake Mom's Double Chocolate Cake ~ ~ but experience says, "Be happy for what you received, let it be what it is  & don't overstep."   

In other words, remember the words from West Side Story:

Boy, boy, crazy boy!
Stay loose, boy!
Breeze it, buzz it, easy does it.
Turn off the juice, boy!
Go man, go,
But not like a yo-yo schoolboy.
Just play it cool, boy,
Real cool! 

Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!

For years, events have been calling our nation to a serious discussion.  For years, we've turned away from having one, preferring crazy actions to reasoned, respectful talk.  In fact, reason & respect seem to have been thrown out the window over the past six years.

My conservative friends would say that it started farther back, that George W. Bush was disrespected, too.  But let's face it - W was laughed at, he wasn't hated & openly disrepected by elected & appointed officials in very public settings.  Barack Obama has been.  If Bush 43 was considered a joke, Obama is considered by many the anti-Christ.  

The recent tragedy in Ferguson, Missouri has become a flash point of anger over a rising tide of events that seem to target the dignities of African-Americans.  Stand your ground laws that allow people to kill if they feel threatened, which puts the ultimate white privilege - an expectation it's reasonable to feel threatened by someone because of color - front & center.  Voter ID laws that seem to target black voters, ignoring that voter fraud almost always happens in the counting,not the casting.  The inability of the courts to convict, often even to indict law enforcement officers who kill black suspects, however outrageous the situation.

The decision to not indict Officer Darren Wilson should not have surprised anyone.  The evidence was too iffy, the testimonies too conflicting.  It was the only decision they could find, given the realities.  Forget the event, hard as that may be.  All the came after it was one indignity after another.  Leaving the body, uncovered, in the street for four hours - on a summer day.  The police bungling from the start, the questionable actions of the prosecutor to the very end.  To this outsider, it felt like the powers-that-be in Ferguson were trying to trigger upset in their black community.  

What is of interest to me is how people have responded in incredibly inappropriate ways to the whole heart break, from the violence in Ferguson & other communities to Rudy Guiliani's black-on-black crime comments to the St. Louis Rams coming into the stadium with their hands up.

One side can't see the grand jury came to the only possible decision;  another side can't see that the rising anger has a justifiable source, laid out in a growing number of indignities that seem to target African-Americans.  They lash out from feelings rather than reason, which is dangerous ground to be walking.

In a nutshell, that's the thing that most fascinates me about the past six years.  We were once a land of reason & laws;  now, Darrell Issa says he has no proof of intentional wrongdoing by IRS officials BUT he knows it in his gut and the press & public don't laugh him out of his chairmanship.

Let's face it - Barack Obama, as African-American as anyone could ever be, was elected & our nation went cuckoo.  Republican leaders had a meeting on the very night of his inauguration on how to short-sheet his term; at that same time, Mitch McConnell announced that the GOP's #1 goal was to short-sheet what he hoped to make a 1-term presidency - months after the 2008 economic melt-down, Republican leadership had torpedoing a presidency, not restoring our economy, as their top goal.  And that has been how they have acted, both throughout President Obaman's first term & now his second.

The Tea Party made its spectacular debut in the 2010 elections & things in the country have been set on their ear, nowhere more than in the Republican Party, where Tea Party activists "primary" GOP candidates they consider don't come up to their standards of governing.  

We've seen Stand Your Ground laws sweep through state legislatures, seen unions openly being busted, seen voter id laws introduced that disenfranchise the old, the poor & students.  

The Supreme Court redefined campaign finance reform to mean that corporations have the same freedom of speech as a citizen, with all of the privileges & none of the responsibilities.  Corporations can move their headquarters to another country to avoid American tax laws, but still claim incredibly tax right-offs & other $$$ booty funded by American tax payers.

What happened in Ferguson MO & the response to it - on all sides - is just one more sign that the United States of America 2014 has gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!

  .
our nation needs to get into a serious discussion, yet one side can't see the grand jury came to the only decision it could, given the evidence & conflicting testimony, while another side can't see the valid anger over a body left in the street for four hours, over a police force that bungled things from the start, over a prosecutor who acted questionably to the end. our country's laws have shifted over the past six years, highlighted by stand your ground & voter id laws that seem to target & lessen the rights of african-americans. if all of us can't at least understand the growing frustration, then our thinking - & compassion - is muddled beyond reason. nothing says how messed up our nation has gotten over race relations than using black-on-black crime to discount the tragedy in ferguson, mo.