Ripples

When I am kind to others I believe the love ripples out like waves in water traveling outward beyond my reach and that, in time, it will return to me with the richness of every shore it ever touched. It's a long term prospect I am willing to pursue and willing to wait for.

No Boundaries

True story:

In 1921 in the south of Poland, following World War I, a Quaker nurse had come to a small Catholic village to bring healing and love to the people there. After a time she herself fell ill and subsequently died. Because of their love for this woman and her dedicated service to their town the villagers asked the Priest if she could be buried in the church cemetery, but the Priest was firm. It was a Roman Catholic town, a Roman Catholic territory, and church law forbade that any but baptized Roman Catholics be buried in the Catholic cemetery. The decision was made to have her buried just outside the cemetery fence in an adjacent lot. And so they did. The next morning the Priest was astounded to see that the villagers, faithful Catholics all, had gone out in the middle of the night and moved the fence.

Love has no boundaries. We all need each other. We all belong to the same family. Let's wrap our arms around each other. Let's go out move the fence!

Blogging

So I start out with a simple idea (something positive or uplifting that popped into my head or a snippet of a conversation that day) and then I try to use words in such a way that it takes you to a different place in your thinking. I want you to read it like it's the first time you've ever come across such a notion. And why? Because we take so much for granted when it comes to life. We hold on to our over-worked assumptions. It's like we think we know things before we even know them. But we really don't. We can't. Because life is full of twists and turns and boomerangs - things that come back when we least expect them and change what we thought we knew about them in the first place. And that's what makes writing these little essays so much fun for me. Because to be challenged and surprised at the same time is magic in the making and there's nothing more fun than that!

Tonight

Tonight, before I fall asleep, I'm going to take a few minutes and think back over my day. It wasn't perfect, but I tried. Some days are brilliant flashes of light and some are just "sloggers". Today was somewhere in between . . . and I'm okay with that. It just proves my life is normal.

The house is still. I love the feel of it. Like so many times I laid in bed as a kid - listening to the house. So ends the day with the same quietness from which it woke. The last bit ticks by. I close my eyes.

Good night.

Remember Who You Are

It's really quite simple. All you need to do is remember who you are.

All You Have

When all you have is love and kindness then you will have all you need. When you reach into your pocket and pull out nothing but an open hand then you will have found something more powerful than all the money in the world.

The action of a pure and willing heart can make all the difference to a wounded soul. To say, "You are not alone. You are cared about and loved." is music to a weary heart.

There is so much you can do. Never let an opportunity pass to be the very person you yourself would need.

Take a Hike

I've been following a young woman who started walking the Appalachian Trail (AT) this month. She's the daughter of the woman who owns the local UPS Store where I drop off work packages I return to vendors and such. She and her Mother have a Blog and I'm trying to keep up on it.

I've read enough books on the Appalachian Trail to be an arm-chair-expert. I'd like to believe that I'm still young enough to take on such an endeavor, but time is ticking. I've heard stories of folks doing it well into their 70s. I’ll probably end up a section hiker, but that’s okay. Maybe when I retire I’ll be able to section hike the whole thing in 7-10 years!

There's this thing called "trail magic" on the Appalachian Trail. It's when people from the surrounding areas come out and either provide food, drink, or other necessities to weary hikers on the trail. They say trail magic happens when you least expect it, but from the sounds of it more folks living near the AT are making this magic happen.

Back in the late 90s, when we had our cabin in Vermont, I used to pick up hitchhikers coming down from the Trail to Bennington and on the flip side I’d pick up others going back up to the Trail from Manchester. It was a little thing on my part, but it was a long walk in and out of town for them.

The other thing common on the Appalachian Trail is no one goes by their real name. They all have “trail names”. If you get on the trail without having picked a trail name others will find on for you pretty quickly. I’d probably use the camp name I had when I worked at a Girl Scout camp in Kansas one summer – Dedo. That was my Dad’s nickname. His little sister couldn't pronounce Dale, I guess. I looked so much like him people called me “Little Dedo” when I was little.

Wouldn't it be cool if we could take “trail magic” and turn it into “everyday magic” where we purposefully did things to make other peoples lives easier and better? And what if we called each other by names similar to trail names, but they were our “who-we-really-are-names”, because they stood for our very best qualities? Think about it!

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting the urge to take a hike!

If you’re interesting in following “Ladybird” you can do so here - https://robynbonham.wordpress.com

Beep, Beep, Boop

My Uncle Harvey was blind. When I was a teenager I remember him participating in trials of new devices including a beeping softball, talking watches, and other items he'd receive from the VA or other sources. I remember he had a walking cane that made 3 distinct tones depending on the location of an obstruction. If there was a step down it made a low tone, if it was straight ahead it made a medium tone, and if it was overhead it made a high tone. In this way he could "see" where he was going.

I have my vision, but I tend to bump my head when I'm not paying attention, or slip off the curb while I'm looking at my phone, or spill stuff when I reach for a glass with a sideways glance and end up knocking it over.

I guess I should be more aware, but there's just so much going on. How can one grasp it all?

I have this phrase I use when I start feeling disconnected and distracted. I say, "I need to be in my shoes." Meaning I need to feel the bottom of the soles of my feet touching the insoles of my shoes. Here in this immediate moment. Just like that. It's like that beep from Uncle Harvey's cane making me aware that I'm missing something that's right in front of me. I need to stop and appreciate my surroundings, the people in my life, and the things I have.

It's so easy to get caught up in the pace of things. Always moving, always busy, too busy to stop and look around and see where we are.

Guess this is the real curse of our age. We're distracted. Disconnected. Isolated by our own technology and endeavors.

When was the last time you simply stopped to watch a bird fly overhead, or closed your eyes and smelled the cool sweet fresh air of Spring, or looked into a loved ones eyes without a word?

Not nearly enough I tell you. Not nearly enough.

It's Why You're Here

Our uniqueness is the very thing that makes us alike.

We appear similar and have similar physical attributes, but we can never truly understand what's it's like to be another person. Sure, the human genome has been sequenced, but the human soul never will be. We are a lovely beautiful mess of amazing mystery.

Who's to say what insignificant things may have affected who we are? What triumphs our tragedies imprinted or souls? What historical events stored in our ancestral memory have shaped us? What moment of awe and wonder opened our spirits, called to us, spoke to us, formed us?

Bravely be who you are. Don't worry if others accept you or agree with you. Fight for what you believe in. Follow your dreams. Give your heart and soul to kindness. Never hold back on love.

And understand this - there will never be another you. Being who you are is the one thing only YOU can do. The gifts you bring are uniquely yours. In the end you will change the course of the world just like every person who has ever drawn breath and dared to be themselves. Chase life. Run long and hard at it. It's your destiny. It's why you're here.

Make Good Choices

Mikhaila always leaves you with, "Make good choices".

It's something she and her friends started saying to each other after a friend's Mom said it as the last bit of advice before they all went to a party.

Believe me, no one wakes up in the morning and says, "I think I'll make a bad decision today." We all do the best we can.

Decisions come from several places. One isn't better than the other. They're just different.

Sometimes we make decisions with our heads. We logically work out the details and check the boxes. It's pretty bloodless. I think of this as "the grown-up method".

Sometimes we go with "the gut". This is the visceral method. It comes from a place that's deep and "known". You may not know why, but you certainly know you do.

Sometimes we make decisions based on the heart, and . . . well, what could possibly go wrong there?! Frankly this method is the scariest. You're just hanging out there hoping your right because how you feel emotionally is the only thing you've got to go on.

Sometimes we foist our decisions on others because they're too hard or we're too afraid to make the wrong one. This is decision by proxy. It's like hearing your parent's voices in your head, which sometimes isn't a bad thing.

And once in a while, when we have no idea how to move forward, we punt and just put one foot in front of the other and hope it all works out for the best. Truth is we're all flawed individuals and sometimes we're just scared little kids hoping we've done the right thing.

So here's my thoughts on all this. I make the best decisions I can based on what I know. I try not to hurt anyone or get in their way. I try to make decisions based on who I am and what I believe. In the end I try to trust the Universe to take any wrong decisions I've made and make them right, because I'm pretty sure my heart is in the right place and in the end nothing is permanent and everything changes.

I really like what Mikhaila says. I always have this feeling of open possibilities when I walk away from her. I really do have choices. I have them everyday. And you know what? Today I'm going to go out there and make some really good ones!

Life Sucks

I find that when I focus on others and not on myself and I reach out and do what I can things are better. It's not about how much my life sucks. It's about how I can help make someone else's life suck less. It's not about what life has done to me. It's about what I can do for others. It's not about dropping my dreams or the things I want. It's about acting in love because that's what life is all about. Those things will come, but love endures forever. You never know the impact you may have on people, whether for ill or good. Make it good and the Universe will respond. You may never be worry free, but your problems will be in perspective and the love you have sewn will come back to you when you need it. We all know this is true, but misery loves company even if it's for a short while. When we focus on ourselves our lives gets very very small indeed, but when we can put the focus on others it expands and expands and expands.

Influence

When I came through the door last night I asked my family how they were (just like I do every night). They were sitting in the living room watching the evening news. "We're suffering from diarrhea, constipation, low testosterone, and diabetes", they answered.

We all had a good laugh.

But here's the sad truth . . . in the evening TV is full of pharmaceutical companies trying to sell us drugs and in the morning it's full of lawyers trying to help us sue pharmaceutical companies for the side effects. On top of that we become so desensitized to the content of these advertisements that we don't even blush when the woman in the ad starts talking about erectile dysfunction as she seductively slides across the bedspread in her slinky night gown and come hither stare. (Please, someone, anyone, cover the children's eyes!)

This is how violence, mayhem, mistreatment of others, and things that would normally be unacceptable become accepted. Think about it. How many murder shows can you see in one night and not be affected? Not become numb to it?

All this habitual exposure is making us less compassionate and loving people. We're defensive, argumentative, and agitated. The funny part is we don't even know why, but believe you me the companies that are selling stuff know why because when we're uncomfortable or agitated we purchase stuff that we hope will make us feel better. When we're loved, comfortable, and happy we don't need anything else.

I say we kick the chair out from under these companies and spend more time doing the things that help us walk more gently, speak more kindly, and hold each other more lovingly. We need to understand that we have tremendous power to influence the world when we protect and care for our fellow travelers be they animal vegetable or mineral, like us or different, known to us or unknown.

It's time we became the influencer and not just the influenced.