Yes, in America, we still manage a peaceful transition of political power every four years. We do not need nor countenance armed revolution to effect change in our society.

Yes, in America a black man CAN be elected President, we are an open society in which anyone who meets our constitutional qualifications can wage a campaign to lead this nation. For the first time in our history, that will not be a white male. It will be a highly educated black man with an enormous agenda, the drive and determination to see it through, and the patience to work through our political process to achieve goals that will benefit not only Americans but the world.

I hope the world sees that we Americans are NOT all cowboys, able and willing to settle every disagreement with bombs and warships. I hope that some of our former allies will once again come to sit at our table and that many who thought this nation was composed of nothing but war wanting confrontationalists, will now see that our open society demonstrates that freedom is not to be feared but cherished. I hope President-elect Obama will bring his unique style of oration to the world and offer our resources to not only help the world at large but heal it as well.

I hope and believe that he will end the fiasco in Iraq and finish the only fight we should have started in the first place, with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, find him and put him on trial for the world to see. I would have been willing to fight Afghanistan long ago simply for what they did to women, the Taliban, those religious icons whose only foreign export is drugs. They are not religious icons, they are drug lords and deserve no better treatment than any drug dealer the world over might expect.

I know the world was watching and I hope everyone everywhere in the world sleeps a little more soundly tonight for the bells of change are ringing clearly and we would invite you to walk this path with us. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way choose to be a bringer of the light. :^) gene

Democracy is not average people selecting average leaders.

It is average people with the wisdom to select the best prepared.

Facts are powerful!!

Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin, what if things were switched around?…..think about it.

Would the country’s collective point of view be different?

Could racism be the culprit?

*Ponder the following*

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage,including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to hisstandards?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama couldn’t read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama’s family had made their money from beer distribution?

What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

*Educational Background*
*Barack Obama* Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a specialization in International Relations, Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

*Joseph Biden* University of Delaware - B.A. in History and BA. in Political Science, Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain*

United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin* Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester, North Idaho College - 2 semesters - General Study, University of Idaho - 2 semesters - Journalism, Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester,
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Education isn’t everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world.

You make the call !!!!!!!

If today brings even one choice your way choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

That pretty much sums up where I’ve been the past couple months. I feel like its all been done, yet I feel I have a part yet to do. The somebody keeping me here, is of course, Jenna. It is she who is my lovelight and she who tells me I have much left to do here, even if I feel its all been done, she says no one has done what I will, nor in the way I will. So though I feel my “home” is calling me, it is here that I have to stay. Which puts me in a sort of push-pull situation of the kind I really don’t like. Part of me is pushing and part of me is pulling and it is hard for me to know which part to let win. The stasis is Jenna, it is she who swings the balance here for me, she is the reason I keep on keeping on - which is also in that song. Part of my feeling within, is how long must I. Steve sings that you’ve got through hell before you get to heaven. And I believe there is no such place as hell. Rather I believe that life on earth is what hell is. Because here we do not know who we are nor where we come from, nor remember our life there, our Creator. For me, hell is having forgotten these things - and a bit more than a little of having to listen to the world fight about exactly that. It matters not what reason the parties involved give for the fight, whether that be countries at war or two guys at a bar, or for that matter, two guys or two girls in a ring engaged in “sanctioned” brutality - I do not consider any event in which the sole purpose is to do harm to another, sport, which lets you know how I feel about boxing and ultimate fighting, etc. - fighting, with fists or with words, to me, is an always wrong thing to me. And while I do not believe in mythical hell nor a mythical Satan, I DO believe that when are separate from the knowledge of our home and our creator, when we are uncertain about what to do or believe or that there is any place but this one for us, that we have indeed descended into Hell. Unfortunately for us, our experience does not last but three days only, it lasts the entire course of our lifetime.

Why? Why do I believe this? Because I’ve seen the light of home, I’ve felt the peace and love that go with those lights, that exists in the presence of those lights, and though they were but seconds long experiences, nothing that has happened in my entire life here on earth can compare at all. The highest level of joy I’ve experienced here was the birth of my sons. And with one, it did not end well, and I’m not sure it will with the other either. No other experience approaches the joy I felt in the presence of the light globes. Not even close. I guess then, that the length of our stay here, is also the length of our stay in hell. Though certainly not all of the time we are here can be called hellish, because it isn’t. There are many wonderful moments and days and weeks and years in which we are quite happy and content. Real hell is when we lose our connection with the love that made us. And we do that in many ways, personally and generally, as people and nations, as members of one religion or another which vie with each other for converts and believers, particularly those religions which are willing to kill to prove themselves “right”. I’ve said before that I think anything which divides us is not of divine origin but human alone and I include in that statement every religion that exists or has ever existed. I do believe that at a point in time yet to come, we will overcome those divisions and understand that we are in all truth, one. At that time, religion will cease to exist, it will be replaced by love. And we will not be a civilization until we reach that understanding and our faith in it is such that nothing can shake us loose from it, nor from each other.

None of which makes living this life any the easier, I know. I am living proof of that as are many, if not all, of you. In a way I can both understand and accept that. The road to heaven passes through hell. The rational give in CWG is, well, rational. You can’t know what one thing is if you have never experienced anything else. Here OR in heaven. We can’t know what hot is unless we know what cold is, we find such things out here in the relative universe, along with a lot of other less pleasant dualities. And, we can’t know what love is, until we have an experience involving a lesson about what love is not - and there are many of those to be had here too. War, divorce, alienation, mental illness, physical disabilities, death. Since we come from a place where love is all there is, it makes sense to me that our creator would give us an opportunity to know how wonderful THAT place is by allowing us to experince what it is like being in a place that is not like our home. So I get that. But I don’t have to like it, because the experiences I have called to myself have been so difficult, I’d like to think I could have realized how wonderful home is with a good bit less difficulty than I have through what I have lived through, seen and done. Jenna says though that all of it was necessary, that I could not possibly be the man I am without the life I’ve lived. She says that is important. I can’t argue, but I don’t have to like it. Just accept it. Which part is easy enough because I can’t change the past, only remember it. Nor can I see the future, other than in the way we all do, if I do this, then that will likely happen, we can see the future consequences of our actions, but we cannot see behind the curtain. Death is the only way we can do that. God says in CWG that death is the most wonderful moment of our life here because in that instant we are again home, where love is all there is. And I gotta say, even here, I have been a homebody, and I am very much looking forward to being one in my original home.

When waiting is filled and my time here complete, I will be both grateful and ready. I’ve learned a lot here, about who I am and who I am not, about what happens when we forget the highest part of ourselves, and, of course, what can happen when we have NO IDEA at all about who we are, where we came from, who our creator is, and where we are going when we leave this existence. When we forget those things, and the vast majority of people living on this planet have, thoroughly and completely, forgotten any memory of home, which is what allows us to be so barbaric to each other everywhere across this planet, from the caves of Afghanistan to the corporate boardrooms to the spirit crushing rule of dictatorship to the selfish rule of freedom as in my own home country, where the prevailing attitude is “I got mine, screw you”. Love is not known in these circumstances and conditions. I guess so that when we return to our real home at the end of our lives here, we will appreciate home even more than we did to begin with, because having lived in conditions in which love was not present, we will understand and feel more clearly appreciation for our creator and for our life there. But I gotta tell you, it seems an awfully long road to that final destination. It may all have been necessary as Jenna says, but if I were doing the designing, well, there are parts I would have left out. Since Jen says it was all necessary, then it must be so, she is not capable of lying, nor dissembling, nor even misleading me. Still, I yearn for the love and peace I left behind when I came here. And truth is, I don’t ever want to leave that again. She says I won’t either, that this is my first and last trip to relativity. And what I say to that is thank God! Once was more than enough for me. There is more, much more, and she says, as God does in CWG, that everyone has an opportunity to have every experience, to be the audience and to be the actor. Poet, pauper, piper and king. We all have the chance to have each of those experiences and a virtual infinite variety of others. And most of us will choose to do so. I will not. So she says. And, I feel deep within the truth of that. And, woo hoo, is all I have to say about it. There is good in choice. May you all have that which YOU choose. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

It seems that many in America are deeply influenced in their political lives by their particular spiritual traditions. We have in our constitution protections for spiritual liberty, the idea being that each of us should be allowed to practice whatever faith tradition, including none, we have without interference from our government. That is a far cry from, for instance, Islamic countries, where Sharia, or Islamic Law, IS the government and none other is tolerated. There are gradations, of course, but ours is a secular society and was designed to be so by those who wrote and established our constitutional form of government.

So where am I going with this? Well, let me tell you. Various groups in this country, including the Republican and Democratic parties, claim to have kidnapped Jesus and have exclusive knowledge of His will for us. And they will use His words, or His Father’s, selectively to “prove” their point. There are those who would have us believe that were He here now, He’d be driving a big old truck with a gun rack and watching Nascar. There are those who would have us believe He’d be marching in the streets with those demanding things like universal health care and secure retirements for all citizens. Truth be told, my own inclination, and my Jenna, have me squarely in the second camp.
But, and this is a huge caveat, since He is NOT here among us physically, NONE of us has the right to speak for him, nor tell others what to do on His behalf. If you wish a certain outcome, be man, or woman, enough to say so on your own without trying to sway your listeners by also claiming to have His backing. Because you don’t. When He wishes to make known what He wants, other than what he is quoted as saying, sometimes in documents written more than a hundred years after He returned to where we all come from, He will. Until then, use the persuasive power of your own intellect to move others toward the reason of your position, not invoke someone who is not actually running in this, or any other, election.

That said, I want to comment a bit on the current presidential campaign. I am not an “undecided” voter, by the way, I will vote for Obama on November 3rd without doubt unless evidence comes to light between now and then that convinces me he is a serial killer or something. There are several reasons for my certainty that he is the candidate I want elected.

First, 8 years ago we had a budget surplus and a 5 trillion dollar national debt AND a plan to have it reduced to virtually nothing by now. Now we have a half trillion budget deficit annually and a 10 trillion dollar national debt. That tells me that something we did in the last 8 years did NOT work. And that something is the SAME thing John McCain proposes to continue doing. He has taken to blaming Congressional Democrats for our difficulties, but it must be noted that the Republican party controlled both Houses of Congress from 1994 to 2006. He is part of that history. One of my favorite movies is the Coen brothers, Oh Brother Where Art Thou, for a lot of reasons, beautiful, varied music, wonderful writing, superlative acting and a fun story line. One of the things I remember from that movie was the incumbent governor’s campaign staff suggesting he run as a reform candidate. He reacted by throwing his hat at him and saying, you can’t run as a reform candidate when you are the incumbent. Someone should suggest John McCain see that movie. He can’t run as a reformist, he IS the incumbent in this election or his party is. THEY got us to where we are today.

Second, Sarah Palin. I simply cannot accept the idea of that woman being a heartbeat from the presidency. She may be a qualified governor, but I don’t think she’s been in office long enough to even know that much about her. What I do know is that she has no experience in any area of national government and what I know of her views I completely disagree with. I understand John met her twice before naming her to his ticket. Can you imagine what THAT says to the rest of his party? I have looked high and low throughout the land and the next best Republican, to me, of course, qualified to be president, is NOT one of you in the lower 48 with substantial governmental experience but rather this woman I met in Alaska who likes shooting wolves from airplanes. Sorry. I don’t buy that argument and frankly do not understand how the rest of the Republican party has either.

Third, after 911 we had the largest outpouring of support for our country we have ever had, the largest amount of good will aimed at us, felt for us, and we have squandered it completely with our arrogant and unilateral approach to global affairs. I believe Obama will be a bridge-builder, not a bridge destroyer and I believe THAT is what our country, this planet, needs right now in an American president. No one can deny the influence our economy has on the rest of the world as markets in other countries fell just as ours did earlier this week. Some countries are so aware of this effect that they feel they ought have a way to vote in our presidential elections because what happens here affects the world so much. I’m not sure I’d go that far. Today. But it is undeniable that we have become one world, if not yet one people, and that what happens in one sector of the world DOES affect what happens in others. That is as true economically as it is ecologically and meteorology. We humans inhabit this world, we don’t own it. We just think we do. It was here before us and will be when we are gone, however that comes about and there are a number of scenarios to that as well. We need a president who can reach out to other countries and be accepted as a man of peace and honor. I believe the fresh approach of Barack Obama will be better received around the world than the continuation of the failed Bush policies that McCain intends to push forward with.

Fourth, no one wants to talk about race, but it is a factor in this election. It is TIME this country had a president of color and it is time we have a female president too. That will come. It WILL come. Obama’s election will do more to raise the hopes of our citizens of color than anything that has come before it. Suddenly young men and women of color will have a role model who is not an athlete but a world leader. He will give them hope, something so many in our inner cities lack completely. The hope of a tomorrow that is not what today is. Generations of Americans of color have been raised to believe that what they have is all they can ever have, that every business, every institution, including our political institutions, had “glass” ceilings beyond which they could not go. Obama’s election will demonstrate to them, the disenfranchised, that in all truth, anyone can become President of the United States. I think that will do more for the hopes of young Americans of color than any number of professional athletes ever have. I think it will help them believe that they too can do anything with education and hard work. He will be good for America in so many ways, I find it virtually impossible to believe he won’t be our next President. And if my vote counts, he will be. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Which explains my absence here. Well that and another knee surgery in mid-September. I had a torn meniscus in my right knee three years ago and had that arthroscopically repaired. That one was a piece of cake, I was okay from day one, could take care of myself and Cisco, recovery was swift and easy. This one was not like that one. That tear was on the inside of my knee, this one was at the back of the meniscus and it was very hard to find so the surgeon was in there twice as long as the first time. When I woke, the nurse really encouraged me to take crutches. I thought, piffle, I didn’t need them before why would I now? Still she insisted, so I took them. Good thing too, because for that first week I could do nothing but take pain meds and lie on the couch with my leg in the air and an ice bag on it. The extra time in surgery and having to trim away a lot tissue and poke and prod just to find the tear caused a lot more swelling and pain than the first surgery did. It’s been a month now and I am still quite sore. The week I took off last time for recovery, this time turned into two full weeks and a third of half days. I suppose it doesn’t help that I keep crashing into things either, lol. The day before I was to come back to work, expecting full time, I took a tumble down the stairs. I thought I could come down normally but as my left leg took my full body weight it buckled and down I went. Nice thick carpet though. Still, my knee blew up on me and that familiar fire under the patella - which had just disappeard on the Friday before came back. I saw the surgeon the next day and he said no damage he thought, I just “stirred” things up in there a bit. And my right knee looked worse than the left from the rug burns, lol.
So recuperation is still ongoing. And the time I used for writing here is not all mine anymore. When I was living alone it didn’t matter what time I ate, or if even, but with two of us we need more regularity than that. Hard getting used to. Jenna says not for long will it be like this. Gene says good and thanks. I love my son with all my heart but living with him ended 15 years ago and at some point I will need my life back because there are things I have to do, want to do, that Jen and I have been talking about for years. And I WILL, if ever I am able. She says I will be and I say good. But still in this moment, this is what is.

What brought about the topic idea in the subject line was a discussion I had with my son about inconsistency. He thinks I am inconsistent in my approach to life. He is sure that is whim, when I want one thing, I am okay with it, at other times I am not. I am supposed to be on a restricted fat/cholesterol diet, but it is his observation that only sometimes do I follow that, for instance. At first, I thought, no, I AM consistent, just in my own way. Later though as I thought about it, I could see his point more clearly. But what he was seeing as inconsistencies were actually “exceptions” I made when with him. He assumed that was how I ate all the time, when in truth it was not, but I do see how he’d get that impression. The same holds true for other things. There are things I may do on an individual basis that I do not believe would be good for the population at large. For instance, I think that compassion, forgiveness, love for all of life are critical components of a true civilization, but am I those things at all times at a personal level. No. I’m not a perfect person. I am a work in process, in the midst of my own evolution. A process I think will continue until my last day. I would like very much for my largest ideas to fit perfectly into and be mirrored precisely in my private life as well. But they are not. Yet. That is a goal, an objective, not a truth. It is my desire that I grow closer to that larger truth by the day, yet I can see from without, that others may see things I do not, or interpret things I do as not consistent with my avowed truths. So that is where evolution comes in. We are each a work in progress, we evolve each day, some of us perhaps devolve on some days, in fact I am quite sure of THAT too. But even baby steps ARE steps. And as long as there more of them taken forward than backward, I find that to be progress. A setback, of whatever nature, does not eliminate all that went before and does not mean one starts all over again. It is like falling down the stairs in a way. You land and lie there a moment checking to see what works and what doesn’t, then you pick yourself up and continue on. Life is just like that. Don’t you think? much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

MOMENTS TO REMEMBER
Have you ever noticed that you do not remember days, you remember moments?

A strange story about immortalizing moments comes from the book SPIRITUAL LITERACY (Touchstone Books) by authors Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat. It is about a Brooklyn cigar store manager named Oggie Rand. Oggie has an unusual habit — at precisely eight o’clock each morning, he photographs the front of the store. Always at exactly the same time and from exactly the same spot. Every morning. Oggie collects his daily snapshots in photograph albums, each labeled by date. He calls his project his “life’s work.”

One day Oggie showed his albums to a friend. He had not told his friend about his unusual hobby. Flipping the pages of the albums, the man noticed in amazement that the pictures were all the same.
Oggie watched him skim through the pictures and finally replied, “You’ll never get it if you don’t slow down, my friend. The pictures are all of the same spot, but each one is different from every other one. The differences are in the detail. In the way people’s clothes change according to season and weather. In the way the light hits the street. Some days the corner is almost empty. Other times it is filled with people, bikes, cars and trucks. It’s just one little part of the world, but things take place there, too,
just like everywhere else.”

This time Oggie’s friend looked more carefully at each picture. No two were alike. Every picture was unique, just as every moment is unique. Through a series of photographs, he became conscious of one of life’s great truths — that each minute that passes is special, even sacred.

I’m reminded of something writer Henry Miller said, “The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.” And those are the moments we’ll remember; the ones for which we stopped everything else long enough to pay close attention.

The advice for me is this: to pay as close attention to each moment as I can, as if I were carefully observing a series of snapshots. I would like to take time to study the moments. If I look closely enough, I know I’ll see that each is unique. Each is sacred. And each holds a special place in time. I suspect it will be these moments — not whole days, weeks, months or years — that I will finally remember. And much of the happiness and joy I will find in life will be because I took care of the moments.

– Steve Goodier

What I take from Steve’s story reminded me of John Lennon’s song, In My Life,

In My Life

There are places I’ll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends, I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I’ve loved them all
But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life, I’ll love you more
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life, I’ll love you more

And this I know to be true, in my life, I’ll love you more, each and every moment. :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

A LAW OF SUCCESSFUL LIVING

I am impressed by an incident that happened during Ignacy Paderewski’s (November 18, 1860 - June 29, 1941) career. The famous Polish pianist agreed to play a concert organized by two Stanford University students working their way through school. Paderewski’s manager said they would have to guarantee the artist a fee of $2,000. The boys agreed and eventually the concert was held.

Though the two student promoters worked hard, they took in only $1,600. Discouraged, they told Paderewski of their efforts and handed him the $1,600 with a note promising to pay him the balance of $400. But the artist tore up the note and gave them back the $1,600. “Take your expenses out of this,” he said, “give yourselves each 10% of what’s left for your work, and let me have the rest.”

Years later, Paderewski was faced with feeding the people of his war-ravaged Poland. Amazingly, even before a request was made, thousands of tons of food were sent to Poland by the United States.

Paderewski later traveled to Paris to thank Herbert Hoover, who headed up the US relief effort. “That’s all right, Mr. Paderewski,” said Hoover, “I knew that the need was great. And besides, though you
may not remember it, I was one of two college students whom you generously helped when I was in need.”

The story illustrates a law of successful living: sooner or later we will reap what we sow. Paderewski reaped a harvest of kindness he had sown years before. Those who sow love will eventually reap love.
Those who sow goodness will reap even more. Those who sow fear and mistrust will reap an unwanted harvest later.

It’s a basic law of successful living. And powerful enough to change a life.

– Steve Goodier

And, in my mind, this is how we should all be all the time, remembering those who have loved and helped us and passing that forward with each day. :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

GETTING READY FOR TOMORROW

You heard about the sign posted on a rancher’s fence? On the other side of the fence resides the biggest, meanest looking bull you can imagine. The sign is intended to strike fear into the hearts of
would-be trespassers. It reads: “Don’t attempt to cross this field unless you can do it in 9.9 seconds. The bull can do it in 10 flat!”

Don’t try to cross that field unless you are prepared! And isn’t that the way it is in life? We have to be ready when the opportunity arises or else we will have little chance of success.

Sixth-grade schoolteacher Ms. Shelton believed in readiness. Students remember how she walked in on the first day of class and began writing words of an eighth-grade caliber on the chalkboard. They quickly
protested that the words were not on their level and they couldn’t learn them.

Their teacher insisted that the students could and would learn these words. She said that she would never teach down to them. Ms. Shelton ended by saying that one of the students in that classroom could go on to greatness, maybe even be president some day, and she wanted to prepare them for that day.

Ms. Shelton spoke those words many years ago. Little did she know that someday one of her students - Jesse Jackson - would take them seriously (”Leadership, ” Summer 1992). She believed that if they were
well prepared, they could achieve high goals.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “People only see what they are prepared to see.” If that’s true, then it is also true that they only become what they are prepared to become. And a lot of life is just about
getting ready.

“I want to be doing something more significant with my life than what I am doing now,” a young man once said to me. He felt like what he was doing was just not that important. Other people have said things to me such as, “I only wish I had a meaningful relationship. ” And, “I’d really like to get a better job, but I just don’t see how.”

You fill in the blanks. What is it you would like to happen that isn’t happening? Perhaps the answer is that you are not yet ready. Maybe you need more time to prepare before you are truly ready for that which you desire.

Think of today as another chance to prepare yourself for that exciting future you are looking for. Today is not wasted. If you desire more from life, then you can use today as training. For you will experience only what you are prepared to experience. Something wonderful can happen. And you can use today to get ready for tomorrow.

– Steve Goodier

Today is a day that will never come again. If time is on a line, each second is a dot on that line, each one unique, each one precious and each one here for that moment and that moment alone, never to be seen again. When you think of your time and your preparation and your life, if you think of it in those terms, you will often find yourselves wondering if what you are doing in any given moment is what you really want to be doing. Need to be doing? No such thing. Want to be doing is the ONLY reason for doing anything. Do you want to? :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

IF LIFE WERE NOT SO BITTER…

File this story under the heading: “If life were not so bitter, revenge would not be sweet.”

After seventeen years of marriage, a man dumped his wife for a younger woman. The downtown luxury apartment was in his name and he wanted to remain there with his new love, so he asked his wife to move out and said he would buy her another place. The wife agreed to this, but asked that she be given three days.

The first day she packed her personal belongings into boxes and crates and suitcases. On the second day, she had the movers come and collect her things. On the third day, she sat down for the last time at their candlelit dining table, soft music playing in the background, and feasted alone on shrimp and a bottle of Chardonnay.

When she had finished, she went into each room and deposited shrimp leftovers into the hollow of her curtain rods. She then cleaned up the kitchen and left.

Her husband returned with his new girl, and all was bliss for the first few days. Then it started; slowly but surely. Clueless, the man could not explain why the place smelled as it did.

They tried everything. First they cleaned and mopped and aired the place out. That didn’t work. Then they checked vents for dead rodents. Still no luck. They steam cleaned the carpets and hung air fresheners. That didn’t solve the problem. They hired exterminators; still no good. They ripped out the carpets and replaced them. But the smell lingered.

Finally, they could take it no more and decided to move. The moving company packed everything and moved it all to their new place. Everything. Even the curtain rods.

I like the story because of the humor. But revenge is always a poor option if we want to be healthy and happy.

The problem is… we can’t carry a grudge and carry love in our hearts at the same time. We have to give one of them up. It’s a choice we make.

Some resentments are large; they’ve built up over a long time and will not be easy to part with. Some have been fed by years of pain and anger. But all the more reason to give them up.

When we’re tired of the anger and resentment and bitterness, we can choose a better way. We can be forever unhappy, or we can be healthy. We’re just not made to carry a big grudge and a heart filled with
love at the same time.

But I still chuckle at the story.

– Steve Goodier

Now then, the reason I don’t like this story is not its ultimate point, but its mean-spiritedness. Was the scorned wife right to be upset at how she had been treated? Of course. But did what she did make her the victor somehow? Did what she did make the world itself a better place by adding to it a bit of light? Or did we all become just a little darker at our core? I don’t chuckle at the story. I regret it. I regret that for far too many of us, getting even is more important than being right, regardless at whose expense that sense of victory comes. We should all be better than that. Perhaps one day we will be.

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

THE WAY WE SEE IT

The eye doctor instructed her patient to read a chart on the wall. He looked at it and read, “A, B, F, N, L and G.”

The doctor turned the light back on and wrote in her notebook.

“How’d I do, Doc?” the patient wondered.

She replied, “Let’s put it this way — they’re numbers.”

“But Doc,” he argued, “this is the way I see it!”

Much of my happiness or unhappiness is a result of my perception. “This is the way I see it,” I tell myself.

I see some problems as challenges that energize me to action and others as obstacles that stop further progress. It’s just the way I see it.

And sometimes I see new situations as fun, and other times I see them as fearful.

The busyness of my life can be OK if I see it that way, or it can be a major source of stress. And an unexpected intrusion in my schedule can be an irritant or, if I see it that way, possibly the most
important thing I could do that day.

Even an embarrassing mistake can be the beginning of a new learning or an occasion to berate myself. It’s in the way I see it.

One of the greatest blocks to my happiness is forgetting that it is not always about what is happening to me — it’s more about the way I see it.

Like Marcel Proust said, “The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” It’s in the way we see it.

– Steve Goodier

It is, you know. Really. Life is as much perception as it is reality. Those who say we are what we think we are, are not far off, for even if we are not something when we begin thinking we are, we may well create that very thing, for good or ill, if it becomes our focus and we come to believe it so. So maybe the lesson here is be careful what you wish for, giggle, or be certain when you do. much love, :^) gene

GETTING IT RIGHT

A young boy was sitting in the back seat of the car eating an apple. He poked his father in the front seat and asked, “Daddy, why does my apple turn brown?” His father answered, “When the skin is removed from the apple, air reaches the flesh of the apple and causes oxidation. This changes the apple’s molecular structure and results in a brownish color.

After a long pause, a small voice from the back seat asked, “Daddy, are you talking to me?”

I know how that boy feels. Sometimes I want answers to some of those confusing problems we all run up against. I want someone to explain how to get through difficult times or tell me what to do in a tough situation. I just want to get it right.

But I think I identify a bit more with the father whose daughter asked him if he would help her with some homework.

“I’m sorry,” he replied. “It wouldn’t be right.”

“Well,” she said, “at least you could try.”

Problem is, I don’t always have the answers I need. And nobody else seems too, either. So I blunder ahead worried that I’ll never get it “right.”

But I’m beginning to learn something about not knowing what to do and making a poor choice. That is — I don’t HAVE TO always get it right. I don’t have to always know what to do all the time. All I really
need to do is try my best, learn from the mistakes and go on.

The affable Dr. Leo Buscaglia once said, “No one gets out of this world alive, so the time to live, learn, care, share, celebrate, and love is now.” Which is pretty hard to do when you’re waiting for the
answers first.

So you got it wrong. You made a mistake. So what? Forgive yourself and try again. Even if you don’t get out of this world alive, you can get plenty of life out of this world if you’re not too worried about
always getting it right.

– Steve Goodier

And there again, is the truth of it. We are all going to make mistakes, it is one of those things that are inevitable, the solution is almost always going to come down to realizing what we have done, making amends if necessary, and then forgiving ourselves and moving on. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene