Writing for Sanity's Sake

I hate to be morbid, but it’s just a way to get a point across.

Imagine yourself on your deathbed. What things would be the most important to you…..excluding your relationship whether real or perceived, with your creator?

Are the things which you can think of, make a list of….are those things what are most important to you right now?

If the answer is no….why not?

If the answer is yes, then congratulations for being a good person.

The most difficult trait for humanity to overcome, is in my opinion, aggression.

That trait, along with Homo sapiens natural proclivity to stay together in first familial, and then tribal groups, has enabled us to survive and thrive.

Clashes over territory which contained game and wild fruit and roots escalated over the centuries into what we have now.

Wars over territory, differences in ideology, and the right to control the fates of massive numbers of other human beings, are taking place every day.

All this wasn’t quite as dangerous when our ancestors were using rocks and sharpened sticks. Now however, a small percentage of humans, known as the “genius inventors” have given mankind weapons of mass destruction.

Not all human beings have the temperament to be in charge of these terrible, awful weapons. Too much aggression….not enough temperance.

The time to search for a way to reduce human aggression as our main trait for survival….is now. I’d like for all my descendants to have a decent world to inherit. How about you?

Some days are diamonds and some days are stones. However, all days are good days to be alive, even the slightly bad ones, even still the terrible ones. We learn something even from the extremes.
I have had some days lately which have been a little frustrating. A lot of it is me. Something is happening to me….I don’t quite know what yet. I sleep all the time, day and night, and still feel pooped. But that’s no excuse to lose my temper, my nerve, my resolve, my humanity, my tact, my politeness and misplace my love. I forget what I am put here to do, and then remember it when it’s too late and I have already hurt someone I didn’t mean to hurt. Apologies are good things, but you can’t ever take back words once they have come out of your mouth, and someone has heard them. Guess it’s better to think before you speak isn’t it. I haven’t quite mastered that yet, probably never will.
Well then, tomorrows another day as Scarlett O’Hara would say, and I am hopeful I will see the sun rise again, and have a chance to try one more time to get this “living” thing done right. After all, we only get so many chances don’t we?

I read scientific studies that show when a person does something compassionate for someone else, it increases the endorphins in their body and makes them feel better.
If a person feels anger and divisiveness, it increases stress hormones and makes them feel worse, and could eventually lead to health problems.
That tells me that we should stop listening to the people who are trying to divide us, no matter what the issue, and start being compassionate and empathetic to other people. We need fewer dividers and subtractors, and many more adders and multipliers.
I’ve seen and read enough stuff this weekend to fear for future health problems for a LOT of people.
Take it from someone who has had two heart attacks and health related problems, some of which I am sure was due to my stress level caused by letting things anger me….you are better off refusing to let divisiveness over things which you cannot directly affect you, cause you anger and stress.
Hug people you love, work in your garden, bake cookies, read a book, take a walk….anything….anything besides obsessing over social media issues.
Give to charities going to Puerto Rica or Texas.
I know that It is important to be aware of important issues, and to make your opinions known to people who can directly affect those issues I.e., call your Congressmen or Senators, quit buying products from advertisers that advertise on shows that you don’t think are in line with your beliefs, quit watching things that don’t match your values.
If you want to speak your peace on something, then do it. But forego letting it rule your life.
I’m trying, and I realize it’s hard. It’s hard for me. I know it’s hard for y’all too. But, we gotta quit with all the anger and division, because sooner or later, in one manner or the other, it’s going to kill us.

Solomon said “to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven”

I know that The Byrds and Dylan put that chapter to music. It was a really popular song.

I wondered about it, so I analyzed it a little.

To EVERYTHING there is a season. That means even the little things we take for granted on a daily basis. Not just the big things. The small kisses from your children and your grandchildren…your husband or wife. The days that we work at our jobs. There is a season for that and a purpose. We may not consider it always to be a noble purpose, but in a way it always IS, if we make it so. (I always hear Patrick Stewart in my head when I write that….”make is so”) We project ourselves in those purposes. In everything.

There is a SEASON. Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. There are those seasons in our lives both externally and internally. Sinatra sang about it in the song “It Was a Very Good Year” When we are 17, the seasons seem like they are stretching out forever. The time passes by slowly…but by the time we reach the Autumn of the year the time is passing by like a blur. We take note of the passing of the time on the calendar, the Christmases and the Hot summer days, and our biological clocks just keep on moving. It’s my belief that we all have a different time on our biological and spiritual clocks. Nobody knows what it is, and we MUST learn to fit our purpose into that time that we have been given.

Under Heaven. As our time that we have is spent attending to our purpose here on Earth, we often forget that we are under Heaven. We have this wonderful human life and the time that goes with it and we have been given a purpose to accomplish. We often forget that and go about living our times wandering and squandering this wonderful gift. I hope and pray that when my sand, which is running so quickly out of the hourglass is done, that I will have accomplished what I was sent here to do. I think I have. In my heart of hearts I feel like I have. So that if I left tomorrow I believe I could rest in peace under the heavens that Solomon wrote about so long ago.

It’s not what you think…

I was a pretty good baseball player. I led the Pony league in batting average for two of the three years I played. Hit some good home runs although if my memory is correct, Tom Brewster, Junior as we knew him then, had more home runs(we were both lefties, and he could pull the ball into the tennis courts better than me. Mine were mostly to center field and had to be “run out” since there were no fences. Several of mine ended up in the Elementary School yard though) Thing is, as good as we were, we didn’t get any trophies. They didn’t give them out back then just for participation. You had to win the league, or the All stars, so….no baseball trophies on my shelf. I didn’t have anything from those wonderful days…at least I didn’t think I did.

I had been cleaning up in my folks house last year before we sold it. I thought I had everything and was making a last sweep of the place. I looked back in the far corner of the closet in the “dark room” and saw the outline of a ball bat. I retrieved it and was taken aback. It was my #34 Orlando Cepeda bat! A bat I had used in many games to hit those low screaming line drives down the first base line. The bat I used to hit a scorching line drive to center field that rolled all the way to that old black pipe water fountain at the Grammar school. I took it outside and swung it for 10 minutes, feeling the balance, and heft of that old bat.

I hadn’t known Dad had saved it. Maybe it was his weapon of last resort for intruders. But, it hadn’t been under the bed…it had been in the corner of the closet. Dad had carried that bat through three moves and had kept it. I wandered back in my mind, remembering how he had been at all my games cheering me on, just as he had later attended all my brother’s football games. Could it be that he had actually been that proud of his crazy acting lefty son? Maybe so, I thought as I took my trophy out and laid it in the seat of my car.

Today I was able to see and speak with each of my children. I was able to kiss my three youngest grandchildren, and tell them I loved them. I had supper with my wife of 46 years, and took the dogs out for a walk. I then took a 40 minute walk around town myself.

Sometimes I gripe about the way things are going in this country, and in this world, but I am so…so very lucky. If I make it one more day, or 30 more years, I am so very lucky.

I am not rich in terms of dollars and cents. As a matter of fact I live from month to month. But I have plenty to eat, and my barky dog located home is paid for. And if that’s all I have to endure, I am so very lucky.

I am not a refugee from war. I don’t live in a terribly repressive country, though some would make it that way if they could. I do my best to not let them because I am lucky enough to live where I am able to do so. I can still get in my car and drive pretty much anywhere I want without being bothered, unless I break a law.

I could, if I wanted to, go to any house of worship in this country and I would not be kept out.

I am so lucky to have been born where I was born. Yes, sometimes I gripe about the way things are going, because I want my grandchildren to feel lucky too when they grow up.

Now, I don’t have all the answers, but neither do any of you other people out there. Together we might be able to put something out there that’s gonna last. Together. With compromise, and compassion, and conversation….other than all this name calling stuff. It serves no purpose.

I am so lucky, and if you are reading this now, so are most of you.

Let’s try a little love. Start with your family tomorrow like I did with mine today. Work your way out from there and mean it!

If you are a Christian, remember Jesus said to love your neighbor….but he also said to love your enemy. The common word is love.

As the season changes, we all hope for some cooler weather, some rain. We all hope for peaceful evenings and beautiful sunrises and sunsets. For the most part, all human beings like these things.

Most of us love good food and drink, and we love our families. We like warm blankets when it’s cold, and ice cream cones in the summer. We like hugs from our loved ones.

Some love to read books, some like movies. Lotsa people like wine, or a good beer. A college football game.

To snuggle with our lovers, or our babies.

We love a breath of fresh cool air in the mornings, a good cup of coffee.

All humans enjoy some of these things…..so

I cannot understand it that when humans have so many things in common that they like,….they are able to hate each other so much….over their skin color, or their beliefs in some God, or if they are female, or speak another language, or if they don’t dispose of their toe nail cuttings in a sacred place.

What in the name of creation is wrong with our species! Where did the flaw in our evolution or the wrinkle in our culture occur which makes us such killers of people who other people care so deeply about.

It makes no sense….it makes no sense…

Talk, talk, talk, talk….humans do a lot of it! Politicians, religious leaders, professors, newscasters, plain old man and woman on the street, etc., etc. You name them, they talk. I talk…a lot.

Quotes about talking are numerous: “talk is cheap” “If people listened to themselves more often, they would talk less” “The less you talk, the more you’re listened to.” Those who know do not talk; those who talk do not know.” One must talk little and listen much”

My theory about humanity is that we would be a much kinder, gentler species if we had evolved without a voice box. Only missing that one part of our body…nothing else. Same brain, same senses, everything but….a voice.

Think about humanity as a whole having to go through our own history signing to each other instead of talking. How much different do you think we would be? There are a lot of things we do with our voice, but would we miss them if we had never known them?

How much closer attention would we have had to pay to each other? Would we be a more personable and culturally interwoven species without all the different languages having developed? Would touch have played a more important part in our development? Our eyes convey so much of our inner soul even as we are, just think about what they would convey if we had no voice. How much more acute would our other senses have become without the “easy way out” of talking?

Would we have had less war?

Maybe this will give you something to think about……if I see you out and about, we’ll talk about it.

Rarely since my Dad died in 2010, have I dreamt of him. Maybe twice. I don’t know why, because I really loved that man.

Last night I dreamed about him, and I gotta get this down before it starts to fade with the daylight.

We were playing in a golf tournament, as we often did, and we were on the schedule to tee off, and I kept forgetting things. I forgot my shoes and was going to play barefooted. I forgot my clubs and he went and got them. I forgot golf balls, and he gave me some of his. Finally, when I didn’t have tees he said, : “damn son, one of these days you’re going to have to start taking responsibility for your stuff on your own!”

Then I hit a great drive down the fairway and he said: “Nice drive son, now let’s move forward!” I was the happiest I can remember in such a long time! He said: “Let’s move forward”.

It was a super round of golf. Me, Dad, Ted and Matt.

You can’t ever go back to the past, all you can do is hit your best drive, and move forward. I’m ready now to move forward, and although I’ll cherish all my past memories, I’m going to be happy making new ones.

Thanks for helping me again Dad. You were always there for me when I needed you.