From an Upper Floor

The reasons are many for the ways of this world. It is not to see what difference we make in outward matters but what difference we can make within ourselves.  Do we see where our soft spots are, places we see needing change and where to begin?   What is wrought within are reasons for real changes in the world.

As a nation we struggle this time with behavior fraught with injury to all of us.  We wonder what to do as people who love what we have stood for since our country’s beginning.  We want to do what is right and guard our heritage well.

Do we contribute to what is going on?  How can I change how I think, what to think and what do I wish to make better about me?  Conflicts will arise in all of us time after time because of our cultures and the streets on which we live.  I may be at peace but it does no good for my neighbors who must work on peace within themselves.

Is this all I can do?  Is there not something I wish to become that will enhance my thinking and knowledge?  And be a role model for someone who would desire to work on themselves to broaden their thinking.

We are told that what we do for one, we do for all.  Meaning that what is done for good will eventually be done for everyone’s good and by everyone.  Evolution takes one step at a time and the footwork is mandatory.  We must do all the steps in the procedures for the next step to be taken.  Otherwise we stumble.

Anything done for our betterment will be lasting, for that good then we spread to others.  Anything done with half a heart may be utilitarian but the lasting good will not be as evident.   Band-aid measures are like half a tank of gas on a desert road.

This classroom, and all of us in it, are all purposeful for earth life.  We all are god participants and changes can be wrought in us and be everlasting.   But to improve the quality of thought, the ongoing progress of evolutionary leaps that benefit and nourish the psyche of mankind is the kind of work done on the knees in the solitude of who we are.  When those times enrich our souls, they will benefit and enrich all Others in time.

When our cup runs over, the overflow is felt throughout the kingdom.   Since we all teach what we know, the question asked is what are we teaching?  We must think it through.

photo by John S. Hallissey

We must love for the right reasons if we are to find peace within ourselves.  When we think we must love because children must love their parents or parents their children simply because we borne them or are born to them, then when systems go awry,  there is chaos within.

As parents, we injure our children unless we search ourselves as to why our relationship is traumatic.  And as children, guilt rises and we distance ourselves because we hurt when our parents fail us, no matter our age.

Until we get to the place where parents consider children a sacred gift and not clones will we even be at the beginning of a relationship that grows in goodness.  But we also must recognize our lacks in not having mothers and fathers who knew how to parent and we must learn how to parent.  What we have not had we can learn in the classroom, in therapy or in our places of worship.

I do not view life through rose colored lenses.  It is work and in our country where education is mandatory even the youngest knows differences in the most basic premises, knows when something is different in homes of love as well as material gifts.  I realize also that recognizing  love’s absence is not always articulated, but I refuse to relegate to the heap what can be the only way to lift ourselves from the mire and rescue our children.

It takes courage to look at our parent gods and see how impoverished they are or were.  Yet it also takes courage to look at ourselves and see where nature has dipped to lavish us with what others see as our gifts, and from where those come.  And why this child we borned finds us pushing away because what we see is an affront to us.  Possibly those things in us criticized?  Education starts with stripping ourselves and removing the log which blinds our sight and granting courage necessary.

This is what evolution is about.  Confronting ourselves and from where we have come is hard while wearing  human skin.  We will find our history embracing worlds no longer in evidence, perhaps revealing  Nomads and Neanderthals and like Joseph’s coat of many colors, revealing our skin of many colors.  Think it through.

I have great faith in who we are, to have come to this time.  Times call us and our strengths to be the highest and best we can.  We begin now,

to love one another for the right reasons, because we see the highest and best in all of us.

Today I thought that many events in my life were practice literally for what was to be revealed.  I did not know that of course, but I rehearsed for what I thought right and good.  I became involved in being who I thought I could be.

There was a phrase when I was growing up, fake it till you make it were the words.  It meant pretend it is so until it is.  We think often that is how our government is run but I knew certain things were correct but not of my heritage.  Events were blatant contradictions (like parents being hateful about classmates ‘ families when we were taught to be kind in school) to what I hoped or knew could be the ideal.  So I pretended a lot.  It was not easy but as I said, practice it was and I was rehearsing.  Alibi-ing  people is what others said I did.

I can see the reasoning of Job and those souls who put themselves in public saying their god was good and life was also.  Even though smack in the belly was a whopper.  What was Job aware of?  What were the do-gooders doing in the face of contradictions likely to choke them?  What was escaping me?

I remember lying on the patch of grass when I was just seven or so and moving clouds into forms with thought and wishing to be a wise old woman some day.  Not for things like English doll buggies or fashionable clothes but always wished for straight talk.  I now see 100 approaching and still look for talk.

I want to explore pretend until it is not pretend, like a stretched sweater comfortable to wear.  How to do it.  How to love the unlovable with behavior repugnant?  How to get past the repulsive sight to see the shining eyes or blazing heart?  How to pretend a tight hug and not push away.

There are warts and worms in every world.   I think what I pursue at heart is to be a godperson in human skin.  I think all life is a route back to what once was and we threw away in pursuit of something to hold in our hands.  Manifested. Not a waste to be sure, but lifetimes so hard that it has taken eons to retrieve our heritage.

We are a reflection of that pursuit.  I see Job insisting his god is good and welcoming the challenges.  Hit me again, he says, I can take it and rise to go on.  He already knew that life was everlasting, and he, groomed for his next world.  Pretending leads to integration of uncomfortable ideas, foreign and hard to digest, but altogether an enhancement not only this life but all lives.

My Mentor, the Nazarene said this, didn’t he?  Do for one and you do for all.  Evolution is step by step with a society grown in ways not only science driven, but technological,  able to integrate old anguish and ancient beliefs with a sympathy as well as understanding that is balm for us all.  Kabbalah was our innate respect for learning, bedding for we who remember from where we come.

I am grateful for a life that has taught much and wondered too much to frolic this time, but in overwhelming gratitude to the All.

simple request. . . .

it won’t cost a sou, or a mint
or a farthing or a dollar.
It won’t cost anything, she says,
except . . . . .

to put away the toys
that spoil the air we breathe,
that take our fun
and spoil that too. . .

all she asks is time
to take care of this Earth
and to take care of the children
we make and be

their example. . .

artwork by Claudia Hallissey. . .