From an Upper Floor

Choice Goods

 I would like to live long enough to see the children who are born with more than the usual five senses come out of the closet of mind so they will be asked what they see, hear, think and what they remember.   And be looked upon as someone highly gifted and of high caliber.   And there will be a time when being however different will be accepted and not something to be shucked away as an embarrassment.

It generally happens at a family gathering when a younger participates innocently in the conversation by announcing that they met  Uncle David or Aunt Susie  before they were born and proceeds to describe them accurately.   Silence follows this revelation and someone hurriedly changes the topic.   Again the embarrassment is not lost on the younger.

To be held up as an example of ridicule from the time one becomes a subject of reason is not easy.   To need to monitor oneself from the time of kindergarten, always told to watch what one says destroys any spontaneity.   To be different than one’s siblings already puts the different child on the outside looking in.  The isolation of such a one is abhorrent.

 We in the western world have a history of brutal force used to show what dancing with spirits was all about.   In this country we have a sordid past from the time in Salem, Massachusetts which is still alive in many, many people.   They make circles with their fingers in the air when showing their unmerciful disdain for those who walk with one foot in other worlds.   Their palpable fear is employed dramatically in the removal of those who harbor any form of uncommon thought.   The devil for them is at their heels when one of these uncommon differences happens in their family. They become stone faced and do not stop at whatever means necessary to remove the offending behavior or even the person.

 With a hundred billion planets floating about, how long will it take for people to yield to the fact that intelligence also lives on a planet or two or maybe all surrounding us?   That maybe we can exchange hello’s, just maybe?  And perhaps those about who have more than the usual five senses and whose heads and hearts are open to unknown worlds may teach us something?

 We ask the question when a beloved hovers near their final breath and we hope there is a something beyond.   We should have been researching the first question which was from where do we come?  Even in the Nag Hammadi texts Jesus is asked by a disciple where it is we go when we die and he answered why worry where you go when you never asked from where you come.  A bit slow we are it seems.

 Look to the child who asks the why’s and has invisible friends as he plays on the floor with his legos.   Or the daughter who serves tea to her dolls with significant names and converses with them in grown up language.  Children come with a sacred permit.  These children are choice goods.   They will one day create the world we hoped we would inherit.   They deserve our support.

 And it is our sacred obligation to do so.

‘Til ever’ name is called

Can we make valentines,  he asked?    The younger looked as if he was torn by a big decision.

 Why make them, I asked?   ‘Cause there are lots I know and they be real from me,  he said.   How real I asked and he looked at me puzzled.   I waited for an answer I thought would clue me to the crease on his forehead.

 So’s they know I care he sputtered.  Don’t you know that for sure?  Again I waited.   They just don’t know, he said,  they don’ know.   What are they supposed to know I asked.  He came over to me and sat on the floor at my feet.   ‘Member, he said,  when you were like me and nobody ‘membered you  and your  name not called out and there were lots an’ lots of valentines in the heart box your name not on  cards?

 I looked at this tender younger and wondered where he wandered.   My stomach knotted as I remembered the little girl that I was who sat and hungered for my name to be called.  The teacher was almost finished and looked around and said I have a few more cards yet and one had my name.   I rushed to claim it and knew it was from Guess Who ?  But many of the cards were from guess who?  because boys and girls knew the word embarrass.    Much later we learned that our teacher checked off names as she called them and to make certain everyone had a valentine she had a supply in her desk.   We did not know it then of course.

 And what are your plans I asked.   He said in his take charge voice it was not nice for some not to get cards so I give ever’one card and I make them so they be real.  Good thinking I said but no favorites?   When time comes for favorite I give real valentine.   That be my heart he said.   That be real valentine, think so, yes?

 I lifted him up and hugged him.   Whoever gets your heart will be special because you are special.   ‘Til I be grow up,  he asked,  you be my valentine?   With pleasure sir,   with pleasure  I said and hugged him again.  So we went to make valentines for ever’one so ever’ name is called.  It would be awhile before I learned that ever’ name is called.

The Prayer Altar

There are always memories that burn the heart.   The only thing to do is take them to the prayer altar and do with them what you will.   If you cringe at the thought of prayer because of discomfort for whatever reason, think of prayer being the quiet internal place when your heart is allowed to grieve unashamedly.   No look at the bright side talk allowed at the prayer altar.   It is the private place where you are with what you think highest and best in Mind and come naked to it with whatever justifications you require.

Forgiveness is easy when memory fails or the heart stops caring.  Forgetting also comes easily to some.   It is somewhat a matter of genes and brain power, whether sufficient or insufficient.  When intelligence and sensitivity allow memories to live on, it is hard to forget.  It is not always a matter of will.

We assume that forgiveness means that the times will be forgotten.  But when the times are entwined with memories that you wish to keep alive, it becomes impossible to forget.  And when there are children involved, we know that children are aware of events because their questions are on target.  Foolish are the adults who think that only what they wish to be known is what others know.   Children intuitively connect the dots and others, not emotionally involved see events in bas relief.

The past, the present and our futures are connected.  The lines are not straight but wiggle and connect various aspects of our histories.  In dismissing one aspect or set of memories, we must be sensitive to other portions  we wish to keep close at heart.   There will be those jewels of our past we hold alive in us, polished by the many times we bring them to mind and the arteries within us all that connect our hearts.  These connections are ours forever.   They are eternal.

Art by Claudia Hallissey

Entering Before Us

    We carry our values with us as silent companions.   When we enter a room we know immediately if we fit.   Our value system has entered the room before us.   And everyone already knows whether we are accepted.  We might as well have the Sargent of Arms announce us.

      How important is this?   We are given knowledge to stay or on some pretext to leave.   If our value systems do not mesh,  there will be no work accomplished.   Or if it is an event of important nature,  nothing will be said or remembered as the event promised.

      It should give us a good and sound basis whether to continue with the group.   We know right away if we will be on the outside looking in.   It behooves us to find those of similar values.   There is no joy to continue being on the outside when there are those whose systems match  or mesh with ours.

      It is a spiritual law.   Our values are honed to our prescription unless discarded as mindless dogma.  When this knowledge of unacceptable values reaches our hearts and minds, we must start the journey.

      Heaven will take us on and open doors as material or new values are integrated.   The work begins when questions rise and demand from us honest thought.    The adventure begins a journey to the wise years of life.   We think the action will be with a sharp change,  but as the essayist Emerson says   ‘real action is in the silent moments because to think is to act.’   Not in any visible changes,  but in thought patterns that will evoke behavior changes to reflect our value system.   Evolution in thought takes time and effort.

      To do this consciously signals a real milestone.