The Intern

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I saw this movie with Mona today, and it's a lot better than the trailer makes it look.

It's all about creating harmony out of disparate parts; everybody is different, but nobody is put down or ridiculed.

It was fun seeing a Robert DeNiro in a more laid-back role, where he wasn't chomping on the scenery.  He was perfectly cast, and I can't imagine another actor doing it as well.

I enjoyed it.  I recommend it.

Even

"So much is gone that once we could not live without, and yet we do live somehow and even sometimes think hopefully of tomorrow."  ~Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days ©1985

Covet

"I think if the church put in half the time on covetousness that it does on lust, this would be a better world for all of us."  ~Garrison Keillor, in Lake Wobegon Days ©1985

One question that I am very rarely asked is, "So, what are you reading?"

 

Flowers on the Roof

I love everything about this.

Excerpted from Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor, ©1985:

Then one day Leon announced that he was leaving home, at the age of 62. Roman had dreams at night in which he rounded up pigs who were loose in the corn, and they kept Leon awake. So he went over the hill and made him a sod house in the meadow. Dug down six feet and put up walls of turf blocks and laid old lumber across the top and laid on a sod roof, and he moved in with his books and bed and a woodstove. "My brother who lives in the dirt," Roman said, but he was lonely without him and came down in the evening with Leon's hot supper in a pie tin.

Leon didn't lack for visitors the last few years. He planted flowers on the roof, which bloomed beautifully in the summer and also in the winter, germinated by the heat of the stove. People drove out to see it, a patch of bright colors in the snow, and dropped in to see him. He climbed out of bed, marked his place in the book, snipped off some roots from his ceiling, and boiled up tea. He died in a bed full of books, with an encyclopedia on his chest, opened to a page of pictures of flowers.

"I can forgive them…"

Excerpt from Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor, ©1985

Dehumanize

"But remember, there are two ways to dehumanize someone: by dismissing them, and by idolizing them."  ~David Wong (via)

Golf

That seems oddly specific to me.

I wonder what the golfers did that raised the ire of the Village Elders?  Was it the pants?

Are there cons doing hard time on a golfing rap?

On You

I wish someone had steered me towards the Mary Poppins series of books when I was younger.  I'm reading them for the first time well into middle-age, and I could have been enjoying them for decades.

Excerpt from Mary Poppins Opens the Door by P.L. Travers, ©1943:

Michael looked at her solemnly.

"Shall we, too, Mary Poppins?" he asked, blurting out the question.

"Shall you, too, what?" she inquired with a sniff.

"Live happily ever afterwards?" he said eagerly.

A smile, half sad, half tender, played faintly around her mouth.

"Perhaps," she said thoughtfully.  "It all depends."

"What on, Mary Poppins?"

"On you," she said, quietly, as she carried the crumpets to the fire…

 

Amplifiers

Everybody is thinking of a different band or artist right now.

(via Ecology and Consciousness)

Nina

 

How amazing is it that, with seven billion people on earth, you can look at this and instantly know not only who it is, but who drew it?

After All This Time

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Somebody told me once that "Country music is how white people sing the blues."  That's truer for some songs than for others.

Full lyrics HERE.

A Restless Wind

I think the words stand nicely on their own but (to save you the trouble) here's the song on YouTube:  LINK

Across The Universe

by John Lennon and Paul McCartney (mostly John)

Words are flowing out
Like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither wildly as they slip away
Across the universe

Pools of sorrow waves of joy
Are drifting through my opened mind
Possessing and caressing me

Jai Guru Deva, om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world

Images of broken light
Which dance before me like a million eyes
They call me on and on across the universe

Thoughts meander like a restless wind
Inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe

Jai Guru Deva, om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world

Sounds of laughter shades of life
Are ringing through my opened ears
Inciting and inviting me

Limitless undying love
Which shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe

Jai Guru Deva, om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world

Jai Guru Deva
Jai Guru Deva
Jai Guru Deva

Twilight

Kenton Nelson, A Pupil’s Temptation (via AbidingInPeace)

Let me help

LuAnn is on the web HERE.

Given Back

Excerpted from The Holy Man by Susan Trott ©1995:

Chapter 8:  Grieving Man

"I have lost my wife,"  he told Joe (the Holy Man) when Joe invited him to sit down.  "She has been taken from me.  She is gone.  I loved her so much.  Now I will never see her again."

"Did she die?"

"Yes, that is what I am saying.  She is gone."

"Well, she could have left.  That would have been worse.  Then you would still never see her again but have to suffer the added pain of rejection.  But this is very sad.  I am sorry that you had to give her back before she gave you back."

"I beg your pardon?  Give her back?"

"Yes, you are adding to your grief by being such a victim.  If you say to yourself that you have given her back, you will feel better.  Because, you see, she was never yours.  Nothing that you have is yours.  It never was yours."

"But that's crazy, my possessions are mine.  My children are mine.  And my wife…"

"No, they are not yours.  Only you are yours.  Not your possessions, not your children, not your wife.  You will have to give them all back.  You do not get to keep any of them."

"It's only words, but words are all I have…"

Mirriam-Webster keeps a list of the words most commonly looked up HERE.

It's  an interesting snapshot of our culture.

I assume people are looking up "Socialism" because of Bernie Sanders.  I'm glad they are-- it doesn't mean what Fox News told them it does.

It took me a minute to realize why they were looking up the definition of "marriage."  Then it hit me.  I can just imagine how many pedantic (it's on the list) arguments began with the words, "According the the Mirriam-Webster dictionary, 'marriage' is defined…"

Fortunately "empathy" and "diversity" are also on the list.  :)

An Open Doorway

Excerpted from the September 2015 issue of Shambhala Sun:

Three Conscious Breaths

Pema Chödrön teaches us a simple technique we can use anytime we need a break from our habitual patterns.

Our habits are strong, so a certain discipline is required to step outside our cocoon and receive the magic of our surroundings.  Pause practice-- taking three conscious breaths at any moment when we notice that we are stuck-- is a simple but powerful practice that each of us can do at any given moment.

Pause practice can transform each day of your life.  It creates an open doorway to the sacredness of the place in which you find yourself.  The vastness, stillness, and magic of the place will dawn upon you, if you let your mind relax and drop for just a few breaths the story line you are working so hard to maintain.  If you pause just long enough, you can reconnect with exactly where you are, with the immediacy of your experience.

When you are waking up in the morning and you aren't even out of bed yet, even if you are running late, you could just look out and drop the story line and take three conscious breaths.  Just be where you are!  When you are washing up, or making your coffee or tea, or brushing your teeth, just create a gap in your discursive mind.  Take three conscious breaths.  Just pause.  Let it be a contrast to being all caught up.  Let it be like popping a bubble.  Let it be just a moment in time, and then go on.

Maybe you are on your way to whatever you need to do for the day.  You are in your car, or on the bus, or standing in line.  But you can still create that gap by taking three conscious breaths and being right there with the immediacy of your experience, right there with whatever you are seeing, with whatever you are doing, with whatever you are feeling.

At first just ghostly

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And although my eyes were open
They might have just as well've been closed

Full lyrics at SongMeanings.net

Love

I got this sticker for free at the local Come Together retail store, and I’m going to put it on my car.

Moon

An excerpt from A Moment in the Sun Field by William Brohaugh ©1989:

Dad tossed the ball into the air in front of him and popped a fly out of the shadow and into the sunlight.  The sun splashed onto one side of the ball, splashed it cool and white against the cool and darkening sky.  The ball spun, and began to fall, and Bobby positioned himself under it, held his glove out not for a whole ball, but just a piece of one, because it looked like just a piece of one, a slice of ball, the slice splashed extra white in the high sunlight.

Bobby waited for that little bit of ball to come down, and suddenly he understood the moon.

All One

I'm reading Mary Poppins by P.L.  Travers for the first time, and it is so much more rich and beautiful than what I ever expected from a children's book.

In the excerpt below the children, Michael and Jane, have sneaked off to visit the zoo at midnight and find themselves conversing with the real king of the jungle, a hooded cobra:

"And after all," he went on, flicking his terrible little forked tongue in and out as he spoke, "it may be that to eat and be eaten are the same in the end.  My wisdom tells me that this is probably so.  We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City.  The same substance composes us-- the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star-- we are all one, moving to the same end.  Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child."

"But how can tree be stone?  A bird is not me.  Jane is not a tiger," said Michael stoutly.

"You think not?" said the Hamadryad's hissing voice.  "Look!"  and he nodded his head towards the moving mass of creatures before them.  Birds and animals were now swaying together, closely encircling Mary Poppins, who was rocking lightly from side to side.  Backwards and forwards went the swaying crowd, keeping time together, swinging like the pendulum of a clock.  Even the trees were bending and lifting gently, and the moon seemed to be rocking in the sky as a ship rocks on the sea.

"Bird and beast, stone and star-- we are all one, all one--  --" murmured the Hamadryad, softly folding his hood about him as he himself swayed between the children.

"Child and serpent, star and stone-- all one."

The hissing voice grew softer.  The cries of the swaying animals dwindled and became fainter.  Jane and Michael, as they listened, felt themselves gently rocking too, or as if they were being rocked…

~Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers, ©1934

Dreams

Excerpt from the autobiography Three Weeks with My Brother by Nicholas Sparks and Micah Sparks, ©2004:

I hung up my shoes for good, feeling sadness and-- strangely-- relief. With the exception of breaking a school record that still stands after nineteen years, I'd failed to reach the other goals I'd set for myself. But despite the fact that running had been the defining force in my life for the previous seven years, I knew I'd survive without it.

I'd given it my best shot, but it wasn't to be. And if I had to do it all over-- and fail to reach my dream again-- I would. When you chase a dream, you learn about yourself. You learn your capabilities and limitations, and the value of hard work and persistence.

When I told my dad about my decision-- sharing my disappointment as well as my relief in knowing that I'd finally made a decision-- he put his arms around my shoulder.

"Everyone has dreams," he said. "And even if yours didn't work out the way you wanted, it doesn't make me any less proud of you. Too many people never really try."

It's kind of nice to hear about dreams that didn't come true.

Usually when your hear "Follow your dreams!" it's from the lips of some pubescent pop star who hit a home run her first time up to bat.

I tend not to trust their advice.

Turn Turn Turn

The earth is spinning on it's axis as it spins around the sun,

which in turn is spinning around a giant black hole,

which no doubt is spinning around something else.

But I have a theory that for every spin there's a counter-spin,

and when it's all balanced out we're really

just

standing

still.

Science-Based Faith

I think it would be interesting to have science-based church, a church devoted to learning about the observable universe, and then-- based solely on the empirical evidence-- discerning what our place in the universe is, and, accordingly, how we should behave towards one another.

The services would be held at night, and conlcude with two queues:  one would go to a microscope, the next to a telescope.

To lend perspective.

Chapter and Verse

"Caveat emptor."  ~Marilyn Monroe

I was in a store today that sold inspirational bible verses painted on wood that you could hang on your wall.  Several of them were quite nice, and I wrote down the chapter and verse to look them up when I got home.

And this is what I learned:  the attributions were wrong.  Every single one of them.  They weren’t even close to being what they were supposed to be.

Maybe those lines are in the bible somewhere , but they are certainly not where the Plaque Salesmen thinks they are.

Misty Water-Color Memories

They say we should "Remember 9/11," but it's already fading away. I think that's okay.  We put locks on the cockpit doors, and that was all it really took to make sure it wouldn't happen again. I don't think there's any enduring life lesson to be learned, it was just something awful that happened.

I saw an old button at an estate sale recently that said "Remember Pearl Harbor." There aren't many people that do, not really, and there's not any reason to. In today's world it would be impossible to hide a fleet of aircraft carriers- some idiot would snap a selfie, and the secret would get out.  I guess the lesson is something about eternal vigilance, but that's a pretty stressful way to live, believing an attack is always imminent.   No sane person is going to do that.

Before that, the slogan was "Remember the Maine!" The Maine was a ship that was poorly designed and blew itself up, but America blamed it on the Spanish and used it drum up popular support for a war. There's nobody that still remembers it, but you can look it up in a history book.  I don't think it matters anymore.

And there was "Remember the Alamo!" but there was never any compelling reason to. A small group of soldiers was massacred by a larger group of soldiers, but it didn't affect the outcome of the war.  It was a horrible, violent thing that happened.  It was sad for their families.

There have been thousands of battles, even wars, that are completely forgotten now.

That's the way it goes.

There are always newer, fresher atrocities to take their place.

The days grow short, when you reach September…

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Jimmy Durante could make you feel…

2008

This is my all-time favorite campaign button.

It's also the last candidate I was really excited about.

Smile

This is what I picture whenever someone mentions Janis Joplin.

Meditation

(via IvaShiva)

Uneven

"We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension and not another…unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present and future mingle and pull us backward, forward or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.“ -Anais Nin (via JulesOfNature)

Gilded Cages

The article below was copied from R World, who found it on The Huffington Post:

Everything that follows is a quote from Johann Hari writing about research by Bruce Alexander, a professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC.  I don't feel the need to elaborate.

Get a rat and put it in a cage and give it two water bottles. One is just water, and one is water laced with either heroin or cocaine. If you do that, the rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself very quickly, right, within a couple of weeks. So there you go. It’s our theory of addiction.Bruce comes along in the ‘70s and said, “Well, hang on a minute. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It’s got nothing to do. Let’s try this a little bit differently.” So Bruce built Rat Park, and Rat Park is like heaven for rats. Everything your rat about town could want, it’s got in Rat Park. It’s got lovely food. It’s got sex. It’s got loads of other rats to be friends with. It’s got loads of colored balls. Everything your rat could want. And they’ve got both the water bottles. They’ve got the drugged water and the normal water. But here’s the fascinating thing. In Rat Park, they don’t like the drugged water. They hardly use any of it. None of them ever overdose. None of them ever use in a way that looks like compulsion or addiction. There’s a really interesting human example I’ll tell you about in a minute, but what Bruce says is that shows that both the right-wing and left-wing theories of addiction are wrong. So the right-wing theory is it’s a moral failing, you’re a hedonist, you party too hard. The left-wing theory is it takes you over, your brain is hijacked. Bruce says it’s not your morality, it’s not your brain; it’s your cage. Addiction is largely an adaptation to your environment.[…]We’ve created a society where significant numbers of our fellow citizens cannot bear to be present in their lives without being drugged, right? We’ve created a hyperconsumerist, hyperindividualist, isolated world that is, for a lot of people, much more like that first cage than it is like the bonded, connected cages that we need. The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And our whole society, the engine of our society, is geared towards making us connect with things. If you are not a good consumer capitalist citizen, if you’re spending your time bonding with the people around you and not buying stuff—in fact, we are trained from a very young age to focus our hopes and our dreams and our ambitions on things we can buy and consume. And drug addiction is really a subset of that.

~Johann Hari, Does Capitalism Drive Drug Addiction?

Kim Davis and the Just War Doctrine

"Just following orders" is the Get Out of Hell Free card that allows soldiers to kill, maim, and loot, but still go to heaven when they die. Things that would normally be a sin are instantly forgiven, so long as it's part of their official duties.

The idea that a government can supersede the will of God seems a little theologically iffy to me, but every major denomination has signed off on it so it must be true.  They even pray for "their troops" every Sunday.

So, that being the case, it seems like Kim Davis could issue marriage licenses with impunity and need never devote a second of worry to the state of her immortal soul.

Choices

From  The Haunted Mesa by Louis L’Amour, ©1987:

Slipping into his coat, Mike Raglan knew he was arguing with himself to no purpose, for he was going back. He was not even sure if he was making a free choice. It might be that all his years of becoming what he was were dictating the issue.

How much choice did a man have, after all? Are we not all conditioned to certain expressions of life? Do we have a choice, whether we run or fight? He slipped a notepad into his pocket and went out to the car.

I think we've all been there.

"This is stupid.  This does not advance my goals, and is likely to end in heartbreak.  I guess I should bring a jacket."

Amusing

"Of one thing only can we be sure:  What is today accepted as truth will tomorrow prove to be only amusing."  ~Louis L’Amour, The Haunted Mesa ©1987

Long Proved Absurd

"Men have never readily accepted new ideas.  Our schools and general thinking are cluttered with beliefs long proved absurd by contemporary knowledge.  Man has demonstrated over and over again that the last thing he wants are new ideas, even when they are desperately needed.  Ideas are welcomed as long as they do not contradict theories on which scholarly reputations have been erected."  ~Louis L’Amour, The Haunted Mesa ©1987

Preconceived Notions

A friend recommended this book to me quite a while ago, but I put off reading it because I’m a snob.

I saw the author was Louis L’Amour and I thought “Dime-store cowboy novelist.”  I saw the title The Haunted Mesa and thought “Ooh!  Just like The Hardy Boys!”

And being a snob almost cost me something wonderful

It’s an imaginative, well written book centered around how we unconsciously shape new ideas to fit our preconceived notions, and what a mistake that can be.

It’s worth your time.

Hakuna matata

"Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"  ~Jesus (Matthew 6:27)

"Don't worry, be happy."  ~Bobby McFerrin (YouTube)

Other Ways

"Ours is a world that has developed along materialistic, mechanistic lines, but might there not be other ways?  Might there not be dozens of other ways, unknown and unguessed because of the one we found that worked?"  ~Louis L'Amour, The Haunted Mesa ©1987

Time Stood Still

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A beautiful song for a Sunday Morning.

From SongMeanings.net:

“I suppose I (writer Van Morrison) was about twelve years old. We used to go to a place called Ballystockart to fish. We stopped in the village on the way up to this place and I went to this little stone house, and there was an old man there with dark weather-beaten skin, and we asked him if he had any water. He gave us some water which he said he’d got from the stream. We drank some and everything seemed to stop for me. Time stood still. For five minutes everything was really quiet and I was in this ‘other dimension.’ That’s what the song is about.”

If

 "If you walk into a dark, black hole with love and joy, you’ll find love and joy there. If you walk in with fear and anger, you’ll find fear and anger. Go into situations with what you want to find there."  ~John-Roger (via)

1,2

My favorite poem is Things I Didn't Know I Loved by Nazim Hikmet:  LINK

My second-favorite poem is Ulysses by Lord Tennyson:  LINK  (and hear John Gielgud read it HERE.)

Pockets

These are the things you typically find on me or with me.

My wallet, of course.  Mine is hemp and I got it at a little Fair Trade store downtown.  I don’t like leather, partly because it’s made out of dead things and partly because it’s bulky.  Hemp is lighter weight and lasts longer.

My wedding ring.

My car keys.  I have the veterinary tags from my favorite cat, Alice, and my favorite dog, Gracie, on the ring.  They’re both gone, but they’re both still with me.

A magnifying glass, because there are lots of things that warrant a closer look.

Ear plugs, because I seem to have more sensitive hearing than most.  It would be impossible for me to go to the movies without them.  Usually I can take them out after the previews, but those booming explosions you hear from the Coming Attractions can trigger massive, painful headaches.  I keep little stashes of them in my car and in Mona’s car, too, so I’m never without them- they’re that essential.

I typically let my long hair flow free, but I keep a band to tie it back on windy days.

I need to wear the “Penicillin Allergy” tag, and I wear the others because if I’m unconscious I want people to know more about me than just my medical peccadilloes.  (”Peccadillo” isn’t the precisely right word. I just wanted to say it.)

The glasses are the latest addition.  They’re tinted to minimize the problems all the floaters in my eyes cause.  They aren’t as dark as they look- they don’t work like sunglasses- but they do make the sky just a tad bluer.  I like that.

Walking

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I loved this movie.

I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so I’ll wait to talk about until after it’s left the theaters.  (It’s a movie for grown-ups, so that probably won’t be long.)