Kindness

Paul Leunig is on the web HERE.

Un

Cat and Girl is on the web at (naturally) CatAndGirl.com.

As Soon As

As soon as you see something,
you already start to intellectualize it.
As soon as you intellectualize something,
it is no longer what you saw.

~Shunryu Suzuki

Rejoiceth

"Someone who has acted carelessly, but later becomes careful and attentive, is as beautiful as the bright moon emerging from the clouds." ~Nāgārjuna

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"How think ye? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray."  ~Matthew 18: 12-13

Are you?

I'm jealous of places with interesting graffiti.  Our local vandals never seem to move beyond phallic symbols and the F-Word.

Come Dancing

Every child has known god,
not the god of names,
not the god of don’t,
not the god who does anything weird,
but the god who only knows four words
and keeps repeating them, saying:
“Come dance with Me.”
Come
Dance.

~Hafiz (via Jules of Nature)

Many Times

"The water in the stream may have changed many times, but the reflection of the moon and the stars remains the same.” ~Rumi

Etymology

W. Bush's administration debated what really constituted "torture."  The Trump administration is concerned with the proper definition of "concentration camp."

I think it says something about our country that these are the words we're splitting hairs over.

Then He gave me a pretzel.

From That 70s Show, Season 2:

Leo:  I sat next to God once on the bus. He told me the meaning of life, and then he gave me a pretzel.
Hyde:  So what's the meaning of life, man?
Leo:  Uhhh... yeah. I guess I should've written it down.  But it was a good pretzel, man.

I know this hardly carries the same weight as a religious text, and Tommy Chong isn't exactly a respected religious authority, but I really like the idea that God might sit down with me on the bus and give me a pretzel.

Somebody

"I’m not sure you can do anything that matters without upsetting somebody."  ~Neil Gaiman (source)

Night Feast

Night Feast by Paul Klee, 1921

Pro-Life

So, according to his own tweet, Donald Trump was ten minutes away from launching a military strike against Iran when suddenly an idea struck him:  "Wait a minute!  These buildings we are about to blow up-- are there any people in them?"

Horrified to learn that there were, in fact, people inside, he called off the bombing.

Up until that point, nobody in his administration thought human lives were important enough to even mention, much less factor into their decision.

Something has gone terribly awry.

Welcome to Happy Hour

https://youtu.be/vUrOjNcGgnk

He sounds a lot like Bob Seger. doesn't he?

MLK

Somebody wrote a book attempting to discredit Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by documenting alleged infidelities.

If they are true, then I think the lesson we should take away from this is that it's possible to do great things, world changing things, even if we are deeply flawed as individuals.

That's inspiring to me, and probably the exact opposite of that author's intentions.

I'll be coming home soon…

[embed]https://youtu.be/zZB8saEfcPY[/embed]

The studio version is available HERE, but I really like this one apparently filmed by a fan.  You can see how the man almost disappears, becoming a conduit for music and emotion to flow through.

He was amazing.

Full lyrics available HERE.

It Is The Time

"Compassion is not something to keep locked inside yourself. It is something to express in action. This compassion must persist beyond the thought, 'If only their suffering would come to an end.' If we focus too long on wishing for something that we never pursue and that never happens, we run the risk of falling into a depression ourselves. When compassion arises, it is the time to act." ~The 17^th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje

Quintet

We have five cats, all rescued from various shelters.

The oldest, Melody, was named by my wife, Mona, who wanted something musical. Mona plays the guitar, drums, keyboard, and xylophone, and carries a tambourine in her car to play along with the radio.

Melody is a beautiful tortoise cat, and if she were human she would probably be placed somewhere on the autism scale. She demands that life proceed in a certain order, and if something is done out of sequence she panics and freaks out. We accommodate her as best we can. I think it is hard, being her.

The next oldest is a tuxedo cat named Lucy. I named her that so that when I came home I could say, in my best Ricky Ricardo voice, "Lucy! I'm home!"

When we were looking at cats at the shelter, Mona told me that if I set down the cat carrier and Lucy went into it, we could take her home. I sat the carrier down, opened the door, and she marched right in and laid down to take a nap. Unknowingly, she had just changed her entire life for the better.

Next in line is Joey, named after my favorite singer, Joe Cocker. He looks like a Russian Blue at first, but he isn't. His eyes aren't the right color.  He was a discount cat, marked down because he was no longer a kitten.

He is extremely friendly and affectionate. At the shelter he immediately wanted hugs and crushed into us. He was irresistibly charming.  Still is.

Then come the babies, Lori and Links.

Lori is a tabby, probably. Her pattern is more pronounced than a typical tabby. The pattern on the side of her face looks like Mike Tyson's tattoo.

She was named after a close childhood friend. When I was five, our family moved into a suburb in Ohio. The little girl next door, Lori, ran up to me and asked, "Do you want to be friends?" I said yes, and that sealed the contract. It was that simple at that age.

Lori's best friend, Links, looks like a black long-hair, but she isn't really black. If you see her in the sunlight, you'll see she's actually a beautiful calico blend of black, dark brown, and rust.

She's the most playful and active of the quintet. Everything amazes and delights her. She doesn't sit still long enough for much affection, but she's still little. I think she'll be more loving when she gets a little older.

Old/Young

"Do you want to let yourself be defined by your possessions or by your job? I mean this as a serious question, because you could identify yourself with your job or your money or your possessions. Or you could identify yourself with your inner qualities and with happiness. It really is up to you."  The 17^th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje, in The Heart Is Noble: Changing the World from the Inside Out, ©2013

I used to divide people into "young" and "old" by how they responded when I asked them to tell me about themselves.  If they replied with a job title, they were "old"; if they talked about music or art or literally anything else, they were still "young."

There are very few "young" people any more, and the ones I do know are (ironically) rather old.

As Long As

"Wherever you go you will find your teacher, as long as you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear."  ~Shunryu Suzuki

Help

"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal."  ~Rumi

But I remember everything.

[embed]https://youtu.be/vt1Pwfnh5pc[/embed]

When he sings, "Everyone I know goes away, in the end," he shows a photograph of his mother.  That's a detail I hadn't noticed before.

Full lyrics HERE.

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As an aside, when he and June were filming this video they went outside to a nearby bus stop during one of their breaks to talk with people on their way to work.  I always wondered if anyone believed them.

"Guess who I saw at the bus stop today?  Johnny Cash!"
"Uh-huh.  Was June there with him?"
"Well, as a matter of fact…"

Profiles in Courage

Digital artwork by Joe Casanova