Quiet

I've been sitting out on my (newly updated) patio a lot. It's weird to do that. I am a busy person; my friends have always noted that I'm "extremely," "exhaustingly," even "horribly" busy. So this is strange for me.

I'm not writing, not planning, not marketing, not on my computer, not really thinking. Sitting out there, listening to the birds, watching the trees, swatting at the pesky mosquitoes, listening to the wind... Just being, I guess.

This won't last. A new idea will catch my interest; a new hobby will obsess me. I'm made to be busy. But for right now, it's nice...in an odd way...to sit outside under the Edison lights and listen to the fountain and experience the quiet stillness of the gathering dusk.

Music in the night

Another one of my music nights. Just listening to unfamiliar music on my computer. Unfamiliar because I haven't played the songs in months or even years. I have thousands of songs on my hard drive, so naturally, some aren't played much.

Mostly sweet, melancholy music. Violins and acoustic guitars. Quiet songs to fill up the empty places in my soul. Fill them up so nothing else can reside there.

Dan Fogelberg, Indigo Girls, Alexi Murdoch, Ed Sheeran, Rob Thomas... Talented singers with great gifts.

Do you have music nights? Or do you like your nights so still that the stars finally speak to fill the silence? Do you walk the fields at night and gaze up at the sky where the moon hangs like a ripe peach? Or do you gratefully close your eyes and fall into sleep until the sun dawns?

Whatever helps you to be filled with peace, that's what you should do. That's what I'm trying to do as I listen to a little music in the music.

Eagles

Isaiah 40

28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Jesus loves us best

Jesus said we should love everyone...except maybe that guy...and definitely not that group over there. I mean, the very idea! Oh, and not this group. Seriously, Jesus wouldn't love them and wouldn't expect us to, either.

And it goes without saying--but I'm going to anyway--that those folks who look different are certainly not worthy of being loved or forgiven. Jesus meant all these exceptions, but they slipped His mind what with all the healing and preaching and stuff.

Fortunately, He has us to shore up the cracks. If He didn't have us to condemn those who believe differently and live differently than us, who knows what kind of riff-raff would get into Heaven? I'm sure He appreciates our efforts. After all, He loves us best.

Doesn't He?

Decision

I have decided--after long consideration and much soul searching and consulting with learned oracles--that I can't care about everything. Or even most things. It appears my care well is nearly dry, and thus I must conserve the precious care for things I actually do care about: my family, my friends, my community, my state, my nation...

That list still feels large, but it allows me to not care about other people's stances on statues, their impassioned pleas about movies and TV shows, their desperate defense of...cartoons, God help us.

Mind you, I think I may get more of this since I have friends all over the political spectrum from the far right to the far left and plenty in the middle. Sometimes my Facebook Timeline and Twitter Feed feel quite schizophrenic as the memes go from deifying President Trump to condemning him to the fieriest hell; from Black Lives Matter to Blue Lives Matter to All Lives Matter to LGBTQ Lives Matter; from COVID bubble buddies to COVID conspiracy theorists.

This is my fault, I guess. People who are good to me are my friends whatever their beliefs are and as long as they allow me to have mine. It's easy to be my friend as long as you're good to me. I don't require anything else.

But y'all are making me tired. You are so mean to people who hold different beliefs than you do. It's dismaying and discouraging. What I want from you, what I really, really, really want (Spice Girls reference!) is for y'all to treat each other the way you treat me. That would be awesome. It might help to remember that those labels you toss around--Republican, Democrat, Christian, Jew, gay, straight, etc.--all have real people behind them. People who struggle with this broken world just the way you do.

Anyway, see what you can do, okay? And remember, one day we will rise to greet a new dawn...together.

Cultivate our garden

I think work is good for us. It gives us purpose. It gives us a label. It gives us self-respect. When I was younger, I thought I couldn't wait until I couldn't work anymore. But when work ended, when my retirement was forced on me by health reasons, I realized that work was a blessing. It might be hard and frustrating--it often was--but now I realize what joy was in it, too. The routine, the challenges, the day-to-day of it all...it helped keep me going. Kept me young.

The world sells this picture of leisure as what we should be striving for, but work gives that leisure meaning. I'm not saying we should stay at a job where our soul is crushed, but it's that job that is bad. Work itself is a noble thing; it is a proud thing. We were made to work so that our times when we don't work are made more enjoyable by the contrast.

Of course, I'm not the first person to realize this and won't be the last.

The following is from the novel Candide, ou l'Optimisme known in English as Candide written by Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) and published in 1759:

“I know also,” said Candide, “that we must cultivate our garden.”

“You are right,” said Pangloss, “for when man was first placed in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, that he might cultivate it; which shows that man was not born to be idle.”

“Let us work,” said Martin, “without disputing; it is the only way to render life tolerable.”

The whole little society entered into this laudable design, according to their different abilities. Their little plot of land produced plentiful crops. Cunegonde...became an excellent pastry cook; Paquette worked at embroidery; the old woman looked after the linen. ...Friar Giroflée...made a good joiner, and became a very honest man.

Pangloss sometimes said to Candide: “There is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunegonde: if you had not been put into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: if you had not stabbed the Baron: if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts.”

“All that is very well,” answered Candide, “but let us cultivate our garden.”

-- End --

So let us cultivate our garden, my friends, as best we can.