Good morning. Been several days since I did a blog but have awakened this morning in this strange state of quiet with my wife in Pennsylvania with our daughter increasing the GDP of our nation under the guise of Christmas present purchasing but it is really more about them having an annual mother-daughter time away which I think is wonderful. I am choosing to let longer periods of time between blogs be an ingredient of seasoning and watching the ebb and flow of our times more closely and more deeply.
I heard someone state a few weeks ago that you define life as a set and subset of memories. For some reason, that few words intrigued me and the essence of its meaning took root deep inside me. As a result I have found myself more often thinking more deeply, watching more closely, listening more clearly to people, to events; to the drumbeat of life. The other night, as example, I was rubbing the right side of my neck and my fingers came to rest on my jugular where I found myself feeling and counting heartbeats. The rhythm of the pulse was strong and steady in its thump-thump. In that few moments, this thing called life and its array of memories began to flood my brain; it was an interesting few moments please know! It is at that threshold my mind has come to rest this morning as I arose from my quiet bed and quiet home drinking my quiet coffee and thinking about, well, life as a set of memories.
Having now gone through my normal body of media information which is standard for me each morning, I realize that media, especially print media, is built on finding the bad in our lives, developing eye-grabbing headlines and then take your brain down a pathway hoping to evoke a mental "oh my" triggered response. I get that for it sells.
Shadows are images real or imagined or remembered through the layers of time and rationalization I believe you will agree. Dreams continue to be an amazing element of living. Being a dreamer, I can still wonder about the fact that up until roughly three months ago, after working for Goodyear for thirty-six years 95% plus of my dreams were Goodyear-centric. Each morning I would wake wondering many times why I would dream such and such or is that dream trying to tell me something! It told me one thing undeniably that I allowed my career to dominate me completely thus my brain and its memory banks were dominated as well. I find that sad, now! But it is what it is but interestingly in the last few months that all seems to have been replaced with other types of dreams; shadows on my wall of life.
Memories are powerful images are they not? Memories, to me, are shadows of life some of which you see at the time while others are there but not visible because your view if obstructed by other priorities; I plead guilty! For me, very personally, I have come to realize that my family for too many years of my life has been asked to metaphorically sit in the lower regions of my brain as other "more pressing" events and actions took center stage with me. That is so sad! As the world seem to be melting down before our eyes with Syria, Putin, ISIL, this terrible national leadership we are under societal values being demeaned and silenced for the sake of equality and rights meaning no absolutely, for police targeting fueled by race baiting and political favoritism, family structure and values being a relic of the past, national debt immeasurable and growing exponentially each quarter, politics more and more money-driven and not quality of candidate focused .... see what I mean?
Last night our Ms Hope fell and cut her knee requiring six stitches and as I saw the photos my son sent from the ER, I was quickly reminded of the value of what is important in life and falling crude oil prices, for example, is certainly not on the scale of our baby girl being hurt. So this morning my brain is in hyper-drive in my memory bank like slowly turning the pages of old photo albums you have not seen in far too long. Some of the memories are still very painful but time tends to ease that I realize. So many of my memories trigger smiles as I look at the many photos stationed throughout our home in being taken aback at how quickly my grand babies are growing and I am missing so much as I did with my two children.
I will close with a statement of reality. Life is about memories but what we choose to remember is just that; sets of choices to put ourselves into the place and position for our mental cameras to turn on. At sixty-seven and being around great numbers of elderly, many infirmed, saints each week in speaking and singing. I often wonder what they are seeing and will remember and always intrigued by the life history sitting in each of the seats watching and listening to me realizing that what I am doing is being recorded in their minds to be played back as the days grow shorter.
So this morning I am feeling really, really blessed!
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