Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Airports...

03/09/2010

Quite a few of the posts to this website I have made have been written in airports as I wait to board an airplane or are on an airplane.  It kind of makes me feel as though this is a second home, a place to visit when I need to get out of town.  Thus is the life of a “traveling salesman” and I am not so sure I enjoy it as much as I used to enjoy it.  But then, there are a lot of things I do not enjoy as I used to.  It seems these days my job gets in the way of my personal life more and more each day.

So much for bitching, but there is thing one thing I totally enjoy about airports – the people.  I love watching people in airports, especially kids and good looking women, but not necessarily in that order.

Kids are a riot.  Sometimes it is hard to get them to warm up.  I find if I catch their eye and look away quickly and then slowly turn my head back to them, they will eventually melt and play the flirting game with me.  I love to watch them smile and get giddy when they laugh.  Most children’s faces light up from ear-to-ear when they smile.  This game doesn’t quite work the same with good-looking woman, but I like to play it anyway.  I love it when they smile, and get more than giddy when they laugh with me and not at me.  The former happens often, the latter only in my dreams.

So pardon me, if you will?  My plane is boarding shortly and I don’t want to miss out on a luxurious ride on a full airplane where I am forced to sit next to someone who smells like a smokestack or a bar stool.  Cynical?  Not!!!  Just having fun on this The Best Day Ever.

And that is all I have to say about that…

Monday, March 08, 2010

Robins in the Yard...

03/08/2010

As the sun slowly drops behind the Cacapon Mountain and pastels of red, orange and gray light up the western sky, at least a dozen fat little Robins are picking at the grass outside my window.  These are the first I have seen here this year.  It must mean spring is just around the corner, and I am excited. Spring is my most favorite time of the year.  I am wishing green.

I noticed when I awoke this morning just before six that there was a hint of light in the eastern sky.  The thought of adjusting the clocks forward an hour and sinking back into the dark of night at the time I arise does not excite me; however, having an extra hour of daylight in the evening will make up for it a little bit.

It won’t be long until The Nancy and I will get to spend lazy evenings sitting in the rocking chairs on our front porch listening to the sounds of spring and smelling the scents of the season.

What I won’t look forward to getting to mow seven acres of grass at least everyone five or six days until it fries in the heat of July.

And that is all I have to say about that…

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Home Alone...

02/28/2010

The house is quiet, the cat lay in the chair opposite me fast asleep, The Nancy gone to her office for a while, and I am alone to my own devices.  The Sirius New Age station is beaming some soft, mood music throughout the house.  That is “mood” music, and not Muzak, as my son-in-law refers to my choice of musical genre.  I have time to think and to reflect, and that is good and not so good.

I have been trading emails with family members the past couple of days with memories of my father.  The 24th would have been his 106th Birthday had he not passed away Thanksgiving Day, 1997.  I have shared memories of my own, and received some from my “much older brother” and my younger brother, as well.  We have been spurred on by our children to share what we can.  I am personally thrilled by this, that younger members of this family want to know what their grandparents where like, and love it that I get to share the memories this is bringing to the forefront from deep in my brain.  Neat!  In this day of high tech communication, a screwed up economy, wacked out politicians and a hazy future, it is comforting to know family history still means something. 

My dad was soft-spoken and led a very simple life.  He dropped out of school because of necessity at a very young age.  While he lacked formal education, he had a knack for numbers.  He could do math computations in his head faster than most people could do on calculator.  His smile could light up a room, and he loved a good joke, even if it were a little off color.  I never heard him cuss or say a cuss word, though he did have his own words for things, like referring to people “fadumptyasials” or maybe saying “concarnit” when things didn’t go as they should.

I can remember visiting the basement in our house where he would be working on a project and asking him what he was doing.  His reply to questions like that was always, “I am building a layover to catch meddlers.” I was too young to get it then, but now I know it was his way to tell me to go find something to do and leave him be.

Our dad was a pious man, but quiet about his love of God.  He was active in the church, a Presbyterian by birth and a Methodist by marriage.  His total and unconditional love for my mother could never be doubted.  And six months after her death he chose to join her and willed himself to be with her in eternity.  He was loyal to a fault, kind, considerate and while he had the prejudices of someone born at the turn of the 20th century, he would never have been unkind to anyone, ever.

Now, more than twelve years since his death, I can honestly say I still think of him every day, and miss him all the more.

And that is all I have to say about that…

Monday, February 22, 2010

Roger Ebert and Me...

02/22/2010

My daughter sent me blog post written by Roger Ebert and his thoughts on the existence of God.  I read it with mounting interest; it was almost like reading something as if I had written it about my thoughts. I could so relate to his questions about God and what God is about.  Ebert was raised Catholic and I was as a Methodist. 

I was raised on the church doctrine.  My mother’s father was a Methodist preacher, as was her maternal grandfather. About the time I became a teenager I began to find the stories in the Bible to be mostly sensational, hard to believe, fairy tales.  I questioned God from the time I was very young and waivered on agnosticism/atheism for about 45 years. While at Millennium3 Education in Dallas for a workshop in 2004 I had an overwhelming sense that I was there at that time with that group of people because I was destined to be.  It was there I got the sense of being totally connected to my fellow man (and women), something as I had never experienced before.  It is where the “Universal Presence” and I connected for the first time in my life.

Fast forward two years: Capital Ale House, Richmond, VA on Father’s Day.  My daughter gave me “Conversations with God” by Neale Donald Walsch.  I read it in a couple of days.  I was captivated by it.  The book answered every question I ever had about all things God. It is a mixture of philosophy, spirituality, quantum physics and quantum mechanics. Some of it is very far out, but I excused it because it defines a God with whom I am comfortable, one so different than the God of my parents.

I finished the book.  One night as I lay in my bed, Nancy fast asleep, I asked the question in my mind, “God, are you there?” It got very spooky.  My eyes were closed tightly, but I became very conscious of a blue hue that grew brighter and brighter in just a few seconds, and then as clear as I can hear the people around me I heard, “I am here.”

Chuckle, if you wish, laugh out load, I heard it and I sensed it in every bone in my body.  And since that time I believe I have had my own conversations with God.

Don’t by what I have said here think old dad is suddenly a Born Again anything, nothing could be further from the truth.  But you can count on I believe I am an individuation of a power greater than I am, and I love it.

Has it ever struck you as odd how one day you have a passing thought about someone and later, maybe hours or the next day, you hear from or see that person?  It is because of connectivity of all things.  God, in this sense, is nothing more than the All of the All, the total sum of everything that is - everything I see, touch, sense and imagine.  This realization made for The Best Day Ever.

Walsch describes Jesus and others who attempted to get that message across as God’s masters, who were all ignored. The Dalai Lama may be one of God’s masters. He certainly is ignored by many, and more miss the meaning of his simple message to love one another. God does not control you.  God will not punish you for using the “Free Will” He gave you.  God is simply an observer wanting you to be who you truly are.

Take the time to read the book. Take it all in. It makes no difference to me whether you buy into it or not.  There is life after death as matter cannot be created or destroyed.  So you will be around forever just as you always have been.  It is that it is.  You are an individuation of the All of the All.  And that is the Universal Presence some call God.

My granddaughter taught me a huge lesson about “The Best Day Ever.” You see, it is all about attitude.  The Nancy and I have spread the word about the The Best Day Ever.  The phrase has had a life of its own and it is growing. Some people look at us strangely when we tell them this is The Best Day Ever.  Just think for a minute how the world might change if everyone declared tomorrow as The Best day Ever.  God has smiled on a little girl in Glen Allen, Virginia, because she gets it.  And, she does.

And is all I have to say about that…