Top O' The Morning!

...and boy howdy, is it ever TOP of the morning! I've been awake since before 6 a.m. Just went to H&L Produce for some fresh fruits and veggies for me and for a pound of cheddar cheese for Aunt Tod. Before that I went through all of her stored boxes (oh, joy..) looking for a few items she wants brought to her. I didn't find all she wanted, but found enough extra things that perhaps she will be satisfied.

When Wal-Mart opens (if indeed it's open today -- Memorial Day) I need to go there and get Equate and baking soda for her. This time I'm getting enough for three weeks and she will need to find a place to store it, because with gas prices the way they are, I am calling a halt on weekly trips. I shop strategically for myself for that reason and need to get her into the habit of thinking that way, too. (She hasn't driven in eight years and probably doesn't realize what it costs to go galavanting for two items every single week.)

I didn't sleep well last night -- at all. I think I'm experiencing a modified "dark night of the soul" -- MUCH modified from past years (pre-born-again) when I would get into a blue funk for weeks on end.

At certain times I will focus on what's wrong with the world (did you notice a change in my blogs recently? You can almost pinpoint the day!) and that will blot out for a time almost everything that is RIGHT with the world, which is really almost everything except for what human beings bring to it in their all-too-frequent unconscious/unconscientious moments. In these darker moments, I am always reminded of a quote by Mark Twain. In his early 70's someone noticed that his writings were becoming darker, more cantankerous, more gloomy than before. An interviewer mentioned the change to him and he later wrote, "People call me a pessimist in my old age, but I'm not. I am an optimist -- who did not arrive."

God, I pray I won't ever become what Mark Twain became! I want to arrive at the promised land (this side of heaven), not just always be headed there!

I always cut Twain a lot of slack that I cannot cut for myself. By his early 70's he had lost his entire family, and his entire fortune at least once in speculative adventures such as an early prototype of the typewriter. I'd say he had serious reason to be a little less chipper than he was as a lad when all lay before him and he was in love and had a family he loved who loved him...

Late in his life he wrote such things a WHAT IS MAN? (a diatribe against the human tribe, and quite instructive if you have the stomach for it -- although not entirely fair, I don't believe) and a few other things that really rag on humans for being as fallen as they are. I could do that... but it's going to get us nowhere. WE know we're messing things up royally. It is only through forgiving ourselves and others that we snatch enough strength back from powers of darkness to fight the battles that need to be fought. Every moment we sit and self-flagellate and condemn and criticize others is a moment we can be spending turning the world around by offering a kindness, a blessing, a moment of sanity into the environments surrounding us.

I have always been peaceable and joy-filled at base. I have often been driven (or allowed myself to be driven) into manifesting "righteous indignation" at the unfairness and callousness of some people or policies, but then I always return to "center" and realize I need to resign as General Manager of the Universe and send out what I WANT (shalom in its entire, truest form), not more of what I am so good at RAILING AGAINST: impatience, condemnation, bitterness, etc.

Accentuate the positive. "“Whatever is true…whatever is noble…whatever is just…whatever is pure…whatever is lovely… meditate on these things.” Philippians 4:8 In these things we find God. All else is chaff, and should be blown away with a breath of kindness. It's God's province to judge it, not ours.

I love MAN OF LA MANCHA. I am Dawn Quixote. I usually see what is possible, not what is. Robert Kennedy often quoted George Bernard Shaw: "Some men see things as they are and say, 'Why?' I dream things that never were and say, 'Why not?'"

Why not try living and loving the way we want others to live and love -- with gracious attitudes and forgiveness evident in abundance? Why not mend fences rather than building higher walls?

It always seems so possible inside my heart. Why is it so hard outside? Is that because the Holy Spirit lives in my heart and the world is in enemy hands (powers and principalities of darkness), as the Bible states? It seems that way.

The only way to transform darkness is to switch on a Light. Darkness must flee when Light enters the room.

Let's do all we can to bring light into every life, into every room... Let's light up the world with God's Love!