Month: June 2015

When The Spirit Doesn’t Fit The Body

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In just the past few months we’ve seen a real drift towards acceptance regarding our fellow human beings. Let’s see, we’ve witnessed a man’s body transform to match his soul, a white woman change her appearance to feel at ease with her black soul and the Supreme Court ruled that it is the spirit that loves…not the body.

I am sure that if my Grandma Maggie was alive today she’d say “There was never any of this shenanigans going on when I was growing up.” My reply to her would be “Yes there was, you just never heard about it.”

Back when news traveled by what the local paper printed, what the two TV channels told you and the proverbial word of mouth you didn’t hear about ( as Maggie would put it “such things.”) Of course this is a woman who referred to gay men as “light in their slippers” and although she never used the “N” word, she did call black people “darkies”. Let’s just say it’s a good thing she’ll never have a Facebook or Twitter account.

Before I share my thoughts regarding the above mentioned “news” items I think it is important that you are aware of my spiritual beliefs. I was raised Catholic (recovering) and have been involved in with the Lutheran religion.  I guess I have always questioned some of the Doctrines of these and others religions. For example, if God is ALL FORGIVING why is there a Hell? Stuff like that got me 20 minutes staring at a statue of The Blessed Virgin Mary in the corner. And, if just writing a J.M.J. at the top of your paper got you 157,804 years out of Purgatory…what kind of place is it?…and where is it? Can’t be Heaven, can’t be Hell, has to be somewhere in between. YIKES! Earth is Purgatory!

Speaking of Heaven, Paradise, Eden, Olympus, Nirvana….whatever you call it, I believe we are all looking for roadmaps to the same place. I have personally decided to follow my own inner map based on what I truly believe. I recognized that there is a common denominator between the infant years of my life and religions. Anything I tell you about them falls under the category “I’ve been told.” It’s up to me to decide what to believe from what I’ve been told. The “factual” beliefs I have regarding my religious based teachings are another blog.

I do believe in a God. I believe that there is a great spiritual being. I call it God but that’s my name for what others call Allah, Buddha, Jehovah, Krishna, OM, Shiva, Yahweh and many more.  It’s all the same Spirit and I’m comfortable with the white haired bearded guy.

Now I’ll get a little Twilight Zone meets Touched By An Angel. In just the past few years I’ve given myself the freedom and challenge to come to grips with my spiritual beliefs. Recognizing the society that we live in, I have this disclaimer. These are MY beliefs. In no way am I writing this to convince, convert or tick off anyone. This is what I believe, not necessarily what I know since there’s a big difference between know and believe.

Here’s what I’ve come up so far. Every person has an equal spirit. This falls under I know. How these spirits are distributed falls under I believe. Actually, everything from here on out falls under the believe column. A spirit does not die with the body. Our bodies are just vessels that two people created to carry a spirit. It is, in reality the luck of the draw. I have an image of the spirits (or as my daughter calls them orbs) being scattered to fall willy nilly where they may. These are spirits that have left a vessel and time in history and are coming back to a whole new vessel and time in history. The goal of each spirit is to make their world a better place each time they are in a new vessel. The spiritual goal that I believe we’re all challenged with is to practice “The Golden Rule” until it’s achieved universally.

That brings us back to the recent news items I mentioned. Although I have neither scientific proof nor logical answer it’s obvious there are spirits that landed into bodies that didn’t fit. Another category in my spiritual belief is “I don’t know but I’ll find out when I die”. I don’t know if spirits have gender. I don’t know if spirits have ethnicity. I do know that every body has a spirit and that is what I embrace. The packaging is not as important as the cargo it carries.

I think we’ve moved closer to that goal of The Golden Rule.

Reality Rears Its Ugly Head

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First let my say that I have not watched “19 Kids and Counting” about the Duggar family so I don’t know the inside scoop on show content. I am familiar with large families since I did, after all go to a Catholic school.  But 19 kids!!! Yikes!! As Groucho Marx said “I love my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while!”  I figured that the show was just about keeping up with laundry and meals. Since I have trouble keeping up with 3 people I didn’t want to be humbled so I never tuned in. I imagine Mrs. Duggar is reconsidering her decision to go along with Mr. Duggar trying for a Guinness Record or a Reality show.  The show has been cancelled but there’s still hope.  She only needs 50 more babies to make the record book of 69.  And I’ll bet the word episiotomy hasn’t been uttered in that household for years.

I have also never viewed an episode of “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo”. I guess my life never seemed so bad that I needed Mamma June to show me it could be worse.  The first time I saw the show advertised I thought it was going to be another weight loss show with a mother-daughter theme. I do know that Mamma June has made some questionable parenting decisions so I found it amusing when she publically criticized the Duggars.  She wouldn’t be my first choice for a moral compass!

It would be interesting if someone checked these two households to see if they would even be certified under the Day Care laws in Arkansas and Georgia to raise their families. When people say “Children don’t come with instructions” they should check out their state’s laws telling other people how to treat our children. It’s a pretty good checklist.

Believe it or not I’ve never watched anything Kardashian. They represent to me the epitome of over indulgence and decadence. Famous for beautiful brown eyes, I wonder if any of the “K” women see the anguish in the beautiful brown eyes of the starving mother holding her starving child in the TV ads. With their money they could help so many, but they seem too selfishly materialistic for  that. Quite possibly, Caitlyn may be the only “Real” woman coming from that household.

Speaking of “Real… of anything” shows, I don’t believe they’re real after the first episode. There is no way that I could continue my normal routine after I realized that a cameraman, soundman and millions of viewers would be witnesses to my every move and bodily sound.

The one show that I for sure will never watch is “Why Planes Crash”. I learned my lesson when I let my young son watch “How Hot Dogs Are Made”. He hasn’t had a hot dog since. My daughter is going to Japan  this month. In order to assure that she won’t board the plane with me clinging to her ankles and dragging along, I’d best not watch the crash show.

The above are just a few of the shows I avoid.

What shows do I watch? I’m a “Madam Secretary” fan because I like Téa Leoni and the way she humanizes the position of Secretary of State. I also liked “The Good Wife” until all the sex started seeping into the plots. Personally, the only sex scene I am good with is when two people begin to kiss. The next scene should be one of the parties walking out of the bedroom tucking in a shirt or blouse. I get the idea without watching the entire sexual encounter unfold before my eyes.

I also like challenging game shows. In one week alone I knew two answers that Ken Jennings didn’t know on Jeopardy, and then discovered that I am NOT smarter than a 5th grader.

And when it comes to “Reality TV”, I’ll watch the news.

Silver Alert…They’re Watching out for us

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The MN Legislature passed a Bill (HF805/SF857 for those of you who follow these things) referred to as the Silver Alert Bill. It will establish a system similar to the Amber Alert only the goal of this bill is to protect our oldest children vs our youngest. It assists lost senior citizens with Alzheimer’s, Dementia or brain damage.

I’m not going to expound about the Bill, but I know it’s about me. Maybe not now, but I’ve entered that stage of life where you get dealt a new hand.  Suddenly Mother Nature starts taking back the gifts she gave you to use (obviously borrowed) such as hearing, vision, knees, memory, bowel control etc. And I am not alone. I move in a very large crowd previously known as Baby Boomers whom I now refer to as the Grey Tsunami. Right now we are a consumer group large enough to cause change in legislation, medicine and advertisements.

When I was growing up in a Worthington we had our own version of the “Silver Alert”. It was everyone keeping an eye on each other. If it was getting dark, when the one street light in town came on and Ol’ Johnny was still walking the streets repeating in a squeaky voice “Nice day for the ducks!” someone would simply walk him home. Now technology, dogs and people with guns will be on the lookout for us.  (Actually most of us mastered the wandering, dazed look at concerts in the ‘60’s & 70’s. They found us then…they can find us now.)

I first started to notice the impact of my generation in ads on TV right after I turned 60 (3 ½ years ago…yes, I’ve started to measure in ½ years). There was a catheter commercial on. I stopped, sat down and watched it…with interest!! It was then I noticed how many ads there were for every joint giving out, every organ beginning to fail and multiple miracle remedies for each. The only problems were the side effects  of the cure.

It reminds me of when my kids were little. My son was probably five and my daughter was three years old. I was cutting vegetables in the kitchen when I heard one of them whimpering. (We had a rule: if there isn’t blood or danger there will be NO screaming). But this was more of an “I want attention so I’ll pretend I’m hurt” sound. In my best June Cleaver impersonation I walked into the room and with a compassionate smile asked “What hurts?” When my son’s eyes caught sight of the large knife in my right hand he quickly smiled and said “I’m cool, I’m cool!” I had discovered yet another home grown cure.

The smooth talking announcer and extremely tiny print in ads scrolling at the bottom of the screen are like that knife. “We’ll improve one part of your body at the cost of destroying or irritating every other part of your being.” It becomes a never ending spiral because you then need another drug to protect some organ that will be damaged by your new medication.  But don’t worry there’s another treatment (with side effects) to counter the side effects of that.  On top of that, any organ that you may have already hindered on your own will prevent you from using the drug in the first place. (Livers come to mind.)

What fascinates me is when ads then tell you about revolutionary medical discoveries that may prevent you from going under the knife. I often wonder how one discovers miracle drugs from unlikely sources. I have visions from my childhood backyard. If just once, while watching a headless chicken  cover every inch of the yard, my Grandma had looked at the item in her hand and pondered “ What can we do with the comb?” we could have been rich. Yikes!

It is an eye opening experience advancing into this stage of life. The challenge is to accept the declining changes in my body without letting it affect my spirit. I’ve accepted that anything I do from now on will appear in my obituary under  the paragraph that starts “In her later years…” and hopefully will end “She finished strong.”

I am embracing this stage with a smile and wonder, confident there’s an Alert available in case I get lost.

Watch vs Warning

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This is the time of year when the words Warning and Watch in weather reports scroll across the bottom of our TV screens. I’ve heard people say they can never remember which is worse. To me Watch means it could happen and Warning means it’s going to happen.

Growing up in the flats of SW Minnesota we had different verbiage. A Watch would have been described as “Stand in your yard and watch the sky change color over the farmlands north of town.”  You could actually feel the wind change direction around your body.

But that change in the wind brought with it the Warning. If the dark lava from storm clouds was attached to these winds we headed to our basement.

Our basement was one of those musty, dark cement basements where daddy-long-legs held conventions. It was a multi-purpose portion of our house. In this case it served as a storm shelter. We’d gather under the open wooden stairway having always been told that it was the safest place in our house. Behind us on the cement wall hung the cabinet referred to as “the rations”. Inside were cans of vegetables (mostly green beans), jars of home preserved fruit, candles, matches, a transistor radio and of course a can opener. If our entire house collapsed on top of us and we couldn’t get out…we wouldn’t starve.

In later years that same cabinet served as rations when our basement became our bomb shelter and the same items were still inside. The cans were rusted and the preserves made the Donner party menu look good. Had Khrushchev’s “shoe” dropped this could have been the precursor to microwave food. We knew our bomb shelter wasn’t the safest place in the world, that honor went to the area under our desks back at school. As always this was still the safest place in the house. Fortunately the Commies never bombed my home town, but we were ready!

Now the Watches and Warnings are determined by more scientific means and we get them on every media available. I still go out to watch the clouds roll across the sky and wait to feel the wind change direction. But the minute I hear a siren I’m headed for our storm shelter. It is in our basement in a bathroom where I have promised my daughter that I’ll check for spiders whenever it looks like a storm is brewing. Our rations are granola bars and a jug of water. Our candles are battery operated and cell phones replace the radio.  One thing that I’ve recently added is shoes. Usually these storms happen during the Spring and Summer when people are barefoot. It’s tough to walk out of a building covered in broken glass when you’re barefooted.

And, just like that wooden staircase of my youth it is the safest place in this house. When the Watch goes to Warning that’s where we’ll be.

Millions, Billions, Trillions…YIKES!

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I am a self-proclaimed political geek. I enjoy the political machine and personalities that make it run.  I work at home and I have the MN Legislature cable channel on in the back ground during session.

I’ve come to realize they speak in dollar amounts I can’t truly comprehend.  I just needed to look up what’s after billions. That’s the denomination that came into a debate. There are 9 zeros in a billion and then it jumps to 12 zeros in a Trillion. Yikes.

I remember when a Million dollars seemed incomprehensible.  That was only 6 zeros but it looked like a lot on the checks that Michael Anthony delivered on The Millionaire in the 1950’s TV series. I thought that the next denomination after Million was Heaven. It would change people’s lives in both good and bad ways on the series. In an hour we were shown the proper behavior for when we accepted our check and the pitfalls of bad judgement. Building an orphanage or convent was good.  Spending a day at the track…not so much. The only stipulation for accepting the money was that the recipient could not tell anyone where they got it. Oh yeh, that would go over great today! “I found coins buried under a tree” will only work so often.

Those 6 zeros would still change my life and the lives of almost everyone I know. We could wipe our debt slate clean with money to spare. Unfortunately, Michael Anthony isn’t making house calls any more, but there is still the Publisher’s Clearing House.

Back to the numbers that government throws about. To be honest, I cannot take these numbers seriously. They sound like play money. Heck there was only $15,140 in the total bank of Monopoly. That wouldn’t pay for infrastructure repairs to Reading Railroad by today’s standards. You’d need to add 6 zeros. That’s only 72,000,000 trips pass GO.

Is there a billion dollar bill or do you just pay with 10 million bills? I’m sure that there is money allocated to the Treasury Department in order for them to keep up with the printing process. There probably aren’t that many billion bills needed since they won’t get passed around a lot. Fewer yet will go through the laundry. And whose picture is on it?  My candidate is Robin Williams. Every time someone looked at the bill they would imagine his thoughts about that denomination.

I suppose I would get a lot of answers if I researched the US Treasury Department. I can now only imagine how large the facilities must be to store the billions worth of gold that are pouring in to cover the new debt. I have never understood why we give gold the value we do. I understand oil and our dependency on it. But gold? I think it’s pretty but I’d rather have soup bullion if I was stranded on a desert island. The survival values outweigh something shiny.

I have come to accept that although the numbers are probably imaginary, the needs are real. Somehow, somewhere something will be done. It just takes more imagination.

By the way, look for the term Quadrillion in next year’s Legislative session. (That’s 15 zeros).

A Mother’s Advice to Someone Else’s Son

~ ddwsmith7 ~ 2 Comments

When deciding the topic for my first leap into the world of blogs the answer became obvious to me. I may only blog once, so I’ll dedicate it to the person that got me here..

I recently met a young man while purchasing technology. We connected on not only a professional level but also the human level.  Cool your jets! There were no shades of gray or any other color.

He told a sadly touching story of his youth. I won’t go into details because that’s his story to tell.

The one thing that moved me the most was his lack of Motherly advice throughout his life. Well, I’ve got plenty of advice. Here are some things that I want this young man, and anyone who wants to listen, to hear from the perspective of a Mom with love that is unconditional.

I am the mother of Adult Children (now there’s an oxymoron if ever I heard one). The first 11 items are things I’ve told my children since I knew they could understand. Some of them may sound childish and they are. But many adults still haven’t learned them.

  1. If there isn’t blood or danger there will be NO screaming
  2. If you’re not using them in what you’re doing, 90% of the time it shouldn’t matter what your genitals are.
  3. If someone is putting a gift in your hand, “Thank you” should be coming out of your mouth.
  4. There are times and places where you must behave and be quiet.
  5. Being polite is not an exception in your behavior.
  6. The second time I ask you will be the last before I get mad.
  7. Everyone has an equal spirit. (Essentially The Golden Rule).
  8. There are consequences to everything you do AND don’t do.
  9. Never be somewhere without making a difference you’d been there.
  10. Be aware of your surroundings and appreciate when it’s nature.
  11. You are not now where you always will be. In good times relish the moment. In hard times do what you can to move forward.

The advice that I offer now comes from recent reflections of my own life and I direct this to the adult in you. To be honest, I believe the younger you are when you accept these things, the better.

CONTROL has become one of the most important words to me. It is defined as “the power to direct or regulate.” You and you alone have the power to direct and regulate your own life. When someone tells you “I can’t control how you feel” they are right. They can be poopy and set the scene for you to feel bad or attacked. They control the “poopy” but you control how you accept it and how you react to it.  You control the decisions made for love or money. You control what you believe and how you live your faith. You control your reaction to emotional situations.

Strive for peace. One of my favorite sayings is: “PEACE. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.” I have discovered that peace and control work very well together.

The other side of the coin is recognizing what you do not have control of. I can’t tell you how many nights I lay in bed awake at 3:00 am with thoughts swirling in my head. I would feel a fist grab my gut and hold on. I just wanted the escape of sleep. I’ve now come to realize that I didn’t have any control of most of the things that I was worrying about. I didn’t have control of the paperwork in the system, but I worried about it. I didn’t have control over other people’s choices, but I worried about them. I didn’t have control over the car breaking down, but I worried about it. You get the idea?

I now recognize what I DO have control of and I try my best to be smart and compassionate while owning it and the resulting consequences. Just as important, I recognize what I DON’T have control of and I release them to the responsible parties. It frees me to have more clarity dealing with my own goals and I am happier.

Connect with your own spirituality. I’m not talking about religion. To me religions are just vehicles and right now there are some crazy things going on in some of them. I wonder what they told the 72 Virgins. Yikes!  Too many evils and odd things are passed under the guise of religions.

I was raised Catholic and gained a strong base to start my spiritual search . I now call myself a recovering Catholic and I no longer think Desert Storm was my fault. As far as I’m concerned the goal of every religion should be to promote the Golden Rule. That way we’d all have the same goal, just different ways to get there.

What I’m talking about is that spark that is you. There are two parts to each of us. One is our body, upon which way too much emphasis has been put. Then there’s your spirit or as many people call it…your soul. When my children were conceived, I never once felt so arrogant as to think I created their spirits. I knew they came from a greater place. I was only responsible for creating a vessel with DNA for a spirit to land in and then guiding that vessel in the “ways of the world”. As someone said to me right after I had my first child, “He’s not a blank sheet of paper, there’s someone in there”. Find your spirit. Better yet, look for it in other people too…everybody has one. You’ll be surprised how people react when they know you’re really seeing them…

Listen to the experiences of others. The older the person, the more experiences they’ve had. Learn from their mistakes. Last summer my son Nick (25) and I were going to sit and chat in the backyard. I went out first and went to sit on the lawn chairs that we received for free. (We discovered that they were probably given away for free because they held water after a rain storm.) I patted the seat to see if it was wet. It was dry. I then pushed down a bit firmer. Still dry. I sat down and within seconds I could feel the moisture seeping through my pants. (I was just glad it was cold not warm.) I moved to a folding chair. When Nick joined me he headed right toward the chair that had the deceptive seat. I said “Don’t sit there, your pants will get wet.” He leaned down and patted the cushion. I said “I tried that. Don’t sit there, your pants will get wet.”   He looked at me with a hint of doubt and pushed a bit firmer on the cushion. I said “Tried that too. Don’t sit there, your pants will get wet.” With a shrug of his shoulders he turned and sat in the hydrodynamic chair. I must say I did find pleasure watching his face get redder as his shorts got darker from bottom up. Now instead of saying “Don’t do that, I made that mistake” I simply say “Your pants will get wet.” He smiles and nods. More importantly he understands. The value of experience took on a new meaning between us. Essentially, I can explain it to him but I can’t understand it for him.

Finally, hold on to true friends. Choose friends that make you laugh and feel good about yourself but are honest with you.  Through life you will make decisions that may take you to dark places. Always have at least two people that will always give you advice that they truly believe is best for you. It may be to reroute you on a path you’re going because they see it from the outside and they care. Their perspective should always be heard.  Become a true friend in return. To paraphrase an old saying, “Good friends are like stars. You don’t always see them, but you always know they’re there.”

I am now a star in your world.