disgusting annoyances

If human being are suppose to be evolving toward higher intellect and better examples, why do they still do stupid things. I do not like getting my mailbox bashed. Thank god it wasn't permenantly afixed in the ground. They merely put a big dent in it before it fell over.  It is just the idea that this is suppose to be someones idea of fun.  When I went out to set it up and knock the dent out of it, I looked around to see if any other boxes had been bashed in and mine was the only one.  Now my concern is what is going on. Usually in a neighborhood, when that happens, several boxes in a row get smashed.
I just don't want to be on anyone's hit list.  grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

The Worker

The IUSB campus is dedicating this next year to the worker. This is very interesting, as I myself have taken on a different job. Not teaching any more but actually becoming a physical laborer has given me interesting things to think about. Not that I have not had this type of a job in the past. It is just that going from what some would say a more intellectual job to a very physical job puts me in a perspective I have never seen till now.


Some of my students who were in summer school, saw me working as a custodian, and they did not know what to think. It was as if I had sunk below their expectations of what I should be. As I was dwelling on this, a thought came to my mind. What is so wrong for people in a “profession” doing manual labor? I looked up the word ‘profession’ and found it can mean, as Merriam Webster Dictionary explains it, “a principle calling, vocation, or employment.” Then it occurred to me that China had what they called the “Cultural Revolution.” Today that is an abhorrent term. Almost anyone who knows what happened believes it was taken to extremes. My thought has been this though; why not alternate ones intellectual or scientific profession with a bit of manual labor? It certainly puts a person on level ground with everyone else in the world. I am not saying give up that profession, but try something out of the comfort zone. People might think differently when they see what the majority of the population has to deal with and how it works. Could it, would it get rid of that attitude that thinks it is better because of job status? Ok, so it has taken me quite a few years and dollars to get my degree, and Joe on the garbage truck barely made it through high school. I know I would not want to be without the ‘Joes’ out there and haul my own garbage somewhere.

So here’s to the worker, the one who is working and making a difference somehow, somewhere.

the climb

When I climb a
                  mountain,
I feel its power.
   It takes my energy into itself,
But when I arrive at the top of that
                  mountain,
I look back from where I came and
   feel the mountain holding me.
And, I feel a part of it, like a sentry standing guard
   overlooking what it protects.
My energy is renewed and
   I am refreshed.

Window on the world

I'm trying out a new layout, trying to show more expression to what I print here. Often what I write I think of as my view from the window looking looking over the world. It may be a tiny view or a grand one. It might be lovely or drab, simple or horrific. We all have our window view. What is yours?

Storms build up and pass over causing all kinds of havoc. The Gulf of Mexico is gradually being devastated by man's quest for oil. What can I do about these things? ....nothing. I care, but I do not worry.  I help when and where I can, but I do not run myself in the ground striving to fix something that I cannot fix. 
Because man exists, these situations happen or affect humanity. Without humanity,  the storms would still come, oil may find a way to seep to the surface and polute the waters.  We live with it and we deal with it, but do not let it be a cause for stress, fear, anger, discouragement.  These.....these emotions will killl, steal and destroy humanity much faster than those others ever will.

Life

Sitting in the backyard, I notice the trees, their shapes and how they grow. I watch the tiny birds flit from branch to branch the soft feathers blowing in the whisper wind. The flowers growing here and there dot the landscape with the brilliant colors to break up the green and brown. Fluffy white clouds float past me above punctuating the azure blue sky. Life is fragile and yet determined.....to continue.  We must protect what we can...even if it is our own life.

Interesting thought

The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating----in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your interrnal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.
Anne Morris on a Starbucks cup

Probably our thoughts are the barriers we set up along the way through life.  Soon the wall is so high we can't even see it as a wall any more, but a part of the landscape.